Religion and Science- Part 2

 “ It’s hard to believe anything unless we personally experience it or understand it by doing some research on it”. These days I started believing in Hinduism after doing some research on it but that doesn’t mean I have become religious because the truth is Hinduism itself is not a religion as many of us think. It’s a way of life and I believe in it because “it’s more scientific than what we think” but not everything. 

I think our modern scientists will take several more centuries to discover things that had been already discovered by our ancient indians thousands of years ago. All Egyptians,Indians,Greeks ,mayans and several other community people had contributed so much to the world several ages ago which was neglected by many modern scientists but now a few of our scientists started realizing its value and they are scrutinizing the ancient scriptures for reference.

The oldest literature of Indian thought is the Veda(Veda means knowledge).These Veda  scriptures were written by various authors (including 21 female authors)  over several generations. It indeed went into the hands of  bunch of misogynists and other people who had revised it according to their convenience but everything in this world has both good and bad sides. I think it’s always better to take only good things of it rather than completely ignoring it. There are also other scriptures such as Vedanta,maha baratha, purana ,manu sastra etc...but I personally believe in veda than any other texts as I find it to be more accurate.

I would like to point out a few words said by some great scientists about these scriptures of Hinduism.

“ When I read the explanation in Bagavadgita about how universe was created, everything else looks superfluous”. Albert Einstein,The great physicist who developed the theory of general relativity.

“‘In all world there is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction. The only solution to this conflict in so far as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad”… by Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger who was the one of the fathers of quantum mechanics.

"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. By Carl sagan, the famous physicist.

“What we shall find in Modern Physics is an exemplification, an encouragement and a refinement of old Hindu wisdom.”.. by Robert Julius Oppenheimer who was the father of atomic bomb.

"To the philosophers of India, however, ‘Theory of Relativity’ is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (one kalpa is about 4,320,000 years)."- by Alan Watts, an eminent English philosopher.

 “Every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also “is an energy dance”;  a pulsating process of creation and destruction, without end. For the modern physicists, then Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter. As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena." He further adds "Modern physics pictures matter, not as passive and inert, but as continuously dancing and vibrating. This is very much like the Eastern mystics description of the world. Both emphasize that the universe has to be grasped dynamically. It structures are not static, rigid ones, but should be seen in terms of dynamic equilibrium.”

– by Fritjof Capra is a physicist,founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California.

Does anyone know that CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland houses a huge statue of Natraja, the symbolic depiction of Lord Shiva who performs his cosmic dance to destroy the universe ? It’s a 2m tall statue of the Indian deity which was gifted to CERN by Indian govt to celebrate the research center's association with India.

Not many people know that speed of light was already calculated several centuries before our modern scientists discovered it. Here is the calculation part.

http://www.ceveni.com/2008/03/speed-of-light-according-to-rigveda-how.html

Anyone who knows about the recent string theory which is all about vibration of universe would agree with the fact that Hinduism has said this long ago .As we all know for centuries that the vedic hymn ‘OM’ represents the Universal Vibration.

The law of conservation of energy says energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. Krishna in bagavadgita said ‘never there was a time when I did not exist nor you nor these kings and never will there be a time when we will cease to be’

I should only blame our education system which din’t include all our ancient scientific discoveries in its syllabus. When Albert Einstein and Oppenheimer had known the importance of our ancient knowledge,we failed to understand our own scientific discoveries. It’s pathetic that we have not even heard of names like patanjali and Panani.

Dec 2012- Part 2

I request you to read the first part before reading this one.

Now it’s very clear that mayans dint predict anything about the end of the world but most of the people are very curious to know what Hinduism had said about the end of the world.As we already know that we are in kaliyuga, people claim that Hinduism also predicted the end of the world in 2012. But it’s totally a wrong interpretation.

The calculation part here is somewhat confusing since there are a number of cycles within cycles so i will share this in future posts but now I will explain about the mahayuga alone.

Maha yuga is the smallest cycle and one mahayuga is equal to 4,320,000 human years. (There are some interesting facts about the number 432 .It’s called cosmic key for the universe which is present in all forms of life.. just like Divine proportion(1.618) in Fibonacci series. I would like to share it in future).

