Brainwave #1 by Brainwave Magazine

Vol. 01 | Issue #01 | December 2010 |

Amazing science

TURN INVISIBLE

page 13

super-eyes, death rays, evil aliens, cameras, tigers and tons more!

December 2010

contest

WHAT IS LIGHT? HOW WOULD YOU TURN INVISIBLE? Email your answers to brainwave@

ack-media.com

: rk

u yD ba

s De

The three most creative entries will each win a free subscription to BRAINWAVE!

Confused? GOOD! Vol. 1 | Issue #01 | December 2010

Dear Reader, Things are never what they seem. Pick up any newspaper these days and the headlines all seem to point to certain doom. We’re ever on the verge of war, disaster or epidemic; the environment is dying and it’s always bad weather. How do we keep from constantly panicking? How can we keep our toes dry and our pants warm? The answer is hidden inside an even bigger set of questions: science. “Science!” you may well exclaim. “How’s that going to help us? Science is so dull and boring! Pfeh!” Not! There’s more to science than a bunch of laws and rules and flat definitions. That level stuff is navel fluff! Balloon air! Poke a hole in it with your compass! Science is really about being smart and witty and a little strange. It’s about pattern-hunting, asking the right questions and solving problems cleverly. The best kind of science causes huge change and progress. And that’s exactly the kind of science we like to practise here at Brainwave. In this first issue, we’re going to put all sorts of big freaky questions into your head. You’ll start thinking about how you can disappear, how sunlight can be used as a horrible weapon, how the last tigers can be saved, how cameras are really miniature rooms, about seeing upside down, and a lot more besides. We’re going to drive you mental with doubts and problems and ideas. In time we hope to get better at asking strange questions and talking science — but only with your help, suggestions and contributions. So please write to us. Scientifically,

Editor & Art Director Vinayak Varma Associate Editor Rajita Gadagkar Sub Editor Aparna Kapur Science Editors Dr. Utpal Chattopadhyay Dr. Sukanya Sinha Dr. Shonali Chinniah Dr. Jandeep Banga Umesh Malhotra Curiouscity Science Education

Advisory Board Arvind Gupta Scientist and Educator

Hari Parameswaran Scientist and Educator

Dr. Chandrakant Shukre Director, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bangalore

Maya Menon Director, The Teacher Foundation

Geeta Narayanan Director, Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology and Mallya Aditi International School

Balaji Sampath Vinayak Varma, Editor vinayak.varma@ack-media.com Write to: ‘Brainwave’, c/o Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd., #254, 2nd Floor, 6th Cross, 1st Stage, Indira Nagar, Bangalore - 560038 Email: brainwave@ack-media.com Phone: (080) 40002800 Brainwave is published by Samir Patil for Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd. 14, Marthanda, 84 Dr.Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai - 400018 Printed at: Indigo Press (India) Pvt. Ltd., Plot no. 1, C/716, Opp. Dadoji Konddeo Cross Road, Between Sussex and Retiwala Industrial Estates, Byculla East, Mumbao - 400027.

Aid India Foundation

December 2010

cover story

Plus: Aliens vs. Invisibles & The Art of Hiding in Plain Sight

Four awesome technologies that make you vanish!

HOW TO TURN INVISIBLE

CONTENTS

Vol. 1 | Issue #01 | December 2010

Words tagged with a

are explained in the Glossary at the end of the magazine.

true science er

e on z r

ak ym r o st hi

12 What Now?

a w

The Morph Phone

26 Life Science Eyesight

22 Basics

The Story of Light

creature features ANIMALIA

d 2n

re tu a n

25 Guess What The Mash Monster

other universes es

ti ar m s

34 Comic Databug

things to do ox

y Di

yb to

40 Subscribe Special offers!

24 Crossword Spot Light

The Brainwave Student Advisory Board: Ishan Bhatt, Sanket Marwah, Simran Singh, Rishi Balasaria, Pooja Yadav, Sharang Parekh, Ananya Gouthi, Ninaad Adhvaryu, Rahul Patel and Rahil Koshti December 2010

