pH - Have you ever thought what it really is?

Most of us should know that the pH of a substance determines its acidity (or alkalinity). We know that both acids and alkalies are opposites of each other. An acid will react with an alkaline to neutralise it. pH is measured on the pH scale, with water being 'neutral'. However, have you ever thought what pH actually is?
In a nutshell, the pH of a substance measures how much a substance will dissociate when put in water.
This is when a hydrogen atom, attached by a covalent bond (shared electron) to a compound in an acid, breaks  free of the bond. However, with it breaking free it leaves behind its only electron: it is now a single proton with a positive charge. This little proton then attaches itself to a nearby water molecule (as the acid/alkali is in water) and forms the compound H3O. This is just water (H2O) with an extra hydrogen (H). Although the proton has now lost its electron it is still considered a Hydrogen molecule. The H3O ion (as it is now a positively charged particle - extra proton, but no extra electron) is extremely important, to the extent it has a special name of its own: hydronium. It is the measure of hydronium in a solution of an acid or base (which is an alkali dissolved in water) is rated on the pH scale. A low pH indicates there is a lot of hydronium, whereas a high pH indicates there is a smaller and smaller amount. Here's an example of an acid and water reaction, you can clearly see that H3O is left behind:
H2SO4 + H2O → H3O+ + HSO4−
The pH scale isn't just limited between 0 and 14, those are just the values which are naturally available, it can go above and below that into the minus numbers! However, if you have pure water, as much as you might like to think it is almost never pure. In fact, pure water self-ionises naturally over time. This is when one proton (hydrogen atom without its electron) transfers itself from one water molecule to another. This produces two oppositely charged ions and here is the equation:
H2O + H2O  H3O+ + OH−
However, water does not go on like this for ever, otherwise its pH would just keep falling! Eventually enough of it has undergone chemical change for it to be considerably less likely to react - a kind of equilibrium - the pH of that equilibrium just happens to be pH 7. That's why we call pH 7 neutral - its the pH of stability, and we base the scale around that.
So, any acid will naturally be a very good electrolyte (a substance which contains free ions, making it a good electrical conductor). This also explains why they use battery acid inside of batteries, as when the protons leave the acidic compounds, they make the compounds positive ions. Since electricity is the flow of charge (not electrons! That is just a very common method of transmitting charge) this means electric current can pass through!
If you have any questions please feel free to post below.

What is Mass - Really? Do we know anything?

We all know that almost everything in our universe is made up of what we so affectionately call matter. This matter makes up everything we see and use everyday, it even makes up what we've never seen or used. Distant planets, stars and galaxies - all made up of this weird substance. With every physical 'theory' there is always an element of indefinite uncertainty, and yet mass is one theory that we can almost solidly call "fact". Or can we? Have we ever really thought of what mass is? You may respond that mass is what 'is there'. But how do we know 'what's there' is there? Or what isn't seemingly 'there' is in reality... there? What is 'there'? What are 'space' and 'dimensions'? They didn't exist before the universe began. 

Mass, as you can see, is a much more fiddly concept than you might ever imagine. On a large scale, relative to us, all masses obey a set of rules which we call 'forces' and 'physical laws', and yet on an atomic level, electrons do not. They seem to inadvertently flit around, sometimes seeming to be in two places at once! We cannot predict them entirely. Due to this a new theory was developed, called string theory, suggesting that everything in the universe is bonded together by strings so small that if you enlarged a hydrogen atom to the size of the galaxy the string would be only the size of a human hair! This theory may have yet to explain these tricky conundrums which inundate us in the universe. Yet, as with any theory, it is never perfect and there are always questions surrounding it. In fact, all the facts that we learn in everyday life, that we take for granted. All of them, are probably FALSE! They are in reality just attempts at trying to explain what happens around us. You may say that many of these theories are too robust to simply discard as mere attempts! Yet, that is exactly what philosophers and scientists would have said about ancient theories long ago. Back then, everyone believed that the world was the centre of the universe, that everything was made up of just four elements (earth, fire, air and water) and were completely perplexed by why there were different 'types of air', some of which could kill you! In response to these, instead of finding the correct solution, they simply tangled themselves up in knots, experimenting and trying to find an explanation using primitive theories. We know now that if pioneering scientists such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein hadn't come about, we would still be living, ignorant to the world around us.