Now, coming to the point, each mahayuga is subdivided into four ages and its length follows the ratio of 4:3:2:1.

Satya yuga or krita yuga: It lasted for 1,728,000 human years .This is Virtue reigns supreme. It’s called golden age or age of truth.. Average lifespan of human was 100,000 yrs.

Treta Yuga : it lasted 1,296,000 human years. There was 3 quarter virtue and 1 quarter sin. It was called Silver age and human lifespan was 10,000 years.

Dwapar yuga : It lasted 864,000 human years1 half virtue and 1 half sin. Lifespan of human was 1000 years

Kaliyuga : It lasts 432,000 human years.1 quarter virtue and 3 quarter sin. Lifespan of human is 100yrs.

Courtesy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuga

People believe that we are in kaliyuga but actually we are just in the beginning of kaliyuga.We have just stepped into it.According to hinduism it takes 432,000 yrs for kali to come and destroy the whole world, So Hinduism never predicted anything about the year 2012.

Now, let’s see some scientific events that could occur in dec 2012.                    

Geomagnetic reversal or pole shift is the change in the earth’s magnetic field such as position of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. Some people say reversal in the rotation of earth will happen and this would take place in dec 2012 but this news is completely wrong.

NASA has revealed that reversal in the rotation of earth is not at all possible. Only the magnetic reversal takes place once in 400,000 yrs and it doesn’t cause any harm to the earth. It’s not even going to take place in near future.

Next comes the solar flare or solar storm which is really going to take place somewhere between 2012 to 2014. Scientists are most probably expecting it in the end of 2012. Don’t worry the sun is not going to send huge balls of fire to the earth. :P

Let me explain what happens if solar flare occurs.

Solar flares are explosions on the surface of the Sun that can last minutes to hours and it reaches its peak every 11 years.

During the solar flare, the sun releases large amount of energy. All of the sudden the sun becomes very bright and the flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms. These clouds reach earth in a couple of days after the event.

A solar flare could harm satellites and its radiation could affect the people who are flying in the plane but a powerful solar flare could completely damage all the satellites and transformers on earth which in turn could cause a long term power outages all over the world( sometimes even for 10 yrs ). OMG!!! That’s too horrible right?

Scientists believe it could lead to failures in power grids, power surges and it damages everything from emergency service systems, hospital equipment, air traffic control devices,banking systems  through to everyday items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

If all traffic control devices stop working all of the sudden then it would result in major accidents.

All the electronic devices that we use are sensitive to the magnetic energy. These kind of catastrophe could be avoided if proper precautionary actions are taken in advance by installing resistors but it’s really an expensive and huge task.Let’s hope the solar flare that is going to occur in 2012 or 2013 would not create such devastation.

Here is the link where NASA clears all doubts regarding 2012 predictions.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

 To be continued……..

Dec 2012 – Part 1

Ohhh!!! Again the same topic? I have heard a lot about this topic…I have even watched a movie…so please stop!!! Phewwww!!! I know this is what goes through your mind right after looking at this topic but believe me.. I’m trying to share all the information that i know and make this blog look different from all other blogs so I’m sure you will learn something new by the time you finish reading each post :)

Does this date give a shiver down your spine? Is it true this is the end of the world? Why do people believe in such craps? This is because there are several events that are going to occur on this particular day.

Here is the list of things that make people believe 21st dec 2012 is the doomsday.

1. Mayan’s predictions never went wrong and their calendar ends here…Hinduism and Chinese I ching also say it’s the end of the world.

2. There is geomagnetic reversal or pole shift on earth on this particular day.

3. Scientists are expecting a solar flare in dec 2012.

4. According to Nostrasamus prediction, planet Nibru is on the way to destroy the world in dec 2012

5. Crop circles reveal the end of the world and it’s exactly the same date what Mayans have predicted.

The list doesn’t stop here but this space is not enough if you want me to explain everything.

By the way, is that all going to happen on the same day?  how could it be a coincidence???but wait!!! This date is not the end of world. Earth is not going to get destroyed in a single day.Ok! Let me explain :)

Who are Mayans and what does their calendar say about this particular date?