from The Riverside School, Ahmedabad

warzone

rchimedes is known today chiefly for jumping out of baths and running around in the nude yelling “Eureka!”. People usually forget that he was also one of history’s great mathematical geniuses, who discovered the principle of buoyancy, fluid dynamics and many other big ideas. But poor old Archimedes, his reputation wasn’t so hot back in his lifetime either. Archimedes’s contemporaries thought of him as a master war machine builder rather than as a scientist and thinker. Archimedes first gained this notoreity in 214 B.C.E. when his home, the Sicilian city of Syracuse, was attacked by an armada of Roman ships. The siege was repelled for two whole years with the help of Archimedes’s war machines, until the Romans finally

overpowered them. Historians say that one such Archimidean war machine was a parabolic reflector that had the Roman navy scooting for its life (para-what? go read our explanation below). Parabolic reflectors can collect and project energy. So mirrors placed in a parabolic arc can be used to reflect sunlight onto a really narrow area of focus. It is said that Archimedes used such an array of mirrors as a long distance weapon. With it, he could focus the sun’s rays all the way from the seashore onto the sails of faraway Roman ships. Since sunlight contains heat, the ships would have caught fire within seconds of such an attack!

Archimedes and his big bad

mirror of death story and artwork by Vinayak Varma

Two other legendary weapons to look up: The Archimedes Claw (which was also used during the Syracuse Siege) and Nikola Tesla’s teleforce death ray (which, the story goes, can kill an army from 200 miles away). Many scientists have conducted experiments that have disproved the Archimedes death ray story. What do you think? Can a mirror be used to set ships on fire? Yes? No? Write to brainwave@ack-media.com and tell us why!

what is a parabolic reflector?

A parabolic reflector is a special kind of concave mirror designed to capture light or other forms of energy, like radio waves, sound and light, and focus it to a single point. You may have seen one already: e.g., the dish antennas that collect TV signals, solar

heaters and even in radar that can detect aircraft and missiles. The parabolic reflector can also be used to produce a parallel beam when the light source is placed at the focal point. You can see this at work in a torch or in your car headlights.

this is how light is reflected from a flat mirror and this is how light is reflected from a parabolic mirror

focus

historymaker na Ib l-Haytha

artwork: BombayDuckDesigns

the

first

scientist

by Aparna Kapur

an you believe that until the 1500s, everyone thought that the Earth was flat? Until, that is, Magellan led the first expedition that actually circled the earth and proved that theory wrong. People in the past based their theories on explanations that sounded grand or polished. No one spent time observing, experimenting or proving. The question of how we â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;seeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; also lacked a scientific basis. Until the 10th century, there were two schools of thought regarding this perplexing matter. One bunch of people believed that we saw the world around December 2010

us because our eyes emitted rays of light that fell on objects and made them visible. Another set of people believed Aristotle’s claim that we could see because physical forms from objects actually entered our eyes. But both these theories were just guesses. In the 10th century, an Arab scientist called Ibn al-Haytham (known to the West as ‘Alhazen’) brought to these questions (and hence, to science in general) the spirit of scientific inquiry. He conducted experiments, made observations and drew conclusions. He proposed that light exists irrespective of whether our eyes are closed or not. He proved this by conducting an experiment in which he hung two lamps outside a room, lighting up two spots on the wall. When one lantern was covered, the spot was darkened. This showed that light existed independent of the human act of seeing it. He further explained that when our eyes open, rays of light enter them, helping us see. Al-Haytham went on to write the Book of Optics, where he made startlingly accurate

descriptions regarding the functioning of the human eye. He is rightly referred to as the ‘Father of Modern Optics’. Apart from his major discoveries in optics, al-Haytham also made notable observations on the physics of light. Several hundred years before Newton explained it to the western world, al-Haytham had already arrived at the notions that light travels in a straight line and is composed of particles. He studied refraction, and opened wide avenues for research in the area of visual perception and optical illusion. His contributions are not limited to the field of optics. He made observations about inertia and momentum that anticipated Newton’s laws of motion, and was also one of the first people to suggest the link between algebra and geometry. Al-Haytham was the first person to recognise the importance and responsibility of being a scientist. He gave birth to ‘the scientific method’, the process of giving logical explanations to events and ideas, and testing these theories in a controlled way. This is why al-Haytham is known to the world as the first scientist.

