Famous Scientists That Inspire Me (And Maybe You Too)

THE BUMBLEBEE 

According to scientists, the bumblebee's body is too heavy and its wing span too small. Aerodynamically, the bumblebee cannot fly. But the bumblebee doesn't know that and it keeps flying.


When you don't know your limitations, you go out and surprise yourself. In hindsight, you wonder if you had any limitations. The only limitations a person has are those that are self-imposed. Don't let education put limitations on you.

Here I present you some of Stories of Famous scientists in a hope that it might inpire you in some way:-

1. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist, often considered the definition of genius. Most praised for his Theory of Relativity and mass-energy equivalence (E= MC2) along with countless other additions in the field of physics. Received the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his work in theoretical physics.

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

 

2. Charles Darwin (1809- 1882) Propose the Theory of Evolution through the process of Natural Selection, providing the first accepted and unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life. 

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. "

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

3. Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Mathematician, physicist and apple lover who proposed the law of universal gravitation as well as the three laws of motion: Inertia, Force= mass x acceleration and action/reaction.

"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction."

"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." 

"We build too many walls and not enough bridges."

4. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Psychiatrist, best known for his theories of the unconscious mind, the defense mechanism for repression and sexual desire. Created the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, using communication to cure psychopathology. He is also known for his interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.

"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence."

"Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy."

"The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious."

5. Thomas Edison (1847-1931) Inventor who popularized, among other things, the light bulb and the phonograph. He helped optimize mass production and helped America become an industrial powerhouse.

"Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. "

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision."

"Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have."

 

6. Aristotle (384-233 BCE) Greek philosopher and student of Plato who became educated in physics, metaphysics, poetry, logic, music, politics, ethics, and biology. He was one of the founders of Western Philosophy which connected morality and aesthetics, logic and science, and politics and metaphysics.

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence"

"All human actions have one or more of these seven cause: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire."

7. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) Scientist, mathematician, inventor, engineer, architect, anatomist, musician, painter, sculptor and writer.  It doesn't sound so spectacular written that way but there is no way to be spectacular enough about Da Vinci so that's the best I can do.

"Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness."

"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions." 

 8. William Herschel (1738-1822) Astronomer, discovered Uranus, nebulae and binary stars. He was the first to accurately describe the Milky Way Galaxy as well as the first to discover inferred radiation within space.

"All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more the truths contained in the sacred scriptures."

"If I were to pray for a taste which would stand by me under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading."

9. Archimedes (287- 212 BCE) Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer responsible for contributions in hydrostatics as well as the foundation for calculus. If you've ever had what you called a "Eureka!" moment, he's the scientist who made it famous and he proved sometimes you can do your best science in a bathtub.

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”  

10. James Prescott Joule (1818-1889) Played a fundamental role in the field of physics with his first law of thermodynamics, which Isaac Asimov called "one of the most important generalizations in the history of science." With Lord Kelvin, discovered that gases cool when they expand.

"Believing that the power to destroy belongs to the Creator alone I affirm... that any theory which, when carried out, demands the annihilation of force, is necessarily erroneous."

  ***** So there, my tribute to some of those who shaped our world of science and our understanding of reality. Since their science will never be forgotten, so should their words of advice be remembered. There's no guarantee that remembering how they understood life will make us as great as they are, but it can't hurt either.


One more lesson for Life


Value-A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?"Still the hands were up in the air.
"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.
He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.

We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special - Don't ever forget it!

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How Hinduism has predicted some of the modern scientific concepts

Hindu religion is pro-science from early ages. Below are few amazing scientific concepts mentioned in Vedas and Puranas.

The concept of Multiverse or MWI

Many believe that there is a parallel universe existing somewhere in the universe, at the same time and space as ours. This concept is known as the multiverse or “Many World Interpretation” according to the quantum mechanics. With this theory, many randomnesses are removed and actions are at a distance from quantum theory, and thus from all physics.

