The Butterfly Effect

I want to tell you a story. Since this is a real story, we will have to wade through a bit of history first, bear it with me. Jean-François de Galaup, Count of Lapérouse was a French Naval officer from 1756 – 1788. He was an explorer and he even fought in the American Revolutionary war. After the 1783 Treaty of Paris, he was appointed as the Minister of Marine by the then King of France, Louis XVI. As a result he embarked on a scientific expedition around the world.

Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse

He left France on August 1 1785, he sailed towards Chille, on April 9 1786 he reached the Easter Islands, and then he traveled to the Hawaiian Islands. Then he traveled to Alaska, his men visited with the Tlingit tribe; did not murder them like European sailors used to, then went on to sail towards California and reached San Francisco. Then he crossed the Pacific Ocean in a 100 day journey toward East Asia and reached Macau. He visited Japan, Russia and then Australia on 24 January 1788, exploring and observing the environment throughout his voyage. He wrote that he expected to be back in France by June 1789 but neither he nor any of his crew was ever seen again. Although Swords and Cannon balls from the ship surfaced all around the world from time to time, the actual shipwreck was never found adding to the mystery of Lapérouse.

Among his crew were a Mathematician, an Astronomer, a Botanist, a Geologist, a Physicist, a Naturalist, three illustrators and various other scientists. Even his chaplains were scientifically schooled. The man had a penchant for the scientifically educated, but that is not my point. In total there were 114 members in his crew and everyone liked him.

One of the men who applied for the expedition was a young 16 year old second lieutenant from Paris’s military academy. He was a Corsican and was very much interested in serving in the navy where his proficiency in mathematics and artillery, both valued skills on warships would be put to better use. He made the preliminary list but was ultimately not chosen for the voyage and remained behind in France. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Napoleon Bonaparte is considered to be one of the greatest military generals in history among legends like Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. He shaped history, from the Napoleonic wars to the Napoleonic Code, which has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide. Imagine a world where there was no Napoleon, it is not quite possible; too many things have changed because of him. His actions will echo throughout the time civilization exists; He is a fixed point in time.

Do you know about chaos theory? Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, engineering, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the Butterfly Effect(also a movie starring Ashton Kutcher, exploring the implications of this very same principle). Imagine a source of light, now imagine that you have an object of a definite size in the field of illumination of the source, the size of the shadow the object casts depends on the proximity of the object to the light source. Closer the object  the larger the area that is in the dark. Likewise in chaos theory, a small change in the initial conditions will result in a disruptive change in the end.

In a deterministic system there is absolutely no randomness. If one such event, as small as, not being selected for a voyage can drastically alter history, there would have been multiple such events. Every single event in history from landing on the moon to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were set in motion by one such simple and insignificant act. These fixed points in time have created reality as we know it. We all know that the whole universe and time was created from a singularity of infinite energy, The Big Bang. What if it was the first domino and everything else is just a reaction to it? Every single molecule and atom in your body is made up of the same elementary particles found elsewhere in the Universe; just because you are arranged in a seemingly complex manner, you think that you are the one doing what you do, and it cannot and will not happen any other way? Even your defiance is the norm. Every single thing you’ve done, doing and going to do, determined 13.8 billon years ago, can you believe it? Do you think you have free will?

Echoes of Humanity

I am the sum total of everything that went before me,

Of all I have seen done,

Of everything done to me.

I am everyone everything whose being in the universe affected was affected by mine.

I am anything that happens after I am gone which would not have happened if I had not come.

I am humanity with all its Triumphs and Pitfalls.

I am star dust.

I am the universe contemplating itself.

I am the futile speck of dust trying to conquer the cosmos.

I am the symphony among the chaos and the uncertainty.

I am a ripple in the eternal and everlasting ocean of time!

I am the echo of humanity!

This is not an original work, this is a mash-up of quotes by Salman Rushdie, Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrass Tyson and various others, sprinkled with my own brain-crack inspired by them.

Asteroid DA14 and Possibly Earth’s protectors

I’m starting to write for a site called durofy.com. This is my very first article, keeping my fingers crossed.

Asteroid Impact
Image Source – http://sciengineearth.blogspot.in

On Feb 15 2013 the earth is going to get a close shave from an asteroid. Don’t freak out, not yet. It is not going to hit us; it is going to pass very close to earth. The asteroid’s name is ‘2012 DA14’, it is roughly about 50 meters or 160 feet across. It is going to miss us by 27,700 kilometers which is almost twice the earth’s diameter. It is the closest that an asteroid has ever gotten to earth (without hitting us of course) in recorded history; It is pretty close, closer than some of our geosynchronous satellites. It is so close that you can even see it with just a simple binoculars or a telescope. The Earth’s gravity is massive enough to change the trajectory of this asteroid and professional astronomers are going to be all over this making tonnes of observations. If you want to know more about the asteroid and possibly get to see it, watch this episode of SciShow.

