Sunday, 4 January 2015

The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Aditi Varma 6C


Chp 1:Seriously???!!!

600 million dollars, 40 million euros……Is it worth it? Can we actually spend this much money to kill people? To create animosity?? The  Japanese have experienced something that scarred them forever.   

Remember the havoc that was created back in 1945 when the first ever atomic bomb was dropped on the urban city of Hiroshima. Have you ever wondered what happened to them? If they ever got to see the rising sun the next day?? Well, the answer to these questions is pretty easy….People eventually recovered from the shattering impact, the started again. A whole new day…


But the ultimate question remains- Who did it, why and  is it justified? ?
Chp 2:Who and Why??
This destructing act was done by one of the MOST powerful economies, today. People believe it was done mainly to end World War 2.But people do believe it was a SHOW of power! Can you guess who I am hinting at?? Of course USA…..
You must have heard about this extremely popular debate topic “Is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki JUSTIFIED?”. Well the answer is yes and no…..you do the math
The bombing is justified because, no matter if the war didm’t stop lives would be lost from every side. And with Adolf Hitler out of the way, the war had to END :quickly or slowly. Along with that many claim that Japanese soldiers were BETTER than American soldiers, so more American soldiers died than Japanese.
The bombing is not justified because of the amount of civilians that died. I would also like to ask wasn’t 130,000 deaths in Hiroshima ENOUGH? The US’s reply: When Japan invaded Pearl Harbour, the killed 2,000 soldiers……
You might just imagine the look on the faces, of the people when the bombs were dropped, something that no country was ever prepared for- mentally or physically. For something that would cause such a big problem, one of the MOST devastating acts in the history of Mankind!!!
 
Chp 3: Get to know the bombs
Talking of Mankind, brace yourself, these bombs were part of the secret ‘Manhattan  project’ headed by a group of excellent scientists.They managed to do something which was never dreamt of. Equivalent to 2,000 tons of TNT, the first ever atomic bomb was     created. 
LITTLE BOY
  • 20,000 tons of TNT
  • Made of ‘URANIUM’*
  • Weighed 8,000 pounds
  • The first atomic bomb
  • Dropped on Hiroshima
  • Known as ‘little boy’
             FAT MAN
  • 21,000 tons of TNT
  • Made of ‘PLUTONIUM’*
  • Weighed 10,800 pounds
  • More powerful than little boy
  • Dropped on Nagasaki
  • Known as ‘Fat man’
Chp 4:Health Problems
In the first to second week people experienced burns from rays ,flames and wounds also known as TRAUMA. These Traumas can be extremely painful as well as minor. They can happen when someone gets hit from blasts and falling buildings & structures.
After a few weeks, symptoms of radioactive rays began to show. Hair loss, anaemia*, loss of white blood cells,bleeding,haemorrhage  are a few. Out of these mentioned above, 10% are fatal!
In a few months, improvements finally began. Traumas began to heal, as well as burns and radiation. Secondary injuries also came like severe scar formations called ‘keloids’, blood abnormalities and psychosomatic* disorders
 
Chp 5: Sadako Sasaki
Sadako was two years old when the atomic bomb exploded. She was in her house when it happened, and the impact sent her flying through the window. Her mother expected her to be dead but, she was very much alive.
She was doing great like a normal child until one day when she was twelve. She was in the school taking part in race, when she felt dizzy and collapsed. Her mother took her to the hospital and they found out that she was suffering from the “Atomic Bomb Disease” or “Leukaemia*”. 
Her neck and legs turned purple and swollen. Sadako was an athlete and more  than anything she dreamt to be healthy again and run races. But everyone knew that it was fatal (at the time). Instead she decided to make the most of the time left with her.
Her best friend told her about the legend of thousand paper cranes. Immediately, Sadako stated to fold. The legend was if you fold thousand paper cranes, then your one wish will be granted. She wished that she would become fine again. 
Sadako faced a problem because their was not enough paper available. She used all kinds of paper available, even the tissue and the gift wrapping paper. Finally she managed to fold 644 paper cranes until she could not fold anymore. Her parents and the friends folded the rest. But by that time, her wish had changed. She wished that this kind of atrocity should never happen again.
Her wish made an impact on other people’s life. In Hiroshima, they built a peace park. On of the monuments there is Sadako paper crane. Across the monument is the fire of peace, which is still burning today. Her monument was built to honour all the innocent civilians who died in the bombing.
More than that, every year people all around the world, fold paper cranes and they send it to the monument.
I leave you with thoughts about the others, who died in more painful ways.
 