Every universe is covered by seven layers — earth, water, fire, air, sky, the total energy and false ego — each ten times greater than the previous one. There are innumerable universes besides this one, and although they are unlimitedly large, they move about like atoms in You. Therefore, you are called unlimited (Bhagavata Purana 6.16.37)
What am I, a small creature measuring seven spans of my own hand? I am enclosed in a potlike universe composed of material nature, the total material energy, false ego, ether, air, water and earth. And what is Your glory? Unlimited universes pass through the pores of Your body just as particles of dust pass through the openings of a screened window (Bhagavata Purana 10.14.11) 

Time Dilation

Time Dilation is a difference between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from a gravitational mass or masses. This has already been seen in the Puranas.

King Kakudmi, the father of Revati, took her to Bramaloka to ask God’s advice about finding a suitable for her because he thought that no human is good enough for her. Kakudmi presented his own shortlist of candidates to Lord Brahma. Hearing that proposition, Brahma laughed out loudly and explained how time runs different planes of existence. He tells him that the time Kakudmi and Revati were in Brahmaloka, 27 chatur yugas had already passed on ‘prithvi’, the Earth, and those candidates he presented had already passed away. He explains that all of his relatives, including his friends, ministers, servants, wives, armies, treasures, have vanished, and that he is no longer the king and wealthy. So, he should soon bestow his daughter to someone else.

Grandiose Time Scales

In the Vishnu Purana, the predicted age of the earth is 4.32 billion years, which is quite near to the current scientific estimation of 4.5 billion years. Hindu cosmology, thus, involves large numbers. Carl Sagan, who was very skeptic about mythology and creation, mentions in his Cosmos series:
“It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, no doubt, by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the earth or the sun and about half of the time since the big bang. And there are much longer time scales still.”

But many other numbers are wrong when comparing the numbers from Hindu cosmology with the current estimate of science. The estimated age of the Universe is 13.7 billion years, whereas according to Hindu cosmology, it is 155 trillion years. If we take a look at the start of “the mahayuga”, it was estimated at around 12 million years, which is nowhere closer to the age of the Universe. Of those numbers, only the age of the Earth is closer to what science holds.

Big Bang, Big Crunch Hypothesis and Endless cycle of destruction, and creation of universe

Big Crunch is known to be the ultimate fate of the universe. It says that the expansion of the universe, which is currently in progress, will one day reverse and the whole universe will collapse, resulting in a black hole singularity or reformation of the universe with another big bang.

In Hinduism, it is quite evident about how it talks about an infinite number of deaths and rebirths of the universe and the elements of the universe itself.

What do you think?

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Greatest Unanswered Question of Physics

 

              The 11 Greatest Unanswered Questions of Physics

Pythagoras set science spinning when he proved that abstract mathematics could be applied to the real world. A similar leap occurred when Newton discovered that the motions of planets and falling apples are both due to gravity. Maxwell created a new era of physics when he unified magnetism and electricity. Einstein, the greatest unifier of them all, wove together matter, energy, space, and time. 

But nobody has woven together the tiny world of quantum mechanics and the big world we see when we look through a telescope. As these come together, physicists realize they are getting very close to a single "theory of everything" that accounts for the fundamental workings of nature, the long-sought unified field theory. 

About two years ago, after a presentation by the National Research Council's board on physics and astronomy that showed the converging agendas of the two fields, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin suggested a special report that would detail how much astronomers and physicists could benefit from one another's insight. Recently, the council's committee on the physics of the universe released that report. It details 11 profound questions, some of which may be answered within a decade. If so, science is likely to make one of its greatest leaps in history. 

But first, what we don't know. 

Question 1

What is dark matter?
All the ordinary matter we can find accounts for only about 4 percent of the universe. We know this by calculating how much mass would be needed to hold galaxies together and cause them to move about the way they do when they gather in large clusters. Another way to weigh the unseen matter is to look at how gravity bends the light from distant objects. Every measure tells astronomers that most of the universe is invisible. 

It's tempting to say that the universe must be full of dark clouds of dust or dead stars and be done with it, but there are persuasive arguments that this is not the case. First, although there are ways to spot even the darkest forms of matter, almost every attempt to find missing clouds and stars has failed. Second, and more convincing, cosmologists can make very precise calculations of the nuclear reactions that occurred right after the Big Bang and compare the expected results with the actual composition of the universe. Those calculations show that the total amount of ordinary matter, composed of familiar protons and neutrons, is much less than the total mass of the universe. Whatever the rest is, it isn't like the stuff of which we're made. 