The Camera Obscura 4th century B.C.E.

10th century C.E.

A partial solar eclipse was taking place. The great Greek thinker Aristotle, probably out for a walk, noticed the image of the eclipsed sun on the ground through the leaves of a palm tree. Later, he noticed the same crescent shape forming through the holes in a sieve. In the time that followed, several others, including the Greek mathematicians Euclid and Theon, and the Arab Iraqi scientist Al-Kindi, made similar observations.

Another partial solar eclipse. The great Arab scientist Ibn al-Haytham who was lounging indoors, probably tired from a walk, noticed a bright crescent shape on a wall. This seemed odd, because the room had no windows. He looked again, more carefully, and noticed that the window shutter opposite the wall had a tiny hole in it. The light from outside was passing through the hole and throwing an inverted image on the wall.

A simple home-made camera obscura in action

photo: Tom Murphy

The word ‘camera’ comes from ‘kamara’, the Ancient Greek word for ‘room’, and ‘obscura’ is the Latin word for ‘dark’. The most basic form of a camera obscura consists of a room or a box with a tiny opening on one side. Light from outside enters through this opening, producing an exact but upside down image of whatever is outside. These principles were later employed to develop cameras, making the camera obscura a pioneering discovery.

artwork: Kedarnath M

He connected this process with the way the human eye functioned. He worked out, correctly, that people were able to see things because images were being projected into their eyes the same way the crescent image had formed on his wall.

Al-Haytham then decided to construct a replica of his image-forming room. If an image was produced in the same conditions as before, it would prove his theories on capturing light. The experiment was a success, and the ‘camera obscura’ was born. December 2010

DIY

by Chaitanya Krishnan

Send your pin-hole camera photos to brainwave@ack-media.com. The best entries will be published!

December 2010

the smarties

eep under the Dolphin’s Nose promontory, in the heart of the Nilgiri hills, there is a set of dark winding caves. Only seven people on Earth know that these caves even exist.

tales from the Lab: part one

In one of these caves, carefully hidden behind a large pile of bat guano, there is a small stainless steel door. And tacked onto this door is a wooden sign that reads, simply, ‘Brainwave Laboratory’. As you’ve cleverly guessed, this door leads to a science lab. A top secret science lab. Hush!

Two Timely Arrivals

It’s so top secret that even the Keeper of Great Secrets, She Who Listens With Seven Ears, has never heard of it. It’s so super secret that the strange beings who work in the lab spend much of their time pinching themselves. It’s so ultra secret that even... Ah! But I see that you’d like to know a bit more about the strange beings who work in the lab, yes? Well. At one end of the lab sits an old bearded Toda lady who does dangerous experimental things all day. She makes mini black holes before breakfast and eats dark matter for lunch. Because the old bearded Toda lady answers only to loud piercing cries, and because she alone knows her real name, everyone just calls her ‘Skreee!!’.

Story and artwork by Vinayak Varma Oh! Ohohoho! You’re a lucky one, good reader! You’re in for a real sci-fi treat! Something very odd and wonderful is about to happen in Brainwave Labs! In just a few moments, one of the beepbeepy machines will break from routine and make a boop-boopy sound. Its red lights will turn blue, and its yellow lights will turn green. Wheels will turn, and the machine will do what it was created for.

The other end of the lab belongs to the last living dodo. The dodo is hard at work on a time machine. He is qualified to work on time machines, because he has an honorary certificate in Anachronomaly & Parallel Universes from the great University of Clockwindistan. It’s often useful to have a certificate handy, especially when you need to eat cake and there are no paper plates left. The dodo is also a trained dentist.

That’s right. In just a few moments, with a boop-boop and a flash of purple, two timespace wormholes will open up in the two entry portals next to the little grey dodo. And two small humans will emerge from within the wormholes. The dodo will not expect this to happen, because he thinks the time machine he’s been repairing doesn’t work just yet. In his shock and alarm, Dr. Dodo, for thus he is called, will lose four of his finest feathers.

