Murtaza Safri
Umair Sadiq
Asad Kalimi
Aurora is GIKI's first and only official science magazine. First published by GIKI Science
Society in 1999, it has been revived this year, to cater to the growing demand for such a
publication.
Aurora's basic aim is to provide a platform for GIKI students to voice their theories and
research in various scientific fields. Also, Aurora aims to serve as GIKI's voice in the
scientific community, giving an insight as to the scientific activity going on inside GIKI.
This issue of Aurora includes Technical articles, Interviews, and a fun section, as well as
Final Year Project abstracts and Research papers by prominent people of the field,
including many of our own faculty members.
It is a great opportunity for GIKI students to express their thoughts and ideas, and take
their first steps into the world of scientific research and publication.
EDITORIAL
Auror a 2005
Bilal Riaz
Omar Rana
Umair Tariq
Waqar Nayyar
Abdul Hannan
Foaad Ahmed
Abdul Wasae
Abdul Basit
Apart from being a centre of excellence with regard to academic
pursuits, GIKI is also known nationwide for its elaborated and
impressive extra curricular culture. Science society has always
played a very pivotal role to enrich this culture.
AROURA is the official scientific magazine published by GIKI Science Society. It
was last published in SPRING 1999 by batch 6. I must congratulate Science Society for
reviving this tradition with such a great quality. All the articles and papers from the
Faculty and Students of GIK Institute describe the newly emerging technologies. The
idea of Science Timeline is also excellently implemented. In short, it is a great effort put
up by GIKI Science Society and I once again congratulate them for their hectic effort.
Dr. Jameel-un-nabi
Dean, Student affairs
Giki institute
Being the Advisor of GIKI Science Society, I will like to take the
honor to congratulate GIKI Science Society on Publishing
AROURA.
Over the years, the Science Society has matured significantly. From humble
beginnings, it has grown to become one of the most prestigious societies in GIKI, with an
enviable reputation all over the country.
AROURA is the official scientific magazine of the Institute. It was last published in
SPRING 1999 by batch 6. It is a quality publication and one of major publication of its
kind in the country. I once again like to appreciate the efforts of Science Society
members and especially the editorial board of AROURA for bringing out this magazine.
Dr. Ibrahim qazi
Advisor, Giki Science Society
C
ontents
Faculty Advisor
Coordinator
Editor in Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Ibrahim Qazi
Asad Kalimi
Abdul Wasae
Billal Riaz
Umair Tariq
Umair Sadiq
Waqar Nayyar
Abdul Hannan
Foaad Ahmed
Murtaza Safri
Aamir Shah
Omar Saeed Rana
Abdul Basit
Omar Saeed Rana
Technical Team
Layout Design
Cover Design
Contact:
[email protected]
Copyright 2005GIKI SSAurora
2005
Was Big Bang really the beginning of Time?
Deterministic Chaos - There is a method in the
madness.
Number Theory
Plasma - The fourth state of matter
Quantum Teleportation
Biological Nanotechnology - Nanomachines
The journey to human powered flight
Bermuda Triangle
Polar Aurora
1
3
4
6
7
9
10
11
11
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
Interview with Dr. Abdullah Sadiq - Rector
GIKI
15
I N T E R V I E WClosed form approximation solutions for the
restricted circular three body problem
17
R E S E A R C H P A P E RHuman Computer Interfacing using
Biological signals
Orca
Neuro-Mod
21
21
22
A B S T R A C T S F Y PStars - How they originate and how do they
change in their life cycle.
The fundamental forces of the universe
19
23
A R T I C L E SCrossword
Brain Teasers
Enigma
26
27
28
B R A I N C R A C K E R SAuror a 2005
1
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
Was Big Bang Really the
Beginning of Time?
By Waqar Nayyar
Was the big bang really the beginning of time? Or did the universe exist before then? Such a question seemed almost blasphemous only a decade ago. Most cosmologists insisted that it simply made no sense--that to contemplate a time before the big bang was like asking for directions to a place north of the North Pole. But developments in theoretical physics, especially the rise of string theory, have changed their perspective. The pre-bang universe has become the latest frontier of cosmology.
The new willingness to consider what might have happened before the bang is the latest swing of an intellectual pendulum that has rocked back and forth for millennia. In one form or another, the issue of the ultimate beginning has engaged philosophers and theologians in nearly every culture. It is entwined with a grand set of concerns, one famously encapsulated in an 1897 painting by Paul Gauguin: D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous? "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" The piece depicts the cycle of birth, life and death--origin, identity and destiny for each individual--and these personal concerns connect directly to cosmic ones. We can trace our lineage back through the generations, back through our animal ancestors, to early forms of life and protolife, to the elements synthesized in the primordial universe, to the amorphous energy deposited in space before that. Does our family tree extend forever backward? Or do its roots terminate? Is the cosmos as impermanent as we are?
The ancient Greeks debated the origin of time fiercely. Aristotle, taking the no-beginning side, invoked the principle that out of nothing, nothing comes. If the universe could never have gone from nothingness to somethingness, it must always have existed. For this and other reasons, time must stretch eternally into the past and future. Christian theologians tended to take the opposite point of view. Augustine contended that God exists outside of space and time, able to bring these constructs into existence as surely as he could forge other aspects of our world. When asked, "What was God doing before he created the world?" Augustine answered, "Time itself being part of God's creation, there was simply no before!"
Einstein's general theory of relativity led modern
cosmologists to much the same conclusion. The theory holds that space and time are soft, malleable entities. On the largest scales, space is naturally dynamic, expanding or contracting over time, carrying matter like driftwood on the tide. Astronomers confirmed in the 1920s that our universe is currently expanding: distant galaxies move apart from one another. One consequence, as physicists Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose proved in the 1960s, is that time cannot extend back indefinitely. As you play cosmic history backward in time, the galaxies all come together to a single infinitesimal point, known as a singularity--almost as if they were descending into a black hole. Each galaxy or its precursor is squeezed down to zero size. Quantities such as density, temperature and spacetime curvature become infinite. The singularity is the ultimate cataclysm, beyond which our cosmic ancestry cannot extend.
The unavoidable singularity poses serious problems for cosmologists. In particular, it sits uneasily with the high degree of homogeneity and isotropy that the universe exhibits on large scales. For the cosmos to look broadly the same everywhere, some kind of communication had to pass among distant regions of space, coordinating their properties. But the idea of such communication contradicts the old cosmological paradigm.
To be specific, consider what has happened over the 13.7 billion years since the release of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The distance between galaxies has grown by a factor of about 1,000 (because of the expansion), while the radius of the observable universe has grown by the much larger factor of about 100,000 (because light outpaces the expansion). We see parts of the universe today that we could not have seen 13.7 billion years ago. Indeed, this is the first time in cosmic history that light from the most distant galaxies has reached the Milky Way.
Nevertheless, the properties of the Milky Way are basically the same as those of distant galaxies. It is as though you showed up at a party only to find you were wearing exactly the same clothes as a dozen of your closest friends. If just two of you were dressed the same, it might be explained away as coincidence, but a dozen suggests that the partygoers had coordinated their attire
Strange Coincidence:
500,000 - 400,000 years ago 3500 BC 3000 BC
Humans begin to control fire for useful purposes. The use of fire probably develops in four stages: observing natural sources, acquiring fire from natural sources, learning to make fire, and learning to control fire.
Sumerians invent the wheel. It consists of two or three w o o d e n s e g m e n t s h e l d together by transverse struts that rotate on a wooden pole. Evidence indicates that the wheel was invented only once and then spread to Asia and Europe.
Abacus was invented in southwest Asia use an early form of the abacus to perform calculations. Other early civilizations also used some form of the abacus.
in advance. In cosmology, the number is not a dozen but tens of thousands--the number of independent yet statistically identical patches of sky in the microwave background.
One possibility is that all those regions of space were endowed at birth with identical properties--in other words, that the homogeneity is mere coincidence. Physicists, however, have thought about two more natural ways out of the impasse: the early universe was much smaller or much older than in standard cosmology. Either (or both, acting together) would have made intercommunication possible.
The most popular choice follows the first alternative. It postulates that the universe went through a period of accelerating expansion, known as inflation, early in its history. Before this phase, galaxies or their precursors were so closely packed that they could easily coordinate their properties. During inflation, they fell out of contact because light was unable to keep pace with the frenetic expansion. After inflation ended, the expansion began to decelerate, so galaxies gradually came back into one another's view.
Physicists ascribe the inflationary spurt to the potential energy stored in a new quantum field, the inflation, about 10-35 second after the big bang. Potential energy, as opposed to rest mass or kinetic energy, leads to gravitational repulsion. Rather than slowing down the expansion, as the gravitation of ordinary matter would, the inflation accelerated it. Proposed in 1981, inflation has explained a wide variety of observations with precision [see "The Inflationary Universe," by Alan H. Guth and Paul J. Steinhardt; Scientific American, May 1984; and "Four Keys to Cosmology," Special report; Scientific American, February]. A number of possible theoretical problems remain, though, beginning with the questions of what exactly the inflation was and what gave it such a huge initial potential energy.
A second, less widely known way to solve the puzzle follows the second alternative by getting rid of the singularity. If time did not begin at the bang, if a long era preceded the onset of the present cosmic expansion, matter could have had plenty of time to arrange itself smoothly. Therefore, researchers have reexamined the reasoning that led them to infer a singularity.
One of the assumptions--that relativity theory is always valid--is questionable. Close to the putative singularity, quantum effects must have been important, even dominant. Standard relativity takes no account of such effects, so accepting the inevitability of the singularity amounts to trusting the theory beyond reason.
To know what really happened, physicists need to subsume relativity in a quantum theory of gravity. The task has occupied theorists from Einstein onward, but progress was almost zero until the mid-1980s.
Today two approaches stand out. One, going by the name of loop quantum gravity, retains Einstein's theory essentially intact but changes the procedure for implementing it in quantum mechanics [see "Atoms of Space and Time," by Lee Smolin; Scientific American, January]. Practitioners of loop quantum gravity have taken great strides and achieved deep insights over the past several years. Still, their approach may not be revolutionary enough to resolve the fundamental problems of quantizing gravity. A similar problem faced particle theorists after Enrico Fermi introduced his effective theory of the weak nuclear force in 1934. All efforts to construct a quantum version of Fermi's theory failed miserably. What was needed was not a new technique but the deep modifications brought by the electroweak theory of Sheldon L. Glashow, Steven Wein-berg and Abdus Salam in the late 1960s.
The second approach, which I consider more promising, is string theory--a truly revolutionary modification of Einstein's theory. This article will focus on it, although proponents of loop quantum gravity claim to reach many of the same conclusions.
String theory grew out of a model written down in 1968 to describe the world of nuclear particles (such as protons and neutrons) and their interactions. Despite much initial excitement, the model failed. It was abandoned several years later in favor of quantum chromodynamics, which describes nuclear particles in terms of more elementary constituents, quarks. Quarks are confined inside a proton or a neutron, as if they were tied together by elastic strings. In retrospect, the original string theory had captured those stringy aspects of the nuclear world. Only later was it revived as a candidate for combining general relativity and quantum theory.
Evolution of a Revolution:
Continued on page 24
GIKI Science Society
2
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms every second because
of the solar wind that blasts out from its surface.
Uranus is the only planet whose poles are warmer than its
equator.
The tail of a comet always points away from the sun due to
pressure of solar wind (particles ejected from the surface of
sun).
2000 BC
Babylonians solve quadratic equations quadratic equations a n d d e m o n s t r a t e t h e i r discovery of what is now called the Pythagorean Theorem.
194 BC 250 AD 517 AD
E r a t o s h t h e n e s a G r e e k geographer devised the first world map, including the features of latitude and longitude.
Diophantus pioneered in solving certain indeterminate algebraic equations.
John Philoponus determined that falling objects do so with the same acceleration, or 'impetus,'
Deterministic Chaos -
There
is a method in the madness
By Umair Sadiq
The stars in the sky have always been seen as a symbol of harmony and order. The Copernican, heliocentric image of the world is so convincing in its simplicity that it was easy to assume for a long time that the course of the planets will never change, that the solar system is therefore stable in a sense.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, astronomy was undergoing a highly successful period, building on Newton's law of gravity and on the progress made in analytical mechanics. The planets Neptune and Uranus were predicted and discovered as a result of deviations between calculated and observed data regarding the movements of Jupiter and Saturn. Following this, King Oscar II of Sweden offered a prize for proof of the stability of the solar system. The prize was finally awarded to a French mathematician, Henri Poincare, but for proving that this proof could not be given! Poincare discovered what are now known as hyperbolic structures in the space of the planets encompassing their positional and momentum coordinates (phase space), which make it practically impossible to trace the courses of the planets in the long term: planetary movement turns out to be chaotic on a long time scale.
What still appeared to be a peculiar quirk of planetary movement in Poincare's time was soon to be an essential element of natural laws. Nearly a hundred years later, this chaotic behavior was being found in almost every field of science: comprehensive experimental and numerical studies in biological, ecological, chemical, physical and other systems constantly revealed the same seemingly random, irregular movements, the same long-term or even short-long-term unpredictability. Chaos is everywhere! Future weather, for example, can be mathematically worked out in a principle, but any great degree of accuracy is simply not attainable for more than a short period.
