SS Vishak

   Have you ever wondered why are magnesium and manganese similarly named? And do they have anything to do with magnets? I have. And I went seeking for the answer and reached - Greece. GLORY TO GREECE! Once upon a time, two black minerals were discovered in Magnesia , Thessaly, Greece. This place is the home to a beloved Hellenic hero, Jason (the golden fleece & argonauts). Now the problem was, both were called magnes from their place of origin, but were considered to differ in gender .  MAGNETIC MAN... The masculine magnes attracted iron, and was the iron ore now known as lodestone or magnetite , and thus gave us the term magnet i.e. The word  magnet  was adopted in  Middle English  from  Latin   magnetum  " lodestone ", ultimately from  Greek   magnētis [lithos]  meaning "[stone] from Magnesia". METALLIC WOMAN The feminine  magnes  ore did not attract iron. But was used to decol...

We have seen a case when X attempts to create A but ends up with B and Y sees a good fortune can be made out of this and promotes it.  That is, in  Accidental Succeses #1 Let us see one more such case (this has disputes of its invention but let us see someone who did indeed invent independently and is recognized by the product's marketers)... THE WRIGHT WHO DID NOT FLY James Wright was a Scottish-born who worked as a researcher and chemical engineer in a now-127-year-old company formed by the Wizard of Menlo park, Thomas Alva Edison, the General Electric. MILITARY FUNDING, HONEY. During the time of World War II, the United States could not obtain natural rubber from their Asian suppliers. Cheap rubber substitute was a necessity for their military vehicles. The General Electric company was then under a contract to produce synthetic inexpensive rubber substitute for the military.  Wright was working with silicone oil , in an attempt to create a silicon-based...

The land of Tamils is never short of wonders (even if sans recognition). One such narrow yet amazing set of nonpareils comprises of - Rocks. Yes, just rocks.  Ancient Tamils have been ingeniously carving rocks to create spectacular sculptures and towering  temples for a very long time. Here, we will see some of the more primal wonders - more concerned with rocky structures than sculptures.  But in the first place, how did they even manage to cut out rocks from hillocks and boulders? SPLIT THE STONE One way is by utilizing water. Water, when it enters any crack or crevice and freezes, it expands and continuous freeze-thaw cycles lead to rock being cleaved.  But if you have ever lived in Tamilnadu, you would know that freezing temperatures and leprechauns are equiprobable. So, they had to innovate. And boy, they were so good at it... What you see in the image are holes carved out in a starkly straight line. Now, wooden wedges wer...

I always had a flair for story of scientists...I always wondered why very few Indian scientists were actually known widely. One of the few Indian scientists' names that crawl into our textbooks is Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose.The. Indian. Botanist. Sure, he found out evidence for life in plants using a crescograph, but actually, he MADE the crescograph. He was basically , a physicist... BORN A KING IN MYEMENSINGH Jagadish Chandra Bose was born on 30 November, 1858 at Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh. He was raised in a home committed to Indian values and culture. He got his elementary education from a vernacular school, because his father believed that Bose should learn his own mother tongue, Bengali, before studying a foreign language like English. Bose attended Cambridge after studying physics at Calcutta University. He returned to India in 1884 after completing a B.Sc. degree from Cambridge University. INDIA'S OWN POLYMATH  Jagadish Chandra Bose was a polymath ...