Shalem Pravas

Life has existed for millions of years before electricity was ever developed. All thanks to the giant Nuclear Fusion reactor at the center of our solar system, ‘The Sun’. The Sun generates energy from its core where Hydrogen atoms fuse to create a Helium atom producing tremendous amounts of energy in the process. This energy is essential to life on earth. The sunlight is used by plants to produce food which is directly or indirectly the food source to all living things; it is responsible for seasons; its heat maintains water in its liquid form which is primary for life to exist; sunlight is an essential source of vitamin D to the human body and many more life supporting processes which are either directly or indirectly choreographed by the sun.

With airplanes, we could traverse long distances quickly but not taking us exactly where we want to go but to the nearest airport mostly while sharing the ride with other passengers. Cars will take us to a more precise location as long as it is connected by a road, but at a much slower pace. The fusion of these two technologies will get usa hybrid which retains a portionof the positives from both sides, leading to the birth of the “Flying Car”.

We know them as the most popular search engine in the World Wide Web. They are much more than that. They pioneer in inspiring innovation in the field of technology which is beyond their time. The google driverless car is a project by google which involves the development of technology to make a car self-dependent. The software that google use to automate cars is known as the “Google Chauffeur”. They do not produce a separate car but install the required equipment onto a regular car. The project is currently being led by google engineer Sebastian Thurin under the aegis of Google X. 

The first law of thermodynamics states, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be converted from one form to another”. The first part of this law tells us that there is a fixed amount of energy in the universe whereas, the second part gives a sneak peak into how we can utilize the available energy to alter it into a form which is useful to us. The ideal case would be that the entire portion of the source energy be converted to the form of our choice.

Our theoretical description of space is the entire observable universe which extends to 13.8 Billion Lightyears (because the universe is 13.8 Billion Years old) through whichever direction we look at it (and is the same from any point of observation in the universe, since the universe is infinite). But, how much have we explored? The furthest distance reached by a machine, the voyager I, is the outskirts of our solar which is a few light hours from earth which it took 35 years to sail in empty space going at an astonishing speed of 1100 Km/sec. Humans, on the other hand have not gone further than the moon (360,000 km away from earth) and are soon planning a trip to mars.

The electromagnetic radio spectrum is a natural resource which is licensed and allocated by the government for the use of transmitters and receivers. A spectrum is a collection of wavelengths of radio frequency waves which are available for wireless communication services. These wavelengths are broken down and brackets of these (called ‘Bands’) are allocated for various purposes such as GSM/HSPA, 3G, 4G, TV, Wi-Fi, defense communication, radio broadcasting, mobile satellites, aeronautical satellites, etc. The electromagnetic spectrum is a resource which cannot be depleted but can be over crowded in some bands more than the others due to this static allocation.  

A machine consists of many sub systems working together to perform a certain task. The information from the electronic devices are retrieved from the machine sub systems as binary code. All this information is presented in a user readable formatthrough a display device. The display technology has seen a rapid growth in the past few decades from the old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) displays to the presently in demand LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays. The LCDs and LEDs consists of two dimensional arrays of individual display units (pixels) whose number to size of display determines the clarity of the display (resolution).

The economic success of a nation depends prominently on its evolution in communication and transportation. Communication is steadily growing its speed, while the same cannot be matched by transportation. There are currently 5 modes of transportation; road, rail, air and sea. Out of these road and sea are quite slow, air is fast but expensive and rail is not as fast as it needs to be. Therefore there is a need to bridge the technological as well as an economical gap between a cheap mode of transportation (say, land) and a fast mode of transportation (like air). 

Humans can walk on land in the absence of automobiles, they can swim in the water without boats, but without planes and rockets, we cannot fly. Leaving the ground is in defiance with the gravitational pull of the earth and therefore requires a certain work needs to be done by a body to propel it. This propulsive force is known as ‘thrust’. If we consider a rocket for example, when it lifts off, chemical reactions take place in its combustion chamber producing large amounts of trapped energy which explodes out at high speeds through a nozzle and exerts force on the atmosphere. The atmosphere reacts in accordance with newton’s third law to push the rocket upwards.

Whenever we hear the word “Tornado” we think of destruction and catastrophe. But, to one man it meant, “How can I generate power with that?” It makes sense. Most large scale power generation methods, directly or indirectly involve rotating parts and tornadoes possess a huge amount of rotational kinetic energy. So if we could create a tornado and harness its kinetic energy, it would effectively provide us with a clean source of energy (provided that it is controlled). Generally tornadoes are caused by the presence of a large temperature gradient present in the atmosphere.