What is remarkable about this form of chaos is that it does not develop from a large number of unknown influences, like noise in electrical circuits, for example, that is caused by the disordered movements of myriad electrons. It is rather the result of the nonlinear law of motion, which is otherwise entirely deterministic. How can we understand this? Let us first imagine a billiard table with two balls on it at some distance from one
another. One of the balls is then hit off the other in two different experiments with a slightly different angle but from the same starting position in both cases. After each collision, the angle between the two trajectories of the balls is significantly greater than before. If we consider colliding atoms of a gas, each disturbance in the angles of their flight trajectories will be increased on each additional collision with other gas atoms. Information about the original direction of the trajectory will very soon be totally lost. The phenomenon described are known as deterministic chaos and this has two characteristic defining features: firstly, almost every initial disturbance of a chaotic system, however small, will intensify itself continually and, secondly, a specific range of values, fixed for all components of the system, will be adhered to during this process (e.g. 360 degrees for the angle of impact). These two together result in irregular and unpredictable movements that appear to be random.
Even in this chaos, certain space-time patterns develop over longer periods of time and these generally have a fractal structure: they are known as strange attractors. Although long term predictions of the course of motion are practically impossible, we can have by modern aids a deep insight in the phenomenon. A characteristic signature of chaotic behavior in a system is the fact that its sequence over time can be described only by a superposition of a continuum of periodic movements. The equations of motion are purely deterministic and involve no random elements, but they are nonlinear. Chaos requires only a few degrees of freedom, but it is not limited to simple systems with few degrees of freedom.
We encounter chance and statistics in Nature in three different ways. Firstly, we have an inherently statistical character of quantum mechanics, about which we obtain information from the laws of probability amplitudes, which are in themselves strict. Secondly, we have deterministic chaotic motion occurring as a result of nonlinear, classical laws of nature, with all the known random elements, such as unpredictability and irregularity of sequence. Thirdly, we have chance, originating from the interplay of many individual components (electrons, molecules, grains, chunks of dust in Saturn's rings, star clusters etc). We know by now that for many statistical phenomenon of a macroscopic nature, it is irrelevant whether the particles move
750 AD 800 AD 850 - 900 AD
Paper was invented by the Chinese.
Jabber bin Hayyan, did wonders in the department of chemistry, tried to create gold from sulphur and mercury.
- Water mills were developed to supply mechanical power to drive machinery etc.
-Moors in Spain prepared pure copper by reacting its salts with i r o n , a f o r e r u n n e r o f electroplating.
Auror a 2005
3
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
According to the laws of quantum mechanics or the classical, nonlinear laws. It is solely the vast number of particles involved that causes macroscopically random behavior that we graphically describe as “noise”. As was recently discovered, this noise can even cause resonance vibrations (“stochastic resonance”) and directed motion. It also has a decisive influence on the course of every chemical reaction and might be relevant for the way in which even muscles work (biological nanomachines).
It could well be said that deterministic chaos will have an important part to play in future high-speed computer chips that work with “ballistic” electrons. The insights gained in the meantime concerning the analysis of chaotic time sequences are increasingly also being used outside the field of physics in medicine for the e v a l u a t i o n o f e l e c t r o c a r d i o g r a m s a n d electroencephalograms, for example, and in quality control or in the analysis of stock market prices.
Number Theory
By Foaad Ahmed Tahir
Since the dawn of mankind, man has beenendeavoring to make his life better and more comfortable. In this quest he began discovering and inventing new things. This led to the birth of mathematics. The first thing that led to mathematics was numbers. However shortly man began to investigate these numbers and thus discovered some remarkable properties of theirs. This led to the birth of Number Theory. This deals with all the abstract properties of numbers which connects set of numbers. These properties have found numerous uses in our everyday lives. Some of the properties of numbers are described below.
Prime numbers have fascinated men since the beginning. They seem to contain magical powers among them in that they cannot be divided wholly by any number other than itself and 1. A lot of advancement has been made in mathematics due to research done in investigating prime numbers. Although the criterion of prime number is simple, yet to find large prime numbers is a long process using the simple factorization method. For this purpose a special type of prime numbers called Mersenne prime numbers is the main field of interest for finding large prime numbers. These prime numbers are of the form 2 -1 where p is itself prime. The advantage for such numbers is that there is an algorithm for finding out its primality. The algorithm goes like this:
1. Take a number n and square it.
2. Now subtract two from it, we have n -2.
3. Now divide the by the number p and take the whole remainder as n.
This process is repeated p-2 times and if the final
remainder is 0, then the number is prime. Initially we take n as 4.
For example we have 31= 2 -1, where the prime number p is 5.
1. We have n=4, = 14, 14 mod 31 = 14. 2. We have n=14, = 194, 194 mod 31 = 8. 3 We have n=8, = 62, 62 mod 31 = 0.
This algorithm has been performed 5-2=3 times and the final result is 0. So the number 31 is prime. This algorithm is so efficient that the largest prime number and the 42nd Mersenne prime number so far found is 2 - 1, having 7,816,230 digits. It has great practical uses as well. Because of the fact that prime numbers are so hard to factorize, they are used to secure financial dealings by encryption. Thus an abstract property such as primality is also of great use in everyday lives.
Prime Numbers: p 2 5 25,964,951 n -2 n -2 n -2 n -2
Perfect numbers are numbers which are the sum of their factors other than the number itself. For example 6 = 1+2+3 is the smallest perfect number. Perfect numbers also have a relationship with Mersenne prime numbers as each of these prime numbers is associated with a perfect number. If p is a Mersenne prime number then the triangular number p(p+1)/2 is a perfect number, this can be shown as follows:
Let Mersenne Prime number be p = 2n 1, then the perfect number is P=p(p+1)/2 = (2n -1)2n-1 .Thus the sum of factors of the perfect number is given by
S=1+2+…+2n-1 + (2n -1)(1+2+…+2n-2) =2n-1 + (2n-1)(2n-1-1) = (2n-1)(2n-1-1+1) = (2n-1)2n-1 = P 2 2 2 2 Perfect Numbers:
GIKI Science Society
4
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
1000 ADIbn al-Haitam introduced the idea that light rays emanate in straight lines in all directions from every point on a luminous surface.
1044 AD 1100's AD 1145 AD
Chinese found the recipe of gunpowder.
-The concept of Blast furnace was established.
-Alchemists had developed the art of distillation to the stage at which distillates could be captured by cooling in a flask, and wine could be distilled to yield aqua vitae.
Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra explained the Arabic system of numeration and the use of the symbol 0.
Thus the sum of factors of the perfect number equals itself. Hence with the discovery of every new Mersenne prime number a new perfect number is also discovered. However no odd perfect number has been found as yet and there is no proof that none exists, if there is one it is extremely large.
This is the series 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21, … where every number is the sum of the previous two terms. This series was discovered by Fibonacci also known as Leonardo of Pisa. He thought of the following problem:
A closed compound is left with a rabbit which starts breeding after two months but thereafter breeds monthly. The newborns also breed similarly. What will be the number of rabbits as the months progress?
