Let me begin by asking my readers a very silly question (or is it?) : what is life?
While you ponder over it, let me give you my take on this befuddling topic. Life is the interval between when you are born and when you die. Kind of trivial is it not?? And what we choose to do in this period is what the world will remember us by, as either a trailblazer or a servile being, a sympathetic one or a sadist...all of these adjectives are bound to be attached to each and everyone during some stage of their life and career, and the earlier we manage to set an image about us, the better, since as is said "First impression is the best impression", and also since this will give one a shot in the arm, a dose of confidence if the person has obtained a rave opinion of oneself among everyone on has to interact with.
Today, the attitude is that since a person has got only one life to live, it must be enjoyed to the fullest, completely ignoring their responsibilities to themselves and the society in which they live. A person can enjoy himself or herself if they are also capable of performing what the society expects of them, because if one puts in real effort in one's formative period, then one will be able to handle the most stressful periods in life as if it were a breeze.
This, in some quarters, is considered to be the barest minimum necessity to lead what can be called a "successful life". There are also those people who have done this and over and some even take these people as role models (I think we all know who are being talked about here).
So, it only depends on the individual to decide whether to be a person of repute, someone who everyone looks up to, or just another also-ran in this highly competitive and volatile world, where perfection is the only true benchmark.
I would like to end with this quote I heard somewhere : "Perfection is the only goal; excellence can be excused".
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Bleep!! Bleep!!!!
This is a continuation from the previous post. (See I have doubled the number of exclamatory marks in the title.)
Now to seriously discuss the concept of a 'multiverse' and its repercussions on us humans.
So, having got a preliminary idea on the concept of 'multiple universes' and why it was propounded, it is time to ponder over a simple question : is it really for the existence of multiple universes for explaining quantum mechanical phenomena? The answer is, as expected, no.
There is considerable objection to this many-worlds theory, the most integral argument of these stating that all results that may be obtained using the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is equivalent to having multiple experiments that are conducted in a single world with its probability laws governing it, but an important anomaly that arises is when we analyze the events which are probable, but do not occur. So, it appears that this theory is there to stay.
Before we move on to analyzing the anomalous effects in the world that this interpretation has to explain, I would like to give the basic concept underlying this theory : the equations of physics that model the time evolution of systems without embedded observers are sufficient for modeling systems which do contain observers, since there is no observation-triggered wave function collapse which quantum mechanics proposes, in layman's tongue, no event has success or failures that is dependent on whether the event is being observed or not. And the many-worlds interpretation uses this to say that no absolute description of any two events is possible once it is the result of another, leading to relative description of the event. But relative to what? Another universe , of course. And thus came into existence the multiple-universes theory.
Now, let us see what are the various anomalies to which this theory can offer explanations to.
On a macro level, this might well offer an explanation the mystery surrounding the Bermuda triangle, by stating that the series of events that lead to the disappearance of planes and ships are just a fallout from some other universe, where they reach their destination safely (my personal opinion is that it occurs due to some variations in geomagnetism in these regions, about 12 in all, which again can be explained by the many-worlds theory).
There have been reports of seeing wraiths and ghosts throughout human history. One explanation (and the most accepted one) is that the person who reports these incidents is not of sound mental health. But what if it is because of the interacting nature of these multiple universes, at some times, interfering with the other universes. A 'ghost' seen here could be a living person in some other universe. Also closely related to this are the reports of numerous UFO abductions. It could be that these people, by some strange occurrences, been sent of to some other universe (where they would be reported of as 'ghosts'!!), only to return when they feel like, since almost all quantum mechanists feel that there is some connection between human consciousness and the occurrences in the physical world.
Another interesting thing to which this theory can give explanation to is the existence of intuition, on a smaller scale, and extra-sensory perception (ESP), on a larger scale. It could be that the human mind (brain, specifically) is sensitive to the occurrences in the other universes, and based on the occurrences in other universes, the brain is able to calculate the most probable occurrence in our universe.
So, the existence of multiple universe does provide explanations to a lot of things in the world, and if real, can also provide for faster computing experience (by means of 'quantum computing', which is based on this assumption), in a few years.