Continue to source article at durofy.com

Religion is here to stay.

In a crunch

Unfortunately, that may very well be true. We would be deluding ourselves if we were thinking otherwise, unless we really do something about it. When I say ‘do something about it’, I don’t mean religion-bashing, blame game or talking condescendingly to people who do not share your belief system. Those who pride themselves as rational, free thinkers and atheist who value reason and evidence have to think long and hard before we go on a “crusade” to rid the world of the misery that is religion. Initially when I read this article that ‘Religion may not survive the Internet’, I was amused and even happy for a while, but then my skepticism kicked in. The internet is something that was created by humans and as long as there are humans, history will repeat itself and religion will survive.

History is a very good teacher but we are all not very bright students. We may point out inconsistencies and instances crimes that are perpetrated by religion but religion does not stand by itself; it is a part of a superstructure that has offered stability and solace for millions and millions of people for thousands of years. I’m not defending religion here but merely stating the fact; the time the Egyptians who worshiped their emperor as a god, when the roman church held the fate of whole Europe in it is hands, to the Islamic republics, to the caste system that is still practiced in India, in spite of all it is setbacks religion has offered stability and an illusion of authority and purpose. That is why it is not easy as we think to vanquish it. We cannot just wish away religion and hope that some dreamy thing will fill the void that is left by it, that would be yet another failed Utopian dream. We need something that will replace religion!

Sounds funny doesn’t it? This too is not a new idea many religions that exist today with all it is moronic dogmas and superstitions started as an alternative to something that was tyrannical and exploitative. Take the Buddha for example, he did not set out to start a religion, he told people how ridiculous worshiping idols was and taught reason. Now, Buddhism in all it is glory is yet another religion with rituals and ceremonies.

Buddha statue, Irony.

In the aftermath of the French revolution, when the king who had the divine authority to rule over them had failed them, when god himself had deserted the people, when the royal family was beheaded, there was this one idea which sought to replace religion and offer the utopia that everybody had dreamed of. An idea so powerful, that it took over half the world. It was then, that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their ‘Communist Manifesto’. If we examine the conditions from which the Communist Manifesto came, we will understand that the tremendous success of communism was because it was there to fill the theological void left by it is predecessor, it gave people something to believe in. The same thing happened in Russia  when the Tsars and the royal family were executed and we came to know of Vladimir Lenin and the infamous Joseph Stalin. Again, I’m not arguing for communism, I very much like my private property. Religion is an idea, a way of life, it is not just enough to point out the inconsistencies and pitfalls of it. Unless a viable and a far better way of life, an idea emerges, religion is here to stay.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

The caste system that is still prevalent in India is the heart of the Vedic religion that is Hinduism. Various eminent personalities from the Buddha to myriad of social thinkers have tried to abolish it but in vain. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who rejected religions, says the same about the caste system.

Jawaharlal Nehru

“We cannot just disrupt and hope for something better without having some vision of the future we are working for, however vague that vision may be. We cannot just create a vacuum, or else that vacuum will fill itself up in a way that we may have to deplore. In the constructive schemes that we may make, we have to pay attention to the human material we have to deal with, to the background of its thought and urges, and to the environment in which we have to function. To ignore all this and to fashion some idealistic scheme in the air, or merely to think in terms of imitating what others have done elsewhere, would be folly. It becomes desirable therefore to examine and understand the old Indian social structure which has so powerfully influenced our people.”

Religion offers something to be transcendent about; something to behold; something to marvel at; something so mystique that you cannot even begin to comprehend. There is another thing that will do the same thing to you; it will blow your mind at every opportunity available; it is science! Ponder for a moment here, every champion of atheism is a man of science in one way or another, at least he or she will be an admirer of science.

Next time, don’t just insult somebody for their ignorance, educate them! Make them marvel at the magnitude of events in the cosmic scale. Let them behold the vastness of the universe. Give them something awe-inspiring. Give them something to believe in. Enchant them with the intricacies and genius of evolution. Fascinate by taking them into the world of atoms and molecules, further into protons and neutrons, still further into the quarks and may be let them listen to the symphony of string theory. And all this follows simple laws of physics which a human mind has the audacity to make sense of! Is there anything else more breathtakingly marvelous to behold?

It took some of us 200,000 years to realize that we don’t need a nanny to watch over us day and night to be a moral human being. Plant an Idea in their mind that their humanity is far superior than the faith that they so dearly behold. Make them realize that it is their innate sense of right and wrong that makes them who they are, make them understand that people are generally good and they don’t need God to set them in the right path, give them hope.