The quest to find the missing universe is one of the key efforts that has brought cosmologists and particle physicists together. The leading dark-matter candidates are neutrinos or two other kinds of particles: neutralinos and axions, predicted by some physics theories but never detected. All three of these particles are thought to be electrically neutral, thus unable to absorb or reflect light, yet stable enough to have survived from the earliest moments after the Big Bang. 

Question 2

What is dark energy?
Two recent discoveries from cosmology prove that ordinary matter and dark matter are still not enough to explain the structure of the universe. There's a third component out there, and it's not matter but some form of dark energy.

The first line of evidence for this mystery component comes from measurements of the geometry of the universe. Einstein theorized that all matter alters the shape of space and time around it. Therefore, the overall shape of the universe is governed by the total mass and energy within it. Recent studies of radiation left over from the Big Bang show that the universe has the simplest shape—it's flat. That, in turn, reveals the total mass density of the universe. But after adding up all the potential sources of dark matter and ordinary matter, astronomers still come up two-thirds short. 

The second line of evidence suggests that the mystery component must be energy. Observations of distant supernovas show that the rate of expansion of the universe isn't slowing as scientists had once assumed; in fact, the pace of the expansion is increasing. This cosmic acceleration is difficult to explain unless a pervasive repulsive force constantly pushes outward on the fabric of space and time. 

Why dark energy produces a repulsive force field is a bit complicated. Quantum theory says virtual particles can pop into existence for the briefest of moments before returning to nothingness. That means the vacuum of space is not a true void. Rather, space is filled with low-grade energy created when virtual particles and their antimatter partners momentarily pop into and out of existence, leaving behind a very small field called vacuum energy. 

That energy should produce a kind of negative pressure, or repulsion, thereby explaining why the universe's expansion is accelerating. Consider a simple analogy: If you pull back on a sealed plunger in an empty, airtight vessel, you'll create a near vacuum. At first, the plunger will offer little resistance, but the farther you pull, the greater the vacuum and the more the plunger will pull back against you. Although vacuum energy in outer space was pumped into it by the weird rules of quantum mechanics, not by someone pulling on a plunger, this example illustrates how repulsion can be created by a negative pressure. 

Question 3

How were the heavy elements from iron to uranium made?
Both dark matter and possibly dark energy originate from the earliest days of the universe, when light elements such as helium and lithium arose. Heavier elements formed later inside stars, where nuclear reactions jammed protons and neutrons together to make new atomic nuclei. For instance, four hydrogen nuclei (one proton each) fuse through a series of reactions into a helium nucleus (two protons and two neutrons). That's what happens in our sun, and it produces the energy that warms Earth. 

But when fusion creates elements that are heavier than iron, it requires an excess of neutrons. Therefore, astronomers assume that heavier atoms are minted in supernova explosions, where there is a ready supply of neutrons, although the specifics of how this happens are unknown. More recently, some scientists have speculated that at least some of the heaviest elements, such as gold and lead, are formed in even more powerful blasts that occur when two neutron stars—tiny, burned-out stellar corpses—collide and collapse into a black hole.

QUESTION #4: The number of neutrinos in the universe is almost uncountable. If each one has even the tiniest mass, represented here by the ball on the right, which weighs just a bit more than the zero-mass ball on the left, this weight could account for a lot of the universe's missing dark matter.

Dan Winters & Gary Tanhauser

Question 4

Do neutrinos have mass?

Nuclear reactions such as those that create heavy elements also create vast numbers of ghostly subatomic bits known as neutrinos. These belong to a group of particles called leptons, such as the familiar electron and the muon and tau particles. Because neutrinos barely interact with ordinary matter, they can allow a direct look into the heart of a star. This works only if we are able to capture and study them, something physicists are just now learning to do. 

Not long ago, physicists thought neutrinos were massless, but recent advances indicate that these particles may have a small mass. Any such evidence would also help validate theories that seek to find a common description of three of the four natural forces—electromagnetism, strong force, and weak force. Even a tiny bit of heft would add up because a staggering number of neutrinos are left over from the Big Bang. 

