My Science School

A custom car is one that has been altered from the manufacturer’s original specifications to suit the wishes of its owner. This may involve painting it with extraordinary designs, making the engine more powerful, or even “stretching” it by cutting the entire car in half and inserting additional body parts. Some cars have been made very long indeed by this method.

The one Custom car has 26 wheels and contains a swimming pool! There’s a helicopter parked on the car’s boot area. However, it’s not a fake and rather is the world’s longest car ever built. Called the “American Dream,” this massive limousine was built by California custom car guru Jay Ohrberg. It measures in at a stunning 100 feet long, which earned it the title of being the longest car, certified by Guinness World Records in the mid-’90s. Ohrberg chose a golden 1970s Cadillac Eldorado as the starting point for his mega project, which he began working on in the late 1980s. The 100-foot long stretched limo has a whopping 26 wheels and two separate driver’s cabins.

To make the American Dream even more special, Ohrberg decided to give it some of the most outrageous amenities, which include a helipad. In addition to that, the stretched limo has a Jacuzzi, diving board, king-sized water bed, as well as a small lace and candelabra-festooned living room. The American Dream was a show car which was trailered on flatbed trucks from location to location. It was leased to a company which used it as a promotional vehicle until the lease ran out. It was left abandoned in a New Jersey warehouse for many years before it resurfaced in 2012 at a salvage auction in a very bad state, which seemed like the end of the road for the American Dream. However, the New York’s Automotive Teaching Museum acquired it in 2014.

Like the human body, a car can be thought of as having systems with different functions, all working together to make the vehicle operate effectively.

 The modern vehicle is made up of a variety of parts and components all working together to achieve a final product: “The Car”. These parts and  components are assembled in groups to perform various tasks. These groups are referred to as systems. There are many systems that make up the modern vehicle, some working with others to perform a larger, sometimes more complex, task and others working individually in order to accomplish an individual job. The following is a list of the major systems that make up the modern vehicle.

• The Engine – including lubrication and cooling.


• The Fuel System – including evaporative emission.


• The Ignition System


• The Electrical System – including starting and charging.


• The Exhaust System –including emission control.


• The Drive Train – including the transmission.


• The Suspension and Steering Systems


• The Brake System


• The Frame and Body

There are many other systems which contribute to the modern vehicle such as the Supplementary Restraint System (seat belts and air bags), Climate Control System (designed to provide passengers with a comfortable environment in which to ride) and everybody’s favourite the Sound System.

THE ENGINE

The engine is the vehicle’s main source of power. This is where chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy. The most popular type of engine is referred to as the Internal Combustion Engine. This engine burns an air/fuel mixture inside itself in order to drive a series of pistons and connecting rods that in turn rotate a crankshaft providing us with a continuous rotating motion with which to drive the vehicle and other components. The engine also incorporates others systems, including the lubrication system and the cooling system, all working efficiently together. The cooling system maintains the engine at an ideal operating temperature while the lubrication system ensures that all the moving parts are kept well-oiled in order to provide a long serviceable life.

Electrical system

As well as moving the wheels, the engine also powers an alternator, or dynamo, which generates electrical current. This current is stored in the battery. This supplies energy for the car’s lights, windscreen wipers, radio and such features as electric windows.

Suspension system

The suspension is a system of springs and shock absorbers that prevents every jolt caused by an uneven road surface being felt by the driver and passengers inside the car.

Transmission system

The transmission system consists of the crankshaft, gears and the differential. This is a system of gears on the axles that allows the wheels to travel at different speeds when going round corners, when the outer wheel travels further than the inner one.

Braking system

Each wheel has a brake unit, connected to the brake pedal by a tube full of brake fluid. Pushing the pedal forces the fluid down the tube, causing a brake shoe to press against a metal disk or drum on the inside of the wheel. Friction causes the wheels to slow and stop.

Internal combustion engines are usually fuelled by petrol or diesel. This fuel is burnt (combusted) within metal cylinders. The burning fuel causes a piston to move up and down inside each cylinder, and it is this upward and downward movement that is translated into a turning movement by the crankshaft, causing the axles and wheels to turn and the car to move.

Combustion, also known as burning, is the basic chemical process of releasing energy from a fuel and air mixture.  In an internal combustion engine (ICE), the ignition and combustion of the fuel occurs within the engine itself. The engine then partially converts the energy from the combustion to work. The engine consists of a fixed cylinder and a moving piston. The expanding combustion gases push the piston, which in turn rotates the crankshaft. Ultimately, through a system of gears in the powertrain, this motion drives the vehicle’s wheels.