The answer as it emerges is the Fibonacci series. This series is found everywhere in the universe. If the number of petals on flowers are counted they are arranged in the form of Fibonacci numbers, 1 in centre then 2,3,5,8,… as we move out radially . If a rectangle is formed with sides having length equal to two consecutive numbers, and then a square with side equal to the shorter side is made inside it, the new inscribed rectangle also has sides equal to consecutive Fibonacci numbers. If this process is repeated and then the centers of the squares are joined and the curve smoothened, then the resulting curve is Fibonacci curve. If the spiral galaxies are observed then the spiral is fibonaccian. Similarly, the horns of animals have the fibonaccian spiral. If the ratios of two relatively large consecutive fionaccian numbers are taken it emerges as the golden ratio. This is a number
whose square is 1 more than itself while the reciprocal is 1 less than itself. It is (1+√5)/2 which comes out to be about 1.61. This number has the property that geometrical object having this ratio seem pleasant to the eye. If the sides of rectangle have this ratio then it looks pleasant. Thus this series has its uses and is found everywhere in the nature.
Fibonacci Series:
Quantum-confinement nanostructures on semiconductors and monomolecular electronics (single molecules as electronic devices) are emerging technologies that would realize extremely large scale integrated, extremely low-power consumption electronic circuits and powerful computers of very small size. This is a kind of nanotechnology that will have a great impact on many markets other than the electronic appliances and computer market, in the near future. Just as what happened with the term "nanotechnology", there is some confusion about what is meant by "molecular electronics". This term should properly be reserved to single-molecule based devices and systems. Inappropriately, the same term is used to designate
devices and systems based on conductive molecular materials; while it is used generally for thin film or "low-dimensional" molecular materials, it is to be stressed that the properties featured by the molecular material in this case are bulk, not single-molecule properties.
The progress in Molecular Nanotechnology looks closely related to advances in Nanoelectronics for control purposes. Supramolecular science (chemistry and physics) is supplying tools and processes toward the development of complex molecular electronic structures, because supramolecular structures are essentially based on weak, van der Waals bonds capable of a richly varied behavior with respect to strong, covalent chemical bonds.
Nanoelectronics
By Umair Sadiq
1202 AD 1285 AD 1364 AD
Leonardo Pisano, gave birth to the Fibonacci series.
A l e s s a n d r o d e l l a S p i n a invented spectacles for far-sightedness.
Giovanni di Dondi built a complex clock which kept track o f c a l e n d a r c y c l e s a n d computed the date of Easter by using various lengths of chain.
Auror a 2005
5
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
Plasma -
The fourth state of
matter
By Umair Sadiq
GIKI Science Society
6
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
We encounter the matter around us in its three familiar states: as solids, liquids, or gases. Everyone knows that all materials go through these three states as the temperature rises, the order being solid - liquid - gas. The evaporation temperature of normal air as an example of a gas mixture is far below zero degree Celsius, while temperatures above 5,000 C are required to turn heat resistant materials, such as tungsten, into the gaseous state. People are less aware of the fact that every substance assumes a “fourth state” when heated very intensely to roughly 20,000 C: it becomes plasma.
Due to these high transition temperatures, plasma formation is a rather rare occurrence in our everyday environment, because no vessels exist in which a substance could be converted to its plasma state by means of extreme heating. Nevertheless, “naturally” occurring plasmas can also be found on Earth: lightening is probably the most familiar example of terrestrial plasma.
However, if we consider all the visible matter in the universe, it becomes evident that the plasma state is by far predominant and that the three states of matter familiar to us solid, liquid, gaseous are the exceptions: plasma makes well over 90% of all matter and is thus the most frequent and “natural” state of matter. Plasma can be found as extremely dense matter at the hot centre of a star, and as extremely diluted matter in interstellar space, where it contributes to the formation of new stars. Plasma physics, the science of plasma, is thus also one of the key sub-disciplines of astrophysics.
An essential feature of the plasma state is that the previously neutral atoms or molecules of matter break down into the positive nucleus or ion and the associated, now free, electrons. Matter in the plasma state thus acquires new physical properties and can simultaneously have a specific effect on its colder surroundings:
Good (metal-like) electrical conductivity,
Strongly influenced by magnetic fields (constriction), Radiation emission from the infrared to the UV or X-ray range,
Powerful heat source (at high plasma densities), Specific plasma-chemical effects in the bulk and on surfaces.
These features are associated with numerous, interesting physical plasma phenomena, as well as with important technical applications for example in lighting technology, controlled nuclear fusion, thin layer surface treatments, plasma etching etc. The removal of surfaces by means of plasma etching has made a decisive contribution to advancing microelectronics structuring making possible the manufacturing of highly integrated processors, memory chips, micro sensors and much more.
The fundamental physics of all these techniques is thoroughly understood. However, further development of established plasma processes or the discovery of new ones still requires an immense research effort. Plasma process engineering is still in the exploratory phase in several fields, such as biotechnology, medical technology and environmental engineering.
o o l l l l l
You are not the only one ...
L
L
L
L
L
L
AlbertEinsteincouldnotspeakuntilhewasfouryearsold,anddidnotreaduntilhewasseven.
Beethoven'smusicteachersaidabouthim,"Asacomposerheishopeless.”
WhenThomasEdisonwasayoungboy,histeacherssaidhewassostupidhecouldneverlearnanything.
WaltDisneywasoncefiredbyanewspapereditorbecausehewasthoughttohaveno"goodideas.”
When the sculptor Auguste Rodin was young he had difficulty learning to read and write. Today, we may say he had a learning
disability,buthisfathersaidofhim,"Ihaveanidiotforason.”
Carusowastoldbyonemusicteacher,"Youcan'tsing.Youhavenovoiceatall."
You are not the only one ...
1468 AD
Type Writer was invented by Johann Gutenberg.
1473 -1543 AD 1482 AD 1545 AD
Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus changed the concept of the universe for the people of the world. Gave the m o d e l o f u n i v e r s e a n d planetary motion.
Leonardo da Vinci began his notebooks in pursuit of evidence that the human body is microcosmic, which, by 1 5 1 0 - 1 5 1 1 , i n c l u d e d dissections of the human body.
Girolamo Cardano, in Ars Magna, published a complete discussion of Tartaglia's solution for cubic equations.