Now to seriously discuss the concept of a 'multiverse' and its repercussions on us humans.
So, having got a preliminary idea on the concept of 'multiple universes' and why it was propounded, it is time to ponder over a simple question : is it really for the existence of multiple universes for explaining quantum mechanical phenomena? The answer is, as expected, no.
There is considerable objection to this many-worlds theory, the most integral argument of these stating that all results that may be obtained using the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is equivalent to having multiple experiments that are conducted in a single world with its probability laws governing it, but an important anomaly that arises is when we analyze the events which are probable, but do not occur. So, it appears that this theory is there to stay.
Before we move on to analyzing the anomalous effects in the world that this interpretation has to explain, I would like to give the basic concept underlying this theory : the equations of physics that model the time evolution of systems without embedded observers are sufficient for modeling systems which do contain observers, since there is no observation-triggered wave function collapse which quantum mechanics proposes, in layman's tongue, no event has success or failures that is dependent on whether the event is being observed or not. And the many-worlds interpretation uses this to say that no absolute description of any two events is possible once it is the result of another, leading to relative description of the event. But relative to what? Another universe , of course. And thus came into existence the multiple-universes theory.
Now, let us see what are the various anomalies to which this theory can offer explanations to.
On a macro level, this might well offer an explanation the mystery surrounding the Bermuda triangle, by stating that the series of events that lead to the disappearance of planes and ships are just a fallout from some other universe, where they reach their destination safely (my personal opinion is that it occurs due to some variations in geomagnetism in these regions, about 12 in all, which again can be explained by the many-worlds theory).
There have been reports of seeing wraiths and ghosts throughout human history. One explanation (and the most accepted one) is that the person who reports these incidents is not of sound mental health. But what if it is because of the interacting nature of these multiple universes, at some times, interfering with the other universes. A 'ghost' seen here could be a living person in some other universe. Also closely related to this are the reports of numerous UFO abductions. It could be that these people, by some strange occurrences, been sent of to some other universe (where they would be reported of as 'ghosts'!!), only to return when they feel like, since almost all quantum mechanists feel that there is some connection between human consciousness and the occurrences in the physical world.
Another interesting thing to which this theory can give explanation to is the existence of intuition, on a smaller scale, and extra-sensory perception (ESP), on a larger scale. It could be that the human mind (brain, specifically) is sensitive to the occurrences in the other universes, and based on the occurrences in other universes, the brain is able to calculate the most probable occurrence in our universe.
So, the existence of multiple universe does provide explanations to a lot of things in the world, and if real, can also provide for faster computing experience (by means of 'quantum computing', which is based on this assumption), in a few years.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Bleep! Bleep!!
Actually I didn't know how to title this post.
Let's get to the matter at hand. Has any one of you ever felt it weird that whenever anything occurs, only one of its many possibilities occur and in the end only one of all possible results end up happening? I did and that is exactly what prompted me to write this post. Why should anything with remote possibilities ever occur? (no, I am not talking about India's series win over Sri Lanka recently).
How remote is it for a person to meet up with another without prior planning? About one in 6 billion. And yet it happens. Why? Okay, maybe I am boring all my readers by posing questions instead of giving any answers, so let's get right down to it.
All of us maybe aware of the basics of relativity, i.e, everything will be perceived differently by different people, subject to varying surroundings. This still does not explain everything in quantum mechanics, so there is a new theory called 'String Theory', stating that every dimension in the universe is connected by some kind of invisible 'strings' (I'm not very sure about it, so any correction is welcome), which requires the existence of at least 70 different dimensions (compared to the 4 we know as of now : length, breadth, height and time).
I assumed that one universe is capable of being made up by 4 dimensions, so you can calculate the minimum number of universes possible, as per the string theory (I say 'minimum' because there is no rule fixing the maximum number of dimensions), which are mutually independent of each other in existence. There can also be universes made of 'matter' and also their exact opposites made up of 'anti-matter', to complicate things further.
So coming to think of it, each universe could be a replica of every other universe in its basic form and structure, so one can expect to find so many 'Earths' in each of these universes. So any event that occurs in one universe can very well occur in the other universes and each result is mutually independent, so that the repetition of results in the other universes is almost impossible (this, in fact, forms the basis to one major research area known as 'quantum computing'). So the result that remains and is not canceled out by its occurrence in the other universes is what remains,and occurs in our world.
