Event

Avdhaarna is Sanskrit for conception. What you feel, conceive and hypothesise shall take centrestage when the best minds battle it out to prove their theories over some very intriguing questions in science. Based on the popular field of science, astrophysics and cosmology, Avdhaarna seeks to motivate students to work in the field of astrophysics and develop new hypotheses for the various cosmological phenomena that are observed by man. Aimed at the participants’ logical reasoning (with a backing in physics), it will not rely purely on knowledge as a criterion.

Format

The competition will have two rounds.

Preliminary Round
An online test of basics in the field, it will judge mainly the basic knowledge of the participants in the field of astrophysics/cosmology. The top ten teams will be through to the final round of the event.

Download Question Paper for preliminary round.
This round is over. The deadline for submission was 18th February 2010, 2359hrs.

Final Round

• It will consist of 10 unanswered questions (or questions answered without solid proof) on astrophysics, likely to be released 8 days prior to the competition.
• The participants are expected to give a genuine hypothesis for at the most three questions out of the given set of ten.
• The participants are supposed to give a brief presentation of their answers.

Rules and Regulations

• A team may consist of a maximum of 3 members.
• For queries, clarifications and submissions, contact avdhaarna[at]conscientia[dot]co[dot]in.

Eligibility
Open to all college students with a valid college ID card.

Judgement

• The selection of the questions by the teams will NOT be considered as a criterion for evaluation.
• The evaluation will be based on the best possible original hypothesis suggested.
• The decision of the judges will be final and binding under all circumstances.

Sample Problem

Read the following abstract carefully and understand the problem. Also go through all the different kinds of explanations given by different scientists from their perspectives. Similar problems will be given (from the fields of physics which were already mentioned) to the teams that clear the first round of the event. The participants have to develop a hypothesis different from existing ones or extend/modify the existing ones.

Take your arm and swing it back and forth. You can feel your muscles at work driving the mass of your arm left and right and back again. If you take hold of a bowling ball, your muscles will have to work harder, since greater the mass moved the greater the force they may exert. In this sense mass of an object represents the resistance it has to being moved.

Newton, Mach and Einstein gave partial answer to this question. These scientists sought to specify a standard of rest with respect to which accelerations could be defined. For Newton, the standard was absolute space, for Mach it was distant stars, and for Einstein it was gravitational field (in general relativity). But once specifying a standard of rest, none of these scientists moved to next step to explain why objects resist acceleration.

Scottish physicist Peter Higgs gave the concept of Higgs field to understand this concept. The atoms that make up the swinging ball and your arms are all made of protons, neutrons and electrons. The protons and neutrons are composed of each three smaller particles known as quarks. So when you move your arms back and forth you are actually moving all constituent quarks and electrons. The Higgs Ocean we are all immersed interact with quarks and electrons. It resists their acceleration. And this resistance (drag) on particulate constituents contributes to what you perceive as the mass of your arm and the bowling ball.

Finalists

In order of Registration IDs:

AVD013 | Aafaque R Khan
Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology

AVD017 | Geethu N, Geethu Lisba Jacob
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD019 | Dinesh Dhankhar
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD020 | Maniyar Abhishek Sanjay, Phadke Kedar Anil
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD022 | Gaurav Upadhyay, Akshay Sharma
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD028 | Aziya Nizin, Rupali Sahu
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD032 | Ankush Kumar
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD034 | Vatti Sandeep, Krishnan Manoharan
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD035 | Abhinav Kumar Shukla, Gagan Agrawal
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

AVD036 | Ramiz Ahmad, Abhimanyu S
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology