We encounter countless things that we do everyday. Yet we rarely stop to understand what those things actually mean. Somethings happen by themselves and some other things by us. Here are more everyday things, that we know but do not understand.
If you want to see the first list, please click here
Rains Making You Lazy
We all know currently in the monsoon season, the rains make us feel lethargic. We just want to cozy up in our blankets, have hot beverage and some pakodas. A good movie, some good music or company of your loved ones just makes it perfect. But why do we feel such a way during the rains.
As a matter of fact, it has nothing directly to do with rains, but actually the absence of sunlight. In the presence of sunlight, when it strikes the eye, the secretion of a hormone known as melatonin, decreases. The melatonin is actually, the sleep hormone. It is responsible to trigger the body to know the time to sleep. As a result, when there is no sunlight, the secretion of melatonin does not decrease. This is the direct result why you do not feel active.
Another interesting fact is that sunlight also increases the secretion of hormone, serotonin. This hormone is responsible to make us feel more enthusiastic and happy. During rains, this hormone secretes lesser than in presence of sunlight. This is why we feel gloomy during such overcast weathers and bright and happy during a sunny day.
Why are Music Instruments Hollow?
When you see a non-electronic music instrument you understand that all of them are hollow from inside. We see this in mostly guitars as they have a hole right near where you play it. So what is the deal with it. It is the concept of acoustics that work in the instruments.
Acoustics is the basic study of how sound produces, travels and receives in a particular structure. So the hollow space inside the instrument contains air. When you play the instrument, for example if you are playing the guitar, you use your pick and vibrate the strings. This vibration also causes the air to vibrate which is inside the hollow space. As the vibration of air is because of the vibration you created, they vibrate at the same frequency.
This amplifies the sound of the instrument as not only the strings but the air along with it vibrates. By doing so basically, the music gets louder. This also serves to understand why opera houses have a distinct shape and why sound is different in domes. Even like a common example of a child banging an empty vessel and a filled vessel sound differently.
Why Does Food Go Stale?
We all know for a fact that cooked food goes stale or uneatable after sometime. You can detect it by the smell, the disoriented shape and color or if you are brave enough, by a small bite of it. But how does it happen so? The main reason behind only cooked food goes stale is that it is most susceptible to a chemical reaction known as oxidation.
Yes that is right. The food actually oxidizes due to the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere. We know that almost everything we eat is organic that is a compound mostly consisting carbon and hydrogen. It is a fact that when oxygen reacts with these foods, the chemical structure breaks down (decomposes), thereby changing the properties of food. This is the main reason why we refrigerate food. Keeping food at cold temperatures significantly reduces the rate at which it oxidizes.
This is also the reason why you have preservatives in packed food containers and mostly all chips packet have air in them. The air in the chips packet is mostly nitrogen, which does not react to those chips. As a result, packaging lasts for a very long duration. Making it easier to ship and store them. However once the packaging is open, you have to eat it within a specific time duration (Usually few days), as the packaging can no longer protect the food inside.
Food And Mood!
When we eat a meal fully such that the stomach is full, we often feel content and happy. If you are really hungry that you eat something rather than going home, after a few bites, your mood changes. You may even feel guilty to eat from street rather than waiting for a good meal. Often in boredom and sadness, people tend to eat more. So how does actually food relate to mood.
The brain actually works by neurotransmitters, which are basically signalling chemicals which communicate to the entire body. Some of these chemicals also affect mood. The magic happens when the food we eat, when digested, can become those chemicals which affect the mood. So in a way, the food that we do eat can directly affect the mood we are in.
This is the main reason why, when you eat something that you really love, makes you happy no matter how bad your mood is. The reason is that the first time you tasted your favorite dish, it became favorite because neurotransmitter chemicals triggered more happiness. So the more you eat what you love, the more happy you became. This is also a big reason why food ‘feels’ good.
Shoe Polishing
To go to any formal place, be it an office, a meeting, some other workplace, party, etc, the first thing you do is to polish your shoes. It is a fact that people subconsciously notice the footwear of a person first. We also know as an established fact that everything wears down as time passes. Well shoes are no exception, thereby to maintain them, we polish them. But what happens really?
Shoe polish is actually a dense liquid, that we apply to a brush which when rubbed on your shoes gives a shiny finish. Actually the shoe polish is a liquid that dries out real soon. It is actually a type of fine color wax. When you apply polish, the wax goes into the small holes made on the surface of the shoes due to wearing of shoes. As they go on the surface, they dry out, due to its nature. This is why a container of shoe polish should always remain closed.
The brush helps to spread the polishing wax evenly. After the job is over, basically all the miniature crevices fill up. This makes it smoother. And we know for a fact that light reflects more evenly on smoother surfaces. This causes polished shoes to reflect more light, making them shine and obviously look much better.
Why Sauces Wont Come out of Bottles Easily?
We all know this, a potential recipe for a wardrobe disaster. When we try to pour ketchup or mustard or basically any type of liquid that is thick, it is difficult to do so and requires an effort. If you apply too much pressure the sauce would simply spill out the bottle in a splashing puddle. It feels like every-time the sauces conspire against you and can be a cause of frustration. So what is wrong with it?
There are two main culprits of this situations, cohesion and visco-elasticity. Cohesion is basically a force that keeps two like materials stuck together. Visco-elasticity is the ability of a liquid to resist deformation. Sauces have substances (ingredients) such that it impart such high cohesion and visco-elasticity. This resists any form of change in its form, hence difficult to pour.
When you actually pour, you keep the bottle upside down, making air push inside the bottle, displacing the sauce and by gravity, make it come down. The problem is because of the above mentioned culprits, the air cannot reach up the bottle easily. It only crosses a few distance, forming a bubble in between. This is the reason why when the bubble comes out, we hear a small pop sound and also the reason why sometimes sauce only pours in parts.
When you apply enough energy, the air overcomes the sauce. But because of the sheer magnitude of energy applied, the sauce spills out. There is however an easy way to fix this. Shake the bottle well before pouring. AS you shake, the energy imparted in the bottle will break all the cohesion and visco-elasticity. Making it easier to pour.
Why Do we Use Water For Cleaning.
We know that we use water to basically clean everything. Even if you mix soap, detergent or any other cleaning agent, water needs to be there. Even without any cleaning agent, water can be extremely efficient in cleaning your stuff. So how does it happen?
The main answer is that water is a very good solvent. Thereby, also referring it as a universal solvent, that is it mixes almost everything. This is because of the nature of water molecule itself. We know that water comprises of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The thing we do not know however is that there is a partial negative charge at the oxygen atom, and partial positive charge towards the hydrogen atom. The structure of the water molecule is like a triangle.
This presence of partial charge imparts an ability in the water molecule to attract other molecules. As a result, if we submerge a dirty cloth is a bucket of water, the dirt stuck, but not bonded with the cloth’s molecule, sticks to the water molecule due to the presence of partial charges.
