What is AI fiction?

Al fiction is a constantly evolving genre that gives us a peek into the potential umides and downsides of intelligent machines whether it is books written by humans with robots and Al as central characters or stories composed entirely by machine learning algorithms. Al fiction never fails to captivate readers and stimulate discussions about what is in store for technology in the future. Artificial intelligence hum long barn a popular topic in soner fiction from haar

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One recent devettipment in Al fiction is the merger of novels written retimly by artial de The first Al generated novel 1 the Road caine at in 2018 hased on data gathered by namically exhand ca on a road trip from New York to New Orleans it was moted by an operimental 2016 sort story co-written by Al and sapanese researchers troulated as The Day a Computer Visite a Novel which nearly won a literary prize. In the same year, Sunspring, an Al-authored screenplay, was placed in the top 10 at a London sci-fi film festival. In the first year of the pandemic, we got Pharmako-Al, a genre-bender philosophical book co-written by an Al and K. Allado-McDowell, founder of Google's Artists and a machine intelligence programme, GPT-3. These experimental works of fiction represent an intriguing new avenue for Al fiction. With machine learning algorithms capable of generating coherent narratives and dialogue, it is possible that we may soon see a flood of novels, stories, and even movies written entirely by Al.

Science fiction (sci-fi) & Al

For generations, sci-fi has foreseen the pervasive influence of Al in our daily life. Its representation in mainstream media has played a pivotal role in shaping public opinions towards this technological advancement Films such as The Terminator and Ex Machina have helped to shape the cultural narrative around Al, with many people viewing intelligent machines as potential threats to human safety and autonomy. At the same time, this type of speculative fiction has also explored the more positive aspects of Al, from the helpful robots of Wall-E to the benevolent supercomputers of 2001: A Space Odyssey. As Al technology continues to evolve, it's likely that all the good, bad, and ugly visions of intelligent machines will continue to be explored in fiction.

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Did you know that most of the products that are part of our lives are inventions that happened by chance?

Behind all of these inventions are incredible stories. Let's take a look at some of these inventions that eventually became an integral part of our lives. Here we trace the story of products from lab to lifestyle!

Plastic

Nothing is as ubiquitous as plastic. In fact, this man-made material has become so ingrained into our lives that we interact with one or the other form of plastic every day. But how did its journey begin? It all started with polyethylene, which is more familiar to us as polythene. It is one of the first plastics that was ever used. It was discovered by chance not once, but twice! The first one was sometime before 1900 when German scientist Hans von Pechmann came across a residue in his test tube. He thought that the waxy resin couldn't have any practical applications and failed to check further. The second time was when scientists Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson came across this by accident in 1933. When experimenting with ethylene, one of the vessels leaked. The presence of oxygen led to it acting as an initiator, leading to the formation of a white, waxy residue. Thus polythene came to be. The company the duo worked with saw the immense potential of the product and patented it. However, it took a few years until they were able to produce it with perfection. The first product they created out of polythene was a cream-colored walking stick. It was later used widely during World War II as an insulating material for radar cables. The low cost and highly versatile nature of the material were tapped into and the innovation turned into something that permeated into every walk of our lives. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Sticky notes

These canary yellow notes have been around for the past several years. They are universal products and indispensable in offices. Available in a multitude of shapes and colours, these notes are used by not just office-goers but students as well. So how did these sticky notes come to be? This office organising tool was discovered by chance. Spencer Silver was a scientist at the company 3M. He researched adhesives in the laboratory. Over the process, he discovered an adhesive that would stick lightly to surfaces but it wouldn't bond tightly. Silver was trying to develop new adhesives that were stronger and tougher. But this new adhesive was anything but strong or tough. What Silver had discovered was microspheres that would retain their stickiness but had the characteristic of removability. Meanwhile, there was another scientist going through a dilemma. During his practice at the church choir, Art Fry, another 3M scientist, would use little bits of paper to mark the music notes because they would always fall out of the hymn book. He was in search of a bookmark that would stay but not damage the pages. And once he attended the seminar on Silver's microspheres, he had his "Aha" moment. The two scientists partnered and began developing a product. The new adhesive notes proved to be helpful in communication and they could see its immense potential. The notes were supplied to the staff at the company and were later launched to the masses. Thus was born the sticky notes. With it, the duo had forever changed the way people communicate!

