My Science School

We have all at one time or another heard the echo of our own voice. An echo is caused by sound waves being bounced back from a solid obstacle, rather like a rubber ball bouncing off a wall. The same thing happens to radio waves which are sent out by a powerful transmitter. When the waves collide with a solid object they bounce back and can be picked up by a receiving set which is usually located at the same place as the transmitter. Since the speed of these waves is known we can tell how far away the obstacle is by calculating how long the waves take to cover the distance. This is how radar works.

The word ‘radar’ is an abbreviated form of the name ‘radio detection and ranging’. Radar is now used everywhere’ at airports, missile bases, space centers for following and tracking satellites and on ships and tracking satellites and on ships and aircraft for automatic navigation. A simple form of radar is used by police to detect speeding vehicles.

 

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You may have seen a certain type of lawn sprinkler which works by spinning round and round as the water squirts from it. The spinning movement is caused by the pressure of the water pushing against the movable arm of the sprinkler.

Sir Isaac Newton noticed something like this happening and it led him to discover an important law of nature. Newton’s law was that for every action in one direction there is an equal action in an opposite direction. In the case of the lawn sprinkler the water goes in and pushes in one direction and the sprinkler turns in the opposite direction.

The same law explains why a rifle recoils sharply when it is fired. The firing of the gun is known as the action and the recoil of the gun is the reaction.

The principle is what makes rockets speed through the air. Rockets are fuelled by very highly compressed gases. When these gases are violently released from the tail of the rocket the reaction they set up gives the rocket a mighty push in the direction opposite to the gas flow.

The greater the distance to be travelled, the greater must be the initial thrust. When Saturn V was launched, for example, its five engines consumed kerosene and liquid-oxygen at rate of 15 tons per second.

 

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It was far more difficult for man to discover how to produce artificial cold than it was for man to discover how to produce artificial cold than it was for him to produce warmth.

In olden days man tried to keep things cool during the summer by using snow or ice. This was a very difficult process. The snow and ice had to be carried down from the high mountain tops and stored in specially built places.

The ancient Romans, for example, brought their snow and ice from the Apennine Mountains. They dug large chambers in the ground which they called officinae reponendae nivis. This meant snow store. The store was covered in wooden boards and the ice was brought to the towns from the Apennine region near Rome and in Sicily from Mount Etna.

The first Experiments to produce ice artificially began in the seventeenth century. It was later discovered that in specified condition certain substances changed from a solid into liquid state. This fusion, or melting process, was found to be caused through the absorption of heat by those substances. As the heat was absorbed it was accompanied by a steady cooling of the temperature. Further experiments showed that the same absorption of heat could be carried out by evaporating and liquid. An example of this is when a sudden breeze evaporates the perspiration from our faces and makes us feel quite chilly. It is on this principle of heat absorption that ordinary household refrigerators work. The most commonly used liquid to bring about cooling is ammonia gas in solution. This solution runs through coiled tubes. It starts as a liquid and through compression becomes a gas which absorbs the surrounding warmth. This process is repeated over and over again until ice begins to form.

The first household refrigerator was made early in the nineteenth century. Since 1918 their use has becomes more and more widespread.

 

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