Sounds only kids can hear and Adults can't - Science experiment for Kids

Humans can detect sounds in a frequency range from about 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Kids can hear even above that to some level till 22 KHz as well. With age, the ability to hear high frequencies decreases. Check the table below to see the range of frequencies and what age group can hear them.

Check the video to see this in action. It will be more fun if the video is seen by kids and elders together.

People have used this concept to put high-frequency buzzers that wards off kids. Kids have used this as a ringtone which elders cannot hear.

How many colours one need to colour a map?

How many colors you need to color a map, say of India? India has 28 states and 8 union territories. It might seem that we will need a good number of colours to colour the map of India so that the adjacent states and union territories do not get the same colour. However, that's not the case.

We just need a small set of colors to achieve this. This was found by Francis Guthrie when he was trying to color the map of the countries of England. That might England was ruling a large part of the world a well.

Interesting? Watch the video to know about it

The data driven world

We all talk about data now a days. Big data, large data, humongous amount of data. Data is encompassing all of us in myriad ways. Also it's not just about data being created but data being shared among multiple parties who see an interest in it. Couple of weeks back I met someone in a marriage and we exchanged numbers. Next day he started showing up in my recommendation list in Facebook. I don't have Facebook installed on my mobile, but still the connection happened. Google

and Facebook has mapped everyone in their ecosystem that they know more than about you, than you might be knowing about yourself. Don't be surprised if travel agencies start sending you mails in March for deals as everyone in the world knows that you take a vacation in May and book your travel plans in April.

Limitation of Language in Communication

Photo Credit @Pixabay.com

People communicate with each other using language and not one but many. The languages which got developed as part of human development in different parts of the world. 

Language is a pattern of sound, which in many cases works at two levels. There is an alphabet level and combining alphabets, more complex sound pattern is created. A, B, C, D are alphabets in English language and apple, bat are the patterns created using alphabets. The other dimension of the language is pronunciation. B exists in both English and German but is pronounced differently.

Gamification vs Game Theory

Gamification is quite different from Game theory. Game theory is about strategic decision making especially in the context of choices available to the competitors. Prisoner's dilemma is a classic game theory situation. A classic game theory equilibrium happens when all the players maximize their gains or minimize their losses. The max(min) is done considering how the competition is going to act.

Why we live the way we live?

We all live our life as we are the ultimates in the universe. There are two kinds of approach thant people adopt. The first one think they are the center of the universe and the second one think they are the most useless person in the earth.  Most of the people do fall in the first category and the people from second category is usually a sign of depression. 

New Guests (kittens) in House

Mini our cat gave birth to four lovely kittens two days back. We got her around 8 months back when she came to our house, a kitten itself. She came to our house to save herself for the street dogs and than became the part of the family.  

And now we have got couple of more with Mini's kittens. My daughter took the following video of kitten fighting for milk and they are less than 24 hours old at this point.

Crow and Chameleon fight

This morning in our society we had a knock-out round between a crow and chameleon.

Agriculture in Indian Education System

While working on a small kitchen garden in my backyard, I realised how little I know about farming. Looking at the soil, I have no clue if it is fertile or for that matter what kind of soil it is. I have sowed the seeds of cauliflower but, I have no clue how the plant would look like when it will germinate. I hope not to remove it mistaking it for a weed. How much water is adequate for plants? How much sunlight is needed?

Numerology and Number system

Just out of curiosity, I was reading about numerology. Before we go any further, let me put that I am no expert in numerology and I do not intend to demean it in any way. It's just some of the questions that came in my mind while going through the science.

Numerology depends on the relationship with numbers from 1 to 9. Each number carries certain attributes with it. There are traits associated with each number. There are numerous belief systems and numbers around this.

Will Robots rule the world?

The way human race is innovating on technology front, it's not very far that most of the work in the world will be done by machines or robots. If we look into history, progressively we have seen that the power has been shifted from rulers to masses. Democracy has done that shift by periodically making decisions about who is going to rule next. This is not the case as when the rulers were decided by birth. With advance in technical systems, it's quite possible that sometime in future, the rulers will be evaluated on every second basis. Like the 'Likes' and 'Dislikes' of social sites. So will it also happen that when robots will become the workers of the world, some day in future they will ask for their

Terrorism is good

Please don't take me wrong when I say terrorism is good. There is absolutely no support for their way of working especially when the innocents are killed, for no rhyme or reason. I have absolutely no interest in giving my life for that matter the life of any other individual just because one have a philosophical inclination which many don't abide it.

I am supporting terrorism from a purely economic aspect. In fact this is probably the biggest job creator in last couple of years. At one of the local mall, around two years back I hardly used to see any security guard. Now the whole place is filled with security guards. And I am sure they would be having their hierarchy in terms of mangers and General Managers. And who know may be a Vice President also. It has given jobs to lot of people and thankfully to the people who are on the lower side of the economic hierarchy. What the Alan Greenspan's and Ben Bernake and Timothy Geithener's could not do, Osama Bin Laden did with a master stroke.