This is why I believe that we have yet to come close to touching the reality of the universe. Our generation is simply another step towards simplifying these many "proven" theories and finding the real answer to life around us. Every generation brings with it new advancements and one day I think that in someone, somewhere's head the real solution will finally click. We are all on a constant adventure of mishaps and discoveries, some completely unintentional, and yet it is these accidents that will one day let us tumble into the bliss of understanding.

It doesn't have to be genial scientists or scholars which make these discoveries. Most of their minds have all been shaped and warped by the theories which surround us today. Most of them will never have the 'ignorance' to question scientific theories. This is why I believe that to advance in science we must all be willing to completely discard all that we have learnt, have an open mind, and fundamentally question the roots of stable theories. Without that there would be no scientific advancement whatsoever. In fact it is not knowing the answer which helps us advance, it is the question. As implied by the word 'creativity', you must 'create' the question to be able to think of finding the right answer. Even then there will always be more questions coming. What's to stop me or you finding the next question?

Air - The Thing Which Keeps us Alive Could Mean our Demise

Air is all around us all the time. It surrounds us every single minute of our lives, from start to finish: literally. Air is extremely important, and without it life may never even have come into existence. Air is mixture which helps us do things such as breathe, make fires and fly aeroplanes. One tiny change in the composition of air and we might have had very different lives, if none at all!  

A common misconception is that air is just one ‘element’. This is completely untrue! Air is not on the periodic table (you can check if you like). Air isn’t even one simple compound. In fact, air is actually a mixture of a variety of different elements and compounds in gaseous form, the most notorious of which being oxygen. However, this is not the gas in most abundance, in fact if it was we would most probably be dead, as pure oxygen is poisonous!

Air is actually made up mainly of nitrogen (around 78%), oxygen generally only makes up about 20-21% of air. There are also small amounts (around 1%) of noble gases such as argon and helium in the air. Finally, air contains substances essential for plant life: carbon dioxide (0.03%) and water vapour (0.97%, but it can vary!) Plants need carbon dioxide and water for the process of photosynthesis, where they convert these substances to glucose and oxygen in the process of photosynthesis. You may have heard of humidity levels. Since the amount of water in the air can vary, this can raise or drop humidity levels. It can go from 4% to 0.5%!

Air however does not only contain these set substances. It also contains minutely small amounts of other substances such as aerosols (which are tiny particles of dust from the ground or from volcanic ash.) If you can imagine zooming up into the sky, the composition of air there would be very different. There lies the notorious gas known as ozone, which environmentalists are currently making a big fuss about (due to the theory of global warming). There is also a lot more helium and hydrogen up there, as they are lighter elements, less dense than the others, so when they float up the others sink down.

You have probably heard of air pressure as well. This is just basically the weight of the air pushing down on everything on the earth – including us! Air pressure is measure in something called Pascal units which is just how many kilograms of ‘weight’/’force’ (measured in Newtons – “N”) act over 1 m² of area. So if 3kg of air was pressing down on 1 m² of area then the air pressure would be 3 Pascals. However the real pressure of the air comes nothing close to that. In fact for every 1 m² of area on the earth, air pressure results in a force equivalent to the weight of a large elephant pushing down on it! You may ask why we aren’t crushed by this force. This is because the blood in our bodies pushes out with an equivalent pressure and the two cancel out. This also explains why when we enter different areas of pressure, for example when flying on a plane, sometimes people get nosebleeds as the difference in pressure causes the blood vessels to expand and burst. Imagine if you entered a vacuum (space) without a special suit, you would just burst due to the pressure of your blood being too strong for your body to withstand!

physics.org | Explore | Radiation dose chart

Just came across this while looking at radiation from mobile phones on the 'physics.org' website. It shows how much radiation you can get from doing different things and loads of other random information. Thought it might be interesting - enjoy. (Click here for a bigger view.)

Elasticity - How does it physically work?

I was reading about elasticity and came across the basic principles:

• 
  
• Every material has a certain degree of elasticity
• There is a point, called the elastic limit, where the material permanently deforms and can't be returned back to it's original shape (it gains a new elastic limit as well). This is also called plastic deformation or plasticity.
• Robert Hooke described the amount stretched as directly proportional to the force it would produce and vice versa (e.g. a bigger gravitational force acting down upon the elastic material - hanging a weight off of it - would produce a bigger stretch/extension)

However, I couldn't quite understand how this actually worked on a molecular level. It took me a while to find all the information, but I eventually understood (after much searching on Google!).