Isn't this non-repetition of results also very curious? What controls these assigning of occurrences to each of the universes, and are these universes interconnected?
These universes can be interconnected via blackholes (because once the object is accelerated to the speed of light at the singularity governing the blackhole, it cannot be deemed to be existing in our universe anymore), and that exchange of information between adjacent universes is indeed plausible, though not possible yet.
Now comes the interesting part. All scriptures talk about heaven and hell and how they are connected with the mortal world. Now, isn't it possible that heaven and hell are just two of the yet to be discovered numerous universes, connected by singularities, through which one way travel is possible...now, that is some food for thought. (Someone strong in maths can please do the necessary calculations beginning with the initial singularity as an exponential function of time, distance and a solid angle to prove or disprove what I said). And going by these, the concept of God is pretty pertinent, at least to avoid the interference of the possiblities in the other universe and also to maintain this enigma.
So, there goes one of my childhood fantasies on record (this has been bugging me for the past 10 years or so), and am expecting some good ideas on it.
In case of any befuddling terms that I may have used in the article, please refer Wikipedia, or just Google it. You can find far better results than what I possibly could explain.
PS : ..and if you didn't get the joke in the title (yes, it's a joke)...check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse#Consciousness_causes_collapse
Let's get to the matter at hand. Has any one of you ever felt it weird that whenever anything occurs, only one of its many possibilities occur and in the end only one of all possible results end up happening? I did and that is exactly what prompted me to write this post. Why should anything with remote possibilities ever occur? (no, I am not talking about India's series win over Sri Lanka recently).
How remote is it for a person to meet up with another without prior planning? About one in 6 billion. And yet it happens. Why? Okay, maybe I am boring all my readers by posing questions instead of giving any answers, so let's get right down to it.
All of us maybe aware of the basics of relativity, i.e, everything will be perceived differently by different people, subject to varying surroundings. This still does not explain everything in quantum mechanics, so there is a new theory called 'String Theory', stating that every dimension in the universe is connected by some kind of invisible 'strings' (I'm not very sure about it, so any correction is welcome), which requires the existence of at least 70 different dimensions (compared to the 4 we know as of now : length, breadth, height and time).
I assumed that one universe is capable of being made up by 4 dimensions, so you can calculate the minimum number of universes possible, as per the string theory (I say 'minimum' because there is no rule fixing the maximum number of dimensions), which are mutually independent of each other in existence. There can also be universes made of 'matter' and also their exact opposites made up of 'anti-matter', to complicate things further.
So coming to think of it, each universe could be a replica of every other universe in its basic form and structure, so one can expect to find so many 'Earths' in each of these universes. So any event that occurs in one universe can very well occur in the other universes and each result is mutually independent, so that the repetition of results in the other universes is almost impossible (this, in fact, forms the basis to one major research area known as 'quantum computing'). So the result that remains and is not canceled out by its occurrence in the other universes is what remains,and occurs in our world.
Isn't this non-repetition of results also very curious? What controls these assigning of occurrences to each of the universes, and are these universes interconnected?
These universes can be interconnected via blackholes (because once the object is accelerated to the speed of light at the singularity governing the blackhole, it cannot be deemed to be existing in our universe anymore), and that exchange of information between adjacent universes is indeed plausible, though not possible yet.
Now comes the interesting part. All scriptures talk about heaven and hell and how they are connected with the mortal world. Now, isn't it possible that heaven and hell are just two of the yet to be discovered numerous universes, connected by singularities, through which one way travel is possible...now, that is some food for thought. (Someone strong in maths can please do the necessary calculations beginning with the initial singularity as an exponential function of time, distance and a solid angle to prove or disprove what I said). And going by these, the concept of God is pretty pertinent, at least to avoid the interference of the possiblities in the other universe and also to maintain this enigma.
So, there goes one of my childhood fantasies on record (this has been bugging me for the past 10 years or so), and am expecting some good ideas on it.
