Theory of safe Driving - Keep your eyes on the road

Whenever we admired a car or wondering about which care to buy, we often ask many technical queries related to power, torque, mileage, engine capacity, turning radius, 0 to 100 km/s and etc. But have we ever wondered how well it has done the 100 to 0 km/s. Yeah, you are right! How well does it stop.

We all have a perception that the vehicle will come to a halt immediately after we apply the brakes. It’s not your fault; it’s due to relative motion. Anyway, the vehicle brought to a complete stop due to our necessary evil called Friction. Frictional forces include the losses between tires and road, wheel bearings and aeronautical drag.

The total stopping distance comprises of 4 components-

•          Human Perception Time
•          Human Reaction Time
•          Vehicle Reaction Time
•          Actual Braking Time

Human Perception time is the time taken for perceiving the hazard by our sensory organ (eye), transmitting it to the brain and processing the data. The human perception time is .25 to .5 secs.

Human Reaction time is the time taken for the legs to apply brake after the brain sends signal for lifting the leg from the accelerator to the brake pedal. It varies from .5 to .75 secs.

Vehicle Reaction time- As soon as we apply force on the brake pedals, there is a delay for the actual brake to be applied. This is due to the play on the brake pedal, compressibility of the brake fluid and efficiency of the braking system.

Actual braking time is the time taken for the frictional forces to decelerate the vehicle from its running speed to Zero. They are affected by many practicalities like tyre pressure, surface finish of the road, grip of the tyre, wheel alignment, brake pad material, stiffness of suspension, presence of anti skid braking, slope of the road. These features will only increase the braking time, therefore let ignore all these features and stay with an ideal condition. The main feature that determines the braking time is the coefficient of friction, µ.

Let’s go to the physics part.

Kinetic Energy= ½ mv2, where m is the mass of the car and v is the velocity

Work done by brake due to friction = µmgd,

Where µ is coefficient of friction, g is the acceleration due to gravity and D is the braking distance

Lets calculate the actual braking distance of a heaviest Hyundai i-10 weighing 961 kg travelling at a speed of 100 Km/hr (28 m/s) assuming µ  to be .9 at its maximum value.

(Refer: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mechanics/frictire.html )

Kinetic Energy= ½ x 961 x 28 x 28 = 376712 J

Work done by brake= .9 x 961 x 9.8 x d.

Equating both the energy equation the actual braking distance is 45 m. For my convenience, I will convert all the time factor to distance traveled.

Average perception reaction time can be summed up to 1 sec. The vehicle will travel through a distance of 28 m in that 1 sec. And 7 m in the vehicle reaction time.

So the total braking distance is 45+28+7= 80 m. Which means, for a safe driving, we need a clear vision of the road upto a distance of 80 m or in terms of time, it will be 4.17 secs, including the deceleration time and perception- reaction time.

We need to develop a habit of maintaining a hazard free road for the next 4.17 sec at each moment. This figure is set to increase to 200 m or 12.4 sec, when it rains. Imagine its takes more than 10 sec!

The Perception reaction time is a human factor.  It is effected, actually “increased” due tiredness, vigilance of the driver, intake of alcohol, use of mobile phone and age. Perception- reaction time of 3 to 4 secs is always possible. Which gives us a worst case scenario of 150 m (total braking distance)

“Keep your eyes on the road and drive safe!”

Thank You, Dad!

Thank you for teaching me how to take my first steps,
Thank you for taking me to first day at school,
Thank you for solving my math problem step by step,
Thank you for teaching me the cricket rule,

Thank you for taking me to the park,
Thank you for picking me from the skating lessons,
Thank you for tolerating my teacher's remark,
Thank you for buying me the toy gun,

Thank you for providing food on the table,
Thank You for loving my mother,
Thank you for compromising your comfort so I was comfortable,
Thank you for giving me a sister,

Thank you for giving me freedom,
Thank you for teaching me how to ride a bike,
Thank you for giving the sense to know how far to stretch freedom,
Thank you for the spanks for crossing the line,

Thank you for the hugs when I was scared,
Thank you for supporting me when I was alone,
Thank you for defending me when I erred,
Thank you for making me tough as a stone.

Chemistry behind weight loss!

