Author: Debasmita Banerjee

Light is almost synonymous with life. We’re so hopelessly dependant on massless photons – at the most fundamental level through photosynthesis, light from the sun enables the existence of life itself. On the more sophisticated scale – the modern age is again hopelessly dependant on optics. Optics enables the internet, weather and climate monitoring, fabrication of computer chips, and almost everything else. Without light, entire branches of science won’t exist – quantum cryptography, neurophotonics and 3D printing, to name a few. Worse, human civilization wouldn’t be aware of space exploration, 3D movies and would not have been able to non nondestructively screen food,…

You’d be forgiven for falling in love with the beauty of natural phenomenon all around us, even those outside our direct line of sight, far out in the observable universe. Most agree that there is beauty, in some form or the other, in almost everything that the laws of physics help facilitate. But few people notice the underlying patterns, and the rationale of the cosmos, behind the beautiful observations we get to make. The universe is interesting because it was born in an incomprehensible flash – what we call the Big Bang, and is still young relative to our estimates on…

We may be an intelligent species, but we’re no wise civilisation. Humans have witnessed more conflicts agreements, and have been scarred by the horrors of warfare for almost the entirety of our existence. In fact, in the past 3400 years, we’ve only been lucky enough to witness 250 years of peace. The ghastly and long term effects of war (especially nuclear) were best seen during the aftermath of the 2nd world war, where generations were born with radiation induced genetic abnormalities. At that point of time, the human race was facing a serious threat of being wiped out by a nuclear war. Fortunately, good…

Mushroom batteries are a new and exciting development in the field of energy storage. They are made from the mycelium of mushrooms, which is a network of fungal threads that can be grown into a variety of shapes and sizes. Mycelium is a strong and durable material, and it is also very good at conducting electricity. Right from the mid 20th century, the evolution of technology has been predominantly based on synthetic materials. Though one cannot deny the usefulness of these synthetic materials, hazardous wastes generated in the process have been posing a serious challenge for the planet. In addition…

The framework of modern physics largely rests on two pillars, namely General Relativity (which is celebrating its centenary this year), and Quantum Mechanics. Albert Einstein not only formulated the theory of relativity but was also one of the pioneers in the development of Quantum Theory. However, it is worth noting that Einstein had his reservations about the inherent ‘weirdness’ and unpredictability that prevails in Quantum Mechanics and famously said, ‘’God does not play dice’’. Despite facing criticism from physicists and philosophers alike, Quantum Mechanics has stood the test of time and every experiment that have been performed so far has been found to be…