Corn flakes

What's for breakfast? Is it corn flakes? It is quite likely that you would have had cornflakes at some point in your life. The Kellogs corn flakes is a known breakfast brand. Did you know that the cereal was developed accidentally? It was in the 1890s that the com flakes were designed. The story starts at the Battle Creek Sanitarium health spa in Battle Creek, Michigan. It was run by brothers John Harvey Kellogg, a doctor, and Will Keith Kellogg who wanted to provide healthy food to the inmates. One night John Kellogg accidentally left a batch of wheat-berry dough midway. This was normally used to produce a type of granola. Rather than throwing it out the next morning, the dough was sent through the rollers. Instead of normal long sheets of dough, they obtained delicate flakes. These were then baked and they discovered a new type of cereal. Will Keith saw the potential of this new cereal and started his own company although John Harvey, who was a proponent of biologic" living, was not interested in making it a business. The Kellogg Company started producing corn flakes for the wider public. It was the start of a whole new cereal breakfast industry.

Lab-grown meat

What's on your plate? Soon it can be lab-grown meat! The farmed meat is getting replaced by meat from the laboratory as meat products are grown from animal cells for human consumption. Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared lab-grown meat for human consumption as safe. Here, instead of meat reared from livestock, meat is grown in a sterile environment in a laboratory. The living cells from chicken are first taken and then grown in a laboratory. Thus the required meat product is created. Cultivated meat is dubbed green meat as it does not lead to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. The absence of the use of antibiotics in animals and a humane way of growing meat are some of the pros of lab-grown meat over traditional livestock production. Seen here is a cooked piece of cultivated chicken breast.

Battery

It powers almost everything. But do you know how it all began? The story behind creating the leakproof battery is quite an interesting one. Back in the day, the battery that was popular was the zinc-carbon battery. But they came with a problem. The zinc would swell and burst. It would cause leakage and short circuits and render the device inoperable. The problem was solved by Herman Anthony, an engineer with the company Ray-O-Vac, which was in the battery business. He used a better grade of manganese in the battery. This reduced the swelling. He then used steel to encase the battery. The battery was the first to solve the problem of leakage. In 1939, it was showcased to the public but the patent was received only in 1940. When World War II happened, batteries were rationed out to civilians. Like most companies at the time, Ray-O-Vac started supplying batteries to the military. The battery sealed in steel was widely used in flashlights, radios, walkie-talkies, mine detectors, and so on. After the war, it was used by the masses to power a plethora of devices.

Strikeable matches

Fire has been humankind's greatest discovery. And so have been the discovery of strikeable matches that we use now. It gave us the ability to light fires quickly and made life easier. But did you know that the strikeable match was invented by chance? The story takes us back to 1826. It was an English chemist John Walker who invented it. He was working on an experimental paste that can be used in guns. He noticed that the stick he was using burst into flames when he scraped it. He observed that it was the coating of chemicals on the stick that led to the wooden stick catching fire. That was how the first friction match was invented. He started selling his "friction lights", which became a huge success. While the first friction matches were made of cardboard, he soon started replacing it with wooden splints. However, he never patented his work and Londoner Samuel Jones copied the idea and launched his own matches as "Lucifers" in 1829.

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What does an extraterrestrial whirlwind sound like?

When the Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars in February 2021, it marked the beginning of its tasks, which included looking for signs of past Martian microbial life, cache rock, and soil samples for future return to Earth. While the rover is still at it, it has provided for another first already. Based on data provided by Perseverance, scientists have made the first-ever audio recording of an extraterrestrial whirlwind.

Not always on

The Perseverance rover is equipped with what is the first working microphone on the Martian surface. This microphone, however, is not on continuously. Far from it, in reality. This microphone records for about three minutes every couple of days.

This is partly the reason why it has taken this long to get the whirlwind recording, despite the fact that the rover landed in the Jezero where there's been evidence of nearly 100 dust devils, or tiny tornadoes of dust and grit, since Perseverance landed.

This was the first time that the rover’s microphone was on when one of these dust devils passed over the rovers. While there is definitely an element of luck, it wasn't entirely unexpected as it was only a matter of time before the microphone was on at the right time.