There are two kinds of internal combustion engines currently in production: the spark ignition gasoline engine and the compression ignition diesel engine. Most of these are four-stroke cycle engines, meaning four piston strokes are needed to complete a cycle. The cycle includes four distinct processes: intake, compression, combustion and power stroke, and exhaust.

Spark ignition gasoline and compression ignition diesel engines differ in how they supply and ignite the fuel.  In a spark ignition engine, the fuel is mixed with air and then inducted into the cylinder during the intake process. After the piston compresses the fuel-air mixture, the spark ignites it, causing combustion. The expansion of the combustion gases pushes the piston during the power stroke. In a diesel engine, only air is inducted into the engine and then compressed. Diesel engines then spray the fuel into the hot compressed air at a suitable, measured rate, causing it to ignite.

In 1769 the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation was built by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot.

In 1808, Hyden Wischet designed the first car powered by the de Rivaz engine, an internal combustion engine that was fueled by hydrogen.

In 1870 Siegfried Marcus built his first combustion engine powered pushcrt, followed by four progressively more sophisticated combustion-engine cars over a 10-to-15-year span that influenced later cars. Marcus created the two-cycle combustion engine. The car's second incarnation in 1880 introduced a four-cycle, gasoline-powered engine, an ingenious carburetor design and magneto ignition. He created an additional two models further refining his design with steering, a clutch and a brake.

The four-stroke petrol (Diesel) internal combustion engine that still constitutes the most prevalent form of modern automotive propulsion was patented by Nikolaus Otto. The similar four-stroke Diesel engine was invented by Rudolf Diesel. The hydrogen fuel cell, one of the technologies hailed as a replacement for gasoline as an energy source for cars, was discovered in principle by Christian Friedrich Schonbein in 1838. The battery electric car owes its beginnings to Anyos Jedlik, one of the inventors of the electric motor, and Gaston Plante, who invented the lead-acid battery in 1859.

In 1885, Karl Benz developed a petrol or gasoline-powered automobile. This is also considered to be the first "production" vehicle as Benz made several other identical copies. The automobile was powered by a single cylinder four-stroke engine.

In 1913, the Ford Model T, created by the Ford Motor Company five years prior, became the first automobile to be mass-produced on a moving assembly line. By 1927, Ford had produced over 15,000,000 Model T automobiles.

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It is likely that the first boats were made of hollowed-out tree trunks. Perhaps early humans saw fallen hollow logs floating along a river and realized that they could carry goods and people. Tree trunks were hollowed using stone axes and fire. A dugout pine canoe, found in the Netherlands, is thought to be at least 8000 years Old.

The oldest discovered boat in the world is the 3 meter long Pesse canoe constructed around 8,000 BCE; but more elaborate craft existed even earlier. A rock carving in Azerbaijan dating from ~10,000 BCE shows a reed boat manned by about 20 paddlers. Others argue that hide boats (kayaks) were used in Northern Europe as early as 9,500 BCE.

Nothing remains of these early boats - which have long since rotted away; but, knowing what plants and tools were available at the time, anthropologists can guess at the kinds of watercraft they used. The current theory is that bamboo rafts like the one shown below were used. Recently, this hypothesis was tested by building rafts using Stone Age techniques and replicating critical crossings.

It’s easy to characterize the Vikings as bloodthirsty reprobates rampaging across Europe, but the craft and innovation of the shipbuilding that enabled their conquests deserves recognition.

The fact that Leif Erikson led a Viking crew to North America in around 1,000 — 500 years before Christopher Columbus set foot on the New World — makes clear the Vikings’ remarkable maritime prowess and showcases the robustness of their boats.

The design principles that led to the Viking longship can be traced back to the beginning of the Stone Age and the umiak, a large open skin boat used by Yupik and Inuit people as long as 2,500 years ago.

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Sailors cannot change the direction of the wind, but thin they are not powerless to change the direction of their sailing boats. By steering a zigzag course, called tacking, they are able to sail in the direction they require. This can be a time-consuming process. It is important that the navigator keeps an accurate check on the boat’s position, so that it does not travel too far off course while tacking.