In case of any befuddling terms that I may have used in the article, please refer Wikipedia, or just Google it. You can find far better results than what I possibly could explain.
PS : ..and if you didn't get the joke in the title (yes, it's a joke)...check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse#Consciousness_causes_collapse
Friday, August 29, 2008
Can we realise Dr. Abdul Kalam's Vision 2020
"Transforming the nation into a developed country, five areas in combination have been identified based on India's core competence, natural resources and talented manpower for integrated action to double the growth rate of GDP and realize the Vision of Developed India."- is what it is required is India to become a developed nation by 2020, in the words of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Now comes the question : are we really prepared to take on the mantle of becoming a superpower by the year 2020? The answer rests with the youth of this country, and not to forget the political forces and the bureaucratic setup in the country, which can either be a driving force for a better tomorrow, or a huge blockade for any real progress.
India has the potential to become a forerunner in leading the world to a better future and has all the necessary ingredients to do so. But unfortunately, this is still a dream, due to a lack of initiative among the citizens of our country to try and mend their ways. One can still see a scant regard for rules everywhere one goes, we Indians using our intelligence for such meager things as finding loopholes in the rules that are laid to lead to our betterment and convenience.
This results from our lack of effort to get out of the rut of routine thrust upon us, more simply put, our laziness to get any work done through the proper channel and paucity of any such thing as diligence and hard work. When people of the world envy countries such as China, Japan and others, we wallow in self-pity, waiting for a messiah to lead India to its rightful place at the top of the world, failing to realize that it is incumbent upon us to take up the mantle of doing so.
Added to this is the problem of still continuing with caste-based reservation, that too on some census taken in the pre-independence era by the British, totally removing meritocracy from the mindset of the people. Even the architect of our constitution, Dr. Ambedkar said, in 1948, that such caste-based reservation policies should be discarded in about 50 years. And what do we have on our hands?? It is left for the readers to decide on this issue.
It is time for each and every one of us, to take pride in our motherland, and help ameliorate the centuries of looting and plundering that it had been subjected to, and in the coming years transform India for a consumerist country to a benefactor of the world and truly lead the world in the 21st century.
Now comes the question : are we really prepared to take on the mantle of becoming a superpower by the year 2020? The answer rests with the youth of this country, and not to forget the political forces and the bureaucratic setup in the country, which can either be a driving force for a better tomorrow, or a huge blockade for any real progress.
India has the potential to become a forerunner in leading the world to a better future and has all the necessary ingredients to do so. But unfortunately, this is still a dream, due to a lack of initiative among the citizens of our country to try and mend their ways. One can still see a scant regard for rules everywhere one goes, we Indians using our intelligence for such meager things as finding loopholes in the rules that are laid to lead to our betterment and convenience.
This results from our lack of effort to get out of the rut of routine thrust upon us, more simply put, our laziness to get any work done through the proper channel and paucity of any such thing as diligence and hard work. When people of the world envy countries such as China, Japan and others, we wallow in self-pity, waiting for a messiah to lead India to its rightful place at the top of the world, failing to realize that it is incumbent upon us to take up the mantle of doing so.
Added to this is the problem of still continuing with caste-based reservation, that too on some census taken in the pre-independence era by the British, totally removing meritocracy from the mindset of the people. Even the architect of our constitution, Dr. Ambedkar said, in 1948, that such caste-based reservation policies should be discarded in about 50 years. And what do we have on our hands?? It is left for the readers to decide on this issue.
It is time for each and every one of us, to take pride in our motherland, and help ameliorate the centuries of looting and plundering that it had been subjected to, and in the coming years transform India for a consumerist country to a benefactor of the world and truly lead the world in the 21st century.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
God : The Ultimate Reality
Before I begin the post let me clarify that this is not pertaining to any particular religion and is definitely not communal and not to be perceived thus...
There is quite an issue of if there is "God" as is described in various scriptures...and I don't want to add any more fuel to this burning controversy. But as far as I am concerned, I do believe in a higher reality, something far above the principles of science that have been described till date and might attempt to in the days to come, and that reality is what I call as "God". God is definitely formless and nameless so there is no point in insisting and compelling others that God is to be worshiped in any particular form or by any particular name, but the form and name that we tend to assign to Him is merely to help us concentrate our fickle minds to this Supreme Reality (by using Him I am not implying that God is confined by gender but is a general term as 'mankind' is to humans).
