New Delhi: Why did the Titanic sink? How firemen walk into a ball of fire? What one can learn from nature? How does a space shuttle on re-entry in the atmosphere handle temperature of ~3000F?

IIT Delhi scientists will explain answers to many such questions to school students while delivering the 3rd SciTech Spins lecture titled “Materials that Matter” accompanied by laboratory demonstrations. Prof Ashok K. Ganguli from the Department of Chemistry and Prof. Rajesh Prasad from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering will deliver their talks on November 20th, 2021 at 10 AM (IST).

The Institute will also live stream the lecture on its official YouTube channel- https://youtu.be/8GHwvtR8uX4 .

Prof Ganguli's talk titled 'Materials in Nature and for the Future' will focus on what one can learn from nature i.e. fireflies, butterflies, sharks, leaves, and design new materials for smart windows, imaging of interiors of cells, protecting surfaces from bacteria, and other modern technologies for handling extreme temperatures.

Prof. Rajesh Prasad, whose talk is titled “Sinking of Ships and Falling of Aircrafts: The Science of Deformation”, with the help of some simple experiments using balloons and paper strips, will explain to the students some interesting situations like when a steel hammer hits an ice block what breaks is ice and not the hammer. But when the steel hull of Titanic hit an iceberg, why it broke into two and sank.

SciTech Spins is an academic outreach initiative by IIT Delhi for school students from class 9th to 12th. The Institute gives e-certificates to all registered students nominated by their respective schools who attend the lecture.

IIT Delhi will also invite these students to 'Open House', an annual intellectual fest that provides an ideal platform to school students to connect with some of the leading researchers in the field of Science and Technology.

Schools wishing to nominate their students for SciTech Spins may reach out to IIT Delhi through Associate Dean, Academic Outreach & New Initiatives, IIT Delhi- adoni@iitd.ac.in; acadoutreach@iitd.ac.in .

The first SciTech Spins lecture titled ‘Design Thinking - A Powerful Tool for Problem Solving’ was organised on September 11, 2021. The second lecture titled “Learning to Learn Through Modeling” was organised on October 23, 2021. Both the lectures received an overwhelming response from the students.

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