deodatabase

Friday, February 23, 2007

The Institution of Engineers

The Institution of Engineers (IEI) was established by Sir Thomas Holland and others in Madras in 1920. In 1935, it obtained the Royal Charter from King George V to promote and move ahead the art, science and practice of engineering and technology in India.
The first President of the Institution was Sir Thomas R J Ward. Sir Thomas Guthrie Russell played a key role in the winning petition for a Royal Charter. The current President is Prof S C Naik.
The organization has been prominent amongst the founder members of the Commonwealth Engineers' Council and the Federation of Engineering Institutions of South and Central Asia. The Institution has a conditional membership of the Engineers Mobility Forum since 2003.
Today, the Institution is head-quartered in Kolkata, with 94 state and local centres. With half a million members, it is one of the biggest professional bodies in the English-speaking world. Life corporate members of the Institution are accredited with the Chartered Engineer title.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Magnetic field in Mercury planet

Despite its slow revolving, Mercury has a relatively strong magnetic field, with a magnetic field strength 1% as strong as the Earth’s. It is potential that this magnetic field is generated in a manner similar to Earth’s, by a dynamo of circulating liquid core material. However, scientists are uncertain whether Mercury’s core could still be liquid,although it could perhaps be set aside liquid by tidal effects during periods of high orbital eccentricity. It is also probable that Mercury’s magnetic field is a remnant of an earlier dynamo effect that has now ceased, with the magnetic field becoming “frozen” in solidified magnetic materials.
Mercury’s magnetic field is physically powerful sufficient to deflect the solar wind around the planet, that creates a magnetosphere within which the solar wind does not go through. This is in difference to the situation on the Moon, which has a magnetic field too weak to stop the solar wind impacting on its surface and so lacks a magnetosphere.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Reality, worldviews, and theories of reality

A common slang usage would have "reality" mean "perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes toward reality," as in "My reality is not your reality." This is often used just as a colloquialism indicating that the parties to a conversation agree, or should agree, not to quibble over deeply different conceptions of what is real. For example, in a spiritual discussion between friends, one might say (attempting humor), "You might disagree, but in my reality, everyone goes to heaven.” But occasionally — and mainly in the case of those who have been exposed to certain ideas from viewpoint, sociology, literary criticism, and other fields — it is thought that there simply and factually is no reality beyond the perceptions or beliefs we each have about reality. Such attitudes are summarized in the popular statement, "Perception is reality" or "Life is how you pick out reality" and they show anti-realism, that is, the view that there is no objective reality, whether acknowledged clearly or not.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Infrared

Infrared (IR) emission is electromagnetic emission of a wavelength longer than that of noticeable light, but shorter than that of radio waves. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra, "below"), red being the color of detectable light of longest wavelength. Infrared radiation spans three instructions of magnitude and has wavelengths between about 750 nm and 1 mm.
These divisions are suitable by the different human response to this radiation: near infrared is the area closest in wavelength to the radiation detectable by the human eye, mid and far infrared are gradually further from the visible regime. Other definitions follow different physical mechanisms (emission peaks, vs. bands, water absorption) and the newest follow technical reasons (The common silicon detectors are sensitive to about 1,050 nm, while Inga As sensitivity starts around 950 nm and ends between 1,700 and 2,600 nm, depending on the specific configuration). Unfortunately the international standards for these specifications are not currently obtainable.
The boundary between visible and infrared light is not precisely defined. The human eye is markedly less responsive to light above 700 nm wavelength, so longer frequencies make irrelevant contributions to scenes illuminated by common light sources. But particularly strong light (e.g., from lasers, or from bright daylight with the visible light removed by colored gels [1]) can be detected up to approximately 780 nm, and will be apparent as red light. The onset of infrared is defined (according to different standards) at different values typically between 700 nm and 780 nm.