Question 5

Where do ultrahigh-energy particles come from?
The most energetic particles that strike us from space, which include neutrinos as well as gamma-ray photons and various other bits of subatomic shrapnel, are called cosmic rays. They bombard Earth all the time; a few are zipping through you as you read this article. Cosmic rays are sometimes so energetic, they must be born in cosmic accelerators fueled by cataclysms of staggering proportions. Scientists suspect some sources: the Big Bang itself, shock waves from supernovas collapsing into black holes, and matter accelerated as it is sucked into massive black holes at the centers of galaxies. Knowing where these particles originate and how they attain such colossal energies will help us understand how these violent objects operate.

 
Question 6

Is a new theory of light and matter needed to explain what happens at very high energies and temperatures?
All of that violence cited in question 5 leaves a visible trail of radiation, especially in the form of gamma rays—the extremely energetic cousins of ordinary light. Astronomers have known for three decades that brilliant flashes of these rays, called gamma-ray bursts, arrive daily from random directions in the sky. Recently astronomers have pinned down the location of the bursts and tentatively identified them as massive supernova explosions and neutron stars colliding both with themselves and black holes. But even now nobody knows much about what goes on when so much energy is flying around. Matter grows so hot that it interacts with radiation in unfamiliar ways, and photons of radiation can crash into each other and create new matter. The distinction between matter and energy grows blurry. Throw in the added factor of magnetism, and physicists can make only rough guesses about what happens in these hellish settings. Perhaps current theories simply aren't adequate to explain them.

QUESTION #7: Add a little heat, and molecules can be easily transformed from solids into liquids and then gases. But what happens at extreme temperatures? Does matter break down into a soup of subatomic particles—called a quark-gluon plasma—and then into energy?

Dan Winters & Gary Tanhauser

Question 7

Are there new states of matter at ultrahigh temperatures and densities?
Under extreme energetic conditions, matter undergoes a series of transitions, and atoms break down into their smallest constituent parts. Those parts are elementary particles called quarks and leptons, which as far as we know cannot be subdivided into smaller parts. Quarks are extremely sociable and are never observed in nature alone. Rather, they combine with other quarks to form protons and neutrons (three quarks per proton) that further combine with leptons (such as electrons) to form whole atoms. The hydrogen atom, for example, is made up of an electron orbiting a single proton. Atoms, in turn, bind to other atoms to form molecules, such as H2O. As temperatures increase, molecules transform from a solid such as ice, to a liquid such as water, to a gas such as steam. 

That's all predictable, known science, but at temperatures and densities billions of times greater than those on Earth, it's possible that the elementary parts of atoms may come completely unglued from one another, forming a plasma of quarks and the energy that binds quarks together. Physicists are trying to create this state of matter, a quark-gluon plasma, at a particle collider on Long Island. At still higher temperatures and pressures, far beyond those scientists can create in a laboratory, the plasma may transmute into a new form of matter or energy. Such phase transitions may reveal new forces of nature. 

These new forces would be added to the three forces that are already known to regulate the behavior of quarks. The so-called strong force is the primary agent that binds these particles together. The second atomic force, called the weak force, can transform one type of quark into another (there are six different "flavors" of quark—up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom). The final atomic force, electromagnetism, binds electrically charged particles such as protons and electrons together. As its name implies, the strong force is by far the most muscular of the three, more than 100 times as powerful as electromagnetism and 10,000 times stronger than the weak force. Particle physicists suspect the three forces are different manifestations of a single energy field in much the same way that electricity and magnetism are different facets of an electromagnetic field. In fact, physicists have already shown the underlying unity between electromagnetism and the weak force. 

Some unified field theories suggest that in the ultrahot primordial universe just after the Big Bang, the strong, weak, electromagnetic, and other forces were one, then unraveled as the cosmos expanded and cooled. The possibility that a unification of forces occurred in the newborn universe is a prime reason particle physicists are taking such a keen interest in astronomy and why astronomers are turning to particle physics for clues about how these forces may have played a role in the birth of the universe. For unification of forces to occur, there must be a new class of supermassive particles called gauge bosons. If they exist, they will allow quarks to change into other particles, causing the protons that lie at the heart of every atom to decay. And if physicists prove protons can decay, the finding will verify the existence of new forces. 