So here is the explanation I collected up (from various sources):

Basically, materials can stretch due to inter-molecular forces between atoms. There are different charges in different parts of the material and these attract. If you try to squash the material like charges repel too much and so the material tends to try to stretch out again. If you stretch the material the opposite charges attract too much and the material tends to attempt to go back to its original shape. This shape is the shape in which the material is balanced: there is an equal amount of attraction and repulsion and so this is the preferred state for the material.

However, there is also the aspect of the elastic limit. This works because beyond a certain point the atoms become to far apart or close together to be pulled back into their original positions. The atoms have so much force exerted on them that they displace. However, once they have displaced they will settle in their new positions and assume a new elastic limit. This explains why elastic bands snap: the atoms move so far apart from each other that the whole material gets pulled apart!

I hope this makes things slightly clearer. If you don't understand anything just comment below!

Difference Between Centre of Mass and Centre of Gravity

Whether it makes a difference or not all depends
on size...

Now, as I mentioned in my previous post, the terms 'centre of mass' and 'centre of gravity' can be used almost interchangeably. However, this is only when we refer to relatively small objects, such as those which we find on the earth.
The difference between centre of mass and centre of gravity is fairly simple.
The centre of mass is a single point inside (or outside) any object where all of its mass effectively acts. In a regular 3D shape, such as a sphere, this would be the dead centre, however in a more complex shape it would be different.
The centre of gravity however, is where all gravity acts on an object. On earth the centre of mass is practically where all gravity acts so they can be used interchangeably. However, we know that gravitational pull depends on two things: distance between two objects and the mass of the object. The mass of the object will obviously always stay the same, however the distance from the object can change.
Consider an object as big as the moon. The distance from the earth on one side, would be much smaller than the opposite side. This means that since there is a substantial difference in pull between different parts of the 'object', the centre of gravity will be affected.
So there you go. There is always a difference between centre of mass and centre of gravity, but sometimes it is so minute that we consider it insignificant. This is due to the object being fairly small. However as the object gets larger, we begin to feel the need to distinguish between the two.
If you have any questions then, again, please feel free to leave them in the comments box below.

Unbelievable Experiment Demonstrating Centre of Gravity

What happens in the experiment:

Two forks seemingly magically balance on the rim of the cup, with the support of a mere toothpick.


Watch the video
Here is a video of an experiment I did (see it on youtube).

How it works:

This is due to the law of centre of gravity.
This law states that every objects has a point, where all gravity will effectively act. This is the midpoint of all the mass in the object. In a simple shaped structure such as a cube, this will just be in the middle, as there is an equal amount of mass in all directions of that point.
However, in the complicated, but symmetrical structure of two forks wedged together, the centre of gravity will act somewhere in the air (that is why two forks dip inwards if you hold them by the prongs)! I know this is complicated to understand, but the rest of the object does not affect the gravitational pull. If you piled up ten more forks, equally on both sides, the structure would still balance (if you had a really strong toothpick!).
Some people may use the term 'centre of mass' as well. On earth we can use these terms interchangeably, however in different gravitational fields, there is a difference.
If you are confused about the difference between centre of mass and centre of gravity, don't worry, as I will go over this in a later post, if you can't wait till then, click here.

View us on YouTube!

I have made a YouTube profile on which I will be posting a variety of different videos and experiments relating to this blog. Feel free to check it out now at http://www.youtube.com/user/Rockhoppable?feature=watch. I'll post new videos on the blog as well so you don't miss out!

In my next post, I'll tell you about center of mass, and how to do an amazing experiment using this simple law!

How to improve your life with a 'P'...

I've thought up a little system composed of ten words. These words describe and include ten things that apply to everyone in the world, and will make your life better if you improve on them. I know it is quite random, but oh well.

