Recent trends in physics

Seismology:
The scientific study of earthquakes and of the internal structure of the earth. It
also includes the study of origin, geographic, distribution, effect and cause of earthquakes.
Generally there are two types of Seismology, they are
1. Earthquake Seismology
2. Explosion Seismology

1. Earthquake Seismology:
If the source is due to natural shock waves of earthquakes to derive
information on the physical properties, composition and gross internal structure of earth, it is
called as earthquake Seismology.
2. Explosion Seismology:
If the seismic waves are generated by artificial explosion such as detonating an
charge of dynamite (land) and non-explosive compressed air (marine) at selected sites to infer
information about regional or local structure, it is called explosion Seismology.
Earthquake:
Earthquake occur when energy stored in elastically strained rocks is suddenly
released. This release of energy causes intense ground shaking in the area near the source of
earthquake and sends wave of elastic energy, called seismic wave throughout the earth.
Earthquakes can be generated by bomb blasts, Volcanic eruptions and sudden slippage along
faults. Earthquakes are definitely a geologic hazard for those living in earthquake prone areas
but the seismic wave generated by earthquake are in valuable for studying the interior of the
earth.
Classification of earthquake:
On the basis of nature of source, it is classified into two types, they are
1. Artificial earthquake
2. Natural earthquake
1. Artificial earthquake:
Artificial earthquakes generate as a result of disturbances caused by artificial
processes like bomb explosion, blasting for the road works, geophysical explorations, test of
explosive materials the collapse of cave or underground activities, slides and slumps or
landslides etc. earthquakes are also felt as a result of the fall of meteorites.

2. Natural earthquake:
The natural disturbances caused inside the earth are the main sources of natural
earthquakes. The cause may be volcanic or tectonic.
The outermost shell of the earth is rigid and behaves as a brittle material. The top
portion is divided into six large and many other comparatively small thin layers called
lithospheric plates. Most large earthquake occurred in the world are interpolate earthquake
which occur in the middle of lithosphere plate.
There are three classification of earthquakes based on depth of focus.
i) Shallow focus = 0 Km to 60 Km
ii) Intermediate focus = 60 Km to 300 Km
iii) Deep focus = 300 Km to 750 Km
 Since earth’s crust is heterogeneous, the majority of the earthquakes are of shallow
type.
In terms of distance between the epicenter and recoding station, earthquakes are classified
into 3 types.
1) Local earthquake:
Epicenter distance is less than 1000 Km from the station.
2) Regional earthquake:
Epicenter distance between 1000Km to 2000 Km from the station.
3) Tele seismic earthquake:
Epicenter far from 2000 Km from the station.

Earthquake Magnitudes:
Earthquake magnitude is measure of the amount of energy released during an earthquake.
The elastic potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy in an earthquake, which is
propagated in to all direction from the focus in the form of seismic wave. It may be expressed
using different magnitude scales. One of these scale is called the Richter Scale. In 1935,
Charles F. Richter developed the first quantitative measure of relative earthquake size, the
local magnitude (ML) which is called Richter magnitude.
Different magnitude scales are used in International Seismological center (ISC), National
Earthquake Information Centre (NEI) as well as United State Geological Survey (USGS) catalog
of which body wave magnitude (MB), surface wave magnitude (MS) and local wave
magnitude(ML) are given.
Classification of earthquake based on size and their effects.
Class Magnitude Earthquake effect
Great ≥8 Great earthquake. Can totally destroy
communities near the epicenter.
Major 7 to 7.9 Major earthquake. Serious damage.

strong 6 to 6.9 May cause a lot of damage in very

populated areas
Moderate 5 to 5.9 Slight damage to buildings and other
structures.
Light 4 to 4.9 Often felt but only causes minor damage.

Minor 3 to 3.9 Usually not felt but can be recorded by

Seismograph.
Micro 1 to 2.9 Sometimes felt near epicenter

Ultra - Micro >1 Recorded only nearby station

 Seismograms:
Seismograph writs a permanent continuous recorded of earth motion which is called
seismograms.
The Seismogram also records the background noise which should be removed using
proper method before analyzing it.
Origin of Earthquake:
Earthquake can originate from sudden motion along a fault from a volcanic eruption,
bomb blasts, landslides or anything else that study releases energy on or in the earth.
The location below the earth’s surface where the earthquake starts is called Hypocentre
and the location directly above it on the surface of earth is called the Epicentre. Sometimes an
earthquake has foreshocks that happen in the same place as the large earthquake that
follows.
During an earthquake, several types of seismic wave can either radiate underground from
the focus called body (internal) waves or above the ground from the epicenter called surface
waves.
 Seismic waves:
Seismic waves are the waves of energy caused by the sudden breaking of rock within the
earth or an explosion. They are the energy that travel through the earth and is recorded on
Seismographs. There are several different kinds of Seismic waves and they all move in different
ways. The two main types of waves are
1. Internal or body wave
2. Surface wave

