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DISCOVERY

Volume 2, Issue 4, October 2012

About the Cover

Karl Schwarzschild was a German physicist born on 9 October 1873. He is also the father of astrophysicist Martin Schwarzschild. The physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild developed the concept of black holes, showing that when stars undergo gravitational collapse and shrink below a certain size (now called the Schwarzschild radius) the gravitational pull becomes so great that not even light can escape. He was able to use photographic plates to determine the apparent magnitude of stars, theorized that space is non-Euclidean, determined the diameters of particles in comets' tails, and calculated the first rigorous solution to Albert Einstein's field equations. He is best known for providing the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-rotating mass, which he accomplished in 1915, the same year that Einstein first introduced general relativity. The Schwarzschild solution, makes use of Schwarzschild coordinates and the Schwarzschild metric, leads to the well-known Schwarzschild radius, which is the size of the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole. The uncharged, zero angular momentum black holes are called Schwarzschild black holes. Uncharged nonzero angular momentum black holes are called Kerr black holes. Non-spinning charged black holes are called Reissner-Nordström black holes. Charged, spinning black holes are called Kerr- Newman black holes.

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DISCOVERY OF THE MONTH

Discovery of America by Columbus on 12th October 1492

Anam Haider

Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a seaman and then a maritime entrepreneur. He became obsessed with the possibility of pioneering a western sea route to Cathay (China), India, and the gold and spice islands of Asia. At the time, Europeans knew no direct sea route to southern Asia, and the route via Egypt and the Red Sea was closed to Europeans by the Ottoman Empire, as were many land routes. Contrary to popular legend, educated Europeans of Columbus' day did believe that the world was round, as argued by St. Isidore in the seventh century.

Discovery, 2012, 2(4), 2-3

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REVIEWS

Artificial Intelligence: Bringing expert knowledge to computers

Harpreet Kaur, Jyoti, Jyoti Yadav, Ankur Arora, Dolly, Laveena Ahuja

This paper discusses what artificial intelligence (AI) exactly means, what is the need of AI, applications of AI and its advantages and disadvantages; and evaluates the future aspects of artificial intelligence. AI is the study and design of intelligent agents. The original goal of artificial intelligence was the construction of “thinking machines”.. Artificial Intelligence is the key technology in many of today's novel applications. Although there are some fairly pure applications of AI -- such as industrial robots, for the most part, AI does not produce stand-alone systems, but instead adds knowledge and reasoning to existing applications, databases, and environments, to make them friendlier, smarter, and more sensitive to user behavior and changes in their environments.

Discovery, 2012, 2(4), 4-7

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RESEARCH

Teachers’ self-efficacy as correlates of secondary school students’ academic achievement in southwestern Nigeria

Emmanuel O. Adu, Ruramayi Tadu, Ifeoma Eze

A school is a complex subculture within the larger society. It possesses its own culture that influences both teachers and students’ behaviour towards achieving the educational goals. Secondary schools has recorded poor performance in recent times in public examinations. Several studies have been carried out on teachers, students, schools and home factors, but not much have been done on school culture and students’ academic performance. This study, therefore, examined the influence of teachers’ self-efficacy on students’ academic performance in selected secondary school subjects in Southwestern Nigeria.

Discovery, 2012, 2(4), 8-16

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On the homogeneous cubic equation with four unknowns (X3+Y3 = 14Z3 - 3W2(X+Y))

Gopalan MA, Vidhyalakshmi S, Sumathi G

The homogeneous cubic equation with four unknowns represented by the diophantine equation (X3+Y3 = 14Z3 - 3W2(X+Y)) is analyzed for its patterns of non-zero distinct integral solutions. A few interesting relations between the solutions and special numbers are exhibited.

Discovery, 2012, 2(4), 17-19

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OPINION

Near field communication (NFC): an expertise primer

Ashish Kumar, Ankur Arora, Ch. Jahirul Islam

NFC is a short range wireless technology that allows communications to take place between devices that either touch or are momentarily held close together. The technology works via magnetic field induction and operates on an unlicensed radio frequency band. “Tags” are embedded within devices (these could be mobile devices such as mobile phones or PDAs, or NFC stations such as ticket barriers or cash registers).

Discovery, 2012, 2(4), 20-25

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