1) Politeness - be nice to other people!
2) Punctuality - be on time, don't be late and get yourself organised!
3) Procrastination - stop putting off tasks you should be doing. It will make life much easier.
4) Personal Hygiene - this is obviously essential...
5) Prayer - may only apply to those who are religious and actually pray, but communication with a divine being is proven to make you feel a lot more satisfied!
6) Priority - if you get these straight, then workloads and commitments seem to sort themselves out...
7) People skills - your social life is obviously important, and being able to communicate with others effectively is a must.
8) Perseverance - when you get things done there is that great sense of accomplishment.
9) Perspiration - this can refer to both exercise (keep a healthy lifestyle), and working hard in whatever you do, to do it the best you can.
10) Personality - probably the most important! Be yourself and be a good person!

Improve on these ten 'P's and I can guarantee everything will seem a lot better!

Where does the energy come from in our food?

This may look fairly complicated, but actually its simply just the composition of the elements. Here it is in word equation form.

Although this may be slightly biology related it is also chemistry related AND physics related. So we know that when we eat food, to get energy we require the substance glucose (which is a molecule in the food we eat) to be burned in oxygen to produce carbon dioxide and water as by-products. However, most importantly this reaction produces energy, namely in the form of heat. Firstly here is the chemical equation:

C6H12O6 (aq) + 6O2 (g) → 6CO2 (g) + 6H2O (l) ΔHc -2880 kJ



Glucose + Oxygen → Carbon Dioxide + Water (+ENERGY:- 2880 kJ to be precise)

kJ or kilojoules are basically a unit to measure energy in (1000 joules, as the prefix "kilo" implies, as in kilometres or kilograms). You may have also heard of calories being used, especially in terms of food. They can be directly compared.

4.1868 kilojoules = 1 Calorie


One calorie is the energy needed to raise the temperature of exactly one gram of water by one degree Celsius. So, one kilojoule is just 1/4 of that amount of energy approximately.

So, anyway, we know that when these materials are transported to the cells, this chemical reaction occurs, producing heat energy. The equations are balanced. The question is, where did the heat energy come from?

We know that it is theoretically possible to convert matter into energy (as described by Einstein's equation of E=MC^2), but obviously no matter has been converted into energy for three reasons:-

• The equations are balanced
• You'd need immense heats for this to happen which we can't even produce on earth. Imagine this type of heat in your body!
• If we actually could produce anything close to these types of heat in our bodies, it wouldn't exactly be gaining energy would it?

So just what happens to release this energy?

This question can be answered simply if you know about atoms. Atoms always try to gain the lowest energy levels possible, as energy is stored in their chemical bonds, to keep them joined together in compounds. Glucose is fairly happy as glucose and oxygen is quite content with itself too. Unfortunately for them, when they come together, they realise that there is a another state they would prefer to be in, namely in the rearranged forms of water and carbon dioxide. You can of course probably guess why...

They need less energy!

Another law states that energy cannot be destroyed (although it can be theoretically created from matter). So where has all the excess energy gone that is not needed any more?

It's released as heat energy in your body!

So that answers the question of where the energy came from, but also describes sort of what chemical energy is, and how that becomes heat energy. If you have any questions or corrections, just leave them in the comments.

Momentum - A Law with a Determination

Momentum is a measure of how much inertia an object has. This means how hard it would be to change its velocity. All moving objects have momentum, as every object has mass and momentum is mass multiplied by velocity. If an object has a high momentum then its going to be harder to change its velocity than an object with a smaller momentum. You can think of momentum a bit like determination. If someone has a bigger determination to finish a task then they are more likely to succeed, as they cannot be deterred from their path as easily as someone with a smaller determination. Similarly, an object with greater momentum has greater inertia and therefore is less likely to have its velocity changed or its direction altered. This is the general equation to calculate the momentum of an object.

f = m x a

force = mass x acceleration

If you had an apple thrown at you at 5m/s and another apple thrown at you at 10m/s then blatantly you can see that the faster apple would be harder to stop. This apple, pretending it had a mass of 0.5 kg, would have a momentum of 0.5 kg x 10 m/s = 5 kg m/s.That is the unit of momentum: kg m/s. The other apple on the other hand would have a momentum of half that: 2.5 kg m/s (0.5 kg x 5 m/s).

However it is just not sufficient to describe momentum with just these numbers, because momentum is a vector quantity  This basically means that it has not only magnitude, but also direction (like speed and velocity - if you don't understand this visit this link.) This means of course that we would have to say the direction of the apple. For example South East or North North West.For example. 

The Grand Finale - Newton's Third Law of Motion

Now we've come to Newton's last law of motion. This one's pretty simple to be honest. Here it is:




"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Yoshi knows his physics!

