Massive solar storm to hit Earth in 2012

Aug 26, 2010

Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs! Several US media outlets have reported that NASA was warning the massive flare this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet's power grid.

Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale. The 2012 storm has the potential to be even more disruptive. "The general consensus among general astronomers (and certainly solar astronomers) is that this coming Solar maximum (2012 but possibly later into 2013) will be the most violent in 100 years," News.com.au quoted astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke as saying. "A bold statement and one taken seriously by those it will affect most, namely airline companies, communications companies and anyone working with modern GPS systems.

NASA said that a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause "1 to 2 trillion dollars in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to 10 years for complete recovery". The reason for the concern comes as the sun enters a phase known as Solar Cycle 24. Most experts agree, although those who put the date of Solar Max in 2012 are getting the most press.

Mutual Funds

Mutual Fund is an investment scheme that pools money from investors and invests it in stocks, bonds, money instruments and/or other securities. Units of these schemes reflects the share of investors. It's appreciation is judged by it's NAV.

Fund Switching in ULIPs

Investments in ULIPs are under the control of investors. Usually investments are made in equity funds. It is a good practice of investment provided that the investor takes care to switch the investment to debt funds before a huge market crash. It is the moral duty of the Financial Advisor to advice his clients about fund switching before a market crash. It is this failure that is resulting in huge loss of investors.

INSURANCE

Insurance is the business of protecting the economic value of an asset. An asset is defined as something which generates income to its owner.An asset can be lost or destroyed due to various reasons: like floods, fire, riots, death, etc. They are called hazards or perils. More often than not, the loss of an asset will result in the complete ruination of the owner.Even though Insurance cannot physically protect an asset, it can compensate the economic loss arising out of an unexpected occurance of an event. Perils are therefore unexpected occurences of events and risk is the possibility of damages arising out of peril.

The damage may or may not occur, which means, when we use the word risk, there is an element of uncertainty. Insurance guards against such uncertainties, properties and people are exposed to. It therefore goes without saying that if there is no risk, there is no need for insurance. In other words, it is an element of uncertainty which creates the need for insurance. Risks cannot be prevented or avoided; so they are transferred to an insurance company. By availing insurance, the individual transfers his responsibility of continuous generation of income even in the event of his death to an insurance company.Only economic consequence can be insured. Examples of non-economic losses are love and affection, sentimental attachment and creative abilities.

One of world's most complex math problems solved by an Indian

Computer scientist Vinay Deolalikar claims to have solved maths riddle of P vs NP - one of the world's most complex and intractable mathematical problems. Deolalikar, said that he has proven that P is not equal to NP. The solution, if right, would earn him 1 million dollars as prize money. P vs NP is one of the seven millennium problems set out by the Massachusetts-based Clay Mathematical Institute as being the "most difficult" to solve. Deolalikar claims to have proven that P, which refers to problems whose solutions are easy to find and verify, is not the same as NP, which refers to problems whose solutions are almost impossible to find but easy to verify.

For instance, calculating how to accommodate 400 students in 100 university rooms. The Clay Mathematical Institute says, "To complicate matters, the Dean has provided you with a list of pairs of incompatible students, and requested that no pair from this list appear in your final choice.

"This is an example of what computer scientists call an NP-problem, since it is easy to check if a given choice of one hundred students proposed by a co-worker is satisfactory (i.e., no pair taken from your co-worker's list also appears on the list from the Dean's office), however the task of generating such a list from scratch seems to be so hard as to be completely impractical.

"Indeed, the total number of ways of choosing one hundred students from the four hundred applicants is greater than the number of atoms in the known universe. "Thus no future civilisation could ever hope to build a supercomputer capable of solving the problem by brute force; that is, by checking every possible combination of 100 students.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-of-worlds-most-complex-math.html

Abandon Earth or face extinction: Hawking

The human race will become extinct unless it leaves Earth and colonises space within the next two centuries, according to Prof Stephen Hawking, the world's most famous astrophysicist. In an interview with the portal 'Big Think', professor Hawking has said he's an "optimist" but the next few hundred years had to be negotiated carefully if the human race is to survive.

Professor Hawking has warned that mankind was entering "an increasingly dangerous period of our history". "Our population and use of the finite resources of planet Earth and growing exponentially along without technical ability to change the environment for good and ill. But our genetic code carries selfish and aggressive instincts that were a survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next 100 years let alone the next thousand or a million. Our only chance of long term survival is not to remain on Earth but to spread into space.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/abandon-earth-or-face-extinction.html