Between the Toda and the dodo is a messy row of machines that have many coloured lights and go beep beep beep beep beep...

The two small humans from the portals, who have travelled many miles in Time, will emerge with great confusion into

is the calm, clear thinking sort, “and Alby. That’s what we’ll call you. Arby, short for Aryabhata, and Alby for Albert. Two new smarties for our lab! This is Dr. Dodo, and I’m... well, never mind me. So here’s the deal, right? We’ll teach you both everything we know. And while you’re here, both of

09:06:1887CE: ALBERT EINSTEIN

this new world. The older of the two will introduce himself as Aryabhata, and the other’s junior school name-tag will read ‘Albert Einstein’. These humans will one day grow up to be geniuses, so say the ancient records. But not just yet.

20:12:487CE: ARYABHATA

you can help us with our experiments. In return, one day soon we’ll send you back to when you came from. OK? OK?”

“This is a mistaaake!” Dr. Dodo will sqawk. “You’ve come too sooon! And you’re sooo young! You’re both faaaarrr too...!”

Okay! That’s the odd, wonderful sci-fi thing that’s about to happen in Brainwave Labs, deep under the Dolphin’s Nose promontory in the heart of the Nilgiri hills. But not just yet. Not just at this very yetness, no. You’ll have to wait a few minutes more.

“Arby,” Skreee!! will interrupt, because she

Time works in strange ways, no? December 2010

what now?

u co tu nc re ep t

The Morph phone It can harvest solar energy and respond to changes to its environment, just like a plant. It is the ultimate communication tool, allowing you to make calls, surf the web, play multimedia, share information and interact with people and systems just like the most cutting-edge smart devices. It can also be bent and folded and re-shaped into a phone or a touchpad or even a wristband, like something out of a sci-fi movie. It may sound like a miracle, but the scientists at the Nokia Research Centre have been hard at work on a very such device. It has been built using nanotechnology, and they are calling the concept the Morph. Tell us what you think about this amazing invention: write to brainwave@ack-media.com.

Images Copyright ÂŠ Nokia 2010

COVER STORY

nvisibility is not the realm of sci-fi or fantasy any more. Devious technologies are cooking in hi-tech laboratories around the world, which will allow us to disappear at will. For real! Excited? Read on to discover four ingenious techniques to turn invisible and the awesome technology that will enable this

how to

turn

invisible by Rahul Nayar & Rajita Gadagkar

artwork: BombayDuckDesigns

December 2010

39 13

Invisibility Technique I

Professor Tachi’s Raincoat (For those frequent occasions when you desperately wish you were see-through.)

photo: Luca Venturi

bs A Tachi La cloak, ty ili ib is v in t the a d e displa y um Tokyo Muse n. o of Innovati

As we speak, scientists in different parts of the world are working to create ingenious technology that will render us invisible. Leading the pack is Professor Susumi Tachi, from the University of Tokyo. This Japanese scientist has already designed a crude invisibility cloak! A shiny raincoat (made of a special material called retroreflectum) acts like a sort of movie screen. A computer projects scenery from behind the raincoat onto its front. So a viewer can only see what’s behind the raincoat, making the wearer invisible. Now, for a second, imagine that you’re wearing Prof Tachi’s coat. And say there’s a car parked behind you. The computer projects the picture of this car onto you. Someone standing in front of you wouldn’t see a boy or girl or any human form for that matter. Instead they would see a car. Putting on the raincoat creates the illusion that you’re see-through.

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. - Jonathan Swift

The

Invisikid

World domination was only onet, invisible helme a pair of invisible gloves and a pair of invisible shoes away...

In 19 87, An il Kapoor, Sridevi and Am rish Pu ri sta rred in a Hi nd i sci-fi film ca lled Mr. Ind ia. The film is about a poor violin ist who becomes a superhero, a dasta rd ly superv illa in na med Moga mbo and an amaz ing watch. When thi s watch is worn and activated, it ma kes its wearer inv isible! Mr. Ind ia is sti ll a cu lt favou rite among people who grew up in the 80 s. Find a DV D of it and watch it, for a fun ret ro Bolly wood look at inv isibil ity!