It's quite short, isn't it. The definitions short and simple too, whenever a force acts (a push or a pull - the action), then another force acts in the opposite direction with exactly the same amount of force (what we call the reaction force. So when you punch a wall, the wall punches back and that's why you're hand doesn't move: the wall is pushing back with an equal force. But what if your hand goes through the wall I hear you ask? Well, that's the clever bit. Since there's no more force to support the wall the ground pushes the opposite way to account for the remaining force and so you topple over as your feet are pushing one way, your arms are moving in the other.
Another example is in a tug of war. When you pull on the rope you have to dig your feet into the ground to stop yourself falling over. You wouldn't be able to do it on ice! So when you pull your feet push the other way with an equal force.
You can see this if you step onto one of those really small boats. Try and walk forwards and you'll find the boat moves backwards. This is because your feet are pushing the other way!
If you have any questions please let me know in the comments :D!

Newton's Second Law of Motion

Now another great thinker whom I'm sure you've heard of - the infamous Aristotle - once said that the force of an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its velocity. Now any one with common sense would believe this to be true. However, Aristotle did not take into account the amazing forces of friction and this blinded his insight. However of course as you know, another clever man, called Sir Isaac Newton came and proved this fellow wrong with his second law of motion:

"The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma"


In other words, he took upon Galileo's original idea, but tweaked it so that it was RIGHT. He found that when you took into account frictional forces, force was not equal to mass multiplied by velocity, but mass multiplied by acceleration. As he proved in his first law, an object tends to maintain a constant velocity and when a force is applied it does not keep this velocity, but accelerates in accordance to the force. Since Aristotle didn't think about friction, he saw an object slowed down if force was removed, and so thought that you needed to apply force to maintain a constant velocity, which we of course know is wrong.

This is one of Newton's most powerful laws as it gives us these useful equations:

Force = Mass x Acceleration

and from this...

Acceleration = Force / Mass

and...

Mass = Force / Acceleration


You can think of an example of this law very easily. Think of a huge ball of mass 10 stone (or 60 kg), then another ball of mass 20 stone (or 120 kg). If you imagine these two balls each being rolled towards you in turn at the same acceleration (ouch!) which would hurt more? The answer of the heavier ball is obvious. This is due to it having double the force due to its mass being doubled. Similarly you could think of two balls of the same mass each being rolled at you at different accelerations. The one speeding up more quickly would produce more force. You can see from the derivatives of the original equation that we can calculate mass and acceleration as well as force if we have the other values.

I hope you know understand this law, crucial to physics as we know it! If you don't, or just generally have something you'd like a post/topic on, just feel free to leave a comment below :).

Newton's First Law of Motion

In this post I'll try to explain to you what inertia is and how it works.
Here is the Newton's first law of motion:
"Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it."


In simple this means that:

If something is moving at a constant speed (e.g. a car going at 40mph) or even if it is stationary, it will tend to remain at that speed unless a force acts on it (e.g the friction on the ground or in the air - air resistance).


On earth we don't often see this directly as forces are constantly acting on everything such as gravity, friction and air resistance. However, if we were to imagine a car being pushed off a ramp in deep space at a set speed, for example 10mph, it would theoretically keep travelling at this speed forever until some force came into contact with it (hitting something for example).

Galileo, before Newton, also developed a law called the law of Inertia. This basically means that an object which is at rest tends to stay like that unless another force acts upon it.

This is because of friction of course. Have you ever noticed that when you try to push something heavy on the ground you need a huge force at the start, but when it gets going its much easier? You may also have noticed that as soon as you stop pushing the object quickly stops.

Friction does this because, if you can imagine, every object (even flat objects) have uneven surfaces. They have rumps and bumps all over them and friction is caused by the different bumps getting stuck between each other on two surfaces. Inertia happens because when an object is at rest the object's bumps are

nicely settled into the surface beneath it's cavities. You need a big force to get the bumps out, and then after that the object just skips over the cavities making it easier to push. Once you stop pushing the object stops once more.

An example of this is in a clock-work mouse. When you wind up the mouse and set it going it goes for a while, and sometimes it stops. If you then give it a little tap then the mouse starts going again. Know you know why.

I hope this has made the law clearer to you. If not, or if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. I'll be posting on the other laws of motion soon.