There are many projects which involve revolutionizing the public transport sector in the world like the Hyperlooop, driverless automobiles, passenger carrying drones, etc. Among all the methods of transport that the future holds, the one which is right around the corner to be implemented is the skyTran researched and developed by NASA and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). It is as costly as taking a bus ticket, is extremely fast, energy efficient, elevated and the most important, eco-friendly.TheskyTran consists of automated capsules which are magnetically levitated on elevated rails, accelerated through electric and magnetic fields.

The non-renewable energy sector in today’s economy depends heavily on Solar Energy which converts energy from the sun into electricity. The main point about solar energy is that, the energy is absorbed from the rays of sunlight and therefore making it necessary for a solar cell to be opaque so that it absorbs the energy from the light and for this reason it cannot be transparent and let the sunlight just pass through it. So a solar panel, apart from being a solar panel, cannot multitask as anything else. It just adds an extra layer on a base layer. Coming to making the solar panel transparent, it is scientifically quite impossible, but can be bypassed by manipulating the absorption of a particular segment of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The development of an existing technology is measured is terms of increase in efficiency, self-sustainability and/or portability. Since the invention of the light bulb, we have always strived to find a better way to power it. First there was direct current, then alternating current; then the more portable sources like batteries, rechargeable batteries, fuel cells and technologies involving the use of alternative resources of energy (wind, solar, hydroelectric, etc.) to power electrical and electronic devices. But in the field of electronics, size is an important parameter as devices grow smaller and smaller every day whilst providing a greater amount of power and using lower input energy.

“The goal is to improve the quality of life for somebody who has had a severe memory deficit. If I can give them the ability to form new long term memories for half the conditions that most people live in, I’ll be happy as hell, and so will be most patients.” – Theodore Berger (Inventor of the Memory Implants)The field of biomedical engineering has risen to a new level in the past few decades. It combines various fields of engineering to ultimately design and develop artificial body parts which can duplicate its biological counterpart. It absorbs principles from different disciplines including biotechnology, medicine, mechanical engineering, electronics, computer science, etc. and applies it on the biological machine that is our body.  

A machine consists of many sub systems working together to perform a certain task. The information from the electronic devices are retrieved from the machine sub systems as binary code. All this information is presented in a user readable formatthrough a display device. The display technology has seen a rapid growth in the past few decades from the old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) displays to the presently in demand LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays. The LCDs and LEDs consists of two dimensional arrays of individual display units (pixels) whose number to size of display determines the clarity of the display (resolution).

The non-renewable energy sector in today’s economy depends heavily on Solar Energy which converts energy from the sun into electricity. The main point about solar energy is that, the energy is absorbed from the rays of sunlight and therefore making it necessary for a solar cell to be opaque so that it absorbs the energy from the light and for this reason it cannot be transparent and let the sunlight just pass through it. So a solar panel, apart from being a solar panel, cannot multitask as anything else. It just adds an extra layer on a base layer. Coming to making the solar panel transparent, it is scientifically quite impossible, but can be bypassed by manipulating the absorption of a particular segment of the electromagnetic spectrum.

With airplanes, we could traverse long distances quickly but not taking us exactly where we want to go but to the nearest airport mostly while sharing the ride with other passengers. Cars will take us to a more precise location as long as it is connected by a road, but at a much slower pace. The fusion of these two technologies will get usa hybrid which retains a portionof the positives from both sides, leading to the birth of the “Flying Car”. This technology has been promised to us by the early 21st century, since the early 1950s as seen in various articles and sci-fi movies. Although the idea has been around for a long time, it could not be converted into a tangible product since it was more complicated than that which met the eye. 

There are many projects which involve revolutionizing the public transport sector in the world like the Hyperlooop, driverless automobiles, passenger carrying drones, etc. Among all the methods of transport that the future holds, the one which is right around the corner to be implemented is the skyTran researched and developed by NASA and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). It is as costly as taking a bus ticket, is extremely fast, energy efficient, elevated and the most important, eco-friendly.TheskyTran consists of automated capsules which are magnetically levitated on elevated rails, accelerated through electric and magnetic fields.

Whenever we hear the word “Tornado” we think of destruction and catastrophe. But, to one man it meant, “How can I generate power with that?” It makes sense. Most large scale power generation methods, directly or indirectly involve rotating parts and tornadoes possess a huge amount of rotational kinetic energy. So if we could create a tornado and harness its kinetic energy, it would effectively provide us with a clean source of energy (provided that it is controlled). Generally tornadoes are caused by the presence of a large temperature gradient present in the atmosphere.

As computing is getting cheaper and faster, machines are becoming faster and smarter. In the previous century, computers were only affordable by a small fraction of the society like large corporate or educational institutions and could only be operated by experts but, as time progressed so did technology. Today’s computers are as cheap as your average monthly rent and can even be used by a 5 year old. When they are available to such a large portion of the population, more people find better ways to integrate computing with other sectors to establish a more efficient system overall.