My Science School

 Digital paper is another mind boggling invention for future communications. It looks and feels like ordinary paper, but it is made up of millions of microscopic nano computers which can communicate with a worldwide communication network, change colour, display different pictures at different times, and even act as a speaker!Digital paper will interact with you. It can recognize your handwriting, and understand what you say. It can even be folded up and put in your pocket when you don't need it!

Very soon, people will be wearing their mobile phones on their hands in the form of a watch or bracelet. In fact, a product has already been developed that is not only a phone in a watch, but it can also change into standard handset shape! This mobile is called the Wristomo and is an ultra modern mobile which features email and Web access.You might have seen people using their mobile phones to take, send and receive pictures. In the future, a camera phone will allow users to display the images on their own bodies. These phones are already being developed in the form of chokers, charms and chains. Fantastic, isn’t it?

To understand what Vo Wi-Fi is, you first have to understand two other terms… VoIP and Wi-Fi.VoIP which is the short form for Voice-Over-Internet Protocol is a facility that allows you to talk to people anywhere in the world through the Internet. Wi-Fi, on the other hand provides low cost Internet access through wireless networking. Places from which you can access this wireless network are called Wi-Fi ‘hotspots’.Wi-Fi has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up, and are inexpensive. If you’ve been in an airport, coffee shop, library or hotel recently, chances are you’ve been right in the middle of a wireless network. Many people also use wireless networking to connect their computers at home, and an increasing number of cities use the technology to provide low-cost internet access to residents. Most recently, the ‘next big thing’ has been to merge Wi-Fi with VoIP, producing one of the oddest terms you’ll ever see, Vo Wi-Fi! This stands for Voice over Wireless Fidelity. This simply means a Wi-Fi based VoIP service – or in even more general terms, a wireless based VoIP system.VoIP over Wi-Fi (Vo Wi-Fi) has great potential as a means of reducing telephony costs.

Micro Media Paper is the electronic paper of the future. It will allow entire books to fit on a single sheet using futuristic printing technologies that will allow super cheap colour screens to be produced. In fact, a company called Lunar Design is planning to bring out these ultra thin mini colour screens that would work on replaceable batteries and which can be controlled with touch sensitive buttons

Have you ever thought about a friend just a moment before the phone rang? Then, when you picked the phone up, it was the same friend you had just thought about! Is this a coincidence, or could it, perhaps, be a form of communication? Some scientists believe this phenomenon to be a form of communication called telepathy. In telepathy, there is direct transference of thought from one person to another, without using normal sensory channels.  The term telepathy was coined by Fredric W.H. Myers, in 1822, from Greek words tele and patheia. ‘Tele’ means ‘remote’ and ‘patheia’ means ‘to be affected by’.  The field which studies certain types of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy is called parapsychology. They believe that telepathy is a type of communication, which we haven’t completely explained yet. They are studying various reports about telepathy. But a technique, which shows statistically significant evidence of telepathy on every occasion, has yet to be discovered. This lack of accurate and reliable evidence has led sceptics to argue that there is no scientific basis for the existence of telepathy at all. In short, there is no consensus about telepathy. Para psychologists argue that some instances of telepathy are real. Sceptics say that instances of what seem to be telepathy are explained as the result of fraud or self-delusion.

Morse code enables letter to be sent, letter by letter, using a system of long and short signals, produced by depressing the key of an electric buzzer or any other continuous tone sound source or by flashes of light from a flashlight or even by puffs of smoke. Dots in the key below represent short signals. Dashes long one.

Sonar waves help us to ‘see’ by using sound. A sonar device fitted on a ship sends out sound waves that travel through water. When thesesound waves strike an object, they are reflected back. The reflected waves are received by the ship, and can be used to ‘draw’ an image of the object and its location on a computer screen.Did you know that the word SONAR stands for Sound Navigation and Ranging?

Morse code was a system of signaling in which letters and numbers were sent as short electrical signals which formed dots and long electrical signals which formed dashes.The Morse code was invented by Samuel F.B. Morse, a painter and founder of the National Academy of Design. He conceived the basic idea of an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832, and produced the first working telegraph set in 1836. This made transmission possible over any distance. The first Morse Code message, ‘What hath God wrought?’, was sent from Washington to Baltimore.