Quantum Teleportation
By Abdul Hannan
Teleportation is the name given by science fictionwriters to the feat of making an object or person disintegrate in one place while a perfect replica appears somewhere else. How this is accomplished is usually not explained in detail, but the general idea seems to be that the original object is scanned in such a way as to extract all the information from it, then this information is transmitted to the receiving location and used to construct the replica, not necessarily from the actual material of the original, but perhaps from atoms of the same kinds, arranged in exactly the same pattern as the original. A teleportation machine would be like a fax machine, except that it would work on 3-dimensional objects as well as documents, it would produce an exact copy rather than an approximate facsimile, and it would destroy the original in the process of scanning it. A few science fiction writers consider teleporters that preserve the original, and the plot gets complicated when the original and teleported versions of the same person meet; but the more common kind of teleporter destroys the original, functioning as a super transportation device, not as a perfect replicator of souls and bodies.
In 1993 an international group of six scientists, including IBM Fellow Charles H. Bennett, confirmed the intuitions of the majority of science fiction writers by showing that perfect teleportation is indeed possible in principle, but only if the original is destroyed. In subsequent years, other scientists have demonstrated teleportation experimentally in a variety of systems, including single photons, coherent light fields, nuclear spins, and trapped ions. Teleportation promises to be quite useful as an information processing primitive, facilitating long range quantum communication (perhaps ultimately leading to a "quantum internet"), and making it much easier to build a working quantum computer. But science fiction fans will be disappointed to learn that no one expects to be able to teleport people or other macroscopic objects in the foreseeable future for a variety of engineering reasons, even though it would not violate any fundamental law to do so.
In the past, the idea of teleportation was not taken very seriously by scientists, because it was thought to violate the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, which forbids any measuring or scanning process from extracting all the information in an atom or other object. According to the uncertainty principle, the more accurately an object is scanned the more it is disturbed by the scanning process, until one reaches a
point where the object's original state has been completely disrupted, still without having extracted enough information to make a perfect replica. This sounds like a solid argument against teleportation: if one cannot extract enough information from an object to make a perfect copy, it would seem that a perfect copy cannot be made. But the six scientists found a way to make an end run around this logic, using a celebrated and paradoxical feature of quantum mechanics known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect. In brief, they found a way to scan out part of the information from an object A, which one wishes to teleport, while causing the remaining, unscanned, part of the information to pass, via the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect, into another object
C which has never been in contact with A. Later, by applying to C a treatment depending on the scanned-out information, it is possible to maneuver C into exactly the same state as A was in before it was scanned. A itself is no longer in that state, having been thoroughly disrupted by the scanning, so what has been achieved is teleportation, not replication.
As the figure above suggests, the unscanned part of the information is conveyed from A to C by an intermediary object B, which interacts first with C and then with A. What? Can it really be correct to say "first with C and then with A"? Surely, in order to convey something from A to C, the delivery vehicle must visit A before C, not the other way around. But there is a subtle, unscannable
1590 AD 1592 AD 1609 AD
Zacharias and Hans Janssen combined double convex lenses in a tube, producing the first telescope.
Galileo found that the path of a projectile is a parabola by assuming that the uniform motion preserved in the absence of an external force is rectilinear.
-Kepler calculations of Mars' orbit, which were inconsistent with then current assumption that it was a circle.
-Galileo built a telescope with which he discovered the mountains on the moon, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and sunspots.
Auror a 2005
7
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
GIKI Science Society
8
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
kind of information that, unlike any material cargo, and even unlike ordinary information, can indeed be delivered in such a backward fashion. This subtle kind of information, also called "Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlation" or "entanglement", has been at least partly understood since the 1930s when it was discussed in a famous paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen. In the 1960s John Bell showed that a pair of entangled particles, which were once in contact but later move too far apart to interact directly, can exhibit individually random behaviour that is too strongly correlated to be explained by classical statistics. Experiments on photons and other particles have repeatedly confirmed these correlations, thereby providing strong evidence for the validity of quantum mechanics, which neatly explains them. Another well-known fact about EPR correlations is that they cannot by themselves deliver a meaningful and controllable message. It was thought that their only usefulness was in proving the validity of quantum mechanics. But now it is known that, through the phenomenon of quantum teleportation, they can deliver exactly that part of the information in an object which is too delicate to be scanned out and delivered by conventional methods.
This figure on the right compares conventional facsimile transmission with quantum teleportation (see above). In conventional facsimile transmission the original is scanned, extracting partial information about it, but remains more or less intact after the scanning process. The scanned information is sent to the receiving
station, where it is imprinted on some raw material (e.g. paper) to produce an approximate copy of the original. By contrast, in quantum teleportation, two objects B and C
are first brought into contact and then separated. Object B is taken to the sending station, while object C is taken to the receiving station. At the sending station object B is scanned together with the original object A which one wishes to teleport, yielding some information and totally disrupting the state of A and B. The scanned information is sent to the receiving station, where it is used to select one of several treatments to be applied to object C, thereby putting C into an exact replica of the former state of A.
The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen: "Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper using a barometer." One student replied,
"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."
This highly original answer so incensed the instructor that the student was failed. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that answer was indeed correct, but did not display knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer, which showed at least a minimal familiarity the principles of physics. For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.
On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows,
"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer." "Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."
"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the restoring force T = 2 pi sq. root (l /g)."
"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."
"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into meters to give the height of the building." "But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."
The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel Prize for Physics.
1614 AD
John Napier created the first logarithmic tables and the first use of the word 'logarithm.'
1644 AD 1647 AD 1649 AD
-Evangelista Torricelli devised the mercury barometer and created an artificial vacuum. -Blaise Pascal built a five digit adding machine, driven by rising and falling weights.
C a v a l i e r i d e r i v e d t h e relationship between the focal length of a thin lens and the radii of a surface's curvature.
Descartes laid the foundation of analytical geometry.
Biological Nanotechnology
-Nanomachines
By Umair Sadiq
Nanotechnology offers the prospect of designing and building novel materials and devices at the atomic level. A long-term goal of this field is to devise nanomachines that will be able to store, retrieve and replicate programs accurately, acquire raw materials, assemble them according to their programming, and obtain or generate the energy needed to carry out these elementary processes. Such capabilities are necessary before a nanomachine can ultimately replicate itself. Much of the current work in the design of nanomachines has utilized mechanical analogies in an attempt to duplicate macroscopic mechanisms, such as gears and rods, on a microscopic scale.
An alternative paradigm to the `mechanical engineering' approach to nanomachines is provided by biological systems. At the cellular level, information is stored by sequences of nucleic acids, which constitute the programs for the key functions of the organism. With the aid of appropriate enzymes, the specific sequence of nucleic acids is replicated, and, when necessary, repaired, with an error rate of only 10-6. Other enzymes enhance the rates of chemical reactions in cells by several orders of magnitude. These reactions allow for building long biopolymers and operating the cellular machinery in an accurate and highly controlled manner. The energy necessary to drive these chemical reactions is captured from the environment by specialized assemblies of proteins. One broad class of energy-capturing proteins converts light energy into chemical energy, in the form of proton gradients across membranes. Since light energy can easily be distributed over large areas, we can envision large 2-dimensional arrays of nanomachines, each including a set of proton pumps for its power supply. However, naturally occurring light-driven proton pumps, such as bacteriorhodopsin, are complex and involve many, sometimes poorly-understood stages. Let us take a brief look on the design of a simple nanomachine; a simple light-driven proton pump, using state-of-the-art molecular modeling.
