Mr. Midlife and the State Patrol Officer

Mr. Midlife had just brought a new sports car and wanted to see what it could do. He took it out on the open highway and accelerated until his speedometer read 80kms an hour.

Suddenly, behind him, he saw a State Patrol Officer’s car lights flashing.

“I can overturn him’, thought Mr. Midlife, and he pressed the pedal to the metal. The sports car sprang to life and sped up even more, topping 120kms per hour.

Then Mr. Midlife had a change of heart. “I’m too old to try to overturn the cop.” So he slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder of the road.

The State Patrol officer pulled up behind him, walked to the side of the sports car, and glared down at Mr. Midlife.

“Goin’ pretty fast there weren’t you?” asked the ofiicer.

“Yes, officer. I’m sorry.”

“I see you changed your mind tough.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well I’ll tell you what. If you can give me a reason to overturn me that I have never heard before, I’ll let you go without a ticket.”

Mr. Midlife thought for a moment and then answered, “Well, last week my wife left me and ran off with a State Patrol officer. I thought you were behind me trying to give her back.”

The state trooper smiled and waved as he walked back to his car. “Have a nice day”.

post by
Akila

Dark energy on firmer footing

Geometric test supports the existence of a key thread in the fabric of the Universe.

Eugenie Samuel Reich

The claim that mysterious dark energy is accelerating the Universe's expansion has been placed on firmer ground, with the successful application of a quirky geometric test proposed more than 30 years ago.

The accelerating expansion was first detected in 1998. Astronomers studying Type 1a supernovae, stellar explosions called "standard candles" because of their predictable luminosity, made the incredible discovery that the most distant of these supernovae appear dimmer than would be expected if the Universe were expanding at a constant rate.¹ This suggested that some unknown force - subsequently dubbed dark energy - must be working against gravity to blow the universe apart.

Since that time, studies comparing variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation — an echo from the Big Bang — with the distribution of galaxies today have allowed cosmologists to trace how the Universe has expanded, supporting the idea of dark energy. They have also suggested that the Universe is 'flat' — that is, it contains just enough matter to keep it delicately poised between collapsing in on itself and expanding forever².

These two assumptions have become a fundamental part of cosmologists' understanding of the Universe. Now Christian Marinoni and Adeline Buzzi of the Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Provence in Marseilles, France, have independently checked these ideas by analysing the geometry of orbiting pairs of galaxies. Their study is published this week in Nature³.

The researchers used a version of the Alcock–Paczynski test, which relies on identifying symmetrical objects in space and using them as 'standard spheres'. Any distortions in space caused by the expansion of the cosmos would cause the most distant standard spheres to appear asymmetrical. "This provides a similar level of accuracy to supernovae," says Marinoni. "It's a direct proof of dark energy."

Object lessons

For example, if the universe is expanding outwards due to dark energy, distant objects will appear elongated along the line of sight from Earth, because Earth and the objects are being propelled away from one another along that direction.

Several groups have tried to apply the test, for example by considering clusters of galaxies as the standard spheres, but largely failed because they could not measure distant objects with sufficient accuracy.

To get round this, Marinoni and Buzzi instead studied the distribution in orientations of pairs of galaxies that orbit each other. In a Universe without dark energy, that distribution is expected to be spherically symmetrical — in other words, the number of galaxy pairs oriented in any particular direction should be the same.

The researchers found that the farther away the galaxy pairs were, the more asymmetrical the distribution was, with more galaxy pairs oriented along the line of sight from Earth. The pattern matched what would be expected in a flat Universe expanding due to dark energy.

The reliability of the test depends on the assumption that the distribution in orientations of galaxy pairs doesn't change depending on their distance from Earth — an idea that is largely untested. But researchers are still excited by the result.

"It's a very clever idea, it's unexpected, and it's going to take a while to determine whether it's accepted or not," says Charles Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and co-proposer, in 1979, of the test Marinoni and Buzzi used⁴.

"This is a cool new tool. It's another indication that everything is consistent," says Anthony Tyson, who studies cosmology at the University of California, Davis. Tyson adds that he is sceptical about some of the assumptions underlying theories of dark energy, so he finds independent efforts to confirm its presence extremely valuable. "For those of us who are doubters, it's making us think twice," he says.

Future surveys of distant objects are planned, for example using the European Space Agency's planned Euclid space telescope, and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, a proposed mission that was the top recommendation of the US National Academy of Sciences Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Marinoni says he hopes these will find further remote pairs of galaxies that can be analysed to pin down the nature of dark energy, perhaps even enough to overtake the accuracy offered by studies of type Ia supernovae.