It's rightfully to argue that the terrorism may increase the job prospects for security related people but by putting economy into shambles it takes the job out from other parts of economy. Perfectly agree, and it has done couple of times now. But see it as more of a part of economic cycle. In fact, the worse loss for jobs was done not by terrorism but by harping the mythology of Internet or latest by financial terrorism. Beyond these economic cycles, terrorism still turns out to be a job creator. I would say "Long live terrorism without getting any success." It's a little hassle for me to get myself frisked at every entry and exit, if it provides two square meals to a lot of households.

Pran - The death of an era

It's difficult to find anyone who would not have heard about Chacha Choudhary. Chacha Choudahry whose mind runs faster than a computer. The fun is in saying "Chacha Choudhary ka dimag computer se bhi tej chalta hai." Pran did not just invented Chacha Choudhary but created characters which resonated with the Indian Locale. He developed the character when Indian cartoon prints were more about reprints of Superman and Phantom. There were other cartoon characters also invented which were Indian but you can feel a sense of foreign characters in them apart from their names. Mostly remakes of Superman's and Tarzans. However Chacha Choudahry was in true sense an Indian cartoon. And then who can forget Pinki, Billoo and Raman to name a few.

Pran gave a new meaning to cartoon industry in India by giving them a confidence that the local characters are possible and can be hugely successful. India is about old wisdom and it cherishes that. That's what Pran did in inculcating that idea in the character of Chacha Choudhary. And Sabu gave him the necessary power to turn things around. Chacha Choudhary brings forward the notion of solving things in a simple manner ans that's what the need of the society is today. We need to start looking into things in a lighter vein and do not over complicate our life. When TV is not working please check the plug first before doing rocket engineering. If the TV is coming upside down, you might have kept the TV upside down, so check that first. There are umpteen examples of simple things.

Pran has gone but Chacha Choudhary and a bunch of people like Sabu, Pinki, Billoo, Raman will keep him alive for a long time to come.

Physics in Entertainment

Watched the latest Entertainment movie of Akshay Kumar last week. So in one of the scenes, Akshay Kumar wants to kill the dog (named Entertainment) and Sonu Sood wants to kill Akshay Kumar. Akshay and Entertainment both are standing on thin ice. So Akshay throws a ball and directs Entertainment to fetch it. When the dog is running towards the ball, Akshay hits the thin crust of ice and the ice starts breaking perfectly following the dog. At the same time, Sonu breaks the ice which moves towards Akshay. This was interesting as the precision with which Akshay and Sonu control the direction of breaking of ice. So I did some research on how thin ice crust breaks.  The theory is quite complicated. Considering thin ice crust as an elastic plate, apply a force F on it and based on various stiffness properties and how the ice plate is that point, the direction of cleavage will be decided and then in which direction the cleavage will move will again depend on material property at every iteration. I was impressed with Akshay and Sonu both in terms of understanding the complicated Physics and actually applying to such a precision. Being some background in Mechanics of Crack, I have some appreciation of how crack works. You have all those residual energy and J integral type of things, but kudos the guys got it perfect.

Anyway, it's an interesting movie. The high points are reaction of Johny Lever, meanness in the eyes of Akshay and the ease with which Prakash Raj dissolves into any role. But the Physics beats me.

Google in Bing

I was searching for some Google details and apparently thought of trying in Bing to get a more neutral view. And the picture below is what I got

Though I was searching for why Google spreadsheet is fast, it told me why it is slow and that too from Mac forums to give it extra authenticity.

Interesting competition

Google in Bing

The random events in India

Two interesting events in last couple of days. First the elections in Maharashtra. I was walking on the side of a main road to my office and suddenly there was a huge cavalcade of vehicles. Big car, small cars and a host of bikes. Someone got the ticket to fight the election. Slogan shouting and roaring vehicles kept passing for almost ten minutes. No traffic rule got observed in the way. Many vehicles came on the wrong side of the road, which forced the vehicles in the opposite direction to go further on the sideways, putting many pedestrian in danger.

Once I went to pay municipal taxes. The specific details are not important as this is same everywhere in India. The computers were down, so it was all manual. To my luck, they opened the other counter. When I reached there, I stood in the new line and was two guys away from my turn. Someone decided to close the new counter and I was back to square one. Now in another new line, when I was two guys away, the clerk decided to take a break. He left the seat to have his tambaku break. The paradox is that the office was having anti tobacco posters all round, one right above his head. Someone remarked that the fevicol should be put on the seats of babus, which will force them to sit atleast. Fortunately he came back in couple of five minutes and my turn came soon. To my dismay, he copied all the details of the tax bill on his bill book. I am sure it must be stored somewhere and could not figure out why he has to copy everything again. But than who can question them. The government offices are one where you have to beg to pay the money. Luckily I could finish on that day itself. Total time approximately one and a half hour.