BOOK REVIEW : THE MAGIC OF REALITY

 

If you want to know what the science did so far to humanity, you must read this interesting book. The science here is explained in the clearest terms. It is not a simple casual read and you must come back and forth to get answers  to some of the curious questions the children ask us on science.

 

The book explains in simple prose on space, time and evolution laced with humour and clever thought experiments. You get very straight answers to some of the baffling questions like How old is the Universe ? What causes tsunamis ? What was the first man, or woman ?

 

Writing a difficult concept in simple prose is not easy and it demands tremendous mental energies. When you write science for common folks, the task becomes  tougher. French philosopher Blaise Pascal rightly says that I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter. It means, to make anything simple, it requires  much time and the benefit is obvious : message goes straight into reader’s' mind.

Dawkins, is an evolutionary biologist and a hardcore atheist. He has written many popular science books. His 2006 book 'The God Delusion' had sold more than 2 million copies and was translated into 31 languages.

 

When it comes to this book, I could clearly distinguish my knowledge before reading it and after reading it. The author  says that life got started more than three and half billion years ago and what we are today is simply an evolutionary process and there is nothing like God. His argument is that human brains and human hands evolved by natural selection. Like this, there are so many fascinating facts the reader would know when he or she starts reading this book. I could say that this book simply ignites you to read the whole book in three or four sittings.

 

This small volume definitely enrich your knowledge on science merging all branches of knowledge into one interesting narrative.

A priority book to read !

 

SUN - THE SHINING STAR

 

In fact Sun is the living wonder right in front of us. Without His rays, no living species would survive and the Earth would freeze into an ice ball.   Though we made some inroads into knowing other stars in the Solar System, our research on Sun is still at nascent stage.

When I talk about Sun, I am reminiscent of a Sun Temple in my Home State Andhra Pradesh, India, called Arasavalli Sun God temple situated in the coastal district of Srikakulam. It is one of the ancient Sun God temples in the country. The beauty of the temple structure is such that sun rays fall on the feet of the idol twice in the year during March and September in early hours of the day. This ancient temple is believed to have been built in the later half of the 7th century by Devendra Verma, the Ruler of the Kalinga Kingdom.

When it comes to  research on the Sun, it is reported  that   a group of scientists from Hawaii, Braziland California have measured the diameter of the Sun with unprecedented accuracy by using a spacecraft to time the transits of the planet Mercury across the face of the sun in 2003 and 2006. They measured the Sun's radius as 696, 342 km with an uncertainty of only 65 km.

It is believed that this gigantic ball of spinning gases is about 5 billion years old. The base material is Hydrogen (71 %), Helium (26.5%) and other elements (2.5%). The nuclei of hydrogen collide and fuse to form helium and this chain reaction produces energy, which among other things, lights and heats the solar system.

Scientists estimate that the mean distance between Earth and Sun is about 150 million km. If translated into flying hours, it means that a jet aircraft with 1000 km/hr would need more than 17 years of non-stop flying to reach the Sun.

Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer (1571-1630) produced the first accurate model of the solar system.  Inspite of so many advances in science,  deeper aspects of life and origin of Universe are  shrouded with mystery.  We can't be able to connect dots and what Arthur Eddington said to the world 84 years ago in his work : “ The Nature of The Physical World, 1928 (291)” still holds good: Something unknown is doing and we don't know what it is.

So the home point is, we are part of that mystery which we are trying to solve!

EDUCATION - ARE WE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION ?

Man is on the top of evolutionary ladder. The ability to think put us on the highest pedestal amongst animal kingdom.

In the process of educating ourselves, we evolved a system with an institutional mechanism to tap our mental potential and update the information on the Nature's basket. We formally call it as education.

But I am skeptical of  current educational system where there is a fundamental lacuna on the priority of things to be taught first. Tony Buzan, the father of Mind Maps concept, in his much acclaimed book ‘Use Your Head’ felt that ‘ in our worldwide educational systems we have spent so little time learning about how to learn is that we as a race have not known the fundamental principles of the operation of that bio-computer – BRAIN’ In computer metaphor, we have not known the software for the hardware of our brains.

Myself being a product of this current educational system felt low when I was restricted to read the subject of my interest citing that it is not in my stream of subjects in school/college. At that time, I cherished a system where education is based on individual’s inherent  inclinations and capabilities so that he or she can march forward on the desired path unhindered. But this radical approach pitiably has no takers in the market place where your testimonials matter a lot more than your self worth.

After my graduation, I started my hunt for real knowledge and got an opportunity to read some of the world's greatest books. After somehow grasping the ideas of so many renowned people in the field of education, my perception on education dramatically changed. The education which is now centered on rote learning has not inspired me much.

To strengthen my concept of ideal education, I started culling the ideas of great souls. Swami Vivekananda who is my role model  said that education is the manifestation of  the perfection already in man.

According to Jiddu Krishnamurti  Education is not only learning from books, memorizing some facts, but also learning how to look, how to listen to what the books are saying. Education is also listening to the birds, to see the sky, to see extra-ordinary beauty of tree, shape of hills to feel them directly in touch with them.

I feel that the pinnacle of education is to know the Source of Life or what we call as God , Almighty or Creator. I have great a opportunity to read the book ‘Code Name God by Mani Bhaumik  who is one of the pioneers in laser technology, acknowledged the fact that the deeper mysteries of life remain unresolved.

When you look into the latest research in science, you would find that still we are intrigued with the questions of how an electron gets it's energy to revolve around the nucleus. What you call as solid is not at all a solid but only a light or  wave at sub-atomic level. The latest breakthroughs in science re-affirms the fact that there is a mysterious power beyond the realm of human comprehension that is dictating our destinies.

One notable point is we can’t have direct control of even our bodily processes like heart beat, functioning of brain etc. You could find answers to these nagging questions only at spiritual level.

So, my aim in life is not to accumulate material possessions and go into oblivion, but raise my awareness to get a glimpse of that Supreme Intelligence !

YOU ARE THE CREATIVE EXPRESSION OF GOD

A dictionary defines 'God' as "the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe." It says that the word 'God' was first used before the 12th century (source: Merriam-Webster online dictionary) But Indian Ancient Texts, Vedas proclaimed about God, Universe much earlier i.e. in 1500-1200 BCE (source : Britannica.com)

The Bing Bang theory says that the origin of this Universe is 13.8 billion years ago (source: Wikipedia). Joel Primack in his much-acclaimed work The View from the Centre of the Universe says that the visible universe is only 4 %. Dark matter is of 26% and dark energy 70% and their characteristics are that they would be detected only through gravitational effects. They don't emit electro-magnetic radiation. Why they are like that is not fully understood.

Deepak Chopra, the American - Indian doctor who spent a considerable amount of his life time studying the science and religious texts says that the essential stuff of the universe is non-stuff. He further says that matter is made up of molecules - atoms moving around in huge empty space with lightning speed.

The more you study the science, the deeper would be the mystery. Deepak says that the cosmic horizon is about 47 billion light years which is continuously expanding. He also says that there are roughly about 500 billion galaxies in the universe. To understand the arithmetic of the universe at this grand scale is very difficult.

We have so many intricacies in the present theories. Scientists when they started calculating time backwards, they faced utter difficulty to go beyond 10^-43 seconds which is known as Plank epoch. The reason is that their theories and calculations would stop working at that stage, because natural laws stop working beyond that point and the state of the universe before that point of time might be a thick quantum soup.

Not only that we are shrouded with so many mysteries within our own bodies.  In the midst of all these unknowns, if the man earnestly tries to make a self-search, he may find answers and this wisdom is not transferable and it must be earned only through ‘self-experience’.