Why should I write? Here’s why….

“If the fish swam out of the ocean
And grew legs and they started walking
And the apes climbed down from the trees
And grew tall and they started talking
And the stars fell out of the sky
And my tears rolled into the ocean
And now I’m looking for a reason why
You even set my world into motion”

Sam Sparro – Black and Gold

Beautiful song, isn’t it? Isn’t this why we are all here? Wondering why? And How do we make sense of all this? Scientists in various fields stand at the edge of the known reality and dare to peer beyond into the abyss of the unknown, and the driving force behind the endeavor is this unrelenting question of ‘Why? And How?’ The beautiful feeling of trepidation before you find out something new and the feeling of awe that you feel once you know something that you never knew before is beyond anything that materialistic wealth can bring, and every single human being deserves to know what, as a collective species we are doing.
In the contemporary world the nexus between the bleeding frontiers of science and the general populous is very little or is absent in some cases. This is due to lack of access and the in-edibleness of the scientific data that exists, which gives room to ignorance and moronic superstition. What we need are people who can pack that scientific knowledge into digestible little packets and strive to make the general populous scientifically literate. This is exactly what I propose to do.

  “Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions”.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

When you learn about the intricacies of Evolution, Learn the theories of relativity, Understand how massive a Large Quasar Group is, Make sense of the Moore’s law and see the inevitability of the Singularity, When all you ever learnt is challenged by quantum theory; When you come into terms with the fact that Somewhere in that infinite string of digits of ‘Pi’ is the name of every person you will ever love, the date, time and manner of your death, And the answers to all the great questions of the universe; When you understand that science is the poetry of reality, You will wake up into a whole other universe where every single thing fascinates you in ways that you never thought they will. And I wish to be one of the cogs that push humanity to this reality.

Awestruck,
Manoj BS.

*I wrote this for a freelance writer position on a site, Just thought I should share it.

What if…

Anthropic principle is something that has provoked and prodded my brain for quite some while now and I am sure that it will continue to do so in the future too. May be the universe is not how we think it is, I don’t mean it in a banal we-still-don’t-know-much about the universe way but in a basic fundamental way. The concept of time, energy and entropy are things or abstract concepts that we have devised in order to understand the weird things around us. For example the concept of time, once thought to be infallible is now known to be relative.

Now consider this, concept of relativity tells us that as we move faster and faster, time slows down for us. The first time you learn this, it just blows your mind! This is not just a theory but a proven fact, the global positioning satellites are intentionally set at a faster rate so as to counter for the time dilation that they experience due to the fact that they are moving at the speed of thousands of kilometers per second. If that correction is not made you could have an error of up to 11kms while using your GPS. Thanks to our friend Mr. Einstein! Now let us push this knowledge a little further, to be precise, faster and faster. Time slows down further and further. If you are aware of the ‘The Twin paradox’, you will understand this better. Now let us push it further, consider a object or a particle that is moving at the speed of light, time slows down do an extent that you can essentially say that time stops for them or they do not experience time at all. Photons, even though they travel millions of light years, for them the instant they originate from a source is the same instant that they are absorbed by another body, hypothetically, if you ask a photon ‘what is time?’ they would have no idea of what you are talking about! For them time does not exist!

This has no connection with what I am talking about, I just think Mobius strips are cool!

All these concepts, starting with colors  shapes, sound, mass, energy, the electromagnetic spectrum, time, entropy etc., are just abstract concepts that we perceive or can put a number on, tools that we devise so that we can warp our heads around what is happening around us. The known universe exists the way it does is because we see it this way, the way we possibly can. And still with all these things we can only explain only 4% of the known universe! What about the rest 96%, we have enigmatically termed them as ‘Dark matter’ and ‘Dark energy’.

Now I am going to take a leap of Imagination. Consider a sentient being in that 96% swimming at the speed of light, with no concept of time at all and not even making a splash in the electromagnetic spectrum. For us they would be “dead” the instant they were “born” AND they would also be immortal at the same time, if time does not exist for you, you are literally immortal. Again, these are terms that come from our understanding of things around us and may be they hold no meaning in defining these creatures. We will never know if they exist at all, at least with the limited technology that we now possess. It is times like this that makes you look forward to the future. What would it be like to establish contact with these beings? I cannot even comprehend how it is even possible with my limited cranial capacity! It is times like this being an immortal really pays off. Then again, you wouldn’t want to be the dumb un-evolved caveman in the midst of much more evolved descendants.

Living beyond the grasps of time, how fascinating would that be?