E=mc2

Our newest member to the MAKE-IT-WORK Team is a close friend of mine, David. He is very knowledgeable in math and science. Hi first post I think is great and very informative.
welcome to the team, Dave!
~Matt~ 

Obviously, to understand the full concept of this equation, you would need to take advanced mathematics and physics classes, but I'll try to explain it as simply as possible. First off, I think we need to understand what the E=mc² means.
E=energy (measured in Joules, or J)m=mass (measured in kilograms, or k)c=the speed of light (measured in metres per second, or ms^-1)So, basically the equation is: Energy=mass multiplied by the speed of light squared.
The speed of light is very close to 186,300 miles per second(300,000 km per second.) In order to make the equation "work" we need to convert the speed of light into units that are better suited to our purposes. In physics, speeds are measured in metres per second. This is usually abbreviated to ms^-1; that is "metres times seconds to the minus one". Don’t worry if you don’t understand this notation. We could also write m/s, but using ms^-1 makes the math easier. Likewise, we could either say that the speed of light is 300,000,000 metres per second, or, as is more usual, express the same figure in scientific notation: 3 x 10⁸ ms^-1.
Now that we have everything in order let’s have a go at solving the equation. We will use a mass of 1kg to keep things simple and I will show all of the workings of the equation. So, with 1kg of mass(around 2.2 pounds) we get:
E=1kg x (3x10⁸ ms^-1)²
E=1kg x (3x10⁸ ms^-1) x (3x10⁸ ms^-1)
E=1 x (9x10¹⁶)kg m²s^-2
E=9 x 10¹⁶ J
Note how the units were dealt with and that kg m² s^-2 is the same as joules. So from 1kg of matter, any matter, we get 9 x 10¹⁶ joules of energy. Writing that out fully we get 90,000,000,000,000,00 joules of energy. That is a lot of energy! For example, if we converted 1kg of mass into energy and used it all to power a 100-watt light bulb how long could we keep it lit for? In order to answer the question the first thing to do is divide the result by watts (1 watt is 1 joule per second): 9 x 10¹⁶ J / 100W= 9 x 10¹⁴ seconds. How long would that be in years? A year is 31,557,600 seconds, so we get:
9 x 10¹⁴ seconds / 31,557,600=28,519,279 years.
So we see that 1 kilogram of mass can power a 100-Watt light bulb for 28,519,279 years.
-Dave

Does talking to a plant help it grow?

This is a subject that I found in my science book once and decided to do a little research on the subject.

On Yahoo it says it turns out there may be some truth that talking to plants help it grow.   They say that plants need carbon dioxide to grow and when you talk to a plant, you breathe on it, giving it extra infusion of CO2. However, for this to have any effect on your plant, you would have to spend hours every day at close quarters.   So, having this said, there is some truth to the statement but I will go into a little more detail from other sources.

Some research was done on this topic at Penn State and this is what they came up with.

In a 1986 interview, England's Prince Charles discussed his gardening habits, commenting, "I just come and talk to the plants, really.  Very important to talk to them; they respond."

The theory that plants benefit from human conversation dates to 1848, when German professor Gustav Fechner published the book Nanna (Soul-life of Plants).  The idea is a popular one, and has spawned several more books and even an album--recorded in 1970 by an enterprising dentist--titled "Music to Grow Plants By."  But will crooning compliments to your ficus reallly have effect on its growth?

"There isn't a lot of research in this area," says Rich Marini, head of Penn State's horticulture department, "but there is evidence that plants respond to sound."  In fact, plants react readily to a host of environmental stimuli, as the ability to respond to changing environments is vital to their survival.  Explans Marini, "Wind or vibration will induce changes in plant growth.  Since sound is essentially vibration, my guess is that vibration is causing a response."

Research supports Marini's guess.  A 2007 paper from scientists at south Korea's National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology proposed that two genes involved in a plant's response to light--known as rbcs and Ald--are turned on by music played at 70 dicibels.  "This is about the level of a normal conversation," says Marini.  The Korean researchers found differing responses depending on the frequency of the sound.  The higher the frequency, the more active was the gene response.

But other studies suggest that conversation may not be enough, notes Marini.  A Canadian paper showed that seed germination is influenced by sound at 92 decibels--much louder than one would normally speak.

There was a post on eHow that was very interesting as well.   They proposed that women's voices produced more growth than men talking to a plant.  They said, "An experiment was conducted at FHS Garden Wisley in Surrey to determine if voices had any effect on plant growth.  A variety of male and female voices were chosen to plan through headphones to 10 tomato plants over the course of a month.  The results concluded that plants responded to female voices.  The plants stimulated by female voices grew an inch more than those stimulated by male voices which in some cases, grew less than a plant left completely alone."

So having all of that said, take what you want from it.   I found all of it very interesting!

Noah