"The Martian” might not happen

Taken along with air pressure readings and time-lapse photography, the sound recording of the dust devil will help scientists understand Mars atmosphere and weather conditions better. The information gathered has already suggested that future astronauts on the Martian surface would not have to worry about gale-force winds blowing down antennas or habitats, as popularised by The Martian, the book and the movie of the same name.

In fact, there is reason to believe that the winds might have certain benefits. Scientists believe that the winds blowing grit off the solar panels of other rovers like Opportunity and Spirit might well be the reason why they lasted so much longer. Similarly, the lack of such winds and dust devils in the Elysium Planitia where the Insight mission landed could be a factor as to why that mission's operational period was planned to end in December 2022.

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What do we know about Dr. Sachchida Nand Tripathi?

You might have read in the papers some time back that the Taj Mahal was losing its white marble sheen and turning yellowish due to pollution. Dr. Sachchida Nand Tripathi, who holds the Arjun Dev Joneja Faculty Chair of Civil Engineering at IIT-Kanpur, was in the news for this study. His study helped bring about policy changes in Agra city.

This study specified that black carbon and brown carbon from the burning of trash and fuels was the main cause for discolouration. Using a novel method, the team discovered how the specks of dust on the surface reflect light and affect the colour. This study is crucial to develop strategies that address yellowing of the Taj Mahal and improves air quality.

His work in the field of Atmospheric Sciences has addressed the issues of air pollution and climate change. He has also novel approaches for low-cost sensor-based network technology which can monitor air quality in cities and Real Time Source Apportionment (RTSA). RTSA involves finding out the sources of pollution and how much they affect the environment.

Dr. Tripathi is the Coordinator of the National Knowledge Network devised under the National Clean Air Program, and is a member of its Steering Committee and Monitoring Committee. Further, he is a member of the Executive Council, Climate Change Program, Department of Science and Technology.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award and the J C Bose National Fellowship are both feathers in his cap. He is an elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) and National Academy of Sciences of India (NASI). He also worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre as a senior fellow.

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Who is Prof. Shiraz Naval Minwalla?

Meet the $100,000 prize winner of the New Horizon Prize in Physics, Prof. Shiraz Naval Minwalla. He is a theoretical physicist who works with string theory and quantum field theory. He is noted for connecting the equations of fluid dynamics and Einstein's equations of relativity.

He hails from Mumbai. After completing his Masters in Physics from IIT-Kanpur, he went to Princeton University, U.S.A. for his PhD. He was a junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and then served as assistant professor for five years. After that he joined the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.

He won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2011 and Infosys Prize in Physical sciences in 2013. He also got the TWAS prize in 2016.

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What are the achievements of T Govindaraju?

T Govindaraju has made significant contributions in the medical field. He is a professor in the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCAR), Bengaluru. Bioorganic Chemistry uses chemical methods in the study of biological processes.

Prof. Govindaraju is from a remote village in Karnataka. As a school boy, he saw that mentally ill patients were treated cruelly. This image guided him to choose his area of research. He completed his PhD from CSIR-NCL. He then did post-doctoral research in the U.S and Germany. His research was on neuro degenerative diseases and cancer. Neuro degenerative diseases occur when cells in the central nervous system stop working.

You must have also heard about Alzheimer's disease. This occurs when the brain becomes small and the brain cells die. Prof. Govindaraju and his team discovered a new molecule -TGR63 which could be the future drug to treat Alzheimer's. A Delhi based pharma company has obtained the rights to do its trial runs.

Prof. Govindaraju found the similarities between Alzheimer's disease and cancer and this led to the discovery of TGP 18, another molecule-based drug. This could be used to treat lung cancer.

He was a Humboldt research fellow in Germany and a visiting faculty at the University of Paris, France. He is also keen on raising the standards of rural schools and has been a part of outreach initiatives. He is also into bringing awareness about mental illness among school children in Karnataka and other states.

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Why is Dr. Jagadish Shukla famous?

Dr. Jagadish Shukla was born in a small village, Mirdha, in Uttar Pradesh. The village had no electricity, not even proper roads. The primary school did not have a building, and Jagadish Shukla had his early classes under a large banyan tree! He could not study science in high school because the schools did not include it.