Invisibility Technique II

Natural Camouflage (If you find yourself in the woods and want to merge into the trees and shrubbery.) The funda of invisibility is pretty straightforward — the cleverer you are at playing with light’s behaviour, the better you can be at making people and things disappear. This principle is evident in a real-life example of invisibility — soldiers dressed in camouflage. To keep themselves hidden to the enemy’s eye, soldiers dress in clothes covered with green and brown splotches to look like the trees, leaves and rocks around them. As the light that bounces off the soldier’s clothes is the same as the light that bounces off the jungle (green and brown), it’s hard for you to tell them apart. And the soldier becomes – presto! – invisible.

Overheard online: For a cheap laugh when walking through town, it’s always funny to bump into someone in a camouflage jacket and say: ”Sorry, didnt see you there!” How safe would an invisible world be? Cops in invisibility jackets would be able to catch robbers really easily, but what if the robbers figured out how to turn invisible too? Would such a world be good, bad or quite dangerous? Write to brainwave@ack-media.com!

Boo!

y A U.S. Arm in l o tr a p e camoufla g s to ie tr rm unifo cky ro blend into in. a rr te Afgh an

But natural camouflage has one big drawback: the setting that you camouflage yourself against does not move along with you. So when the soldier dressed in his green and brown junglee outfit moves out of the forest and onto a concrete highway, he will be as ‘invisible’ as a Christmas tree in the Gobi Desert. To overcome this limitation, scientists have come up with new and improved ‘active camouflage’ technology. Read our next invisibility technique to get to bottom of this mysterious technology.

artwork: Vinayak Varma

December 2010

Invisibility Technique IV

Invisibility Technique III

Metamaterials Cloak

You tell us!

(Guarantees complete and total invincibility...oops!...invisibility.)

(Because nothing beats your imagination!)

Active camouflage can make real invisibility possible. This technology works by making sure that no light whatsoever bounces back into your eyes. To make this happen, there is one special ingredient that needs to be added in — ‘metamaterials’. Scientists are now focusing their attention on this special material made of tiny, tiny structures, the size of atoms. Metamaterials will enable us to take light and bend it around any shape and in any path that we’d like.

How would you turn invisible? What invisibility technology would you invent if you were Prof. Tachi? Would you drink some special chemical brew? Or would you utter a secret incantation to poof off into thin air? Would you create a special chamber that could make you vanish when you step into it? Or would you create a supersophisticated invisibility machine?

artwork: Kedarnath M

used to Metamaterials can be agine Im make tanks invisible. ure! fut the the crazy wars of

Due to its unique physical composition, a metamaterials cloak will make sure that no light bounces off its surface to reach your eyes, making the wearer totally invisible. Not surprisingly, armies and defence companies have become very interested in this exciting technology. Imagine what a tank cloaked with metamaterials could do: it would be completely invisible to an enemy tank trying to shoot at it. While invisible metamaterials are still very much the stuff of the future, that future isn’t all that far away.

Draw and/or write your brightest, boldest ideas into the box below, scan this page and email it to us at brainwave@ack-media.com. The best invisibility tech will be featured in Brainwave!

Name:_______________________ Idea: _______________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________ _____________________________

December 2010

second nature by Splash!

December 2010

toybox n

the

g an Or

Indigo

ye ll ow

gree

white spinne by Arv i n d Gu

pta

e ol

Disc made of thick white card, divided into 7 parts and filled in with the colours of the rainbow

Plastic glass with a hole punched into its bottom

Pencil Fit the pencil into the disc and stand it in the glass like so

As the pencil slows down, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see this pattern

Nothingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfect. Can you improve on this toy design? Do you have a better idea for a spinner? Write/draw out your designs and mail them to: brainwave@ack-media.com!

Spin the pencil to see the colours blend with one another and into a greyish white