Chapter 6: Acknowledgement and dedication
 
I dedicate this book to all those who are suffering from Nuclear problemsc and radiation, as well as those, who had to face the atomic bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As I mentioned about the fire of peace, let us keep the fire of peace burning. Let us hope that something like this will never happen again.
 
Acknowledgements
 
I also used the English textbook chapter 5 Sadako Sasaki
Ripley’s believe it or not
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

AMNESIA by Aashna Parekh 7C


Contents:

 

l  Introduction

l  What is it?

l  Causes

l  Symptoms

l  Glossary and Bibliography

l  Pictures

 

 

One of the keys to happiness is bad memory

l  Introduction!!

 

Imagine if you woke up with Amnesia and forgot about the silly little things,the dreams you left behind you didn’t need them. And the dreams you never can escape.

 

Those memories that you have to let go off.

The good,The bad,The sad,The happy,The funny,The scary...... ALL OF IT.

 

And when you forgot to remember??

 

I chose this topic because I want to make people aware of this unusual disease. I

 also wanted to learn more about it. In addition to this I wanted to teach my readers about things that they had not learnt about before.

l Amnesia...A disease where your memory gets washed away and can’t be brought back.

 

Amnesia is a disease in which you loose all your memory. The memory can be wholly1 or partially2 lost due to the extent of damage the was caused.

 

There are 2 types of Amnesia

Retrograde and Anterograde.

Both types can occur within a patient at one time depending on the kind of damage done to your brain.

 

A patient first loses the recent memories,then personal memories and lastly family intellectual related memories. The more damage done to the brain the worse the damage could get.

 

 

l Can stroke lead to worse things such as Amnesia?

 

Amnesia can be cause by many such reasons such as:

ü Stroke

ü Head injuries- Such as car accidents.

ü Lack of oxygen- The brain doesn’t receive an adequate3 amount of oxygen.

ü Subarachnoid Hemorrhage- Bleeding in between the skull and the brain.

ü Tumors in inappropriate places in the brain.

ü   It also rarely occurs in patients with major depression,whose illness has not responded to other treatments.

 

l What if you have Amnesia but you don’t know about it because you forgot you had it.

 

Amnesia’s symptoms:

 

ü To learn new Information

ü The ability to remember past events

ü Failure to recognize places

ü Failure to remember faces

 

 

   Why did they erase it this time?

It wasn’t there’s to take

 

 

l HATE REMEMBERING?

 WELL I HATE FORGETING.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

l Glossary and Bibliography

 

Glossary:

 

Wholly: Fully or Completely

Partially: To a limited extent

Adequate: Acceptable in quality or quantity

 

Bibliography:

Doctors End

Wikipedia

Mayo Clinic

Medical news

Medindia

Health Line

 

 

Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Stars By Aishwarya Hirve 7C


Introduction

 

The night sky is much more than just dots of light against a dark screen. I would say it's more like a completely different world out there. Let me take you on a journey to that dark yet illuminated world.....

 

Stars are huge fiercely burning balls of gas with powerful nuclear reactions* at their cores. They  are the most widely recognized astronomical objects, and represent the most fundamental* building blocks of galaxies.

 

Star Life and Death

Stars aren't forever, they do die, and the story of their life is actually pretty interesting.

 

Most stars are born in enormous star nurseries called nebulae. A nebula is basically made up of hydrogen, helium and dust. Gravitational pull in  denser parts of the nebula causes matter to clump together  increasing in mass and temperature, generating its own gravity.

 

Protostars

As a large clump of gas shrinks and grows hotter, it is called a protostar - a star in the making. Most protostars become hot and dense* enough to trigger off nuclear reactions and start to shine.

 

Main Sequence

The stage where a star starts to shine is called the main sequence and lasts for billions of years. The star generates energy through nuclear fusion (turning hydrogen into helium in the core). The sun has been in its main sequence for more than four billion years.

 

 Giants and Supergiants

When a star of the sun's size has used up most of the hydrogen fuel in its core, it swells up to become a red giant, and when bigger stars (8 or more times bigger than the sun) start to swell, they become supergiants. Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) is a red supergiant so huge, that if it replaces the sun in our solar system, its outer atmosphere would extend past the asteroid belt

 

Fade Away

 

Some protostars don't have enough mass to trigger off nuclear reactions and become stars. Instead, they generate smaller amounts of energy through continuing contraction*. These failed stars are called brown dwarfs. They radiate remaining heat into space, slowly fading until there is no energy left. At this point they are known as black dwarfs.