We are all obsessed about having a ripped up body. What all things we do not do for a Zero size body. We all go through crash diets, hit the gym, fitness regimes, ordering gym equipment etc. We all have a misconception about weight loss. We all talk about losing weight, but I would like to ask you

"Where does the fat go?"

Is Fat turned into energy or what we call calories, is fat turned into sweat, or fat goes down the toilet or is it turned into muscle. Lets go on. We will be using thermodynamics, physical chemistry and biology ahead.

What is fat?

Fats, also known as triglycerides, are esters of three fatty acid chains and the alcohol glycerol. There are many different kinds of fats, but each is a variation on the same chemical structure. All fats are derivatives of fatty acids and glycerol. The fat molecules are called triglycerides (triesters of glycerol). Three chains of fatty acid are bonded to each of the three -OH groups of the glycerol by the reaction of the carboxyl end of the fatty acid (-COOH) with the alcohol. HOH (water) is eliminated and the carbons are linked by an -O- bond through dehydration synthesis. This process is called esterification and fats are therefore esters

This is a saturated fat molecule. Simple chemical formula is C57H111O6. Fats are burned when we work out, so let us burn the fat molecule.

C57H111O6 + O2  = CO2 + H2O

Let us balance the equation stoichiometrically,

4 C57H111O6 + 327 O2  = 228 CO2 + 222 H2O + Energy.

let us see the equation in point of view of the molar mass, (atomic mass of Carbon, Hydrogen and oxygen atom are 12, 1 and 8 respectively). Thermodynamics is a part of Physical Chemistry, and Conservation of Energy and Mass is a basic law. 

4* 892 gram fat + 327* 32 gram oxygen = 228* 44 Gram Co2 + 222* 18 gram water + Energy.

In simple terms,

10 Kg Fat + 29.32 Kg Oxygen = 28.11 Kg Co2 + 11.11 Kg Water

This is highly surprising. It shows the ignorance and misconception about our metabolic activities. In order to lose 10 Kg weight, we breathe out 28 Kgs of carbon dioxide. Basically we are breathing out Fat as Carbon Dioxide. It goes into THIN AIR. The results shows that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss. The water formed may be excreted in the urine, faeces, sweat, breath or other bodily fluids, and is readily replenished. The sweat formed is just a bodily reaction to the exothermic reaction. Sweat acts as a coolant, therefore keep your body hydrated.

What happens inside our body!

We put on weight when excess carbohydrates and proteins that we've had are converted into triglycerides (compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) and are then stored in lipid droplets inside fat cells. To lose weight, you need to break down those triglycerides to access their carbon.

On a day of rest, you breathe around 12 times a minute so you will breathe 17,280 in a day and each one roughly takes 10 milligrams of carbon with it. So there's your limit on how much you're going to lose in a day with no exercise. On the other hand, replacing one hour of rest with exercise such as jogging, removes an additional 40 g of carbon from the body. 

Conclusion

Weight can be lost by 

1) Going on crash diet and the let the metabolic activity do the job. I would like to advise you that this is a very bad idea. During crash diet you are starving the body. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction! the body will react by bringing down the metabolic rate. So when you give up your diet and go back to the routine diet, the body will put on weight because the metabolic rate is down.

2) Hitting the Gym. This is also a bad idea. 'Tears' occur in the muscle tissue from exercises like weight lifting, sit ups and planks. These disruption activates satellite cells from outside the muscle fibers, which rush to the area of damage. These cells replicate, mature into grown cells and fuse to your muscle fibers. This process forms new muscle protein strands, which increases the strength and visible size of the muscle to better cope with similar physical activity in the future. This will in turn increase the body weight and push out the fat around the muscles. This will be a much worse situation.

3) Doing the cardio workout, the heart rate raises to 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. This work out gets approximately 50 percent of its fuel from fat, and roughly 50 percent of the fuel from the blood sugar and food intake. You burn the other 50% of your maximum heart rate from fat. Higher intensity cardiovascular exercise burns a lower percentage of calories from fat, getting anywhere from 5 to 35 percent of its energy from fat. However, because you burn more calories overall, you may burn just as much fat with higher intensity exercise as with lower-intensity workouts; however, short burst of high-intensity exercise such as sprinting burns strictly glycogen.