That raises the next question.

QUESTION #8: All the atoms in the universe are built around an essential particle—the proton. But unified field theory predicts that time may eventually run out for protons, and they could decay into a spray of subparticles.

Dan Winters & Gary Tanhauser

Question 8

Are protons unstable?
In case you're worried that the protons you're made of will disintegrate, transforming you into a puddle of elementary particles and free energy, don't sweat it. Various observations and experiments show that protons must be stable for at least a billion trillion trillion years. However, many physicists believe that if the three atomic forces are really just different manifestations of a single unified field, the alchemical, supermassive bosons described above will materialize out of quarks every now and then, causing quarks, and the protons they compose, to degenerate. 

At first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking these physicists had experienced some sort of mental decay on the grounds that tiny quarks are unlikely to give birth to behemoth bosons weighing more than 10,000,000,000,000,000 times themselves. But there's something called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that you can never know both the momentum and the position of a particle at the same time, and it indirectly allows for such an outrageous proposition. Therefore, it's possible for a massive boson to pop out of a quark making up a proton for a very short time and cause that proton to decay. 

Question 9

What is gravity?
Next there's the matter of gravity, the odd force out when it comes to small particles and the energy that holds them together. When Einstein improved on Newton's theory, he extended the concept of gravity by taking into account both extremely large gravitational fields and objects moving at velocities close to the speed of light. These extensions lead to the famous concepts of relativity and space-time. But Einstein's theories do not pay any attention to quantum mechanics, the realm of the extremely small, because gravitational forces are negligible at small scales, and discrete packets of gravity, unlike discrete packets of energy that hold atoms together, have never been experimentally observed. 

Nonetheless, there are extreme conditions in nature in which gravity is compelled to get up close and personal with the small stuff. For example, near the heart of a black hole, where huge amounts of matter are squeezed into quantum spaces, gravitational forces become very powerful at tiny distances. The same must have been true in the dense primordial universe around the time of the Big Bang. 

Physicist Stephen Hawking identified a specific problem about black holes that requires a bridging of quantum mechanics and gravity before we can have a unified theory of anything. According to Hawking, the assertion that nothing, even light, can escape from a black hole is not strictly true. Weak thermal energy does radiate from around black holes. Hawking theorized that this energy is born when particle-antiparticle pairs materialize from the vacuum in the vicinity of a black hole. Before the matter-antimatter particles can recombine and annihilate each other, one that may be slightly closer to the black hole will be sucked in, while the other that is slightly farther away escapes as heat. This release does not connect in any obvious way to the states of matter and energy that were earlier sucked into that black hole and therefore violates a law of quantum physics stipulating that all events must be traceable to previous events. New theories may be needed to explain this problem. 

Question 10

Are there additional dimensions?
Wondering about the real nature of gravity leads eventually to wondering whether there are more than the four dimensions we can easily observe. To get to that place, we might first wonder if nature is, in fact, schizophrenic: Should we accept that there are two kinds of forces that operate over two different scales—gravity for big scales like galaxies, the other three forces for the tiny world of atoms? Poppycock, say unified theory proponents—there must be a way to connect the three atomic-scale forces with gravity. Maybe, but it won't be easy. In the first place, gravity is odd. Einstein's general theory of relativity says gravity isn't so much a force as it is an inherent property of space and time. Accordingly, Earth orbits the sun not because it is attracted by gravity but because it has been caught in a big dimple in space-time caused by the sun and spins around inside this dimple like a fast-moving marble caught in a large bowl. Second, gravity, as far as we have been able to detect, is a continuous phenomenon, whereas all the other forces of nature come in discrete packets.

All this leads us to the string theorists and their explanation for gravity, which includes other dimensions. The original string-theory model of the universe combines gravity with the other three forces in a complex 11-dimensional world. In that world—our world—seven of the dimensions are wrapped up on themselves in unimaginably small regions that escape our notice. One way to get your mind around these extra dimensions is to visualize a single strand of a spiderweb. To the naked eye, the filament appears to be one dimensional, but at high magnification it resolves into an object with considerable width, breadth, and depth. String theorists argue that we can't see extra dimensions because we lack instruments powerful enough to resolve them. 

