My Science School

The Bhopal gas tragedy took place on the night of 3rd December, 1984 and is among the world’s worst industrial disasters. On this fateful night a runaway reaction in a tank containing poisonous methyl isocyanate caused a pressure build up which finally led to a gas leak. The plant was operated by Union Carbide India Limited.

Close to 16,000 people were killed instantly and 6, 00,000 people affected in the city of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. Furthermore, around 20,000 premature deaths were reported in Bhopal in the next two decades.

The effects of this tragedy continue till today and may be seen in succeeding generations. Children of victims are born with severe congenital defects even into the second and third generations.

This year marks 39 years since ‘Bhopal died a million deaths’.

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Christiaan Barnard, a South African cardiac surgeon performed the first human heart transplant on December 3, 1967. He transplanted the heart of 25-year-old accident victim Denise Darvall into a 54-year-old grocer named Louis Washkansky.

The operation took place at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa and was technically a success. Washkansky’s body did not reject the heart and he regained consciousness post-operation. However, the immunosuppressive (anti-rejection) drugs he was forced to take, weakened his immune system and he contracted pneumonia. He passed away 18 days later.

Barnard went on to become an international celebrity as a result of the transplant. The high risk of organ rejection by the recipient prevented other surgeons from trying their hand at this form of surgery. It was only when the drug cyclosporine began to be used (to suppress the immune system from rejecting a transplanted organ) that the risks involved in this sort of surgery reduced.

The Groote Schuur Hospital set up the ‘Heart of Cape Town Museum’ in honour of those involved in the first surgery. This year marks 55 years since this medical leap.

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On November 24, 1859, Charles Darwin’s famous work ‘On the Origin of Species’ was published.

Darwin was an English naturalist born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. In 1831, at the age of 22, Darwin sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on a British royal navy ship called the HMS Beagle, as a naturalist. During his time at sea, he collected samples of plants, animals, and fossils from many regions. The data helped him come to the conclusion that the diversity of life arose by common descent. He wrote ‘The Voyage of the Beagle’ upon his return in 1836.

His second book ‘On the Origin of Species’ was published in November, 1859 and proposed the theory that species evolve over the course of time through a process of natural selection. Darwin contends that all species descend from common ancestors and that the preservation of species takes place by means of natural selection in the struggle for life.

Even today the schools of creationism and evolution are locked in an ongoing debate over which theory is more accurate.

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The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan is a space probe which was launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on November 5, 2013. It was India’s first interplanetary mission and made India the fourth space agency in the world to send a probe into Martian orbit after Roscosmos, NASA and the European Space Agency. The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the project on August 3, 2012.

Mangalyaan was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh with the help of a PSLV rocket. A network of ground stations continuously tracked the launch vehicle till the probe was separated from it. The Spacecraft Control Centre in Bangalore controlled its operations post separation. Two ships equipped with Ship Borne Terminals (SBT) were also deployed in the South Pacific Ocean to track the mission.

After a 298-day transit period, it was put into Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, making India the first Asian country and the first country ever to succeed on its maiden attempt. Mangalyaan is also remarkable for being the cheapest mission to Mars till date. The success of Mangalyaan firmly placed India in an elite global space club.  Interestingly China refers to Mangalyaan as the ‘Pride of Asia’!

The scheduled span of the mission was 6 months but the orbiter is still orbiting Mars. This year marks 9 years since Mangalyaan was put into Martian orbit.

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October 2, 2022 marks the 154th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. One of India’s three national holidays, it celebrates the life of this greatest of all Indians, who employed non-violent resistance to lead India to freedom from British rule.

Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat. He studied law for three years in London, after which he spent his early years as an advocate in South Africa. During this time he became aware of the stark inequalities prevalent in South African society, prompting him to protest against the government’s treatment of natives and Indians. He did this by organizing nonviolent resistance.

When he returned to British-controlled India in January 1915, Gandhiji had acquired the skills both of an accomplished lawyer and a community organizer dedicated to peaceful protest. Between March 12 and April 6, 1930 he led the Dandi March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, as a nonviolent protest against the British salt tax in India.

On August 9, 1942 Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, which demanded the end of British rule in India. This movement played a crucial role in uniting India against the British. Gandhiji was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on 30 January 1948.

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Google is the most visited website on the Internet – so much so that the phrase ‘to google’ has evolved into an intransitive verb! Every day billions of users rely upon Google for information and advice. Google is so popular that it processes 3.5 billion searches every day! In the present day, it is difficult to imagine life without it.

So how did this mega-search monster materialize? The story of Goggle began in 1998 when two graduate students at Stanford University in California - Larry Page and Sergey Brin - created an algorithm to solve a computer task. They found that it ended up searching all the hypertext documents available in cyberspace related to the query. This prompted them to come up with the idea of creating a search tool that would list relevant Web pages by analysing backlinks in a hypertext document. They initially named this tool ‘backrub’ because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.