If your destination lies upwind, how do you sail there? Unless the wind is blowing from directly astern (over the back of the boat), the sails propel the boat forward because of “lift” created by wind blowing across them, not by wind pushing against them. As you steer more toward the wind direction, you trim the sails in tighter to keep them full, and keep generating lift. But sail too close to the wind and the sail will “luff”— the forward edge will start to flutter in and out and the boat will slow down. Turn more into the wind and soon the whole sail will be flapping like a bed sheet hanging out to dry. But keep turning through the wind and soon the sail will fill on the other side of the boat. This is called “tacking.”

Modern sailboats can sail up to about a 45-degree angle from the wind. For example, if the wind is blowing from the north, a boat can sail from about northeast on port tack (“tack” also describes which side of the boat the wind is blowing from: “port tack” means the wind is coming over the port, or left, side) all the way through east, south and west to northwest on the starboard tack (wind coming over the right side of the boat).

On the new tack, you’ll find you’re sailing in a direction that’s at about right angles to the old tack, with the wind still at about 45 degrees, but now on the other side. Tack again and again and the zigzagging will move the boat upwind, even though the boat can’t sail directly into the wind. Sailors call this “beating,” or “tacking,” to windward, and doing it efficiently takes more skill and practice than anything else in sailing. But learn to do it well and you can sail anywhere.

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Traditionally, the left hand side of a ship, looking forward, is called the port side, while the right hand side is called the starboard side. The term “starboard” comes from “steerboard”. The large oar used to steer early ships was usually on the right. “Port” comes from the fact that ships had to tie up on the left side in port so that their steering oar would not be crushed against the dock.

Since port and starboard never change, they are unambiguous references that are independent of a mariner’s orientation, and, thus, mariners use these nautical terms instead of left and right to avoid confusion. When looking forward, toward the bow of a ship, port and starboard refer to the left and right sides, respectively.

In the early days of boating, before ships had rudders on their centerlines, boats were controlled using a steering oar. Most sailors were right handed, so the steering oar was placed over or through the right side of the stern. Sailors began calling the right side the steering side, which soon became "starboard" by combining two Old English words: stéor (meaning "steer") and bord (meaning "the side of a boat").

As the size of boats grew, so did the steering oar, making it much easier to tie a boat up to a dock on the side opposite the oar. This side became known as larboard, or "the loading side." Over time, larboard—too easily confused with starboard—was replaced with port. After all, this was the side that faced the port, allowing supplies to be ported aboard by porters.

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A periscope is a metal tube that can be extended above the submarine while it is underwater. The tube contains lenses and mirrors, which enable an image of the scene above the surface to be seen below in the submarine. The periscope can swivel, so that a 360° view is obtained. The operator turns the periscope by means of the handles on the side. These fold up when it is not in use, as space is always at a premium in a submarine.

Periscope, optical instrument used in land and sea warfare, submarine navigation, and elsewhere to enable an observer to see his surroundings while remaining under cover, behind armour, or submerged.

A periscope includes two mirrors or reflecting prisms to change the direction of the light coming from the scene observed: the first deflects it down through a vertical tube; the second diverts it horizontally so that the scene can be viewed conveniently. Frequently there is a telescopic optical system that provides magnification, gives as wide an arc of vision as possible, and includes a crossline or reticle pattern to establish the line of sight to the object under observation. There may also be devices for estimating the range and course of the target in military applications and for photographing through the periscope.

The simplest type of periscope consists of a tube at the ends of which are two mirrors, parallel to each other but at 45° to the axis of the tube. This device produces no magnification and does not give a crossline image. The arc of vision is limited by the simple geometry of the tube: the longer or narrower the tube, the smaller the field of view. Periscopes of this type were widely used in World War II in tank and other armoured vehicles as observation devices for the driver, gunner, and commander. When fitted with a small, auxiliary gunsight telescope, the tank periscope can also be used in pointing and firing the guns. By employing tubes of rectangular cross section, wide, horizontal fields of view can be obtained.

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Submarines, unlike most ships, are not always required to float! In order to make a submarine sink beneath the surface, its density must be increased to be greater than that of the water. This is done by taking in water, which fills ballast tanks within the outer hull of the submarine. The amount of water entering can be controlled, so that the vessel sinks slowly. To bring a submarine back to the surface, pumps force the water out of ballast tanks. The submarine’s density becomes less than that of the water it is displacing, so it rises.

