Author: Krishnan

Notes for 2010-06-14

Matter, Energy, Space, Time, Life

13.7 billion years ago, there was a huge explosion – what we all know as the big bang.

A sea of particles formed due to big bang. Matter and antimatter collisions resulted destruction of almost everything that was formed from the bigbang. Only a billionth of what was left over goes into making the current universe after baryogenesis and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.

300 million years after the explosion, stars start to form. Stars are formed due to gravity which causes hydrogen to come together. Temperature of stars begin to rise as Nuclear Fusion starts. Stars in close proximity form galaxies.

Milky way was formed 13 billion years ago. It is 6000 billion miles in diameter with 2000 billion stars. Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago, nearly same time as the Sun.

As conditions became conducive, life formed on planet earth. Life is what matter does mysteriously. Bacteria have lived on without intelligence for over 3 billion years now. The last asteroid strike was 65 million years ago and it wiped out dinosaurs. For 10000 years now, humans have dominated the planet. They say that mass annihilation of life in this planet could happen in 2012. In year 2029, asteroid 99942 Apophis could strike the earth. At some uncertain time in the distant future, gamma rays from WR104 could fry our planet.

Even if none of that happens, within 5 billion years, the sun will grow in size as it ages. As sun becomes a red giant, the temperature of the planets in the solar system would rise. Oceans of the earth would evaporate. Tiny life forms would would outlive the human race by several million years. Will we have to escape to another planet? How about Gliese581d? Does Gliese581d have low gravity could possibly weaken muscles of future generations? Would it be void of an ozone layer like our Mars? Eventually, all life on earth would perish because of the heat. Even later, the earth will be pulled into the sun.

Like the earth, the sun will perish too. Gravity Vs Fusion. Gravity will finally win.

Not all stars would die quietly like the sun. Some stars explode as Supernovae. With the end of a life of a star by explosion, a black hole is born.  Gravitational singularity is the centre of a black hole where time and space stop. A singularity is where our present science stops. Its scientists way of saying “We dont know”.

A black hole will pull every thing towards it. A black hole the size of a golf ball will weigh as much as planet earth. But black holes can be as big as a solar system. Some of them can be super massive black holes.

A 11 million mile diameter super massive black hole is at the heart of our own Milky way. Stars revolve super massive black holes. A quasar is a compact region in the center of a massive galaxy surrounding the central Super massive black hole. Quasars are the brightest known things in the universe and we already know about thousands of quasars. Quasars calm down when galaxies age.

No mass or energy can escape a black hole. Matter and energy are but interchangeable things. What happens to all that that goes into a black hole? No one knows.

As you approach a black hole, you would reach the Event Horizon. Event Horizon is where time is stopped by gravity. Physical laws as we know them stop working at the event horizon. Black hole is an object that changes physical laws as we know them. Yet, our SWIFT mission reveals that a black hole is formed every day within the space known to humans. We dont yet know what physical laws govern a black hole.

Some feel that black hole might be the reverse of a big bang. Matter enters a black hole by gravity and exits through a big bang. Black holes seem to drink up matter and then spit it out into a parallel universe. A black hole could be the connection to a parallel universe. Black holes could be universe’s way of renewing itself.

While we know black holes can eat up stars and even galaxies, we also know that the expansion of the universe is accelerating contrary to all known laws of gravity.

Dark energy is the term used by cosmologists to explain why the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing due to gravitation. The behavior of dark energy would determine if the universe would be headed for a big freeze, big rip, big crunch, big bounce, multiverse or have no end with any cosmic certainty.

How will the universe end? We have many people guessing at it. Can you re-boot the universe? As in, end it and begin it again? Now that is a real question. Good luck figuring that out. Everything else is, but, of course, elementary.

In medio stat virtus : Virtue stands in the middle

In medio stat virtus : Virtue stands in the middle.

Virtue is in the moderate, not the extreme position. – Horace

Voltaire said : The better is the enemy of the good.

Variant translations:
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
The best is the enemy of the good.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defined a virtue as a balance point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait. The point of greatest virtue lies not in the exact middle, but at a golden mean sometimes closer to one extreme than the other.

For example:
* Generosity lies in between miserliness and extravagance.
* Courage lies in between cowardice and foolhardiness.
* Confidence lies in between self-deprecation and vanity.

Virtue, by definition, is a characteristic that promotes individual and collective well being. A vice, on the other hand, does not promote well being. What is surprising to me is that a virtue stands between two vices.

Now, this is something to think about. The present day paradigm is being the best. We all are told that we have to be the best at what we do. And we even strive for it.

We give up things just to be the best in what we do. We encourage children to be first in class. In fact our lives are so competitive that we call it a rat race. We drive ourselves hard and get burnt out.

No wonder this puts things out of perspective. We feel miserable when we cant be the best. We don’t forgive our own mistakes.

Pushing to extreme cant be a balanced way of life, even if the extreme is perfection. Being the best may be good for business, but it may not be good for the spirit.

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Note:
Arriving at a middle position is sometimes equated to striking a balance or working a compromise. These can be powerful approaches to mitigate situations that are otherwise held in extremes.

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Note:
In the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, the term “Middle Way” was used in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta [Sanskrit: Dharma-chakra-pravartana Sūtra; English: Sutra to set in motion of the wheel of the dharma], which the Buddhist tradition regards to be the first teaching that the Buddha delivered after his awakening. In this sutta, the Buddha describes the Noble Eightfold Path as the middle way of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification:

Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. There is an addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is an addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable.
Avoiding both these extremes, the Perfect One has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.

And what is that Middle Path realized by the Tathagata? It is the Noble Eightfold Path, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Is there always a cause?

People are not always mindful of the cause. They prefer to stay focussed on what they desire. At least partly, that is the problem with the scientific method. Science is focussed on explanation of effects. The causes are only hypothesized.

Today, a kid cried for candy. The kid eventually obtained candy, but it seldom realizes the full story behind it. Mama gave me candy is not the full story. How did mama get the candy? Who made candy? Where? How did candy get there? If a child eating candy can be such a complex process, imagine the list of possibilities in a complex planet.

You may desire something, but to obtain what you desire you have to pursue a path of acquisition. For people who only desire something and dont understand what it takes to make it happen, the desire almost always turns to disappointment.

But to a learner, the pursuit of cause should not be driven by desire.

There are billions of people on this planet. They do billions of things every instant. There are zillions of things happening in this planet every instant.

These are caused by something and they in turn cause something. Understanding a single planet completely, is technically a zillion variable problem.

Understanding the universe may be even more complex.

But, of course, no human attempts to understand or remember everything. Our brains are so limited by capacity or at least we haven’t still exploited the full working capacity of the human brain because humans live in circles of understanding. An artist understands arts and a scientist understands science. Humans dont see past their limited circle of knowledge. And this circle of knowledge is as big as we make it by our effort.

Even knowing more within a circle of knowledge is a challenge to humans, knowing what to know is a bigger challenge.

How much can a human brain learn?

How big is the truth?

We know, at least generically, what causes the waves in the ocean. But do we know enough to understand ocean waves?

Is the knowledge of the effect sufficient to predict the cause or even is the knowledge of the cause sufficient to predict the effect ?

Is there always a cause? I can’t but help wonder.