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Bandhumitra
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As a casual student of science (I am just an engineer), I have always been interested in how we have managed to progress to the current state of scientific prowess. I always wanted to know what inspired these great scientists in their pursuit of eternal truth. The best thing of course was that scientific theories are based on mathematics which means they can be verified by anyone and everyone, and they are completely un-biased. I would like to share with you some of the current work being done by the brightest minds in science and their possible philosophical outcomes.
More than 100 years after Copernicus proved to the western world that Earth revolves around the Sun, a small incident occurred in the life of Isaac Newton. Of course I am referring to the now legendary apple story. The most impressive and inspirational leap of mind Newton experienced on that day was a small hunch: that the invisible force which is causing the apple to collapse on to earth is also the reason why the earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the earth. Of course in order to prove this theory, he had to advance the mathematical knowledge of his generation by introducing the concepts of calculus. Calculus from then on has contributed immensely to the advancement of human civilization.
But more importantly what Newton had done was start a scientific chain reaction to understand the laws of the universe, to understand the reason of our existence. The next most important contribution came from the world most famous physicist of all time: Albert Einstein. He solved the next puzzle. He proposed the Theory of Relativity which included “time” in the equation to understand the universe and corrected the theory of gravity proposed by Newton. The magic behind electrical and magnetic forces was already beautifully fused into a set of common mathematical equations by Maxwell. It was then that Einstein, like Newton, had a hunch.
His gut feeling was that God, the creator, has created the most elegant universe and that all the different types of forces, like gravitational force, electromagnetic force, nuclear forces, etc, can be ultimately represented in a simple set of mathematical equations (much like his mass-energy equation E=mc2). It can be understood as our own philosophy of Advaita with uniqueness/qualifications. All the different forces acting in this world stem from the same cause but behave differently based on the different conditions. This yet to be discovered theory is called “Theory of everything”. This theory of everything is crucial as it alone can possibly explain why we all exist the way we are.
But his quest was seriously undermined by the postulates of Neils Bohr. Neils Bohr’s work was directed towards how matter interacts at atomic level. While Einstein’s equations failed miserably when applied to electrons, protons and neutrons, Neils Bohr theory was extremely bizarre as it included the mathematical concepts of probability to explain the chaotic behaviors of sub-atomic particles.
The world, according to Neils Bohr’s Quantum mechanics, is a game of chance! “Uncertainty” rules which mean existence of any particle cannot be proved with any certainty anymore! Nothing is real anymore! Ah! Wasn’t this already realized by our ancestors that Ishvara rules the world with Maya?
Failure of Einstein’s efforts did not dampen the quest to find the Theory of Everything. A combined effort from many eminent scientists has led to the proposal of theories like the Quark Model and the String theory which takes into account 11 dimensions (we are aware of only 4 dimensions now: Length, Width, Height and Time) and multiple universes [1]. The Large Hadron Collider has specifically been built to explore the sub-atomic particles so as to test the validity of these theories.
And just after it was commissioned in 2010, the Collider is spitting out results faster than it can be absorbed by us. Just recently the particle which is responsible for mass of all matter called, the Higgs Boson (nicknamed as the God particle), has been detected. Anti-matter, a weird concept introduced by Paul Durac, was successfully isolated for a significant amount of time. There are lots of other hypothetical particles yet to be discovered. But the most fundamental assumption that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light has been experimentally proved to be incorrect!
Just when everyone thought that we are heading in the right direction in understanding our universe, God playfully shook the very foundation of modern science. These are exciting time in the world of science as scientists probably have to start from scratch!
By concealing the Theory of Everything, maybe God does not want us all to understand the universe at the same time! Isn’t moksha (which is what the Theory of Everything would sort of help us attain) supposed to be a personal endeavor that has to be undertaken by each person based on his own capabilities? Who knows?
Who really knows? As the famous Nasadiya Sukta (the creation hymn in Rig Veda) concludes:
ko addha veda ka iha pravochat | kut ajata kut iyam visrushtih |
arvagdeva asya visarjanaya | atha ko veda yata ababhuva || 6 ||
But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
So who knows truly whence it has arisen?
iyam visrushtiryata ababhuva | yadi va dadhe yadi va na |
yo asyadhyakshah parame vyomann | so amga veda yadi va na veda || 7 ||
Whence all creation had its origin,
He, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
He, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
He knows - or maybe even he does not know.
[1] There are multiple reference to the existence of multiple universes in our Puranas. Such as this one:
dyupataya eva te na yayur antam anantatayA
tvam api yadantarANDanichayA nanu sAvaraNAH ||
kha iva rajAMsi vAnti vayasA saha yach chhrutayas
tvayi hi phalanty atannirasanena bhavannidhanAH || bhA 10.87.41 ||
Because You are unlimited, neither the lords of heaven nor even You
Yourself can ever reach the end of Your glories. The countless
universes, each enveloped in its shell, are compelled by the wheel of
time to wander within You, like particles of dust blowing about in
the sky. The shrutis, following their method of eliminating
everything separate from the Supreme, become successful by revealing
You as their final conclusion. (bhAgavata purANa 10.87.41)