What will television of the future be like? It is quite possible that screens will grow larger and larger even as they grow thinner and thinner. TV sets will have liquid crystal displays like the screens of a hand held computer game. At the same time there will a stunning increase in the number of televisions per household, as small TV displays are added to clocks, and maybe even coffee cups! Who knows… television may even be placed inside books and, before long, books will evolve into no more than hundreds of small flat-screens stapled together!

 A satellite is a body in orbit around a planet. A satellite can be natural like the moon which orbits around the earth, or manmade. In fact almost every spaceship launched from earth can be considered a satellite, as it is orbiting either the earth or the sun.  Manmade satellites have six main uses. They are used for scientific investigation, earth observation, weather forecasting, navigation and communications. Satellites also have military uses.Satellites orbiting the earth must travel at great speed to avoid being pulled down by the earth’s gravity. Some satellites called geostationary satellites are positioned over areas where they are most needed and are most useful for spying!Communication satellites are earth orbiting spacecraft that provide communication over long distances by reflecting or relaying radio frequency signals. Radio, telephone and television signals are bounced off satellites to cover the greatest possible area. There are hundreds of communication satellites now in orbit. They receive signals from one ground station, amplify them, and them transmit them at a different frequency to another station

Giant strides have been made in telecasting technology, and a great leap forward was made when television stations began to broadcast programmes from different countries with the help of satellites.Nowadays, direct transmission is done from a satellite, and this is called DBS or Direct Broadcast Satellite technology. In this system your TV set receives the signals directly from the satellite through a special dish aerial that has to be installed. Of course, many homes prefer to have cable TV where the signals reach the TV set through a cable.

A television camera is very different from an ordinary camera in many ways. In an ordinary camera, images are captured on film. A television camera, on the other hand, produces pictures as electrical signal.A picture tube or chip in the camera produces an electrical current called the video signal. This signal varies according to the amount of light in the image. In the case of colour TV, there may be two or three tubes. Special filters split the light into the three primary colours, red, green and blue. The camera thus produces three signals which are combined into a signal video signal that is transmitted.

When you sit before the television watching your favorite programme, can you imagine that when your grandfather was young he had no TV to entertain him? The first TV pictures were produced in 1924 by John Logie Baird, but the first TV programs came on air only in 1936, when the BBC started its service. At that time, very few people had television sets. The pictures were not in colour, but black and white, and the quality of the pictures was also not good. But none of this mattered, and people who owned TV sets were greatly

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Nowadays, mobile phones are a common sight you see them on buses, trains, in offices, on roads… almost everywhere you look. They are very convenient because they allow you to make calls from just about anywhere. You don’t need wires for a mobile phone… why is that?A mobile phone is actually a radio—an extremely sophisticated radio, but a radio nonetheless. Mobile phones work using ‘cells’. Each cell has a base station at its centre. The base station sends and receives calls from your phone. Your phone communicates with the base station using radio waves. As you move from place to place, your calls are transmitted from the nearest base station

People send telegrams for birthdays, anniversaries and on festive days. Telegrams are also sent when a message has to reach someone very urgently. You must have also heard of people sending and receiving telexes. Do you know how they are different?To put it very simply, the telegraph uses electrical pulses to transmit and receive signals. It was invented by an American inventor called Samuel Morse in 1837. He used electrical current to produce a clicking sound. With each click, a pointed instrument would mark dots and dashes on a strip of paper. These dots and dashes formed a code that is known as the Morse code. Today of course, we get telegrams in the form of printed messages. However, you cannot send a telegram from your home or office. Neither can you receive a telegram directly. It has to be delivered to you.                                                 

        The telex was introduced much later in 1958. It is a system by which subscribers can use international carriers to send messages and data directly to other subscribers throughout the world. They do not have to go to a telegraph office, and can receive telexes directly if they have a telex machine in their office. Indian Air Force squadrons also have squadron flags or standards. They are also in sky blue, with lotus flower and gold Asoka leaves, and the squadron badge in the centre. Air Force officers also wear badges as part of their uniforms. These badges are worn on their headgear, collars, and shoulder patches