We may never see these extra dimensions directly, but we may be able to detect evidence of their existence with the instruments of astronomers and particle physicists. 

Question 11

How did the universe begin?
If all four forces of nature are really a single force that takes on different complexions at temperatures below several million degrees, then the unimaginably hot and dense universe that existed at the Big Bang must have been a place where distinctions between gravity, strong force, particles, and antiparticles had no meaning. Einstein's theories of matter and space-time, which depend upon more familiar benchmarks, cannot explain what caused the hot primordial pinpoint of the universe to inflate into the universe we see today. We don't even know why the universe is full of matter. According to current physics ideas, energy in the early universe should have produced an equal mix of matter and antimatter, which would later annihilate each other. Some mysterious and very helpful mechanism tipped the scales in favor of matter, leaving enough to produce galaxies full of stars.

Fortunately, the primordial universe left behind a few clues. One is the cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang. For several decades now, that weak radiation measured the same wherever astronomers looked at the edges of the universe. Astronomers believed such uniformity meant that the Big Bang commenced with an inflation of space-time that unfolded faster than the speed of light. 

More recent careful observation, however, shows that the cosmic background radiation is not perfectly uniform. There are minuscule variations from one small patch of space to another that are randomly distributed. Could random quantum fluctuations in the density of the early universe have left this fingerprint? Very possibly,

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Quantum Spin

                                             


                                                   WHAT IS 

         QUANTUM SPIN?

In classical mechanics, you have two different types of angular momentum. Orbital Angular moment (the motion of the centre of mass) and spin (motion about the centre of mass). For the Sun and Earth, The movement of the earth around the sun would the orbital angular momentum, and the rotation of the earth about its axis, the spin angular momentum.

Particle “Spin” is a quantum mechanical concept which is difficult to understand which we we'll discuss here.....!!

BACKGROUND:

 Stern–Gerlach experiment. In this experiment, a neutral beam* of silver atoms (silver atoms possess a single electron in their outermost shell) is obtained from a suitable source after collimation and is passed through a magnetic field which is inhomogeneous, meaning that if any magnetic dipole passes through this field, the net force due to this magnetic field on the two ends of the dipole would be unequal; there would be a net force in some direction.

Now if the particles i.e. silver atoms were behaved like classical magnetic dipoles, then the distribution of their angular momentum (vectors) would be random, and hence continuous. Thus, a classical expectation would be that, upon defection by the magnet, the atoms form a continuous smear on the detector/ screen (see diagram below).

But, the observation was that the detector bore only two remarkably distinct smears, not a continuous one. This was puzzling, as angular momenta were thought to be continuous and not discrete or quantised. This was the first experimental measurement of what is known as Spin.

 Problem

The problem lies in that, for the charge and size of electrons in particular, their magnetic field is way too high.  They’d need to be spinning faster than the speed of light in order to produce the fields we see.  As fans of the physics are no doubt already aware: faster-than-light = no.  And yet, they definitely have the angular momentum necessary to create their fields.

It seems strange to abandon the idea of rotation when talking about angular momentum, but there it is.  Somehow particles have angular momentum, in almost every important sense, even acting like a gyroscope, but without doing all of the usual rotating.  Instead, a particle’s angular momentum is just another property that it has, like charge or mass.  Physicists use the word “spin” or “intrinsic spin” 

.

The spin of a particle has a very real effect on what happens when it’s physically rotated around another, identical particle.  When you rotate two particles so that they change places you find that their quantum wave function is affected.  Without going into too much detail, for particles called fermions this leads to the “Pauli Exclusion principle” which is responsible for matter not being allowed to be in the same state (which includes place) at the same time.  For all other particles, which are known as “bosons”, it has no effect at all.

 Summary:-

Unlike regular angular momentum, spin has nothing to do with actual spinning.

Instead, a particle’s angular momentum is just another property that it has, like charge or mass.

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Is it possible that each solar system is really an atom in some physical system?

          ARE WE INSIDE AN ATOM WHICH IS PART OF A 

                                    GIANT BRAIN?!