 

Planetary Nebula

After completing the main sequence, stars around the same size of the sun start to collapse, increasing in density and temperature. These stars then swell to an enormous size and throw off their outer layers as giant gas clouds. They clouds cool to form a planetary nebula surrounding the star's remains, which are known as white dwarfs. More than 3,000 planetary nebulae have been observed. Some examples of nebulae are: Orion Nebula, Dumbbell Nebula, Horse Head Nebula, etc.

 

 

 

 

White Dwarf

Although white dwarfs have run out of hydrogen or helium fuel to burn in their cores, they still continue to shine for millions of years. They can range from hot white to cool red. Scientists estimate that a white dwarf is so dense that one teaspoonful of its matter would weigh around 5,000 tonnes. Just like brown dwarfs, white dwarfs fade over time to become black dwarfs.

 

 

Text Box: *Refer to glossary


 

Supernova!

As some massive stars die, their cores contract sharply and rise in temperature by millions of degrees. The cores absorb more and more energy and then erupt in a gigantic explosion. In the first ten seconds of typical supernova explosion, a hundred times more energy is released than the sun will ever generate in its entire lifetime.

 

Neutron Star

Some massive star deaths result in their core collapsing in itself to form a neutron star: the smallest and densest stars in the Universe. Neutron stars may be as small as under 20km (12 miles) in diameter yet contain the same mass as the sun. Rapidly spinning neutron stars send out radio waves that we can  pick up on earth. These stars are known as pulsars.

 

 

Black Holes

Some stars collapse even further into a dense point called a singularity. The space immediately around a singularity is called a black hole. Black holes are so dense and the pull of gravity so strong that nothing, not even light can escape from it. Astronomers cannot observe a black hole directly, only its effects on nearby objects, such as the pull of gas into the hole, which can release powerful X-Rays*.

 

 

 

Now that you know about the life cycle of a star, you must be wondering about the types of stars in the Universe. Luckily, that's what the next chapter is all about.............

 

Text Box: *Refer to glossary

Star Types

 

Stars are just like people, they come in all sorts of colors and sizes, and most of them have names too.  There are 7 basic kinds of stars:

 

Type O

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-      hottest, brightest, biggest kinds of stars

-      Color: violet- blue

-      These stars end their lives quickly in supernova explosions, ending up as black holes or neutron stars

-      Examples: Naos and Mintaka

 

Type B

 
-      Almost the same as type O stars

-      Slightly cooler and less massive

-      Examples: Spica A, Rigel

  

Type A

 
-      Color: bright white

-      Due to their high mass, these stars are several times brighter than the sun

-      Examples: Sirius, Vega, Zaniah

 

 
Type F

 
-      Color: yellowish white

-      Slightly smaller in size compared to type A stars

-      Examples: Pole Star (Polaris) , Canopus

 

Type G

 
-      Color: range from white to yellow

-      Almost the same mass as the sun

-      Examples: the sun, Alpha Centauri A, Capella

   



Type K

  

-      These stars are:

-      Generally somewhat lighter than the sun, tend to be long lived and stable

-      Color: Orange

-      More common than other stars

-      Examples: Arcturus, Albedran

 

 Type M

 
     Color: red

-      These stars are the most common type of stars

-      Examples: Proxima Centauri (Nearest star to the earth after the sun), Mira

 

 

 


So just what are these constellations you keep hearing about? A constellation is a group of stars that form patterns when seen from earth. There are 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. A few common ones are: Orion, Cassiopeia, Canis Major, Andromeda, etc.

 

-      The Zodiac is a group of 12 constellations that lie along the ecliptic (the plane in which most of our Solar System lies)

 

-      The constellations that are part of the Zodiac are: Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius and Sagittarius

 

       The constellation with the greatest number of stars is Centaurus with 101 stars

       The brightest constellation is Crux (Southern Cross)

-      Largest constellation: Hydra

 

-       Some constellations are visible only from the Northern Hemisphere  and some are visible only from the Southern Hemisphere.

 

-      Constellations that are visible in both hemispheres may appear upside down in the Southern Hemisphere.


So now whenever you look up at the night sky, you'll know that there is much much more to it than meets the eye................



Glossary

 

-      Fundamental: basic, foundational

 

-      Dense: having the component parts closely packed together

 

-      Contraction: the process of becoming smaller

 

-      X- Rays: a kind of ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-rays are used for taking images inside the body for diagnosis and also to discover paintings hidden under other artwork.

 

Bibliography

 
Websites:





 

 

Books:

WOW! Science

Tell Me How

Tell Me Why