Mayans were found to be highly developed civilization. They lived in jungle of mexico and central America. They were very intelligent and they were able to predict the future with the planetary positions. People say their predictions of events in their calendar never failed to occur. So? Does this calendar say 21-12-2012 is the end of the world? The answer is a big NO!!!

There is no single evidence in the mayan calendar that this particular day is the end of the world. No doubt that this particular date plays a major role in Mayan’s calendar but it’s certainly not the end of the world. All these stories cropped up when some people started misinterpreting the true meaning of mayan’s prediction. Yes! The end of the mayan calendar has been wrongly interpreted as the end of the world.

First,Let’s see how mayan calendar works.I will try to explain it in very simple terms so that you could understand it easily. If you don’t understand or not interested then you could skip the calculation part alone :)

Mayan used base 20 system in their calendar (1-19 and a zero). Each number is separated by dot(.) so there is no date or month or year in mayan calendar and everything is calculated with these numbers separated by dots.They used five base 20 numerals.


* http://www.google.co.in/imgres?q=mayan+long+count+calendar&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1247&bih=503&tbm=isch&tbnid=uplRAdz_mkasIM:&imgrefurl=http://www.nikolasschiller.com/blog/index.php/archives/2009/02/20/2417/&docid=l4AHM273nnZhMM&imgurl=http://nikolasschiller.com/images/mayan_numerals_13red.gif&w=800&h=923&ei=FtGuTsPtGIvJrAeJrNi6DA&zoom=1

For example,

1^st day is 0.0.0.0.1

2^nd day is 0.0.0.0.2

-

-

-

18^th day is 0.0.0.018

19^th day is 0.0.0.0.19

Since there are only 19 numbers and a zero, the 20^th day is represented by 0.0.0.1.0

21st day is 0.0.0.0.1.1

22^nd day is 0.0.0.0.1.2

-

-

-

42nd day - 0.0.0.0.1.19

43^rd day -0.0.0.0.2.0 and so on

But for a reason while all numbers are in base 20, the second number from right is in base 18..So after 0.0.0.0.17.19 it’s 0.0.0.1.0.0 instead of 0.0.0.18.0.

By restricting the second digit from right to base 18,the total number of days by last two numbers would come to 360 days which is one solar years. We can find out the approximate solar years in the calendar by looking at the first three digits.

For example, 0.0.11.0.0 would be 11 solar years.

Mayan calendar is a long count calendar. The first digit from left is the long count.

Say 1.0.0.0.0 ..here 1 is the long count. It has to take 20x20x18x20 =144,000 days to become 2.0.0.0.0. This 144,000 days is equal to 395 solar years.

So the current dates according to the mayan calendar are 12.19.0.0.0 and next date would start on dec 21^st 2012 which would be 13.0.0.0.0.  This is what created a big fuss among people around the world. The end of the calendar is considered to be the end of the world by most of the people only because during the end of previous long count there was indeed a disaster took place but it doesn’t mean it happens at the end of each long count.If that’s the case mayans have definitely predicted because mayans were really very good at predictions ,So there is no single reference about the end of the world in their prediction. So according to mayans 21,dec,2012 is not the end of the world.


 

                                                                                TO BE CONTINUED......

Time Travel

Ufff…we have always heard about time travel in a lot of stories and movies. We have seen our heroes creating a time machine which travels back and forth in time.Is this really true or just a science fiction?

Assume that you have a time machine which could take you into the future. You are in 2011 and you are planning to go to 2100 within a short period of time ( maybe in 1 or 2 weeks)and see the completely new world in your future. What happens now? Will you be able to return to your present from where you started your journey?

Now you have traveled in a time machine which could travel back in time and you are few decades back in time. What happens if you meet one of your ancestors and make a permanent mark on his hand? Will you be able to come back to the present and see the same mark on his hand? Is this really possible?

Let’s see what our scientists have said about Time travel.

According to scientists Time travel is theoretically possible but practically impossible with the current technology. Let me explain how it’s theoretically possible.