The World Upside Down

We all know about the laws of physics and gravity and the like. We know that previous societies thought that the sun and stars revolved around the earth. We also however know about relativity and the position and speed of objects varies in relation to other objects. For example a car travelling at 30 mph would see another car travelling at 20mph in the same direction as travelling at 10mph.
There is a saying that very egoistic people think about themselves 'the world revolves around them'. Who says that this isn't true.

Try getting up and walking around the room. YOU are moving around the ROOM, correct? Try thinking that you are stationary - the center of the universe - and are pushing the room away from under your feet. That you are constantly located in the same position.

It's a strange thought, but there is no theory about the center of the universe, therefore there is nothing to disprove this theory. For all we know you sitting at your computer or mobile phone or whatever could be moving the universe as you take each step. For all we know gravity could be working in reverse. You could be moving the world, which the sun is revolving round, which the planets are revolving round, which the solar system is consequently affected by, which the whole universe is constantly affected by! You could argue the world is seen to be moving and revolving. But what's to say that the whole universe isn't moving and giving that impression.

Think about holding an object (for example a cup) on a table in place on top of a table cloth then pulling the table and the table cloth from underneath it. If you then asked the cup who was ignorant to the rest of the room (the universe) to relate its experiences it would say that IT moved along and off the table. You could think about us as human beings as that cup.

This also leads onto another thing. What is to say that you or me or anyone isn't the only properly thinking human in the world. We could each be on our own in the world, the people and events happening around us CREATED for us, made specifically for one person (yourself). You can never see into other people's minds to see if they think in the exact same way. Who is to say that any of the events in history (before we were born) actually happened. WE weren't there to SEE them or EXPERIENCE them, and until someone invents a time machine we never will.

Just a couple of things to get you thinking. Feel free to comment about your thoughts below :).

Arrogance about Knowledge

Of course, many of us in the world have often said: 'Oh, I know all about that' and therefore don't listen to what others have to tell us. We can't blame anyone for that to be honest, but of course, we can blame them for not trying to improve their attitude. Here is a story about a man who did just that.


One day two men from the same university with exactly the same experience decided they wanted to learn how to draw. They decided they wanted to learn how to draw, so they went up to an art teacher who decided to start giving them both private lessons in drawing. The day approached and finally arrived and the two men went up to have their first lesson.

"Okay", started the teacher, "Today I'm going to teach you the very basic drawing techniques."
"Oh", said the first man,"I know all the basics, I want the more advanced stuff!"
"Fine, I'll teach you tomorrow instead." said the teacher, and the young man went away.
The other man however, although he thought he knew what the teacher was going to be teaching him, listened intently and found that his drawing improved, and that not only was it the techniques that helped him, but the different view on drawing and the experience that the teacher had.
The two men continued their lessons for about half a year, the first man walking out of the lessons whenever he thought he knew everything.
Finally the time came when the teacher asked them both to draw a picture using all of the techniques they had used this term and compare it to their previous artwork to see how much they had improved.
Both men spent ages on their drawings and in the end presented their artwork.
The teacher found that both were very good, but the young man's was somewhat generic and cliched. However the other man's was of the same standard, but much more original and out of the box.

That shows us that what makes us stand out from the crowd is not knowledge but experience and the willingness to listen again and again. That is what makes people in the world interesting: the mix of skill and originality through experiences with life and other people. So remember. Successful people are always successful listeners.

Fiber Optics - What's So Great About It?

Just what the label says- data transferred by
light along fibers (basically)

Here are three things I know about you:

• You may be under the impression that fiber optics refers mainly to internet transmissions
• You sort of maybe think you know what they are
• You either completely agree with the comments above or were offended by them.

If you feel offended I recommend wasting your precious time feeling offended and arrogant instead of reading this and learning. As this won't affect me in any way whatsoever. I'll tell you a story about that in the next post ;).

So anyway, you have two options:

1. Read the long, boring account by clicking here.
2. Read this post and get all the information for half the price. Every little helps.

So, anyway lets get down to what fiber optics actually are.