With regards,

Prabukumar C

Mobile Number Portability now just an SMS away

After a delay of more than two years, Mobile Number Portability (which allows subscribers to retain their existing mobile telephone numbers when they switch from one operator to another) will debut today starting from Rohtak in Haryana.
Consumers who are not happy with their existing operator can move to another, irrespective of mobile technology or from one technology to another of the same operator within a circle. The system is likely to be launched in other parts of the country by the end of December provided the operators are ready with their network.
Process
For porting, a subscriber has to send an SMS (PORT<space>Mobile Number) from the number he wishes to be ported, to number 1900. The subscriber will receive a Unique Porting Code (UPC) by SMS from his current service provider.
The subscriber will need to apply in the prescribed application form to the chosen new service provider quoting the UPC which will act as a reference while filling up the application form with the new service provider. The new service provider will then take action to get the required processes completed to enable the subscriber get connected to his network. Porting has to be completed within seven working days. TRAI has fixed a ceiling of Rs 19 on porting charges which the new service provider may collect from the subscriber. Post-paid subscribers, before making the porting request, have to make sure that their last bill has been paid failing which the request for change to new service provider shall be rejected.
In the case of pre-paid subscriber, any balance amount left will not be carried forward when the number is transferred to the new service provider. Once a subscriber ports his number to the new operator, then, he will have to wait for at least 90 days before he can change his operator again.
According to TRAI estimates, about 10 per cent of the mobile subscriber base is expected to avail itself of the service in the first year, which will fall down to just 5 per cent by the third year. But the system will force operators to improve their quality of service and create differentiation in services not only to retain their existing subscriber base but also to attract customers from other players. New operators are looking at MNP as an opportunity to wean away high-end customers cornered by incumbent players, especially in the post-paid segment. On the other hand, incumbent players are planning to leverage their pan-India network and reach to attract subscribers.

Thanks
THE HINDU

by
NMK

Greatness of tamil language

by
P'k C

**Story of Appreciation**

One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.
He passed the first interview, the director did the last interview, made
the last decision.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic
achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the
youth answered "none".

The director asked, " Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, " Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, " Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes
before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and
clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.*

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His
mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did
that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother
shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his
graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, asked: " Can you tell me
what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, " I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished
cleaning all the remaining clothes'

The Director asked, " please tell me your feelings."

The youth said, Number 1, I know now what is appreciation. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping
my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.
The director said, " This is what I am looking for to be my manager.
I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired.
Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

Mohankumar.N

JAVA PROGRAMS

prog 25:

import java.lang.*;

class A

{

        int x;

        void meth1()

        {

                System.out.println("method 1");

        }

}

class B extends A

{

        int y;

        void meth2()

        {

                System.out.println("method 2");

        }

}

class demo

{

        public static void main(String arg[])

        {

                B b=new B();

                b.x=100;

                b.y=200;

                System.out.println("x:"+b.x);

                System.out.println("y:"+b.y);

                b.meth1();

                b.meth2();

        }

}

o/p:

x:100

y:200

method 1

method 2

prog 26:

import java.lang.*;

class sample

{

        private void fun1()

        {

        System.out.println("fun1 from class sample");

        }

        public void fun2()

        {     

        System.out.println("fun2 from class sample");

        }

        void fun3()

        {     

        System.out.println("fun3 from class sample");

        }

        protected void fun4()

        {     

        System.out.println("fun4 from class sample");

        }

}

class subsample extends sample

{

        void test()

        {     

        System.out.println("test from class subsample");

        }

}

class mainclass

{

        public static void main(String arg[])

        {

        //illegal

        //sample s=new sample();

        //s.fun1();

        //s.fun2();

        subsample ss=new subsample();

        ss.test();

        //ss.fun1();

        ss.fun2();

        ss.fun3();

        ss.fun4():

        }

}

o/p

test from class subsample

fun2 from class sample

fun3 from class sample

fun4 from class sample

prog 27:

//Single inheritance

import java.lang.*;

import java.util.*;

class employee

{

        private int empno;

        private String ename;

        protected double sal;

        Scanner scan= new Scanner(System.in);

        public void setempdetails()

        {

                System.out.print("enter the empno :");

                empno=scan.nextInt();

                scan.nextLine();

                System.out.print("enter the ename :");

                ename=scan.nextLine();

                System.out.print("enter the sal :");

                sal=scan.nextDouble();

        }

        public void printempdetails()

        {

                System.out.print("empno :"+empno);

                System.out.print("ename :"+ename);

                System.out.print("sal :"+sal);

        }

}

class salesemployee extends employee

{

        private double comm;

        private double nsal;

        public void setcomm()

        {

                Scanner scan1= new Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.print("enter comm:");

                comm = scan1.nextDouble():

        }

        public void printcomm()

        {

                System.out.print("comm:"+comm);

        }

        public void netsal()

        {

                nsal=sal+comm;

        System.out.print("netsal:"+nsal);

        }

}

class samp

{

        public static void main(String arg[])

        {

                employee ep=new employee();

                ep.setempdetails();

                ep.printempdetails();

                salesemployee se= new salesemployee();

                se.setempdetails();

                se.setcomm();

                System.out.println("employee details");

                se.printempdetails();

                se.printcomm();

                se.netsal();

        }

}

o/p

enter the empno :10

enter the ename :shankar

enter the sal :100000

empno :10ename :Shankar

sal :100000.0

enter the empno :20

enter the ename :revathy

enter the sal :0

enter comm:10

employee details

empno :20

ename :revathy

sal :0.0

comm:10.0

netsal:10.0

prog 28:

import java.lang.*;

import java.util.*;

class employee

{

        private int empno;

        private String ename;

        double sal;