1. Internal or body wave:

Body or internal waves travel through the interior of the earth. They arrive before the
surface the surface waves emitted by an earthquake. This effect is similar to the refraction of
light wave. These waves are of a higher frequency than surface wave. They are two types.
a. P - waves and
b. S - waves
 a. P - waves:
The first kind of body wave is a P – wave or primary wave or pressure wave. P- wave
are also called compressional or acoustic waves, because of the pushing and pulling they do.
This kind of wave motion leads to the longitudinal compression and rarefaction of the
substance, so they are longitudinal in nature. This is the fastest kind of seismic wave and
consequently the first to arrive at a seismic station. This wave can travel through all medium
like solid, liquid and gas. P- waves motion move with high velocity about 6 Km/sec . So P-
waves cause a lot of damage in nature. Sometimes animals (dogs) can hear the P –waves of an
earthquake. They have short wavelength and high frequency.
the velocity of P –wave depends on density and compressibility of the medium. The
speed of P- wave equation is
= =
where, = speed of P-wave, = wavelength of P- wave, = density of material
= shear modulus (modulus of rigidity) K = bulk modulus of material.
b. S – waves:
The second kind of body wave or internal waves are called S – waves or shear wave or
secondary wave, which is the second wave that we feel in an earthquake. These are transverse
wave in nature and move like the oscillations. This wave can travel through the only solid
medium but not liquid and gases medium. They change the shape of material but not its
volume. S – waves move rock particles up and down or side to side perpendicular to the
direction that the wave is travelling in the direction of wave propagation. These waves move
less rapidly than P- waves. They are also having short wavelength and high frequency. Since
transverse vibrations causes a shaking of earth’s surface, these are also known as shaking
waves. These waves typically follow P- waves during an earthquake and displace the ground
perpendicular to the direction of propagation. In general the S –wave travel times the speed
of P- waves.
The speed of S- wave is =
where, = speed of S- wave
= shear modulus of material
= density of material
2. Surface waves:
Surface waves are typically generated when the source of earthquake is close to the
earth's surface. Seismic wave use earth itself as their medium. Surface waves travel just below
the surface of ground with lower frequency than body waves. i.e surface wave move more
slowly than body wave (P and S waves). They can be much large in amplitude ( long duration
and low frequency) and most destructive type of seismic wave. There are several types of
surface wave but the two most common surface waves are
i) Love waves
ii) Rayleigh waves

i) Love wave:
The first kind of surface wave is called love wave. Love wave was first introduced
by A.E.H. Love ( a British mathematician) in 1911. Love waves have the same motion as S –
waves but without the vertical displacement. They move the ground from side to side in a
horizontal plane but at right angles to the direction of propagation. Love waves are particularly
damaging to the foundations of structural because of the horizontal ground motion they
generate. Love waves can also cause horizontal shearing of the ground. They usually travel
faster than Rayleigh waves and its speed usually about 10% slower than S –waves. They can’t
spread through water.

NOTE : Love waves are particularly damaging to the foundations of structures.

ii) Rayleigh waves:
Rayleigh wave was first predicted by the Rayleigh in 1885. the other kind of surface wave is
called Rayleigh wave. It is also called rolling wave because it rolls along the ground just like a
wave rolls across a lack or an ocean. Rayleigh waves move both vertically and horizontally in a
vertical plane pointed in the direction in which the waves are travelling. Most of the shaking
felt from an earthquake is due to the Rayleigh wave because of greater wavelength than the
other wave. Rayleigh waves are slower than the other wave. Rayleigh waves are slower than
body waves and typically travel at a speed that 10% slower than S – waves. The intensity of
Rayleigh wave decreases rapidly with depth.

NOTE: Rayleigh wave propagate through the ground as ripples.