He went to Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and graduated in Physics, Mathematics and Geology. He did MS in Geophysics and then finished his PhD too. Later he got a ScD (Doctor of Science) in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He chose a career in the atmospheric sciences and became a professor at George Mason University in the U.S.

Dr. Shukla’s study areas include the Asian monsoon dynamics, deforestation and desertification. Do you know what is desertification? It is when the soil loses its quality due to weather or human activity.

Dr. Shukla helped establish weather and climate research centres in India. He also established research institutions in Brazil and the U.S. He has been with the World Climate Research Programme since its start and founded the Centre for Ocean- Land-Atmosphere Studies, Virginia, U.S.

He has also established the Gandhi College in his village for educating rural students, especially women, and was awarded Padma Shri in 2012.

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What made Atish Dabholkar a famous theoretical physicist?

Atish Dabholkar is a theoretical physicist who researches on string theory and quantum black holes.

String theory says that reality is made up of vibrating strings that are smaller than atoms and electrons, whereas, black holes are regions in space with very heavy mass. One can say they eat up everything that enter it. Due to their high gravitational pull even light cannot escape from them. Now, quantum black holes are hypothetical tiny black holes, a concept that was introduced by Stephen Hawking.

Atish Dhabolkar is presently the Director of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy. He is a graduate of IIT-Kanpur. He did PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University, U.S. Then he did postdoctoral studies and further research at Rutgers University, Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology.

He worked as a professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. He also served as a visiting professor at Stanford University, US, and was a visiting scientist at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. He joined ICTP in 2014.

He has received many honours, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (2006). He was awarded the Chaire d'Excellence of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche in France the next year. He is also a recipient of the National Leadership award from the President of India in 2008. The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Italy, elected him as a Fellow last year.

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What moons did Galileo discover in 1610?

Many years ago, in 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered the first moons beyond Earth. Those were the moons of the planet Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.

Planet Jupiter has 80 moons. There are many interesting moons orbiting the planet, but the ones of great interest to us on a scientific level are the first four moons discovered called the Galilean satellites. They are lo, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Here we look at the four largest moons of Jupiter.

What is a Moon?

Moons are those celestial bodies that orbit planets and asteroids in the solar system. They are also called natural satellites. The Earth has one moon, whilst the solar system has more than 200 moons. Most of the major planets except Mercury and Venus have moons.

Jupiter and Saturn have the most moons. Four of Jupiter's moons are named after Galileo Galilei who first discovered them.

And how were the Galilean moons formed? According to scientists, the moons were formed out of the dusty disc left after Jupiter was formed.

lo

The most volcanically active body in the solar system, lo has its surface enveloped by sulfur. Jupiter's gravity causes "tides" that rise some 100 metres high on lo and lead to the generation of heat for volcanic activity.

Europa

Europa's surface is covered mostly by water ice. This moon is considered to have twice as much water as Earth.

Ganymede

The largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede is the only moon that has its own internally generated magnetic field. Did you know that this moon is even larger than the planet Mercury?

Callisto

The second largest moon of Jupiter, Callisto's surface is highly cratered and ancient. This moon is about half rock and half ice.

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What was invented in 1888 by George Eastman?

On September 4, 1888, American inventor George Eastman received a patent for "new and useful improvements" in cameras. On that same day, Eastman also registered the trademark for the name Kodak, a word now synonymous with photography.

What do you, or anyone for that matter, do when you need to capture a moment? You pick up a smartphone, open the camera app, try to best fit the moment you are capturing inside the frame, and tap on the button on the screen to click a photograph. It is as simple as that. With more and more people carrying smartphones these days and with even the basic models boasting a decent camera, amateur photography has been revolutionised like never before.

The first such massive change that promoted amateur photography on a large scale came about in 1888 with the advent of the first Kodak camera. A simple box camera pre-loaded with a 100-exposure roll of film, it made photography less cumbersome than ever before. The man who made it possible was American inventor George Eastman.

Born in 1854 in upstate New York, Eastman had humble beginnings. His father's death meant that he had to drop out of high school while still a teenager in order to support his family. Starting out as a messenger boy earning $3 a week, he went on to be hired as a junior clerk earning $15 a week at the Rochester Savings Bank in 1874.

