Author Archives : Timo Heikkinen

What is air? Air is the name given to the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a mixture of different gases – mainly nitrogen and oxygen – and a variable amount of water vapour. It is necessary for all living things in many different ways. It absorbs UV-radiation, reduces temperature variations and gives power being part of the breathing, photosynthesis and other processes of various organisms. Its power can be felt as well in winds and waves – which I have lots of experience because of one of my favourite hobbies – wind surfing. It is in essential role in water circulation […]

People are living near water – so is IT Water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface but it is mostly unexplored space. We know more about Pluto than the bottom of our seas! Statistics show that over 50% of the world’s population lives closer than 3 km to a surface freshwater body, and only 10% of the population lives further than 10 km away. That’s why also most of the computing is done near water. Today many data centers use sea water for cooling air to keep the servers at reasonable temperatures. Google has even patented and since 2010 built […]

Earth – Element or State The alchemist thought that everything in our universe was composed of four basic elements. Earth, water, air and fire. Actually, we could think that they were talking about some examples of the four states of matter which are observable in everyday life: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Did they see plasma, when they watched a burning tree? No, but yes, plasma has been observed by living things since creation of Mother Earth or Gaia during thunder storms in lightning. Today you see it all around because neon lights get their illumination from plasma inside them […]

Alchemists believed in the philosopher’s stone, which would help them in transforming inexpensive metals to silver or gold. They tried to find an elixir of life to keep them forever young. They thought that all material was composed of four basic elements: earth, water, air and fire. They never succeeded in their experiments but that was the starting point of modern chemistry which has gained unbelievable results in many different areas. Today we know how to transform one element to another – unfortunately producing gold is not cheap. We know that there are more than four elements but they are […]