The search engine soon proved more successful than anything they could have dreamed of, and was renamed ‘Google’. Google launched Google News in 2002, Gmail in 2004, Google Maps in 2005 and Google Chrome in 2008, in addition to many other services and products. In 2015 Google became the main subsidiary of the holding company Alphabet Inc. Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google and Alphabet.

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This year on August 15, we celebrate our platinum Independence Day. The Indian Independence Movement was spearheaded by the Indian National Congress under Mahatma Gandhi.

The Indian Independence Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons on July 4, 1947. India became a free country at midnight on August 15 and India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru gave his famous “Tryst with Destiny” speech. Independence Day is significant as it stands as a reminder of the sacrifices that innumerable freedom fighters made, so that future generations could live free from British oppression.

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In May 1945, Germany had surrendered and World War II was nearing its end. However, the remaining Axis power, Japan, continued a bloody fight against America. Despite a warning from the U.S, Japan showed no signs of surrender and was prepared to inflict as much damage as possible on U.S. troops.

As a result of this, U.S. President Harry Truman sanctioned the use of atomic bombs on two strategic cities in Japan to hasten an end to the war. The first bomb, nicknamed ‘Small Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and killed nearly 80,000 people instantly. The second bomb, nicknamed ‘Fat Boy’ was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. It killed 40,000 people instantly.

The bombings brought World War II to a close with Japan surrendering to the Allies on August 15, 1945.

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July 20, 1969, is forever etched in history as the day man landed on the Moon. NASA’s Apollo 11 was part of 6 manned moon landings to date. The objective of these landings was to gather as much data as possible from close orbits and manned landings but the real agenda at this time for the Americans, was to get to the Moon before the Soviets.

Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin Aldrin formed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module named ‘Eagle’ on July 20, 1969 at 20:17 UTC (coordinated universal time). Six hours later Armstrong became the first person to step on the Moon at 02:56 UTC. He climbed down the ladder and uttered the famous words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later. They spent around 2 hours outside collecting 21.5 kg of lunar material to bring back to Earth. In all, Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the Moon exploring the surface, collecting samples and taking photographs. They performed all these unbelievable feats at a site they named Tranquility Base. They left behind an America flag, and a patch honouring the fallen Apollo 1 crew, who were killed in a tragic fire in 1967.

Apollo 11 decisively put the U.S. in the top slot in the space race, ahead of the Soviets in terms of spacecraft superiority. It also fulfilled a national goal put forth by President John F Kennedy, in which he stated that the U.S. would put a man on the moon within a decade’s time. This year we celebrate 53 years of this achievement.

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A hovercraft is a vehicle that travels over land or water on a cushion of air provided by a downward blast. An ‘air cushion’ vehicle was first visualised by British engineer Sir John Thornycroft in the 1870s. However, it took nearly 100 years for an actual hovercraft to materialise.

In the mid 1950s an English engineer named Christopher Cockerell improved on Thornycroft’s theory. He first tested his theories using a cat food tin inside a coffee tin, an industrial air blower and pair of kitchen scales!

It took several years for his design to be accepted and built, but the hovercraft was finally launched in the So-lent Strait on 11 June 1959. Its first crossing of the English Channel took place on 25 July 1959 and took 2 hours 3 minutes. The first voyage of the hovercraft was captained by Peter Lamb. Since that first voyage, more than 80 million people and 12 million cars have crossed the Channel by Hovercraft.

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America’s first space station was named Skylab. It was launched on May 14, 1973 by NASA and was occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. Three separate astronaut crews operated in Skylab conducting hundreds of experiments including an orbital workshop, a solar observatory and Earth observation.

The first crew landed on Skylab on May 25, 11 days after Skylab was launched. The three astronauts Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin stayed aloft for 28 days, setting a record for the longest continuous in space stint. They spent a lot of time on repairs as Skylab had incurred serious damage during its launch, losing both its sunshade-micrometeoroid shield and one of its solar panels. The astronauts installed a parasol-like sun shade through the station’s scientific airlock to keep it from overheating.

The second crewed mission was launched in July 1973 and lasted 59 days. The third and last crew lifted off that November and touched down in February 1974, notching 84 days in orbit.

After this, the space station’s orbit steadily decayed, bringing it closer and closer to the Earth’s atmosphere where it was expected to burn up. NASA managed to re-establish contact with the computers aboard Skylab in 1978 and sent a series of commands to the abandoned station so that the station would change its path once it hit the atmosphere and fall where its debris would do the least damage. However, things did not go according to plan and Skylab broke up slower than NASA had predicted.