To burn 1 gram of fat, you need to burn 9 calories from fat. Since moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, jogging, hiking, dancing or moderate bicycling, burns roughly 140 to 185 calories in 30 minutes, you can estimate that 50 to 60 percent of those calories comes from fat. That translates to 70 to 111 calories burned from fat. At nine calories per gram, you burn approximately 7.8 to 12.3 g of fat in 30 minutes, or two times that amount in 60 minutes.

At higher intensity, if you're working out at 75 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, for example, approximately 35 percent of burned calories come from fat. That means if you jog for 30 minutes and burn roughly 295 calories, you burn around 103 calories from fat, or the equivalent of 11.4 g of fat.

Bottom Line

The level of exercise intensity decides the fat burned. The number of fat grams you burn or the percentage of fat you burn during exercise is not the key to losing weight or fat with exercise. The key is to burn more calories than you take in. As long as you're not severely limiting your caloric intake and causing your metabolism to rebel and slow down, you'll lose fat if you create a calorie deficit. Watch what you eat, particularly the number of total calories and the overall quality of your food and beverage choices. Exercising in a fasted state (such as first thing in the morning) will bring it up yet another notch. Weight loss requires patience, but it will give you results in a long time. Make a 90 day plan and Control on intake, i mean you should eat, but avoid junk food and soft drinks.

Its like munching on a cone ice cream. We have to eat through the top scoop of the ice cream to get to the bottom chocolate at the bottom of the cone. First we have to burn all the scoop of fat and then hit the gym for the chocolate at the bottom of the cone.

The funny thing about all of this is that, most health professionals don’t know what happens to fat when we lose weight. So don't believe on all that.

We don't contribute to global warming because of weight loss. Don't worry! You are not guilty of Global Warming.

Do we see reality as it is?

I really love mysteries. Perhaps this must be one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in human history. The mystery is about: “Truth or simply reality”. What is truth? We are basically hardwired to this concept quoted in the book Cloud Atlas- “Truth is Singular, its versions are mistruths!”

In the beginning of the story we have the protagonist – Somni541 sitting in a room and the Archivist comes in and the conversation starts.

Archivist: “On behalf of my Ministry and the future of Unanimity, I want to thank you for the final interview. Remember, this isn't an interrogation or trial. Your version of the truth is all that matters.”

Somni541: “Truth is Singular, its versions are mistruths!”

I am somehow stuck in accepting the quote. 

What is the relationship between your conscious perception and the reality? Experiences such as your boyfriend cheating on you or your son are telling a lie. These experiences are not new. These experiences are as old as the world. These are personal experiences that we have experienced at least once in a lifetime. Which one is the actual Truth? your version of truth?t or the boyfriend’s/son’s version is right or someone else’s is right.

We all look around the world, taking in all the sights, sounds, smells and experiencing as it is in all its completeness and details. But these experiences are a result of irritated nervous tissue. This nervous activity reconstructs a virtual reality.

We used to think earth was flat because it looks that way. But we were Wrong! Then, We thought earth was the unmoving centre of the universe because it looks that way. But we were Wrong! We had misinterpreted all our perceptions. Why? Because we are blind to our own blindness.

Let do a small experiment on ourselves.Please identify the Subject given below in the picture

Well, if you have guessed it as a rubix cube, you are a damn genius. Well my problem for you is not that. My problem for you is to tell me what the color of the other side is, the colour opposite to the red side. With this point of view, all of us can only recreate the red side. Let me give you a better perspective at this problem.

This time I have given a 3 dimensional view to the problem. Still the solution to our problem remains undiscovered. Anyway, the answer to our problem is orange. Similarly, if I had asked “What is the color of the given subject”  to 6 different people placed along each of the 6 perpendicular axis, they would have given 6 different answers. My demonstration is showing what we are interpreting is once again wrong. 

Our Senses are sometimes incapable of perception sometimes. The reason is that we are only taking in a tiny subset of details from the superset of the the whole visual world, There by we get an impression, sorry! a "FALSE" impression of everything we observe in detail.

