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You may have covered in your elementary school  chemistry course that some elements in nature may form various allotropes, simply it refers to different structural forms of the same element. Carbon among all the 118 elements in the periodic table is a fundamental building block of many vital molecules that compose life on earth, for example the DNA the double helical molecule formed of different nucleotides (adenine, cytosine, thymine and gaunine), another molecules are carbohydrates, proteins and many of other important organic compounds. Another interesting forms of pure carbon are the two allotropes diamond and graphite. Yes don’t be shocked the two forms that are in terms of economic value very different are in reality structured from the same element carbon. So what differentiate graphite from diamond? It is chemistry! The fascinating world of studying matter, it’s structure and the changes that happens to it.   Graphite as we know is a black and very soft material used to manufacture lead pencils. What explains this soft behavior is nothing other than the weak chemical bonds between the single layers of graphene composing the graphite, where each layer of graphite called “graphene” is a matrix of carbon atoms bonded to each other in a hexagonal pattern. On the other hand, diamond which is also made of pure carbon that are structured in 3D space in a complex compact pattern which explains why diamond is one of the hardest materials on earth and is used other than luxury jewels, in manufacturing of medical surgery equipment, also used in making drilling bits used to drill oil and gas wells and many other uses.. So interesting to know that it’s just a matter of structure which differentiate an expensive diamond from a cheap graphite.  What determines how the same element can take different forms? It is just the physical properties such as temperature and pressure to which the element is exposed. Diamond is formed in extreme geological conditions in the crust of the earth when carbon is exposed to high pressures and high temperatures which forces carbon atoms to take its complex 3D structure, while graphite being is formed in less extreme medium.  Scientists in the lab had succeeded to grow synthetic diamonds from graphite in well engineered devices (HPHT) that can simulate the extreme conditions of pressure and temperature happening deep in the earth. There is a high probability that the diamond ring of your wife is from a synthetic origin! But for your benefit synthetic diamonds are not in the purity of natural diamonds, so it is easily detected by those working in jewelry.  Away from chemistry which reveals us some lessons and projections from matter, it is nice to know that hard working in extreme conditions towards noble goals is what differentaite a successful person from failure person who is still in his comfort zone.  Be a diamond in a world full of graphites!    Written by Ali Nasser 1 September 2022 Be A Diamond In A World Full Of Graphites! You may have covered in your elementary school  chemistry course that some elements in nature may… LEO COMPUTERS “LEO” the world’s first business computer you may not have heard of! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0yYDxjBnTM… Europe is Gas-Thirsty in Winter! It is the most extreme energy crisis that has ever occurred in Europe as experts in global gas markets… How Is Rubber Made? WHAT IS RUBBER? Rubber is an elastic material made from petroleum, natural gas, or natural plant exudates… Natural Rubber Shortage: A Crisis at the Gates Natural rubber with all its chemical and physical properties is considered a main building block for… FIBONACCI SEQUENCE AND THE GOLDEN RATIO OF BEAUTY It is realized mathematically that everything in nature starting from the smallest atoms to the most… BlockChain What is BlockChain Technology? Blockchain technology is a sort of distributed ledger that offers a shared,… NASA: PICTURE OF THE DAY NASA’S WEBB DELIVERS DEEPEST INFRARED IMAGE OF UNIVERSE YET Picture of the day ! With the amazing declaration… No posts found 1 2 3 4 5 Follow US Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Linkedin

“LEO” the world’s first business computer you may not have heard of! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0yYDxjBnTM The story behind leo computers The story starts back in the 1920s. J. Lyons & Co. were a family-run business established in the late 1800s to provide for important events such as the yearly Buckingham Palace garden party. It expanded fast, acquiring bakeries, ice cream, hotels, tea blending and packing, and the well-known teashops and Corner Houses. Keeping control of such a broad mix of enterprises required exceptional management. Lyons’ hired a young Cambridge graduate, John Simmons (who had graduated as a ‘wrangler’ – a first-class mathematician), as a management trainee and statistician in the early 1920s. His primary responsibility was to supervise improved methods of structuring company operations and management information. Simmons rapidly built a name for himself through a succession of inventions that changed several traditional methods. In 1932, he founded the Systems Research Office, which became a breeding ground for new methods. Following WWII, Simmons dispatched two of his junior managers, Oliver Standingford and Raymond Thompson, to evaluate office practices in the United States. They returned full of enthusiasm for electronic computers. The technology had recently been declassified by American authorities, and it was met with enthusiastic headlines about ‘electronic minds’ on both sides of the Atlantic. Thompson and Standingford had also discovered that Maurice Wilkes was creating a computer, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, at Cambridge University at the time (EDSAC). EDSAC’s electronics were thermionic valves (or vacuum tubes), and its memory was kept in mercury delay lines, which were mercury tubes that conveyed pulse trains in a more condensed form than copper wires. Simmons promptly established an agreement with Wilkes to provide £3000 as a fund to the project if Lyons could create a working replica. EDSAC was duly delivered, and in 1949, John Pinkerton, a Cambridge engineer hired by Lyons to lead the project, started working on LEO with a small team. Thompson began recruiting a team of programmers at the same time. David Caminer, Lyons‘ Head of Systems Research, created flowcharts of the sequence of instructions and information to be provided to the computer in an understandable fashion. To know more about the detailed story, we invite you to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw0Vq35aIw0&t=3s LEO Computers Capabilities: In November 1951, LEO, which took up the entire floor of a big room, was ready to launch its first business program. It was named Bakery Valuations, and it calculated the costs of all the components used to make bread and cakes at the Lyons factory in Cadby Hall, west London. This is regarded as the world’s first routine, real-time office program. Soon after, LEO began to process payment for Lyons’ employees, and despite the machine’s inherent instability, a strict testing and maintenance schedule ensured that no one was ever paid late. The efficiency of the teashops was critical to the company’s profitability. Each customer spent a tiny amount, possibly a few pennies on a bun and a cup of tea. Because the transaction’s profit was so little, it was critical to reduce waste while increasing sales. Manageresses had to complete out documents in six different order books to resupply. Deliveries took more than a day to arrive at the stores, by which time their requirements may have altered. To increase efficiency, David Caminer created the Teashops Distribution role, which was implemented in 1953. He developed a standard order for each teashop based on its previous performance and implemented a daily telephone update to guarantee the orders were correct. Using the telephone was a brilliant idea, allowing for real-time, online connectivity long before the internet. LEO was also kept busy with contract work, such as computing missile trajectories for the Ministry of Defence and processing payroll for thousands of workers at Ford’s Dagenham plant. In 1954, the Lyons board of directors resolved to establish a subsidiary, Leo Computers Ltd, to build and sell computers. Only three versions were released! LEO I LEO II LEO III LEO II differed little from LEO I, except the last few were equipped with more compact magnetic core storage. In the early 1960s, Leo Computers used transistor technology for the first time, creating the LEO III, a cutting-edge machine. SOURCE: Meet leo, the world’s first business computer. Science Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/meet-leo-worlds-first-business-computer   LEO COMPUTERS “LEO” the world’s first business computer you may not have heard of! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0yYDxjBnTM… Europe is Gas-Thirsty in Winter! It is the most extreme energy crisis that has ever occurred in Europe as experts in global gas markets… How Is Rubber Made? WHAT IS RUBBER? Rubber is an elastic material made from petroleum, natural gas, or natural plant exudates… Natural Rubber Shortage: A Crisis at the Gates Natural rubber with all its chemical and physical properties is considered a main building block for… FIBONACCI SEQUENCE AND THE GOLDEN RATIO OF BEAUTY It is realized mathematically that everything in nature starting from the smallest atoms to the most… BlockChain What is BlockChain Technology? Blockchain technology is a sort of distributed ledger that offers a shared,… NASA: PICTURE OF THE DAY NASA’S WEBB DELIVERS DEEPEST INFRARED IMAGE OF UNIVERSE YET Picture of the day ! With the amazing declaration… No posts found 1 2 3 4 5 Follow US Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Linkedin