There are two basic components to a simple light-driven proton pump: a source of photo-generated protons and a `gate-keeper', which prevents these protons from re-binding to their source. Deamer has shown that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, incorporated into membranes, release protons when they are illuminated. Therefore, focusing on the design of the
`Gate-keeper.', the initial approach involves a pair of proton acceptors, coupled to each other by a transient water bridge, and supported in the membrane by a small bundle of peptide helices. Upon illumination, the proton source transfers its proton to the first acceptor of the gate-keeper. While the reverse reaction is highly probable, irreversibility is ensured by a nonvanishing probability that the proton will be transferred to the second acceptor across a transient water bridge. Back transfer of the proton to the first acceptor, and hence to the proton source, is impeded by the free energy required to move the proton uphill towards the proton source, as well as by the disruption of the water bridge resulting from the change in the hydration of the two acceptors. Based on the established principles, a prototypical peptide proton pump can be readily constructed and tested by experimentalists. Once it is successfully demonstrated that the pump performs its functions, it can be further optimized for efficiency and regulatory precision.
Beyond this application of biological principles to nanotechnology, scientists are working on designing small, peptide enzymes supported by membranes. Using membranes as the supporting material would allow for the reduction in the size of enzymes and aligning them in two-dimensional arrays. This, in turn, can prove very useful in synthesis of different types of polymers. Furthermore, using membrane-supported enzymes in combination with proton pumps and membrane-bound peptide channels could lead to a simple synthetic system entirely driven by light (with no other source of energy needed).
’ Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like
an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a
minute. That's relativity’ .
’ If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is
x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut’ .
’ Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I
assure you mine are far greater’ .
Albert Einstein
1654 AD 1678 AD 1682 - 1705 AD
French mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat f o r m u l a t e t h e t h e o r y o f probability.
D u t c h a s t r o n o m e r a n d physicist Christiaan Huygens proposed Theory of Light Waves.
Applying Newton's laws of m o t i o n t o c o m e t s a n d mathematically demonstrating that comets move in elliptic orbits, English astronomer Edmond Halley correctly predicts that a comet he described in 1682 would return in 1758.
Auror a 2005
9
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
GIKI Science Society
10
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
The journey to human
powered flight
By Foaad Ahmed Tahir
Since ages man has dreamt of flying. There were various attempts made at flying by strapping wings to the arms and falling from heights but all were flawed at the basic fact that, weight for weight, human muscles are not as powerful as birds and so cannot sustain the weight of body by the method of flapping wings. The reason lies at the fact that the mode of thrust is air being pushed down and in reaction an equal force is applied on the body. Now the force applied depends upon the rate at which momentum is imparted on the air, which in turn depends on the mass of air and its velocity, but the limiting factors of human, its power, is related to the rate at which energy is imparted to the air, which in turn is related to its mass and square of velocity. Thus in order to minimize the energy consumption, while keeping the momentum and thus force constant, large amount of air has to be pushed at slow velocities. In the flying mode of flapping wings small amount of air is pushed at great velocity, thus the design is flawed. When attempts were made to rectify this mistake by making aircraft, the weight was too great and the efficiency too low for it to be successful. Thus the human dream of flight by own power was nearly forgotten. That is until a British industrialist again ignited interest in this matter by announcing an award of £50,000 for a human powered controlled and steered flight. Many attempts were made but none succeeded. That is until 1977 when an American engineer Dr. Paul Mccready pursued this project.
He was inspired about the project when he saw eagles gliding effortlessly in the drift of wind. He started calculating the ratios of load per area of the wings of different birds. Finally he arrived at the design of hang glider. He calculated that it requires 0.5 horsepower for flight. Thus if its wingspan is doubled without increasing the weight, its power requirement would be reduced to about 150 watts, roughly what a healthy athlete can produce for the duration of the test flight.
His method for the construction of the plane was very a crude engineering approach. If a component worked, they made it lighter until it broke; if it broke initially they strengthened it. Thus they worked by trial and error. He used extremely light and strong materials of his day. In all, he used balsa wood, aluminum, cardboard, epoxy resins and piano wire. The aluminum tubes used at the
ends of wings were specially treated to reduce their thickness to 1/32 inch. They were so thin that under stress they were rubber like. He covered the wings with special Mylar plastic to reduce the weight. It was the first such type of project in which the components' mass was measured in grams. Their design was a hang glider shaped wingspan with the rudder and aerolon controls at the front. It had a 2 meter long propeller which was 86% efficient and rotated at 120 rpm. A 3:2 ratio gear was used as the human power is at its peak at 80 rpm. The plane itself moved at just 16km/h. It had a wingspan of 96 feet but weighed in at an astonishing 35 kilograms. It was named Gossamer Condor. To win the prize it had to take off unassisted and steer in an 8 shaped figure and then clear an 8 foot pole. It achieved that easily and thus made history by being the first human powered, controlled and steered flight.
Then the same British industrialist offered an even bigger prize of £100,000 for a human powered flight across the 23 miles of English Channel. The same team lead by Dr. Paul Mccready again worked on an improved plane called Gossamer Albatross. It had an even bigger wingspan but was lighter due to advancement in materials. It flew across the channel in 1979 in more than 2 hours, thus setting the then world record of the longest flight, which was later improved by the Deadulus plane of MIT on which staggering 100,000 man hours were spent. However the story of Dr. Paul Mccready does not end here. He went on to make a company, Aerovironment, which is a leading name in energy efficient machines. First a remote controlled solar airplane was made that flew from London to Paris. Then in collaboration with GM motors it participated in solar car race in Australia and won by a margin of 50% over runners up. This led to the design of an electric car made by GM in collaboration with Aerovironment. It had an aerodynamic drag coefficient of 0.19, that of an f-16 fighter jet, and went from 0-60 mph in 8.9 seconds.
Thus Dr. Paul Mccready has endeavored on many trendsetting and breakthrough projects and is rightly called the father of human powered flight. His motto is rightly “Doing more with less.”
1684 AD
G e r m a n m a t h e m a t i c i a n Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz publishes an account of his discovery of calculus. Sir Isaac Newton developed calculus independently in 1666 but does not publish a description of his method until 1687.
1698 AD 1714 AD 1742 AD
English engineer Thomas Savery builds the first practical steam engine, which serves as a water pump. It uses two copper vessels alternately filled with steam from a boiler.
Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit makes the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol.
Swedish astronomer Anders C e l s i u s d e s c r i b e s a temperature scale.
