I am delighted to be in Kala academy and interact with the children of Bal Bhavan. My greetings to the principal, teachers and all the children. I want to talk to you about Nuclear reaction. What is fission and what is fusion? In our country we have done both Fission and Fusion. Fission is used in power generation and nuclear bomb making.

What is Fission?

Definition: a nuclear reaction in which a massive nucleus splits into smaller nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy

The splitting of a heavy nucleus into two roughly equal parts (which are nuclei of lower-mass elements) accompanied by the release of a relatively large amount of energy in the form of kinetic energy of the two parts and in the form of emission of neutrons and gamma rays.

What is Fusion?

The Principle is a nuclear reaction in which nuclei combine to form more massive nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy. Lots of research is going on to use fusion for power generation.

The basis of all of these is the Einstein's discovery: E= mc2.

Number of elements

Do you know how many elements are there in the world? In periodic table, the first one is Hydrogen. It has only one electron and one proton. It cannot stay in a stable state by itself. It can combine with another Hydrogen atom to form H2 or Two Hydrogen atoms can combine with one O atom to form H2O, which is water.

Thorium has the Atomic Number 90. Uranium for example has the atomic number of 92 and Atomic weight of 238. Plutonium; atomic Number is 94 and Atomic weight 244.

These heavy metals are used in making and mastering atomic energy. Do you know what you are made up of?

Cells - Molecules- What are these made up of? Atoms.

How many atoms are there in the world? As per Periodic tables there are 109 named elements and 3 unnamed, so totally 112.

Constitution of human being

How many atoms you are made up of? Trillions. You have mostly carbon, Hydrogen nitrogen and Oxygen, You also have a bit of Calcium, sulphur etc.

I also have the same thing. Our ancestors also had the same type of atoms. Animals also have similar type of atoms. The non-living tables, chairs are also composed of atoms. The atoms that are arranged and sequenced to make you, is unique combination that will never be replicated and never had existed before either.

The some of the trillion atoms that are in you may have come from Mahatma Gandhi, from people whom we may not even know, may have come from some plants, even some animals or non living things like a rock etc. Is it not amazing that different arrangements of atoms make different things? From living to non-living, from one species to another species, with very different and unique characteristics, even within the same species.

Life of a species

Most species live generally for 4 million years. But atoms live for several trillions of years. Take the Acorn seed. It has dreams of becoming a Big oak Tree. These dreams of how it will look like when it becomes an oak tree is already written in the acorn itself. This is the genetic code. This is what distinguishes from living arrangements of atoms and non living arrangements of atoms. Though it is written in every acorn how and when it will become an Oak tree, it is not necessary that every acorn will become a tree. The chances are one in 10,000. Others will fail to make it due to environments; they may even be consumed as acorn themselves.

1. Is there life possible in other solar systems?

It is not possible to say yes with certainty. We hope that our quest for locating other forms of life in the universe would soon lead us to finding life forms equal or better than ourselves in other solar systems.

2. Will it ever be possible to go to Sun?

As you know, sun is the biggest nuclear power plant that we know. It continuously burns its mass to produce heat and light - energy; following Einstein's law, E= MC2. As of today we don't have materials that can shield man and machines from such high temperatures. We do not know, whether we would be able to make this kind of materials, even in the near future. Until that time, our reaching the sun would remain a distant dream and the challenge.

3. Do active thinking continue during sleeping? What is the reality behind dream intuitions?

There are two ways by which brains functions are classified. Once is the conscious part of the brain, and the other is the sub-conscious part of the brain, when a person is awake, both the conscious and sub-conscious are active. When a person is dead, both are in active. When a person is sleeping, the conscious brain is at rest, while the sub-conscious mind is active and has been the cause of all dreams and intuitions. Nature is always symmetric. Hence this leads us to predict that there will be one more state, where the sub-conscious mind is at rest and the conscious mind is awake. This is the state, which consumes the least amount of energy and our ancestors where pioneers in controlling the sub-conscious mind and this state is also called meditation.

In sleep two kinds of sleep - rapid eye movement sleep (REM) 25%, NREM (non-REM sleep) 75%. REM sleep you get dreams, normally you get REM after midnight. The store houses (ATP, Phosphate, Glycogen reserves) are replenished during the NREM sleep. It prepares the body for the next day activity. REM sleep prepares the mind. During NREM Sleep brain is prepared keeping all the important thing stored and wiping off the unwanted things.

4. Why N2O induces laughing?

In brain stem there is an area called reticules formation (a network of neurons and nerve fibers) - it keeps the controls on all the sensory inputs for the brain and it acts as a gate and a filter. Alcohol and N2O loosen the gate, so that any input get into the emotional part of the brain with out any regulatory mechanism. The filter mechanism doesn't work. People start laughing. My friend Dr. Selvamoorthy uses Nitric Oxide (NO) for treating patients with high altitude pulmonary edema. With two atoms NO, it is doing a constructive work, when three atoms joins it is doing destructive function.

5. Why child cries soon after the birth?

Inside the mother's womb it is very comfortable and fully supported by the life supporting system -like temperature, pressure, food, oxygen etc. When it gives birth, the umbilical chord is cut, the connectivity breaks and the child has to breath, deep breath is taken inside to meets the requirement of the oxygen sp it cries to take deep breath.

6. Why saliva is constantly generated in our mouth and we keep gulping it? (H)

Saliva has three functions: Lubricating function, digestive function and neutralizing the acid. These functions are constantly required for the human body. Hence the constant generation of saliva.

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