Skylab burst apart over the Indian Ocean on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across Western Australia. The fall marked the official end for America’s first crewed orbital outpost and prompted the Australian township of Esperance to charge NASA $400 for littering debris across their town!

Fortunately no one was hurt during the impact and NASA never did pay the amount!

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Long before the iPod regaled music fans, the Sony Walkman pioneered the concept of music on the go. Prior to this there was no concept of privacy while listening to music. In many households, the entire family huddled together to listen to the radio or the gramophone which blared out songs and news to the entire neighbourhood!

But on July 1, 1979, Sony offered a new way to listen to music. When it introduced the Walkman, Sony revolutionized the way people engaged with the outside world.

In 1978, Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka requested that a simple, playback-only stereo version be developed of the bulky TC-D5 stereo cassette recorder, so that he could listen to music on the go. Sony engineers got to work creating a prototype by replacing the Sony Pressman tape recorders recording circuit and speaker with a stereo amplifier. Ibuka was pleased with the prototype and pursued it as a new product.

The Walkman would be paired with Sony’s new H-AIR MDR-3 headphones, which were much lighter than conventional headphones used at that time. Because the device was much smaller, it was less expensive than the TC-D5 and could be marketed to young people.

Although the Walkman debuted to relatively dull sales during the first month, it went on to become one of Sony’s most successful brands of all time.

Sony went on to sell nearly 400 million Walkmans in the following years with this little cassette player forever changing how we imagined sound.

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The British were buying porcelain, silk and tea from China since the 18th century. They were required to pay for these items in silver. However after some time, there was no more silver left in British coffers for them to trade with. The British then resorted to smuggling opium illegally into China in exchange for Chinese silver. They then used this same silver to pay for the tea and silk that they needed!  

When the Chinese emperor came to know of the opium trading, he clamped down on the British. This led to two opium wars between China and Britain in 1839 and 1856. Since China did not have the necessary military and naval capabilities to engage with the British, they lost both the wars. As a result of this, they had to surrender some territories to the British. One of these territories was a rocky island off the East coast of mainland China called Hong Kong which China ceded to the British in 1842.

Hong Kong’s territory was expanded on two occasions - in 1860 with the addition of Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island and again in 1898 when Britain obtained a 99-year lease for the New Territories. This lease period ended in 1997 and Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese in a special handover ceremony conducted on July 1, 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was one of the U.K’s last significant colonial territories and its handover marked the end of the British Empire, which never recovered from its losses incurred during the Second World War.

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World War originated in Europe and lasted from 1914 to 1918. It was the first war to take place on a global scale and involved more than 70 million troops around the world. Although several events were already in place for a global confrontation, one particular incident sparked the conflict.

On June 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist named Gavrilo Princip. Princip belonged to a Serbian secret society called the ‘Black Hand’ which aimed to free Bosnia from Austrian rule.

In response to the assassination, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia’s response failed to appease the Austrians and on July 28, 1914 Austria-Hungary issued a declaration of war against Serbia.

During this time tensions had been mounting in Europe due to various alliances. Europe was divided into two coalitions called the ‘Triple Entente’ which consisted of France, Russia and Britain and the ‘Triple Alliance’ made up of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy.

Germany saw an opportunity at this time to dominate Europe by attacking France. As a result of this German troops attempted to cross Belgium to attack the French army. Belgium was a neutral nation and refused entry to the Germans. The Germans decided to enter by force. British fears of German domination in Europe brought Britain and its empire into the war in August. The entry of Britain and its empire made it a truly global war.

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When one hears of nuclear power, one immediately thinks of nuclear weapons and mass destruction, but nuclear power has a positive side as well.

Following the Second World War, nuclear power developed alongside nuclear weaponry. Nuclear power generation is the use of nuclear reactions to produce energy. The first nuclear power plant to be set up was the Obninsk nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union on June 27, 1954. It was the first grid-connected nuclear power plant in the world; in other words, the first nuclear reactor that produced electricity industrially. It remained in operation between 1954 and 2002. This year marks 68 years since its installation.

The design for the plant started in 1950 and construction started a year later. The Obninsk reactor used 5 percent enriched uranium. The reactor AM-1 (Atom Mirny which is Russian for ‘peaceful atom’) was built in 9 months. It had a total electrical capacity of 6 MW and the thermal output was 30 MW. The reactor had a prototype design using a graphite moderator and water coolant.

Igor Kurchatov, regarded as the father of the Soviet atomic weapons programme, was one of the leading forces behind the establishment of the plant.

The power plant functioned without significant safety incidents for a period of 48 years! It is a model of stability that many of today’s nuclear plants strive to emulate, especially since presently around 10 per cent of the world’s power requirements are met by nuclear power.