When we look at a problem, we assume everyone is looking at the problem exactly as it is. Despite the difference in knowledge, experience, profession and beliefs we were looking at the cube exactly the same as it was. I was using the above example for illustrating how we don’t see the world as it is. These limitations are not limited to our sensory organ system but also to our perception, the way we think, the way we reason, the way we memorise. We believe we see more than we do, we see all the detail around us, we don’t!. We also believe we know more than we do, but we don't!, We believe we remember more than we do, we don't! These false impressions lead us to a situation that we believe everybody should see the problem as they see it, nothing else is right. But in reality, 2 different people looking at the same cube are taking two different information at the same time because the perspective is different.

What does that mean?

It means that at anytime, when we have to communicate, lecture or teach you have to take into account that your knowledge, your experience is going to be different from the other audience.

What can we do about it?

We all share this one thing. We all share this illusion that we see the world as everybody else. And only by testing your knowledge and testing what we see, we will realise that we are not seeing the world as it is. Having a degree in engineering, law, social work, ethics does not make you God. Its makes you just an well-informed expert. It just helps you in understanding the problem in a particular way.  It blinds you. Always test your knowledge, filter what you take in. When you read a book, read it! as well as read between the lines. While reading a book you are taking in what the author wants to say. But "Hell!", it doesn't matter what the author wants to tell, it is going nowhere. Read between the lines. What is your perspective for the subject. Do you agree with the author, look for the other side, and have a different perspective. Empathise! That's more important. Always test the knowledge and information that we are taking in.

I can’t explain it to any simpler than giving you my own example. I have been given a driving licence since 2005 and its valid till 2025. I have a whole lot of experience in driving a car. I have crossed this country halfway (2000 kms) in 3 days.  But the driving licence and my experience does not mean I won’t be involved in an accident. That's stupid. The driving licence is just a written document illustrating I am capable of driving a car. I can make mistakes. 

"Only by testing your knowledge and testing what we see, we will realise that we are not seeing the world as it is. Truth is not Singular, it has versions too."

Why Indian women wear Sindoor on forehead!

Before starting this blog, let me stress on the point, I am not forcing anybody to wear Sindoor or bindis. I would say to stay away from them because they are not authentic sindoors. The Sindoors now available in market are red lead (lead tetroxide, also known asminium) is added to sindoor. Red lead is toxic and a known carcinogen for laboratory animals, though its carcinogenicity to humans. So be aware of the composition of the sindoor that is used.

Refer U.S. Government food and Drug website : http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2007/ucm109040.htm

Composition of Traditional sindoor

Traditionally Sindoor ( aka Vermilion) is a purified and powdered form of cinnabar, which is the chief form in which mercury sulfide naturally occurs.  As with other compounds of mercury, sindoor is toxic. 

Sindoor were made at Hindu homes from 

a) Turmeric and alum.  The turmeric powder becomes red when mixed with lime juice or lime powder, moistened in water, or with alum.  Or 

b) From a mixture of saffron ground with kusumbha flower.

And they are mixed with sandalwood and musk

Refer National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow research paper :  http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/5640/1/NPR%207(1)%2022-29.pdf

Science of Sindoor

The area where sindoor is applied is between the eyebrows, called the Ajna Chakra.  This is the point that is believed to be the entry and exit point of our jivaatma (soul) as per Sanatan Hindu Dharma.

This area if called the third eye of Shiva. It’s very sensitive; I can tell you as a child I used to point my finger at my forehead while i kept my eyes closed. I could feel a force on that area.

The ajna chakra is more active in women. The pineal gland is the physical concomitant of ajna chakra. From the point of view of medical science, the pineal gland represents a kind of atrophied photoreceptor. It is linked to a vestigial organ, known as the parietal eye which is also called the third eye. If ajna is awakened and functioning properly, the pineal gland secretes various hormones which instigates our sexual consciousness, our sensuality and state of mind. 

The pineal gland produces Melatonin.  Melatonin is a Serotonin derived hormone by also resonating Serotonin with the very pulse of life 7.83 Hertz to become Melatonin (OM king mantra is 7.843 hertz, the same frequency of planet earth and is called Schumann resonance, the pulse the DNA uses to replicate, and which has been measured to be emitted from the brains and hands of all successful healers, regardless of belief or faith.) 

Mercury in sindoor is sent into a resonant state by absorbing its band gap energy of 2.1eV from the visible spectrum. Red is the colour with the longest wavelength, being the nearest visible light to infrared in the electromagnetic spectrum with its photon energy of 2.1eV. The harmless and de-toxified mercury in the sindoor draws energy vibrations from the universe and activates the pituitary and pineal gland, so that the body and mind of our married women function better. Resonance created helps the pineal gland, to release Neurotransmitter, melatonin, DMT, etc. Melatonin influences sexual development and sleep-wake cycles. 