Now I'm sure you've heard of fiber optic cables. In short they are long strands of pure glass which act like electrical wires, except they transmit the information using light (infra-red radiation wavelength). They're as thin as human hairs and look something like the branches on those little decorative trees with light coming out of the ends. They can transmit digital information over long distances and have many (other than super-fast internet) in lots of different categories, here are just a few:

• Tiny cameras which can see inside really small areas
• Lasers for surgery
• Light guides - they can shine bright lights on hard to reach places
• A variety of sensory equipment

You can see more here.

You need lots of optical fibers to produce something usable as they are so thin, and so lots of these bundled together are collectively called a fiber optic bundle.

The composition of a fiber-optic cable

It's amazing to see how you could engineer these wires ,even though they are so thin, to make them up of three layers. Each of the wires are made up of three main parts.

Core - The thin glass tube at the center which the light travels along

Buffer Coating - The middle part which basically acts as a shield to protect the wire

Cladding - The outer coating which reflects the light back to the core to prevent loss of information

There are two types of fiber-optic cable

1. Single-mode fibers - Transmit data via infra-red laser radiation
2. Multi-mode fibers - Transmit data from LEDs via infra-red radiation

I will talk more about radiation and the electromagnetic spectrum in later posts (if you're interested)

So how does the light get through the wire? You may or may not have been wondering.

Well, since light travels in straight lines, it doesn't bend along the wire. It basically bounces along the wire in zigzags, getting reflected off the cladding, meaning it can travel great distances. This is called total internal reflection as none of the light is absorbed by the cladding so it can basically keep going on and on and on and on and on...

However, the light signal does degrade due to the glass never being 100% pure and reflective, and this is why high quality fiber-optic cables can transmit data longer distances without "losing quality/information". The higher quality the fiber the purer the glass in short.

How the information gets from A to B...

Three stages... Three different jobs... One at the start... Several in the Middle... One at the end.

1. Transmitter - This produces the light signal by encoding it from the information provided and beaming it along the cable(example - makes video collected from camera at the end of the optical fiber into an encoded light signal).
2. Optical Re-generators - As I mentioned before, the light signal degrades (especially over long distances). These are situated at intervals along the fibers and just give the signal a boost every now and again to keep it strong.
3. Optical Receiver - This is what translates the message back into the form the user/machine at the other end wants (example - video from the camera at the other end of the optical fiber).

What really is so great about fiber optics?

• Cheap - Lots of these cables can be made more cheaply than copper wires, for example transmitting electrical signals
• Thin - They are obviously very small and lightweight making their uses very versatile and open-ended (for example - there could be more data being sent at the same time in the same bundle of wire)
• Better quality - The signal degrades less and the data being received is of a higher quality
• Non-flammable - They don't catch fire. Pretty self-explanatory advantage.
• Low power - They take up much less energy. Hooray! :D

I thought you might like to watch a VIDEO of how fiber-optic cables were made so...

So I hope you understand fiber optics more now. I'm open to complete criticism or questions in the comments. Remember, no-one is perfect and therefore I have DEFINITELY made a mistake in this post. See you next time.

A Small Word of Warning

Firstly, welcome to this blog.
Now, before you read any further I feel that it would be pointless of you following these posts if you're not into any of the things I will be posting about, If you pass the following test I have devised and make it to the end of the page without committing suicide then this blog is for you.

Have you ever used the internet?
Yes - That's quite surprising.
No - I suggest you should try it.

Can you read?
Yes - Perfect :)
No - Well I'm sure we can improve on that.

Are you alive right now?
Yes - Well, that's a start.
No - 

If you are still reading right now then you're obviously interested. If you're not here reading this right now, but still know that I have written about you not reading this or reading this without you actually being present to read this then you are some sort of super-human being and deserve to read this blog anyway. So either way, this blog is for you.

If you didn't understand any of the sentence above...

1. You obviously can't read which is in ways very difficult to understand seeing as you couldn't read two seconds ago but can now read
2. You phrased the sentence wrongly and meant the grammatical construction and word order with repeated phrases and inverted phrases confused you to the point of loss of hope in humanity.

If you can read this word now ---->>> , then you have in theory passed the test. Although you couldn't have been reading the word at the time you read 'now' because you would have had to have two brains, effectively reading the two words simultaneously and that is not impossible (as are most things in life), although it is highly unlikely. 

If you are reading this sentence at the moment (that's better), you may have skipped to the end and cheated because you couldn't be bothered, but that just demonstrates initiative and you have also passed the test.

Till next time. Bye :).