High School Pedia

 Cells Cells are the basic functional, biological and structural unit of life. The word cell is a Latin word meaning ‘small room’. Cells are also known as building blocks of life.  The branch of science that deals with the form, structure, and composition of a cell is known as Cytology. All organisms around us are made up of cells. Bacteria, ameba, paramecium, algae, fungi, plants and animals are made up of cells.  Cells together form tissues. And tissue together makes an organ. History Of Cell The cell was discovered by Robert Hooke in 1665. He assembled a simple microscope and observed a very thin slice of cork under his primitive microscope. The cork was obtained from the outer covering of a tree called bark. Robert Hooke observed many little-partitioned boxes or compartments in the cork slice. These boxes appeared like a honey-comb. He termed these boxes as the cell. He also noticed that one box was separated from another by a wa...

Important Mathematical Constants Mathematical constants are those numbers that are special and interesting because they come up in the various fields of mathematics like geometry, calculus etc. These mathematical constants are usually named after the person who discovered it and they are represented by a symbol that is usually picked up from the Greek alphabet. Mathematical constants are by definition very important. In this article we will take a look at certain mathematical constants that are more commonplace than others. 1.       π (pi) or Archimedes constant (~3.14159):   π is defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. This is probably the most popular mathematical constant. So π is the circumference of the circle whose diameter is 1 unit. You might have seen it popping up when calculating the area of a circle (πr 2 ) or the circumference of a circle (2πr). It has many uses throughout mathematics from calcula...

LEVITATION II To be completely honest I was going to start this with a pun. I did think of one but it doesn’t float… I am sorry I just had to. Anyway, this is the second part to the article on super cool ways of making things levitate. Go check the first part out if you haven’t already. Actually, the first part may have become repulsive with all the magnets and stuff, but I promise this will be more attractive. Get it? No? I’ll stop now. I am just going to jump straight into it. 1.    Electrostatic Levitation I know you are probably sick and tired of magnets but they are the best way you know… This method is somewhat similar. You remember that cool science experiment you did with two straws attracting or repulsing each other based on their charge? So basically using the same principle we can make a charged object levitate. But before you try it, let me tell you it won’t be easy. Even impossible according to our Mr. Earnshaw. He even made a law (th...

LEVITATION You know the classic magician’s trick in which he makes something or somebody levitate? Yeah well, it isn’t magic (obviously!). In fact, there are over 8 different ways in which he can make something levitate. As a side note though, all of the following methods are fairly complicated. In all honesty what he actually probably does is hang the “thing” by a string. You got conned… What is Levitation? Levitation is flying’s younger brother who was ignored when his elder brother became possible. It’s a sad story… Though in all seriousness levitation and flying are different. So please don’t be a jerk and post a comment saying, “Hey you relic! Levitation is already happening. Have you never sat in a plane before?!” Levitation is (according to Google) and I quote “the action of rising or causing something to rise and hover in the air, typically by means of supposed magical powers.” Way to go Google! I thought we already cleared up that fact that magic isn’t rea...

2-D & 3-D GEOMETRY We all have some amount of geometry. We know that any line can be represented on the Cartesian plane. Any figure can be drawn on it. But can we represent a 3-d object on it. Yes we can. A Cartesian plane has 2 axis. While representing in 3-D we need to add a third axis. This axis does not come in between the axis or in the same plane. It appears to be coming out of the paper as we cannot represent a 3-d object on a 2-d surface. This new z-axis represents a line coming out of the screen. Before understanding 3-d geometry you need to imagine this axis coming out of the screen.  REMEMBER : all the three axis are perpendicular .i.e there an angle 0f 90 between them and they meet at the origin If you are unable to imagine you can take a thick book as an example. Any corner becomes it origin and the three edges as the three axis REPRESENTING 3-D GEOMETRY Like in 2-d geometry we represent the value of the different axis as (x,y) we use the sa...