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_sulfide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656447/  (US government National Library of Medicicne)

http://sedonanomalies.weebly.com/schumann-resonance.html 

Reasoning:

Aesthetically: They look beautiful. 

Sindoor also has Musk and Sandalwood. The scent of the musk and sandal channelizes the passion of married life.  Try making love to your partner after she applies sindoor on the hair parting after a bath. It excites joy, passion , dynamism and enthusiasm

Socially: They look married and hence they are not watched with a bad eye

Biologically: 

Melatonin boosts the sex drive. This must be the reason why widows and virgin girls are not allowed to wear sindoor

Melatonin also controls the state of mind, sleep patterns.

The Present

Life! Life brings changes. Changes can be painful. Like the others, my life been painful for a past few years. Life events along the way were hostile. I found myself lost in the tides of 9  to 5 or even more and always longing for the weekend to escape the monotonous schedule and find solace in my own company. Yeah, In a world of my own, behind the my walls. I think my readers can relate their lives to mine.

I knew life was much more than a paycheck, punching in and out of my office and waiting for the weekend. That was when I realized I needed a vacation. I brought my life companion, Rucha along with me.

A journey to Leh. 10 days of liberation. I have always awaited this trip. 3 idiots, Highway and Jab tak hai jaan added the fuel to the fire. Leh is a work of God, painted by mountains landscapes, staggered by small stupas along the highway, small houses with big wooden window frames and a big fort in the middle.

Like every trip, this trip too taught me something. The confluence of Indus taught me the secret - "The cause of all pain is Time"

Everything keeps changing in life. Somethings perishes, somethings are born. These tides of change cause ripples in our life too. When our yesterdays are gone and our tomorrow's journey have not begun, we quite often forget about today, the moment we have now- "The Present"

"You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present"- Eckhart Tolle

Life is like a river, river is everywhere at once. the source, the meandering curves, the falls and then the sea. The journey from my birth to who I am now was nothing but a series of "now"s.  Nothing was and nothing will be. Everything is and everything is now, the present. All those sufferings back then and all those fears for that has not come was nothing but time. If one could overcome the entity called time and recognise  the "now" then there is no worry.

Sadist within us

Lately I had come across a group of school kids at the Bandra Station. They must be sixteen year olds. What caught my attention was the way they were brawling at each other.  I do know that it’s normal to fight with your friends. We used to fight in our teens. The fight was usually about our regular teenage triangle love problems. But in my brief encounter of may be 1-2 mins I must have heard 10 ‘b*tch’s, 20 ‘f*ck’s.  I must have said the F word, same number of times since I knew them.

I was wondering how the world  has changed around me. Or was I getting old?

I have aged, I have to accept that. But the way the world has changed has annoyed me. I have heard somewhere “Child is the father of Man”. If the Child is like this, what will the condition be when they are grown ups?

What has gone wrong here? I think these kids have got carried away or have been programmed themselves, by using those words they prove their dominance over someone or believe they are cool. What they don’t realise is that if I just interpret the same lines to Hindi or any other local language, it would have been the same as a local fish market language! Evolution!

Something is wrong, so wrong!

Yeah , something is wrong with us adults too.  Just like the kids get pleasure by swearing at each other we also find happiness in a very passive way. Most simple example is the newspaper. Most of us feel incomplete in the day if we missed out on reading the newspaper. Reading newspaper or watching the news channel is an unavoidable part of our day to day life.

Everyone says that they are scared to read them, as it’s all about scams, rapes, accidents, terrorism, racism, plane crashes, wars and other horrible things. Everything in the paper is so depressing.

I wondered when was the last time we came across happy news.  I have never read a headline saying “the women are safe in the city”.

Yet we really need these bad news. And the reason is not that we want depression in our lives but we are kind of very mild sadists.  Its like watching a horror movie. We use these terrible happenings as temporary channels for ourselves to be distracted from personnel problems.

Whenever I have a new born baby in my hands, I look at him, I see a lot of innocence, I still can’t imagine how he will grow up in the world we will live in.