Gravitational wave:
A gravitational wave are invisible ripple in space. They travel at the speed of light.
These waves squeeze and stretch anything their path as they pass by. Albert Einstein predicted
the existence of gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity. This is something
completely new and different, opening up hidden world. They are extremely weak than
electromagnetic wave.
The existence of gravitational waves were found in 1974, during the study of behavior
of a system of two nearby stars, one of which is Pulsar that revolve around each other. LIGO
( Laser Interferometer Gravitational – Wave ) observed such waves from two black holes in
2015.
Cause of Gravitational waves:
The gravitational waves are created when huge cosmic objects move at very high
speeds. Some examples that could cause a gravitational wave are
1. When a stars explodes ( supernovae).
2. When two black holes orbit each other and merge.
3. When two big stars orbit each other.
 But the objects that create gravitational waves are far away from earth. The waves are
very weak by the time they reach Earth. This makes gravitational waves challenging to detect.

Types of gravitational waves:

There are 4 types of gravitational waves, they are
1. Continuous Gravitational waves
2. compact Binary Inspiral Gravitational waves
3. Stochastic Gravitational waves
4. Burst Gravitational waves.

1. Continuous Gravitational Waves:

Continuous gravitational waves are thought to be produced by a single spinning massive
object like a neutron Star. The gravitational wave is continuously the same frequency and
amplitude. That’s why these are called continuous gravitational waves.
2. Compact Binary Inspiral Gravitational waves:
Compact binary inspiral gravitational waves are produced by orbiting pairs of
massive and dense (compact) object like white dwarf stars, black holes and neutron stars.
There are 3 sub – division of compact binary systems in this category of gravitational wave
generators. They are
a. Binary neutron star
b. Binary black hole
c. Neutron star- black hole binary
Each binary pair creates a unique pattern of gravitational waves, but the mechanism
of wave generation is the same across all three. It is called inspiral.

3. Stochastic Gravitational Waves:

Astronomers predict that there are so few significant sources of continuous or binary inspiral
gravitational waves in the universe. But many small gravitational waves are passing by from all
over the universe all the time and that they are mixed together at random. These small waves
from every direction make up stochastic signal called Stochastic gravitational wave.
4. Burst Gravitational Wave:
Burst gravitational waves are truly a search for the unexpected waves that has yet to
detect. There are still so many unknown that we really don’t know what to expect.

Higgs Boson:
The Higgs boson is the fundamental particles associated with Higgs
field, a field that gives mass to other fundamental particles such as electrons and quarks. A
particle’s mass determine how much it resists changing its speed or position when it
encounters a force.
The Higgs boson is also called GOD particle because it is thought to be the final particle
which will make the quantum equation make complete sense.
Nanotechnology:
Nanotechnology, shortened to “nanotech” is the study of the control in an atomic and
molecular scale. It deals with structures of size 100 nm or smaller and involves developing
materials or device within that size. Nanotechnology has the potential to create many new
materials and devices with wide ranging applications. So it is considered to be a key
technology for the future.

Application of Nanotechnology:
Nanotechnology is used in the following fields.
1. It is used in medicine like Nano medicine.
2. It is used in chemistry like Nano filtration.
3. It is used in energy sector like Nano- battery, Nano- capacitance.
4. It is used in heavy industries like aerospace, construction, refineries , vehicles
manufacturing.
5. It is used in the field of consumer goods, providing product with novel functions ranging
from easy to clean to scratch- resistance.
 Wave patterns of Gorkha earthquake 2015
The devastating earthquake of 7.8 in Richter scale that struck the country with
its epicenter at Mandre, Barpak VDC-02, Gorkha at 11:56 am on 2072 Baisakh 12
(corresponding to 25 April 2015) and its frequent aftershocks chiefly the two fatal ones dated
26 April and 12 May 2015 have caused an inconceivable loss of lives and properties.
Thousands of people have been killed, thousands injured and hundreds of thousands of
houses completely destroyed and many people rendered homeless. Many government and
public office buildings, historical, cultural and archeological heritages have been destroyed;
physical infrastructures including public and private school buildings, bridges, roads, etc. have
also been destroyed. The Government has declared the fourteen districts (Gorkha,
Kavrepalanchok, Dhading, Nuwakot, Rasuwa, Sindupalchok, Dolakha, Ramechhap,
Okhaldunga, Makwanpur, Sindhuli, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur) as the crisis-hit
districts and started rescue and relief works. In view of such a large scale of devastation, the
Government of Nepal has taken various initiatives for rescue, relief and rehabilitation as well
as reconstruction works.