To control its buoyancy, the submarine has ballast tanks and auxiliary, or trim tanks, that can be alternately filled with water or air. When the submarine is on the surface, the ballast tanks are filled with air and the submarine's overall density is less than that of the surrounding water. As the submarine dives, the ballast tanks are flooded with water and the air in the ballast tanks is vented from the submarine until its overall density is greater than the surrounding water and the submarine begins to sink (negative buoyancy). A supply of compressed air is maintained aboard the submarine in air flasks for life support and for use with the ballast tanks. In addition, the submarine has movable sets of short "wings" called hydroplanes on the stern (back) that help to control the angle of the dive. The hydroplanes are angled so that water moves over the stern, which forces the stern upward; therefore, the submarine is angled downward.

To keep the submarine level at any set depth, the submarine maintains a balance of air and water in the trim tanks so that its overall density is equal to the surrounding water (neutral buoyancy). When the submarine reaches its cruising depth, the hydroplanes are leveled so that the submarine travels level through the water. Water is also forced between the bow and stern trim tanks to keep the sub level. The submarine can steer in the water by using the tail rudder to turn starboard (right) or port (left) and the hydroplanes to control the fore-aft angle of the submarine. In addition, some submarines are equipped with a retractable secondary propulsion motor that can swivel 360 degrees.

When the submarine surfaces, compressed air flows from the air flasks into the ballast tanks and the water is forced out of the submarine until its overall density is less than the surrounding water (positive buoyancy) and the submarine rises. The hydroplanes are angled so that water moves up over the stern, which forces the stern downward; therefore, the submarine is angled upward. In an emergency, the ballast tanks can be filled quickly with high-pressure air to take the submarine to the surface very rapidly.

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Ships are of vital importance to the world’s economy. They carry over 90% of the freight that travels around the globe. Although air travel is a quicker way of crossing the oceans, it is very expensive, and weight is always a problem. Ships may be slower, but they can carry enormous loads. Nowadays many loads are carried in large steel containers, which can be stacked on the ship and then lifted by crane directly onto the back of a truck in the port, doing away with the need to pack and unpack cargo at each change of carrier. Containers protect the goods inside. They can be stored in stacks on the dockside until transferred to a ship, truck or train.

Ocean shipping is the primary conduit of world trade, a key element of international economic development, and a central reason why the world enjoys ready access to a diverse spectrum of low-cost products. Seventy-five percent of internationally traded goods are transported via ocean going vessels. In 2014, world container ship traffic carried more than 1.6 billion metric tons of cargo. Products shipped via container include a broad spectrum of consumer goods ranging from clothing and shoes to electronics and furniture, as well as perishable goods like produce and seafood. Containers also bring materials like plastic, paper and machinery to manufacturing facilities around the world.

In one year, a single large containership could carry over 200,000 containers. While vessels vary in size and carrying capacity, many liner ships can transport up to 8,000 containers of finished goods and products. Some ships are capable of carrying as many as 14,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). It would require hundreds of freight aircraft, many miles of rail cars, and fleets of trucks to carry the goods that can fit on one large container ship. In fact, if all the containers from an 11,000 TEU ship were loaded onto a train, it would need to be 44 miles or 77 kilometers long.

Ocean shipping's economies of scale, the mode's comparatively low cost and its environmental efficiencies enable long distance trade that would not be feasible with costlier, less efficient means of transport. For example, the cost to transport a 20-foot container of medical equipment between Melbourne, Australia and Long Beach, California via container ship is approximately $2,700. The cost to move the same shipment using airfreight is more than $20,000.

As a major global enterprise, the international shipping industry directly employs hundreds of thousands of people and plays a crucial role in stimulating job creation and increasing gross domestic product in countries throughout the world. Moreover, as the lifeblood of global economic vitality, ocean shipping contributes significantly to international stability and security.

Ships float, even if they are made of iron, because their overall density is less than that of the water that supports them. The water displaced by the hull of the ship pushes back upwards with a force called up thrust or buoyancy. If this is equal to or greater than the force of gravity pulling the ship’s mass downwards, the vessel will float. In fact, ships need a certain amount of weight to give them stability in the water, so many of them have hulls weighted with concrete or another kind of ballast. Without it, the ship would bob around on the water like a cork.

