Sushovan Pal

     Bonsai The elements of nature, beautiful as they are, can sometimes be enhanced by human talent and effort. Read about one such art which is very popular throughout the world. The school had just reopened after the month-long summer vacation. Excited chatter could be heard in the corridors and the classrooms. Most of the children could not wait to share the details of their vacation with their friends. Rajan had been on a family trip to Japan. As soon as he entered the classroom, his friends came forward to greet him excitedly. The faces of the children were alight with the joy of meeting friends after a long wait. 'I want to hear all about Japan! Which places did you visit? What was the food like? Did you learn any Japanese?' Rajan had to face a volley of questions' from Robbie. Rajan laughed, 'So many questions at one go! Let me show you all the things I did there instead of telling you about them.' Saying this, Rajan took out the photographs of his...

  Light and Shadow TRANSPARENT, TRANSLUCENT AND OPAQUE OBJECTS Do You Know? Light travels from the Sun to the Earth in about 8 minutes. When light falls on an object, it gets reflected from the object and enters our eyes to form an image of that object. Some objects allow light to pass through them while some objects do not allow any light to pass through them. Based on these properties, objects are classified as transparent, translucent and opaque. The objects which allow light to pass through them completely are called transparent objects, for example, clear glass, clean water, air, etc.) etc.) The objects which allow only some light to pass through them are called translucent objects, for example, dirty water, tracing paper, muslin cloth, frosted glass, etc. (The objects which do not allow any light to pass through them are called opaque objects, for example, a book, a paper, a duster, a wooden chair, a steel plate, etc. SHADOWS While in the playground on a sun...

  Work and Energy WORK When we pull or push an object force is applied. When force is applied on a body, it begins to move and travels a certain distance. In this case, work is said to be done. When we use force to move things from one place to another, we do work. The amount of work done by a moving body can be measured by measuring the distance covered by it and the force applied to it. Pushing a chair is easy, but pushing a cupboard full of books is difficult. It requires more force to move the cupboard. So the work done in moving the cupboard is more than the work done in moving the chair. Some examples of work done are pushing a trolley, a pair of bullocks pulling a plough in a field, a person pressing a switch and an electric fan beginning to move, and birds flying in the sky. Thus, we can say that when a body is displaced by force, work is said to be done. However, when we apply a force on an object and it does not move, no work is done. For example, if we push a...