But in this day of modernization and importance to oneself, people tend to forget God or, worse, think of Him as a trader. People, especially those belonging to the so called 'Gen X' and 'Gen Y', think that God will grant us anything that we ask for in return of something we promise to give Him, forgetting that He is the one who gave us everything that we lay claim to as ours, and that He is obliged to do so if we give Him our 'offering' before praying for whatever we want. All of us tend to forget that we are first indebted to God for what we have at present and must thank Him for what He has given us without us asking for it.
For many people, as I have mentioned above, the word 'God', or any of His names, is a strict no-no for social acceptance, and feel that it is 'kewl' to profess ignorance of that Supreme being. Youngsters of today treat a person who even prays to God to thank Him in public as a social outcast, and for these people, visits to the temple is just another opportunity to barter with God for a few more.
In conclusion, there is no need for anyone to pray to God 24/7 and fail to do one's duties, or even to believe in Him...just don't treat God as a merchant who doles out goodies for a price that we offer.
There is quite an issue of if there is "God" as is described in various scriptures...and I don't want to add any more fuel to this burning controversy. But as far as I am concerned, I do believe in a higher reality, something far above the principles of science that have been described till date and might attempt to in the days to come, and that reality is what I call as "God". God is definitely formless and nameless so there is no point in insisting and compelling others that God is to be worshiped in any particular form or by any particular name, but the form and name that we tend to assign to Him is merely to help us concentrate our fickle minds to this Supreme Reality (by using Him I am not implying that God is confined by gender but is a general term as 'mankind' is to humans).
But in this day of modernization and importance to oneself, people tend to forget God or, worse, think of Him as a trader. People, especially those belonging to the so called 'Gen X' and 'Gen Y', think that God will grant us anything that we ask for in return of something we promise to give Him, forgetting that He is the one who gave us everything that we lay claim to as ours, and that He is obliged to do so if we give Him our 'offering' before praying for whatever we want. All of us tend to forget that we are first indebted to God for what we have at present and must thank Him for what He has given us without us asking for it.
For many people, as I have mentioned above, the word 'God', or any of His names, is a strict no-no for social acceptance, and feel that it is 'kewl' to profess ignorance of that Supreme being. Youngsters of today treat a person who even prays to God to thank Him in public as a social outcast, and for these people, visits to the temple is just another opportunity to barter with God for a few more.
In conclusion, there is no need for anyone to pray to God 24/7 and fail to do one's duties, or even to believe in Him...just don't treat God as a merchant who doles out goodies for a price that we offer.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Indo-US nuclear deal and us
After toying around with a few non-controversial ideas in the last 2 posts, I felt it was time to write about something which is causing a lot of hullabaloo in India's political and scientific circles : the Indo-US nuclear deal (the Congress prefers to call it the Civil Nuclear Co-operation Agreement).
First let us see what the deal is all about. The agreement was formulated with the right intentions in mind...to offset a possible power shortage that India might face in the coming years, and to achieve this end an agreement was signed with the US, for the import of newer nuclear technologies and the necessary fuel.
So why should a seemingly innocuous deal create such a furore in the political circles?? Herein comes the punch. There is a clause in the agreement that grants the President of the United States to call off the agreement at his/her wish (I specifically included 'her' here since Americans are willing to let a lady lead them and is quite possible in the near future).
So why should India feel threatened by the clause...it's not as if India abets terrorism to get in the bad books of the top brass of US administration, in fact India feels as much against terrorism as the US, if not more. THEN WHY?
The answer lies with the non-alignment as India's foreign policy, so India has an equally good relation with all nations at least on the diplomatic front. But not America. It has a whole host of countries ready to vote against any motion US wants to move on the world stage. And India has a cordial relation with these countries as well, and this will soon undermine the relative supremacy that US possesses at the world stage and this threatens the US.
Any issue has its own set of pros and cons and only if the pros outweigh the cons should the choice be made in its favor...let's hope the political and adminstrative bigwigs in our country make the right call...