The trip that didn't happen

It was in that same year that he was drawn towards photography. When he made travel plans, a colleague suggested that Eastman record his trip using a "photographic  outfit”. Even though he eventually didn't make the trip, Eastman had purchased the "outfit and described it as "a pack-horse load”.

Apart from the fact that the camera was heavy and needed a tripod, Eastman would have also had to carry a tent and loads of equipment to develop the photographs if he had gone on the trip. Soon, Eastman was obsessed with the idea of making photography easier.

A company is born

Still holding on to his job at the bank, Eastman spent countless evenings and nights toiling away towards a solution. Realising that wet plates definitely weren't the way forward, Eastman invented and patented a dry plate formula. He went into the photographic business on a full-time basis, and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company was born.

More innovations followed as he began to look for new exposure methods. In order to replace the glass plates, he first came up with a light-sensitive, gelatin-coated paper that could be rolled onto a holder.

In 1888, Eastman introduced the first Kodak camera, which proved to be the first successful roll-film hand camera that came in a compact box with 100 exposures' worth of film. As the paper proved problematic, Eastman, along with young research chemist Henry  Reichenbach, experimented further until they hit upon the possibility of flexible rolls of sensitised celluloid. At around the same time, another American Hannibal Goodwin independently arrived at celluloid-based camera films, resulting in lengthy patent wars between the parties that was belatedly settled in Goodwin's favour.

On September 4, 1888, just months after the public release of the camera, Eastman received a patent for "new and useful improvements" in cameras. That very day. Eastman also registered the trademark for the Kodak name.

"We do the rest"

Bolstered by the introduction of the film rolls, the Kodak cameras became a runaway success. An advertising campaign was introduced with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest." This was exactly how things panned out as users sent the entire camera back to the manufacturer for developing, printing, and reloading once the film was entirely used up.

Quick to spot an opportunity, Eastman changed the name of his company from Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company to Eastman Kodak Company in 1892. By the time he died aged Eastman Kodak dominated the industry in the U.S. and across the world. It still remains one of the best recognised names in the field, with the word Kodak becoming synonymous to photography.

Apart from being an inventor and innovator, Eastman was also far ahead of his time in various other ways. As a philanthropist, Eastman gave away much of the fortune that he created while still alive to many beneficiaries, including universities. As a businessman, he was among the first to introduce profit sharing as an incentive to employees. But then, he will forever be remembered as the one who placed the power of photography within the grasp of anyone who could just press a button. That button is now more accessible than ever before.

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What did Wilhelm Roentgen discover that helped with surgery?

Discovered in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen, X-ray revolutionised the fields of physics and medicine.

An X-ray is a kind of electromagnetic radiation that can travel at the speed of light (299.792 km per second) and pass through most substances including wood, tin foil, books and even concrete blocks that ordinary light cannot penetrate. It was discovered in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen.

Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays, when he noticed that the fluorescent screen had begun to glow although no light was falling on it. He realised that it was due to an invisible ray. He called it X-ray because he did not really know what it was. Later, his colleague named it Roentgen ray.

The discovery of X-rays revolutionised the fields of physics and medicine.

As it can make internal structures of the body visible, X-rays are used to detect bone fractures, dental cavities, tumours, etc.

The flip side of the X-ray is that it can cause biological, chemical and physical changes in substances. It can damage the living tissues of plants and animals if it is absorbed by them. In human beings, an X-ray overdose may produce cancer, skin burns, a reduction of blood supply and other serious conditions.

Today we have a wide range of medical imaging techniques to create visual representations of the internal body. These include CT (computed tomography) scans, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and ultrasound.

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How did Wilson Greatbatch invented the pacemaker?

Quite by accident, American engineer Wilson Greatbatch invented the implantable cardiac pacemaker in the year 1958. Read on to know how....

An artificial pacemaker is a small battery-operated electronic device that’s placed under the skin in the chest to help control the heartbeat. The first successful implantable pacemaker was invented in 1958 by an American electrical engineer, Wilson Greatbatch. He was making a heart rhythm recorder when, by mistake, he added a wrong electronic component. He was shocked when the device, instead of simply recording the sound of the heartbeat, produced electronic pulses quite similar to the sounds made by a healthy heart.