The Bohr model—or solar system model—of the atom describes atoms as consisting of a nucleus with a number of electrons in orbits around that nucleus, similar to a solar system. Because of this, people have speculated that perhaps atoms are like tiny solar systems.

Since our own Solar System consists of a sun in the middle with eight smaller planets rotating around it in their orbits and the element Oxygen has a nucleus and eight smaller electrons rotating around it in their orbits, you could imagine that there is a similarity between the two. Likewise, perhaps our solar system is an atom in some larger entity.

Although recent studies have shown that the Bohr model of the atom is probably not correct—or at least incomplete—the concept of tiny solar systems has captured the imagination of many people.

Questions you may have include:

• Is it possible that atoms are like tiny solar systems?
• Is it possible that our solar system is really an atom in a bigger universe?
• What are some problems with this idea?

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Atoms as solar systems

According to the Bohr or solar system model of matter, every atom consists of a nucleus with a certain number of electrons rotating about the nucleus in their orbits. The nucleus is much larger than the electrons. These particles are assumed to be very small spheres or ball-shaped. This is similar to the configuration of a solar system, with a large sun in the center and planets rotating in orbits around the sun.

Is it possible that the atomic level represents a smaller universe of some sort?

Oxygen and our Solar System

Look at the example of the element Oxygen, which consists of a nucleus and 8 electrons in orbit. Our solar system has our Sun and 8 planets in orbit around it. Is it possible that the third electron from the Oxygen nucleus is similar to the third planet from the Sun—our Earth—except on a very small and different scale?

Perhaps there are even tiny little people or animals living on that electron. When they look out through their tiny telescopes at the other atoms and molecules around them, perhaps they think they are looking at the whole Universe. This may be stretching our imagination, but is it a possibility?

Pluto creates an ion

But what about Pluto? It used to be considered a planet, and it does orbit the Sun. However, it is no longer considered a planet and may have been a large asteroid that had captured into orbit by the Sun.

Just as an extra electron in orbit around the Oxygen nucleus would make the atom an ion, so too would the extra asteroid rotating around the Sun make the Solar System a form of "solar ion" or such.

Solar systems as atoms

Following that train of thought, perhaps solar systems are actually "atoms" in a much larger universe. Some stars are very large and some are much smaller than our Sun—just as some atomic nuclei are large and some are small, depending on their atomic number and weight. The rotating galaxies could be like rotating eddies in a liquid or gas.

Since there is this similarity, is it possible that each solar system is really an atom in some physical system?

Atom or Solar System?

Our solar system could be similar to Oxygen, while others may be like Chlorine, Iron or Uranium. In fact, the Universe we see through our telescopes may be just the collection of billions of atoms that are in a larger Universe.

Perhaps we are even part of the atoms on another gigantic living being!

Problems with idea

There are some problems with the idea of atoms being tiny solar systems. Scientific studies in the area of Quantum Mechanics have shown that at the quantum or atomic level there are added rules of physics that restrict the activities and appearances that are allowed on a larger scale.

Probably not tiny spheres

This theory states that electrons, protons, neutrons and the nucleus are probably not tiny spheres. The most common theory is that electrons are spread out in the form of a cloud. Another theory is that electrons look like tiny strings. Since these particles are too small to be seen in a microscope, what they look like is pure speculation.

Do not rotate in orbit

Also, quantum theories state that electrons probably do not rotate around the nucleus in an orbit.

When electric charges move, they create a magnetic field. When the charges change directions, they give off electromagnetic radiation. If electrons rotate in orbits, they would give off such radiation, which they don't. Thus, scientists believe that electrons are stationary in a shell around the nucleus of an atom, perhaps as a cloud. On the other hand, perhaps that radiation rule does not hold when an electron is in an orbit or shell.

Can't be proven

Of course, none of this can ever be proven—at least not in our lifetime. But it shows that there is a lot more to what is around us than we realize. Thinking and speculation on this sort of thing can be fun to do. Science fiction writers have used such speculation to write stories and movies for use to enjoy.

Look beyond what is obvious. Examine similarities and trends in order to draw some conclusions or create a theory. That is what science is all about.

