Listening to Black Holes
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Issue 03 Feb 2017 REDISCOVERING SCHOOL SCIENCE Page 4 LISTENING TO BLACK HOLES A publication from Azim Premji University i wonder No. 134, Doddakannelli Next to Wipro Corporate Office Sarjapur Road, Bangalore - 560 035. India Tel: +91 80 6614 9000/01/02 Fax: +91 806614 4903 www.azimpremjifoundation.org Also visit Azim Premji University website at www.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in A soft copy of this issue can be downloaded from www.http://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/resources-iwonder.aspx Editors Ramgopal (RamG) Vallath Chitra Ravi Editorial Committee REDISCOVERING SCHOOL SCIENCE Anand Narayanan Chandrika Muralidhar Geetha Iyer Hridaykant Dewan Editor’s Desk Jayalekshmy Ayyer Julfikar Ali Propelled by science, humanity is at the cusp of becoming a spacefaring Radha Gopalan civilisation, with ‘eyes’ firmly set on distant stars and feet taking the first Rajaram Nityananda baby steps towards other planets in the Solar system. At this juncture, it Reeteka Sud is important to remember that science education can no longer be limited Richard Fernandes to telling students a plethora of facts, as if they are a given. Rather, the role of science education, as emphasized in the article Why Science Saurav Shome Matters, is to enable children understand and appreciate the scientific Sushil Joshi process that has led to the most plausible hypotheses being proven with Yasmin Jayathirtha hard data and then being presented as theories. It is also about Advisors encouraging children to make use of this process, not only in scientific Falguni Sarangi quests, but also in their day-to-day life. Effective science teachers can convey the beauty of this process and share the wonder it brings with Manoj P their students. Because, often, each of these ‘facts’ is the culmination and S Giridhar coming together of work done by many scientists, spanning decades, and Publication Coordinator at times, even centuries. Frequently, they have benefited from the work of Sneha Kumari many other scientists – some of whom have come up against blank walls in an attempt to prove their hypotheses. What’s more - many of these Illustrations scientists have worked in seemingly unrelated streams of science, seeking Vidya Kamalesh answers to possibly unrelated questions! [email protected] The most plausible answers to the most fundamental questions – questions Magazine Design regarding the origins of time and space, of matter and energy, or the Zinc & Broccoli very existence of our Earth and life itself – have all benefited from this [email protected] collaborative nature of science. Often, hundreds of scientists from across Image Credits the globe have contributed individual jigsaw pieces that together unveil Front cover Image: 3-D simulation of merging black the whole grand picture. We have tried to capture this in the theme holes, through the detection of gravitational waves. section on Origins. Any student of science cannot help but appreciate Henze, NASA. URL: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ each of these hundreds of jigsaw pieces just as much as the final picture goddard/universe/gwave.html. Licence: Public Domain. that emerges. Back cover image: Archaeopteryx bavarica. Luidger, Wikimedia Commons. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/ When one examines how these answers were arrived at, what one also wiki/File:Archaeopteryx_bavarica_Detail.jpg. realises is the role of technology in new discoveries. Each advancement in License: CC-BY-SA. technology presents scientists with additional ‘senses’ to perceive nature, and hence, make available vastly improved and completely new data. Printers Sometimes this new data upends existing ‘facts’ and sends scientists SCPL Bangalore -560062 scrambling to develop and prove new hypotheses that fit all new known [email protected] observations. Many sections of this issue, including Emerging Trends in Acknowledgements Physics, Annals of History, Indian Science Facilities and I am a Scientist, Special thanks are due to Prof. Satyajit Mayor & Dr. highlight how technology has helped us reach our current understanding Smitha Jain at the National Centre of Biological Sciences, of the universe and nature around us. India, Prof. Punya Mishra at Arizona State University, US, and Prof. Angela Calabrese Barton at Michigan State The beauty of science is that there is no absolute truth. As newer University, US, for their support in bringing out this issue. technologies develop and newer discoveries are made, newer mysteries License emerge, requiring more collaborative work and even more advanced All articles in this magazine are licensed under technologies to solve them. Thus, science is a never-ending a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non Commercial quest to understand the nature of the universe and how 4.0 International License best humanity can tap its unlimited resources. We hope that this issue of ‘ i wonder...’ ignites the spark to embark on that quest in each of our readers. Please note: All views and opinions expressed in this issue are that of the Authors and Azim Premji University or Azim Premji Foundation bears no RamG Vallath responsibility for the same. Editor CONTENTS EMERGING TRENDS IN PHYSICS LISTENING TO 4 BLACK HOLES PARAMESWARAN AJITH THROWING LIGHT 9 ON DARK MATTER AMITABHA MUKHERJEE LOOKING FOR OTHER WORLDS 13 OUT THERE SUMA N MURTHY HUMAN SETTLEMENT 19 ON MARS INTERVIEW WITH MARS ONE SCRAMJET: ISRO’S FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY 24 TO REDUCE COSTS OF SPACE TRAVEL T V VENKATESWARAN NATURE OF SCIENCE 29 WHY SCIENCE MATTERS ANIL KUMAR CHALLA & REETEKA SUD TEACHING AS IF THE EARTH MATTERS TREASURES FROM TRASH: 32 THE GOLDMINE IN YOUR GARDEN RADHIKA PADMANABHAN POSTER ORIGINS OF COMPOSTING RADHA GOPALAN ANNALS OF HISTORY THE PERIODIC TABLE: A WINDOW TO 37 THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY! SAVITA LADAGE & TEJAS JOSHI THE SCIENCE LAB EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE 44 CONCEPTIONS OF FORCE SAURAV SHOME LIFE IN YOUR BACKYARD POLLINATORS: 50 THE PLANT PROPAGATORS MEENAKSHI PANT THE SCIENCE TEACHER AT WORK 56 ART AND ECOLOGY ABHISHEKA KRISHNAGOPAL INDIAN SCIENCE FACILITIES RADIO ASTRONOMY AND THE GIANT 61 METRE-WAVE RADIO TELESCOPE JAYARAM N CHENGALUR RESEARCH TO PRACTICE 70 WHY SCIENCE TEACHERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE DAY GREENBERG I AM A SCIENTIST 74 A WEEK IN MY LIFE POSTER AFTAAB DEWAN TEN THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT OCEAN MICROBES MAHIRA KAKAJIWALA ORIGINS 77 THE BIG BANG ANAND NARAYANAN 84 THE ORIGINS OF ELEMENTS SRINIVASAN KRISHNAN THE ORIGINS OF PLANETARY WORLDS 95 ANAND NARAYANAN THE ORIGINS OF LIFE: 106 FROM CHEMISTRY TO BIOLOGY NIRAJA V BAPAT, CHAITANYA V MUNGI & SUDHA RAJAMANI SCIENCE COMMUNICATION THE ASIAN EDITION OF BIOLOGY EDUCATION’S 110 26TH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE: A REPORT REETEKA SUD & GEETHA IYER EMERGING TRENDS IN PHYSICS LISTENING TO BLACK HOLES PARAMESWARAN AJITH The recent discovery round 1.3 billion years ago, in a distant Gravitational waves of gravitational galaxy, two massive black holes waves not only A moving at speeds close to the speed The existence of gravitational waves is one of confirms Albert of light merged to form an even more massive the most intriguing theoretical predictions of Einstein’s century black hole. This powerful event released an Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (1915). old prediction, but energy equivalent to the mass of three Suns, Regarded as one of the pillars of modern physics, also opens up a in a fraction of a second. If this energy was the General Relativity is the most accurate completely new converted into light, this flash of light would theoretical description of gravity available to way of observing have outshined the entire visible universe us today. According to this theory, any massive the Universe. This – that is, all the stars in the universe put object (or other forms of energy, such as article describes the together – for a fraction of a second. However, electromagnetic radiation) curves the spacetime exciting story of this merger did not produce any light. Instead, around it. Following this curvature of spacetime, this discovery, what it produced powerful ripples in spacetime, light, which travels in a straight line in flat went behind it, and called gravitational waves. spacetime, starts to bend near a massive object. what lies ahead. th These ripples reached the Earth on 14 This effect was first observed by the British September 2015, having travelled a distance astronomer Arthur Eddington during the total of 1.3 billion light years. Two marvelous solar eclipse in 1919. The bending of starlight instruments of the Laser Interferometric caused a shift in the apparent position of the Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in the stars near the Sun, as compared to their original USA detected these tiny ripples in spacetime. position, that Eddington found to be consistent When scientists announced this discovery on 12 February 2016, it produced even greater ripples with Einstein’s prediction (see Box 1). Einstein’s in the popular imagination. The New York theory also predicts that gravity warps time. Times described it as “the chirp heard across That is, time runs slower near a massive object. the universe.” What scientists detected in LIGO This effect is not only observed in a number of was a phenomenon called the General Theory astronomical phenomena and laboratory tests; of Relativity that was theoretically predicted by the Global Positioning System (GPS) needs to Albert Einstein, almost a century before, as a take this effect into account for it to function consequence of his theory of gravity. (see Box 2). 4 GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY Box 1 Gravitational bending of light