First let us see what the deal is all about. The agreement was formulated with the right intentions in mind...to offset a possible power shortage that India might face in the coming years, and to achieve this end an agreement was signed with the US, for the import of newer nuclear technologies and the necessary fuel.
So why should a seemingly innocuous deal create such a furore in the political circles?? Herein comes the punch. There is a clause in the agreement that grants the President of the United States to call off the agreement at his/her wish (I specifically included 'her' here since Americans are willing to let a lady lead them and is quite possible in the near future).
So why should India feel threatened by the clause...it's not as if India abets terrorism to get in the bad books of the top brass of US administration, in fact India feels as much against terrorism as the US, if not more. THEN WHY?
The answer lies with the non-alignment as India's foreign policy, so India has an equally good relation with all nations at least on the diplomatic front. But not America. It has a whole host of countries ready to vote against any motion US wants to move on the world stage. And India has a cordial relation with these countries as well, and this will soon undermine the relative supremacy that US possesses at the world stage and this threatens the US.
Any issue has its own set of pros and cons and only if the pros outweigh the cons should the choice be made in its favor...let's hope the political and adminstrative bigwigs in our country make the right call...
Monday, August 25, 2008
Linux : a replacement to Windows ?
This is a question doing the rounds in most user circles...is Linux on its way to break the monopoly that Microsoft has over the market of user-friendly GUIs?
Not at the present, but will catch up quite soon and is already drawing users, who had used nothing but MS-Windows, to it (including yours truly). A few factors that is drawing users to it are :
1. Neater, snazzier looks...many graphic features available in it is currently available only in Vista.
2. Ease of user interface (no, I'm not kidding).
3. Ease of installing apps.
4. A very secure internet firewall, which invalidates the need for an antivirus.
5. And it comes as a free torrent download from the website (http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/ since I am using Fedora core now...similar sites are also available for the other flavors).
Though any of the above points work out pretty well to call out for switching to Linux, the last works wonders...what's more, one can get a Red Hat licensed version for just US$4.00.
If you have got a dual core processor, you are better off enabling the 'SW single processor mode' which appears in the BIOS settings. Or you can download the x86_64 versions available, though a few bugs have to be sorted out in it.
A commoner who is not much into the technical aspects of the OS (like me) will definitely find the OpenOffice in Linux a huge boon. It can support about 50 different formats of word processor, presentation and spreadsheet apps, including those of MS-Office.
And the common belief that Linux cannot support the games supported by MS-Windows is soon to be dispelled with a Windows Emulator that can sort this out (available at http://www.winehq.org/ as a free download).
And finally, I have put together a few screenshots of Fedora 9 with a KDE 4.0 interface
The little clock is actually available in MS-Windows too, but only in Vista.
Not at the present, but will catch up quite soon and is already drawing users, who had used nothing but MS-Windows, to it (including yours truly). A few factors that is drawing users to it are :
1. Neater, snazzier looks...many graphic features available in it is currently available only in Vista.
2. Ease of user interface (no, I'm not kidding).
3. Ease of installing apps.
4. A very secure internet firewall, which invalidates the need for an antivirus.
5. And it comes as a free torrent download from the website (http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/ since I am using Fedora core now...similar sites are also available for the other flavors).
Though any of the above points work out pretty well to call out for switching to Linux, the last works wonders...what's more, one can get a Red Hat licensed version for just US$4.00.
If you have got a dual core processor, you are better off enabling the 'SW single processor mode' which appears in the BIOS settings. Or you can download the x86_64 versions available, though a few bugs have to be sorted out in it.
A commoner who is not much into the technical aspects of the OS (like me) will definitely find the OpenOffice in Linux a huge boon. It can support about 50 different formats of word processor, presentation and spreadsheet apps, including those of MS-Office.
And the common belief that Linux cannot support the games supported by MS-Windows is soon to be dispelled with a Windows Emulator that can sort this out (available at http://www.winehq.org/ as a free download).
And finally, I have put together a few screenshots of Fedora 9 with a KDE 4.0 interface
The little clock is actually available in MS-Windows too, but only in Vista.
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