Bermuda Triangle
The "Bermuda or Devil's Triangle" is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States, which is noted for a high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft. The apexes of the triangle are generally accepted to be Bermuda, Miami, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
In the past, extensive, but futile Coast Guard searches prompted by search and rescue cases such as the disappearances of an entire squadron of TBM Avengers shortly after take off from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., or the traceless sinking of USS Cyclops and Marine Sulphur Queen have lent credence to the popular belief in the mystery and the supernatural qualities of the "Bermuda Triangle.”
Countless theories attempting to explain the many disappearances have been offered throughout the history of the area. The most practical seem to be environmental and those citing human error. The majority of disappearances can be attributed to the area's unique environmental features. First, the "Devil's Triangle" is one of the two places on earth that a magnetic compass does point towards true north. Normally it points toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of variation changes by as much as 20 degrees as one circumnavigates the earth. If this compass variation or error is not compensated for, a navigator could find himself far off course and in deep trouble.
An area called the "Devil's Sea" by Japanese and Filipino seamen, located off the east coast of Japan, also exhibits the same magnetic characteristics. It is also known for its mysterious disappearances.
Another environmental factor is the character of the Gulf Stream. It is extremely swift and turbulent and can quickly erase any evidence of a disaster. The unpredictable Caribbean-Atlantic weather pattern also plays its role. Sudden local thunder storms and water spouts often spell disaster for pilots and mariners. Finally, the topography of the ocean floor varies from extensive shoals around the islands to some of the deepest marine trenches in the world. With the interaction of the strong currents over the many reefs the topography is in a state of constant flux and development of new navigational hazards is swift.
Not to be under estimated is the human error factor. A large number of pleasure boats travel the waters between Florida's Gold Coast and the Bahamas. All too often, crossings are attempted with too small a boat, insufficient knowledge of the area's hazards, and a lack of good seamanship. The Coast Guard is not impressed with supernatural explanations of disasters at sea. It has been their experience that the combined forces of nature and unpredictability of mankind outdo even the most far fetched science fiction many times each year.
Polar Aurora
Polar auroras are optical phenomena characterized by colourful displays of light in the night sky. An aurora display in the Northern Hemisphere is called the aurora borealis, or the northern lights; in the Southern Hemisphere it is called the aurora australis. Auroras are the most visible effect of the solar wind upon the Earth's atmosphere. The aurora occur when the Van Allen radiation belts become "overloaded" with energetic particles, which cascade down magnetic field lines and collide with the earth's upper atmosphere. The most powerful aurora tend to occur after coronal mass ejections. Aurora in Latin means dawn and Borealis comes from Boreas, the name of the Greek god of the northern wind.
The sun gives off high-energy charged particles (also called ions) that travel out into space at speeds of 300 to 1200 kilometres per second. A cloud of such particles is called plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth's magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped by it and they follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionosphere, the section of the earth's atmosphere that extends from about 60 to 600 kilometres above the earth's surface. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow, producing the spectacle that we know as the auroras, northern and southern. The array of colours consists of red, green, blue and violet.
1777 AD 1780 AD 1799 AD
French physicist Charles Coulomb invents the torsion balance for measuring the force of magnetic and electrical attraction, to formulate the principle, known as Coulomb's law.
Scottish inventor James Watt and English manufacturer M a t t h e w B o u l t o n b e g i n manufacturing a steam engine f o r p r o v i d i n g p o w e r t o machinery. This accelerates the process of industrialization popularly known as the Industrial Revolution.
German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss submits a proof that every algebraic equation has at least one root, or solution. It comes to be c a l l e d " t h e f u n d a m e n t a l theorem of algebra."
Auror a 2005
11
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
GIKI Science Society
12
A
R
T
I
C
L
E
S
The Northern Lights are constantly in motion because of the changing interaction between the solar wind and the earth's magnetic field. The solar wind commonly generates up to 1,000,000 megawatts of electricity in an auroral display and this can cause interference with power lines, radio and television broadcasts and satellite communications. By studying the auroras scientists can learn more about the solar wind, how it affects the earth's atmosphere and how the energy of the auroras might be exploited for useful purposes.
1800 AD
S i r W i l l i a m H e r s c h e l announces his discovery of infrared radiation in the Sun's light.
1803 AD 1804 AD 1822 AD
E n g l i s h p h y s i c i s t a n d physician Thomas Young d e m o n s t r a t e s l i g h t i n t e r f e r e n c e a n d h e l p s establish the wave theory of light.
British inventor and engineer Richard Trevithick constructs the first practical steam locomotive in 1804. Within fifty years the railroad becomes the dominant means for moving people and freight
- Jean B.J. Fourier publishes his mathematical analysis of heat, showing that through a t r i g o n o m e t r i c s e r i e s , a n y function can be expressed as the sum of an infinite series of sines and cosines.
-Charles Babbage begins work the Difference Engine.
1825 AD 1826 AD 1831 AD
C a r l F r i e d r i c h G a u s s (German), Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (Russian), and János Bolyai (Hungarian) independently discover non-Euclidean geometry, in which more than one parallel can be drawn to a given line through a given point not on the line.
French inventor Joseph N. Niépce takes the first surviving permanent photograph using a bitumen-coated pewter plate exposed in a camera obscura (a box with a lens that projects an image onto the box's inside surface).
English physicist Michael F a r a d a y d i s c o v e r s electromagnetic induction, proving that a current flowing in a coil of wire can induce electromagnetically a current in a nearby coil.
Interview with
Dr. Abdullah Sadiq
How it all started…
A new phase of life…
Back to the homeland…
I became a physicist through pure chance. Thanks to my teacher Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan I developed interest in mathematics in my childhood. I was also fond of making my own toys and tinkering with simple machines I could lay my hands on. I could hardly put them back though after I had put them apart! But I hardly had any plans to become a scientist.
After my intermediate from Islamia College Peshawar, I tried to become a GDP (pilot), cleared the written test but got rejected on medical grounds because of a weak collar bone. Hence I continued my studies. After my B. Sc I again applied for a job but the late Professor Abdul Majid Mian, who was the Principal of Islamia College as well as Chairman of Physics and Mathematics departments of Peshawar University, refused to give me a letter of recommendation. Instead he advised me to join the Physics Department. Hence I went to University of Peshawar and did my masters in physics. As a university student I went on a study tour of Lahore and visited the then Atomic Energy Center there. That was my first visit to a place as far as Lahore! I was so impressed by its well kept lawns, shiny floors and well equipped laboratories that I decided join this place on my graduation.