Summary

The Bohr or solar system model of the atom states that atoms consist of a nucleus with a number of electrons in orbits around that nucleus, similar to a solar system. People have speculated that perhaps atoms are tiny solar systems. Perhaps our own Solar System is similar to the element Oxygen, which has a nucleus and eight smaller electrons rotating around it in their orbits.

Likewise, perhaps our solar system is an "atom" in some larger entity. Although recent studies have shown that the Bohr model of the atom is probably not correct or is incomplete, the concept of tiny solar systems has captured the imagination of many people.

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Enjoy life by being curious about the world around you

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Schrodinger's equation. How to Understand It??

What does the Schrodinger wave equation tell us?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, experimental evidence suggested that atomic particles were also wave-like in nature. For example, electrons were found to give diffraction patterns when passed through a double slit in a similar way to light waves. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that a wave equation could explain the behaviour of atomic particles.

Schrodinger was the first person to write down such a wave equation. Much discussion then centred on what the equation meant. The eigenvalues of the wave equation were shown to be equal to the energy levels of the quantum mechanical system, and the best test of the equation was when it was used to solve for the energy levels of the Hydrogen atom, and the energy levels were found to be in accord with Rydberg's Law. 

It was initially much less obvious what the wavefunction of the equation was. After much debate, the wavefunction is now accepted to be a probability distribution. The Schrodinger equation is used to find the allowed energy levels of quantum mechanical systems (such as atoms, or transistors). The associated wavefunction gives the probability of finding the particle at a certain position.

The Schrodinger equation is the name of the basic non-relativistic wave equation used in one version of quantum mechanics to describe the behaviour of a particle in a field of force. Schrodinger’s Equation tells you how to calculate the properties of any particle at the atomic level, for example, an electron or a photon. Particles at this level of size have a limited number of properties. They include position, momentum, a quantum property called “spin,” and a few others.

Schrodinger’s Equation is the key equation of quantum physics. It’s a parallel to Newton’s Laws of Motion in classical physics but it is not deterministic in the same way Newton’s Laws are. In classical physics, if you know the position and momentum of an object, you can use Newton’s Laws of Motion to calculate the future position and momentum of the object. Given knowledge of the exact initial position and momentum and the measurements of all the forces acting on the object, Newton’s laws are deterministic – they tell you how the forces will interact and so, where the object is going to be at a next point in time. 

Schrodinger’s Equation will not tell you the position (or other properties) of an individual subatomic particle at a future point in time. It will tell you only its possible positions and the probabilities of its being in each of those possible positions. For example, if you used a laser to shoot a lot of photons towards a photographic plate, Schrodinger’s Equation could be used to calculate the overall pattern of pixels that would form on the plate, but not the position of which pixel any particular photon will light up. So, Schrodinger’s Equation is deterministic but at the statistical level rather at the individual particle level.

What is the real difference between the time dependent Schrodinger's equation and time independent equation?

The time dependent form of the Schrödinger equation depends on the physical situation . The most general form is the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, which gives a description of a system evolving with time.

The time-independent Schrödinger equation is the equation describing stationary states. The time    independent Schrödinger equation predicts that wave functions can form standing waves, called stationary states (also called "orbitals", as in atomic orbitals or molecular orbitals). These states are important in their own right, and if the stationary states are classified and understood, then it becomes easier to solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for any state

Limitation:

. It is not relativistic, and it doesn't take spin into account. It only applies to spin 1/2 particles, which means it doesn't apply to photons. It works to model simple atoms, but anything more complicated requires a lot of corrections. 

Summary:-

1) 

It is like "Newton's law" in "Classical Mechanics"!!!

First of all, Newton's law predicts the future behavior of a dynamic system. In the same way Schrodinger's wave equation predicts the future behavior in "Quantum Mechanics"!!!

The Schrodinger equation is used to find the allowed energy levels of quantum mechanical systems. The associated wave-function gives the probability of finding the particle at a certain position.

2) 

The solution of the equation will give the allowed energy levels of quantum mechanical systems. If it's time-dependent we can describe the system as it changes over time. If it's time-independent then wen get a stationary value. 

3) 

Schrodinger equation just tells the wave nature of an electron when it moves in one particular orbit bounded to certain potential and nothing else.

This equation is non-relativistic and free from spin of an electron.

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