Not such a silly question! A ship or a boat (we'll call them all boats from now on) is a vehicle that can float and move on the ocean, a river, or some other watery place, either through its own power or using power from the elements (wind, waves, or Sun). Most boats move partly through and partly above water but some (notably hovercraft and hydrofoils) lift up and speed over it while others (submarines and submersibles, which are small submarines) go entirely under it. These sound like quite pedantic distinctions, but they turn out to be very important—as we'll see in a moment.

All boats can float, but floating is more complex and confusing than it sounds and its best discussed through a scientific concept called buoyancy, which is the force that causes floating. Any object will either float or sink in water depending on its density (how much a certain volume of it weighs). If it's denser than water, it will usually sink; if it's less dense, it will float. It doesn't matter how big or small the object is: a gold ring will sink in water, while a piece of plastic as big as a football field will float. The basic rule is that an object will sink if it weighs more than exactly the same volume of water. But that doesn't really explain why an aircraft carrier (made from dense metal) can float.

A telephone works by sending and receiving electrical signals that represent sounds, including the human voice. When the required number is dialled, a signal passes to the called telephone, causing it to ring, buzz, flash a light, or even vibrate to attract the attention of the person using it. When the telephone is picked up or switched on, a connection is made, and a conversation can take place.

Messages reach the right telephone by means of a dialled number. Pressing the keys of the telephone causes different electrical pulses or varying tones to pass to electronic equipment at the telephone exchange. This “reads” the pulses or tones and routes the call to the correct area and telephone.

The Transmitter of a telephone serves as a sensitive "electric ear." It lies behind the mouthpiece of the phone. Like the human ear, the transmitter has an 14 eardrum." The eardrum of the telephone is a thin, round metal disk called a diaphragm. When a person talks into the telephone, the sound waves strike the diaphragm and make it vibrate. The diaphragm vibrates at various speeds, depending on the variations in air pressure caused by the varying tones of the speaker's voice.

Behind the diaphragm lies a small cup filled with tiny grains of carbon. The diaphragm presses against these carbon grains. Low voltage electric current travels through the grains. This current comes from batteries at the telephone company. The pressure on the carbon grains varies as sound waves make the diaphragm vibrate. A loud sound causes the sound waves to push hard on the diaphragm. In turn, the diaphragm presses the grains tightly together. This action makes it easier for the electric current to travel through, and a large amount of electricity flows through the grains. When the sound is soft, the sound waves push lightly on the diaphragm. In turn, the diaphragm puts only a light pressure on the carbon grains. The grains are pressed together loosely. This makes it harder for the electric current to pass through them, and less current flows through the grains.

Thus, the pattern of the sound waves determines the pressure on the diaphragm. This pressure, in turn, regulates the pressure on the carbon grains. The crowded or loose grains cause the electric current to become stronger or weaker. The current copies the pattern of the sound waves and travels over a telephone wire to the receiver of another telephone. For more modern phones that have a telephone answering service, the sound wave is captured on a recording device which allows for the operator of the phone to playback at a later time.

The Receiver serves as an "electric mouth." Like a human voice, it has "vocal cords." The vocal cords of the receiver are a diaphragm. Two magnets located at the edge of the diaphragm cause it to vibrate. One of the magnets is a permanent magnet that constantly holds the diaphragm close to it. The other magnet is an electromagnet. It consists of a piece of iron with a coil of wire wound around it. When an electric current passes through the coil, the iron core becomes magnetized. The diaphragm is pulled toward the iron core and away from the permanent magnet. The pull of the electromagnet varies between strong and weak, depending on the variations in the current. Thus, the electromagnet controls the vibrations of the diaphragm in the receiver.

The electric current passing through the electromagnet becomes stronger or weaker according to the loud or soft sounds. This action causes the diaphragm to vibrate according to the speaker's speech pattern. As the diaphragm moves in and out, it pulls and pushes the air in front of it. The pressure on the air sets up sound waves that are the same as the ones sent into the transmitter. The sound waves strike the ear of the listener and he hears the words of the speaker.

Semaphore is a means of signalling using pairs of flags. Different flag positions stand for different letters and numbers. Semaphore signals are useful when the signaller is within sight of the receiver of the message but too far away to call out. It was widely used between ships sailing near each other in the days before ship-to-ship radio.

In programming, especially in UNIX systems, semaphores are a technique for coordinating or synchronizing activities in which multiple processes compete for the same operating system resources. A semaphore is a value in a designated place in operating system (or Kernel) storage that each process can check and then change. Depending on the value that is found, the process can use the resource or will find that it is already in use and must wait for some period before trying again. Semaphores can be binary (0 or 1) or can have additional values. Typically, a process using semaphores checks the value and then, if it using the resource, changes the value to reflect this so that subsequent semaphore users will know to wait.