        Scanner scan= new Scanner(System.in);

        public void setempdetails()

        {

                System.out.print("enter the empno :");

                empno=scan.nextInt();

                scan.nextLine();

                System.out.print("enter the ename :");

                ename=scan.nextLine();

                System.out.print("enter the sal :");

                sal=scan.nextDouble();

        }

        public void printempdetails()

        {

                System.out.print("empno :"+empno);

                System.out.print("ename :"+ename);

                System.out.print("sal :"+sal);

                //System.out.print("hra:"+hra);

        //     System.out.print("grosspay:"+gp);

        }

}

class salesemployee extends employee

{

        private double comm;

        public double nsal;

        public void setcomm()

        {

                Scanner scan1= new Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.print("enter comm:");

                comm = scan1.nextDouble();

        }

        public void printcomm()

        {

                System.out.print("comm:"+comm);

        }

        public void netsal()

        {

                nsal=sal+comm;

        System.out.print("netsal:"+nsal);

        }

}

class cal extends salesemployee

{

        private double hra;

        private double gp;

        public void setgp()

        {

                hra=sal/2;

                gp=nsal+hra;

        }

        public void printgp()

        {

                System.out.print("hra:"+hra);

        System.out.print("grosspay:"+gp);

        }

}

class samp

{

        public static void main(String arg[])

        {

                cal se= new cal();

                se.setempdetails();

                se.setcomm();

                System.out.println("employee details");

                se.printempdetails();

                se.printcomm();

                se.netsal();

                se.setgp();

        se.printgp();

        }

}

o/p:

enter the empno :10

enter the ename :sf

enter the sal :200

enter comm:100

employee details

empno :10ename :sfsal :200.0comm:100.0netsal:300.0hra:100.0grosspay:400.

Demonic device converts information to energy

Experiment inspired by a paradox tempts a bead up

The laws of physics say that you can't get energy for nothing — worse still, you will always get out of a system less energy than you put in. But a nanoscale experiment inspired by a nineteenth-century paradox that seemed to break those laws now shows that you can generate energy from information.

Masaki Sano, a physicist at the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues have demonstrated that a bead can be coaxed up a 'spiral staircase' without any energy being directly transferred to the bead to push it upwards. Instead, it is persuaded along its route by a series of judiciously timed decisions to change the height of the 'steps' around it, based on information about the bead's position. In this sense, "information is being converted to energy", says Sano. The work is published by Nature Physics today¹.

The team's set-up was inspired by a nineteenth-century thought experiment proposed by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, which — controversially, at the time — suggested that information could be converted into energy. In the thought experiment, a demon guards a door between two rooms, each filled with gas molecules. The demon allows only fast-moving gas particles to pass out of the room on the left and into the room on the right, and only slow-moving particles to pass in the opposite direction.

As a result, the room on the right gradually gets warmer as the average speed of particles in that room increases, and the room on the left gets colder. The demon thus creates a difference in temperature without ever imparting any energy directly to the gas molecules — simply by knowing information about their speeds. This seems to violate the second law of thermodynamics, which states that you cannot make a system more ordered without any energy input.

A paradox put into practice

To create a real-life version of the demon experiment, Sano and his colleagues placed an elongated nanoscale polystyrene bead, which could rotate either clockwise or anticlockwise, into a bath of buffer solution. The team applied a varying voltage around the bead, making it progressively harder for the bead to rotate a full 360 degrees in the anticlockwise direction. This effectively created a "spiral staircase" that was harder to "climb up" in the anticlockwise direction than to "fall down" in the clockwise direction, says Sano.

When left alone, the bead was randomly jostled by the surrounding molecules, sometimes being given enough of a push to turn anticlockwise against the voltage — or jump up the stairs — but more often turning clockwise — or going "downstairs". But then the team introduced their version of Maxwell's demon.

They watched the motion of the bead, and when it randomly turned anticlockwise they quickly adjusted the voltage — the equivalent of Maxwell's demon slamming the door shut on a gas molecule — making it tougher for the bead to turn back clockwise. The bead is thus encouraged to keep climbing "upstairs", without any energy being directly imparted to the bead, says Sano.

The experiment does not actually violate the second law of thermodynamics, because in the system as a whole, energy must be consumed by the equipment — and the experimenters — to monitor the bead and switch the voltage as needed. But it does show that information can be used as a medium to transfer energy, says Sano. The bead is driven as a mini-rotor, with a information-to-energy conversion efficiency of 28%.

"This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content," says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information²; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. "This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale," says Jarzynski.

Vlatko Vedral, a quantum physicist at the University of Oxford, UK, says that it will be interesting to see whether the technique can be used to drive nanomotors and artificial molecular machines. "I would also be excited to see whether something like this is already at work in nature," he says. "After all, you could say that all living systems are 'Maxwell's demons', trying to defy the tendency for order to turn back into randomness." 

with regards,
Prabukumar c

Rain fOrEst , besant beACh

 

                                                      "thambi innum Tea varalae??"

                                                  SNAKE bABuuuuuu.......