After my masters and teaching for a few months in my Alma Mater I applied for the job in the Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and was interviewed in the same Center in Lahore. An American professor on the Interview Board, Michael Moravcsik, asked me the reason for the oval-shape of the sun just before it sets. My rather tentative answer must have impressed him as I was offered a job in PAEC. A few months later I was inducted as an Officer on Special Training, or OST. Dr Samar Mubarakmand, Chairman NECOM and Mr. Parvez Butt, Chairman, PAEC were some of the other OSTs who joined PAEC with me. I had an exciting time in Lahore and met leading physicists of the country including Professor Abdus Salam. And what made it all the more interesting was the diversity of talented people belonging to different fields from over the country, including the then East Pakistan.
It was very difficult to distinguish between Professor Riazuddin, and his identical twin, Professor Fayyazuddin, who was my research supervisor. It was not uncommon for me to go to Riazuddin for consultation taking him for Fayyazuddin. He would politely tell me that perhaps I want to talk to his brother. I did quite well in the training but for some reason I went abroad for my higher studies a year later than most of my batch mates. In summer 1964, before I went abroad, I had to choose between three possibilities. To go to Edinburgh as a Commonwealth Scholar and study under the supervision of Higgs, now of the Higgs Boson fame, to go to the University of Colorado on a scholarship or to study at the University of Illinois (U of I) as a teaching assistant. After discussions with some teachers I finally chose the U of I at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
I found an intellectually and culturally rich environment at the U of I. There were students from all over the world with weekly seminars and colloquia by famous scientists from within and outside the States, this was particularly so during the Centenary Celebrations of the University. These were the days soon after President Kennedy and Malcolm X were assassinated, the black movement was at its peak and USA got involved in Vietnam. These developments made students all over the world relatively more concerned about social issues. Students at the U of I Campus were also drawn into the so called students' movement that reached its peak towards the late sixties. This also made me conscious of my social responsibilities and during 1970 I managed to raise some funds for flood victims of the then East Pakistan.
On my return home in 1971 I got involved in social work and infra-structure development for research at the expense of my own physics research. I tried to improve literacy in neglected areas of the society by going to a locality of sanitation workers and teaching
H
their children. At about the same time my teacher, mentor and friend, Michael Wortis, also helped me write and publish my PhD research. PINSTEC 1 was then newly established. I also took
1. Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Technology.
Auror a 2005
15
I
N
T
E
R
V
I
E
w
GIKI Science Society
16
I
N
T
E
R
V
I
E
w
1837 ADAmerican inventor Samuel F. B. Morse and British physicist S i r C h a r l e s W h e a t s t o n e independently invent the first electric telegraphs.
1842 AD 1850 AD 1854 AD
German Julius Robert von Mayer formulates the law of c o n s e r v a t i o n o f e n e r g y. German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz and British physicist James Prescott Joule a l s o a r e c r e d i t e d w i t h discovering this principle.
G e r m a n m a t h e m a t i c a l physicist Rudolf Clausius is the first to enunciate the second law of thermodynamics.
B o o l e a n A l g e b r a B r i t i s h mathematician and logician George Boole describes an algebraic system in which l o g i c a l p r o p o s i t i o n s a r e denoted by symbols and can be acted on by abstract mathematical operators that correspond to the laws of logic. active part in the organization and development of its library into a modern and extensive resource base of scientific
and technical information.
In due course of time a feeling started nagging me that my involvement in social work and other non-academic activities is not making much difference to the society. I felt that I might be able to make some contribution in the field in which I had some formal training. I requested Dr Ishfaq Ahmad, then member PAEC, to relieve me of the library related work with a view to go back to physics research. My association with Raza Tahir-Kheli of Temple University, USA and the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) at that stage greatly facilitated this transition. I also got an opportunity to spend about 18 months in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, which eventually paved the way for the ICTP Prize and Gold Medal. Still after all that, there lied a dormant feeling to do something more. It was at that time I switched my career of a scientist to one as an educationist.
In response to a request from Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who was then Federal Minister of Finance, PAEC nominated me to help him plan an engineering institution. The initial proposal was for a post B. Sc. graduate school. I strongly felt that we need to select people at an earlier age and it ended up like it is today. We rented a small building in Islamabad, where I used to spend a few hours daily before going to my office in PINSTECH. Mr. Samiullah Marwat soon joined that office on full time basis. The Society for the Promotion of Engineering Sciences and Technology in Pakistan (SOPREST) was soon formed as the parent body of the new Institution. Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan was its President and Dr. A. Q. Khan, Mr. H. U. Beg, me and some others as its founding members. An academic planning team was also assembled with Dr. A. Q. Khan, Mr. Amanullah Khan and me as interim deans and the former also as Project Director and Mr. H. U. Beg as an Executive Director. Because of my involvement with GIKI I had to decline faculty position at ICTP as a staff associate. With the dedicated work of the project and academic teams the institute got functional in fall 1993. I was the first faculty member to shift here with my family and taught physics 101 and 102 to the pioneering batch. After one year I decided to leave GIKI. I wanted to go back to my village, but on the insistence of my wife I returned to my parent organization, PAEC and was posted in the Center of Nuclear studies, CNS that was led by my teacher and mentor, Dr Inam-ur-Rehman.
President Laghari started a series of meetings with professionals from various fields at the time I went back to PAEC in 1994. Dr Ishfaq Ahmad, Chairman PAEC led a team of physicists in one of these meetings and asked Dr. Masud Ahmad, now Member Physical Sciences, PAEC, and me to make a list of points for discussions. Initiating Physics Talent Contest (NPTC) was one such point. NPTC is meant to groom the youth of the nation for careers in Science, Engineering and Technology, or STEM Careers and prepare a Pakistani team for participation in the International Physics Olympiad. The President graciously endorsed this proposal among others and with the help of funding from PAEC we launched it on a pilot scale in 1995. Meanwhile in CNS we also started other activities like weekly Colloquium where country chief of ICI, Chairman HEC, poets like Ahmed Faraz and other luminaries gave talks.
NPTC has been a great success. Pakistani students are now successfully competing in the International Physics Olympiads. President Musharaf is taking keen interest in this activity and has been awarding additional cash prizes to the selected students. NPTC has been extended to similar contests in mathematics, biology and chemistry in the form of National Science Talent Contest and a National Engineering Competition under the umbrella of STEM careers project of Higher Education Commission.
I look forward to strengthening all disciplines of specialization. We need the faculty who own the institution and for that I am keenly interested in GIKI alumni. The social environment at GIKI is good. The idea of societies dates back to batch one. It's a healthy activity and produces more well rounded and refined engineers. GIKI now seems to me an opportunity to be able to fulfill my earliest dreams. It probably would have been better were I younger at this stage. Now I am trying but yes with some handicaps. After twelve years I feel I lack that energy but I am resolute to put up my best and I hope all people to show their enthusiasm as well.
As for the inspiration of students I would like to say that in general you should try to do your best whatever field you choose. As for science, get new works and fill in the blanks!
Realization…
Foundations of GIKI…
NPTC and PIEAS …
Finally, after coming back to GIKI…
1
