Creative Edge

Patriot Day, observed on August 13 every year in Manipur, is a day of profound remembrance and respect for the heroes of Manipur who laid down their lives defending the kingdom's sovereignty during the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891. It is a solemn and dignified occasion that honors the courage, sacrifice, and patriotism of Manipuri leaders, most notably Bir Tikendrajit Singh and Thangal General, who were publicly hanged by the British colonial rulers on this day.   The Anglo-Manipuri War was a short but intense conflict between the British Empire and the Kingdom of Manipur. The roots of the war lay in a succession dispute within the Manipuri royal family after the death of Maharaja Chandrakirti. When the British tried to interfere in the internal politics of the kingdom and install a ruler favorable to them, resistance grew under the leadership of Crown Prince Bir Tikendrajit, a fierce nationalist and military strategist. The conflict culminated in 1891, when the British launched ...

The density of a neutron is 7.44 × 10^13 kg / (m^3). Imagine you have a regulation bowling ball with a diameter of 8.59 inches that has the same density as a neutron. As neutrons and protons make up the nucleus of the atom, The density of the nucleus of an atom is, on average, about 2.3×10^17 kg/m3. This is called nuclear density. Do you know that Osmium is the densest naturally occurring element. When experimentally measured using X-ray crystallography, it has a density of 22590 kg/m^3  The concept of density helps us understand the compactness of matter in different forms—from everyday objects to the core components of atoms. A neutron, one of the fundamental particles found in the nucleus of an atom, has an astonishingly high density of approximately 7.44 × 10¹³ kg/m³ . To visualize this, imagine a standard regulation bowling ball with a diameter of 8.59 inches (about 0.2182 meters ). If this bowling ball were composed entirely of neutron matter—having the same density as a neu...

The Bowder Stone—c. second half of 19th century and January 2022. This huge andesite lava boulder is located in the Borrowdale valley in Cumbria, England. It was formed from lava that was ejected out of an ancient volcano. Approximately 13,000 years ago this rock was about 200 metres above where I stand and formed part of King's How, a mountain that rises steeply on my left in the photo. The movement of a glacier shaped and fragmented the sides of the valley and possibly dislodged the Bowder Stone, which eventually fell down the mountainside at an unknown date and landed in its current position here, balanced on one edge. The name Bowder Stone may derive from the local dialect for boulder. But there is a popular story that it derives from the Norse god, Baldr, the son of Odin. It is said that one side of the stone resembles the god's face. The Bowder Stone is an enormous andesite lava boulder located in the scenic Borrowdale valley in Cumbria, England. This impressive geo...