It struck him then that the device could make an unhealthy heart beat in rhythm by delivering electrical pulses to make the heart muscles contract and pump blood. For two years he worked on modifying the device. He miniaturised it, coated it with a kind of resin to prevent it from getting damaged by body fluids, and powered it with a mercury-zinc battery.

Greatbatch discussed his invention with surgeon William Chardack, whom he met in a chance encounter. In 1960, the Chardack-Greatbatch pacemaker was implanted in an elderly man with an irregular heartbeat. The patient's life was extended by 18 months.

Pacemakers today are about the size of a bullet. They are encased in titanium and keep the heart ticking with regular beats through computer-guided electrical pulses. They are inserted through the leg up into the right ventricle. Their batteries can last from 5 to 15 years.

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How Charles Goodyear’s discovery of the vulcanisation of rubber revolutionised the rubber industry?

In the early 1800s, American businessmen caught the 'rubber fever. They imported tonnes of rubber from Brazil, hoping to reap riches by turning it into baggage and life preservers. What they didn't realise was that rubber turned into a sticky mess in summer and became hard and brittle in winter.

Charles Goodyear, whose hardware store went bankrupt in 1830, became interested in turning rubber into a usable material. He experimented by mixing it with various chemicals like nitric acid and sulphur, but with limited success. Once while trying to sell his sulphur-improved rubber at a hardware store, Goodyear became agitated when the owner mocked his product. He gesticulated wildly and the piece of rubber flew from his hand onto a hot, open stove top. While scraping it off, he found that it had become hard yet flexible!

After more experiments, Goodyear finally perfected the process. Called 'vulcanised' rubber (from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan), it created untold wealth for the many entrepreneurs who used Goodyear's idea without his consent, even though he had a patent. Goodyear himself died in 1860 heavily in debt because of fighting and losing many court battles. Much later, his family benefited from the royalties earned from his patent.

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When was the Aqua-Lung invented?

The aqualung invented in 1943 is the best and safest of all diving devices. Read on to know about the people behind the invention

About 200 years ago, divers used a device called a diving bell, which was lowered from a ship into the water. It was open at the bottom and received air from the surface through a hose. The air pressure kept the water out of the device. The diving bell gave way to the snorkel and diving suit.

However, the best and safest of all diving devices is the aqualung invented in 1943 by a French naval officer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and an engineer named Emile Gagnan. The aqualung is a portable diving apparatus, which consists of cylinders (tanks) of compressed air with a valve and mouthpiece. The valve adjusts air pressure automatically and supplies air as a diver needs it, so that air pressure inside the divers lungs matches the pressure of the water. Unlike previous devices, the aqualung was light and convenient and Lalung now part SCUBA millions Id every allowed the diver to move about freely.

The first aqualung was sold in 1946. The system is now part of modern SCUBA gear, with millions of units sold every year. Recreational scuba diving has become an international phenomenon.

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Who is the founder of Bose sound system?

Amar G. Bose, founder of the Bose Corporation. Founder Amar Bose didn't set out to sell speaker systems and headphones. He began his career as an academic engineer at MIT in the late 1950s, licensing power conversion and amplification technology to the U.S. military and government agencies such as NASA

His company's products can be found in Olympic stadiums, Broadway theatres, the Sistine Chapel and in the space shuttle where they protect astronauts hearing. Amar Bose, the founder of Bose Corporation, was renowned for his invention of high-end stereo speakers.

Bose was brought up in Philadelphia, USA, the son of an immigrant from Kolkata. He became interested in technology when he began repairing model trains and transistors to supplement his family's income at the age of 13. Bose joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering in the early 1950s. His interest in acoustics was sparked off when some expensive speakers he bought failed to deliver its advertised sound quality.

Bose's idea was to utilize the space around the loudspeakers to directly reflect the sound to the listeners' ears rather than letting it bounce indiscriminately off the walls and ceiling. His Direct/Reflecting speaker system patented in 1968 remained the industry standard for 25 years. Bose speakers proved that rich sound need not come from bulky speakers- elegance and simplicity in design could do the job just as well.

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