Semaphores are commonly used for two purposes: to share a common memory space and to share access to files. Semaphores are one of the techniques for interprocess communication (IPC). The C programming language provides a set of interfaces or "functions" for managing semaphores.

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The layer of the Earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere can reflect some radio waves back to Earth. This is used for sending messages over fairly short distances, but for messages to travel further across the Earth, the radio signals can be bounced off a satellite, orbiting almost 36,000km (22,000 miles) above the Earth’s surface. Several satellites, in different orbits, are required to give coverage over the whole globe, and different satellites are used to reflect signals for different media, such as telephone messages and television pictures.

A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunications signals through a transponder. It basically creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on earth. Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. There are currently 2,134 communications satellites in the earth’s orbit and these comprise both private and government organizations. Several are in geostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,785 km) above the equator, so that the satellite appears stationary at the same point in the sky. The orbital period of these satellites is the same as the rotation rate of the Earth, which in turn allows the satellite dish antennas of ground stations to be aimed permanently at that spot; they do not have to move along and track it. Since the high frequency radio waves used for telecommunications links travel by line of sight, they get obstructed by the curve of the earth. What these communications satellites do is they relay the signal around the curve of the earth thus making possible communication between widely removed geographical points. Communications satellites use a wide range of radio and microwave frequencies. To avoid signal interference, international organizations have regulations stating which frequency ranges (or bands) certain organizations are permitted to use. This allocation of bands reduces the chances of signal interference.

A group of satellites working together is called a satellite constellation. Two such constellations are supposed to offer satellite phone services (mainly to remote areas), are the Iridium and Global star systems. The Iridium system has 66 satellites. It is also possible today to provide discontinuous coverage using a low-earth-orbit satellite that can store data received while passing over one part of earth and transmitting it later while passing over another part. The CASCADE system being used by Canada’s CASSIOPE communications satellite is an apt example.

A satellite in orbit has to operate continuously over its entire life span. It needs internal power to be able to operate its electronic systems and communications payload. The main source of power is sunlight, which is harnessed by the satellite’s solar panels. A satellite also has batteries on board to provide power when the Sun is blocked by Earth. The batteries are recharged by the excess current generated by the solar panels when there is sunlight.

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Modern communications have affected our lives in numerous ways. Being able to pass information down telephone wires or via satellites means that some people can work from anywhere in the world and still keep in constant touch with their offices. A surgeon in Arizona, via a satellite link, can assist a colleague in Beijing with a complicated operation. News can travel halfway around the world as quickly as it can reach the next town. Perhaps the biggest effect of communications has been to make us all feel that the world is a smaller place, and that we need to be concerned about its future and the futures of people thousands of miles away.

The Internet has turned our existence upside down. It has revolutionized communications, to the extent that it is now our preferred medium of everyday communication. In almost everything we do, we use the Internet. Ordering a pizza, buying a television, sharing a moment with friend, sending a picture over instant messaging. Before the Internet, if you wanted to keep up with the news, you had to walk down to the newsstand when it opened in the morning and buy a local edition reporting what had happened the previous day. But today a click or two is enough to read your local paper and any news source from anywhere in the world, updated up to the minute.

Technology has improved communication, especially in recent years. We’ll always have so much information readily available at our fingertips. Writing letters to relatives living hundreds of miles away is so old-school! Instead, you can talk to them through a video call or instant messaging. This change in communication has completely changed relationships all over the world.

Services like Facebook and Twitter have also become a big part of our everyday lives. These sites allow people to see a lot of information and photos at once and are enjoyable by design. When you upload a photo to the Internet, it doesn’t simply go away. It stays for a long time. This means you can use technology to store memories that are important to you, like family photos.

With modern technology, we can live much healthier lives. Those who have fitness trackers can see how active they are. Seeing that can encourage us to be even more active. Some fitness trackers like the Apple Watch even gamify health with competitions and points!

New technology can help create cures and medicines. Someone who is sick in modern times is much more likely to be cured than someone in past times. Modern technology can automate just about anything, from turning on a light to ordering a pizza. With automation, we can do so much more in such a small amount of time. For example, you can use your voice to start the coffee maker while you’re still getting dressed.