To know about time travel, we should first know what is time. Time is the measuring system which is used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events and intervals between them. Time keeps changing in your day to day life. When you go by car it only takes 10 min to reach your office from your home but it’s not the same case when you choose to walk to reach the same office. Time goes fast when you are with your friends but not the same case when you are home alone. What is the reason behind all these? There is no change in time when we look into our watch. How is this possible?

You actually don’t find any change in time when you look at your watch as it’s going to be minor difference. A change in billionth of second or a nanosecond but it actually changes because time is not constant.

According to our scientists there are several ways by which you could time travel. One of the popular ways is traveling in the speed of light. As per Einstein’s relativity law, nothing could travel faster than the speed of light which is 186,000 miles per second ( now scientists have discovered a particle called neutrinos which could travel faster than light but this experiment is not yet proved).

Assume that you get a space machine which travels in speed of light. You are sitting inside the machine and the machine takes off. Once the space machine begins to move and it slowly reaches the speed of light. Now you start noticing some weird things happening inside the machine. Just look at your watch the time moves very slowly and you will notice that you yourself doing things in slow motion. Yes that’s what happens when you travel in the speed of light, Everything slows down. Now imagine that you are traveling around the earth seven times per sec for a week. Now your are done with your journey to the future. When you reach the earth, you will notice something extraordinary has happened. Yes! You are now 100 yrs forward in time when compared to your present which has already now become your past but you have not become old. For you just a week has passed in your life. Unfortunately it’s a one way travel you can’t go back to your present.

It’s very amazing to learn that everything including the changes in your body happens with respect to time like you becoming old, getting wrinkles and change in ur hair color etc..everything is related to time).

There is another way of time travel which leads us to the future.

Some scientists say it’s possible with a Black hole. A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light can escape. Its gravity is extraordinary so It just absorbs everything that hits its horizon and it’s said to be the no return zone. Time slows down for you as you go near a black hole. Imagine that you are sending a clock into the black hole. As the clock moves towards black hole you can notice the time in the clock slows down and once it reaches the center of black hole you will be amazed to see the time completely stops. This doesn’t mean that clock stopped working but the time itself has stopped. Yes there is no such thing called time inside the black hole. Imagine what will happen if there is no time. NOTHING could be the right answer.

So traveling around black hole also would take you into the future as it slows down time(exactly what happened inside the time machine which traveled in the speed og light).

Now let me explain one more way to time travel which could take you back in time. Our Milky way galaxy is around 100,000 light years wide, so light from its more distant stars can take thousands upon thousands of years to reach earth. Glimpse that light, and you are looking back in time.You don’t even know if those stars exist or not but you still see them. So now do you think time travel to the past is possible?

There is short cut called warm hole which allows you to travel back in time. This is mathematically proved. Imagine wormhole as a connection string which connects two region of space that means two universes. It also connects two regions of time. So when you travel through the worm hole it just leads you to future .again future? Confused right? :P

Ok! This is how it works. You just travel only for 4 hrs to reach a place(let’s say andromeda galaxy) through worm hole which could take 2 million yrs to travel in the speed of light. So it takes 4 more hrs to come back to earth.When you come back to earth you see that it’s 4 million yrs ahead(remember you used short cut which only took 8 hrs to come to ur future). Now you see different people on earth and you take one of them with you to travel through the worm hole and repeat the journey backwards and reach the place from where you started. Now the person who accompanied you has traveled backwards in time. He will see the world that is 4 million yrs back in time. This concept is bit difficult to understand but this is how it works :P

  

When you meet your Anti-You….

One fine morning when you are walking in your street, you suddenly witness some weird vehicle arriving from the sky and appears right in front of you. Then you see someone getting off the vehicle but you are very much surprised to notice that he/she exactly looks like you (or both have kind of similar looks).Now you are very much excited to know who is that person so you think of approaching him/her but wait!!! Don’t ever think of shaking hands with that person. The only best option for you is to turn back and run away and never ever think of meeting that person in your lifetime…:P

Are you wondering what happens if you shake hands with them? Oops!!! Then that will be the last time both of you see this world.

Because he/she might be your anti-you. Do you want to know about your anti-you? Then you need to know something about the Matter and Anti-matter.

Matter is everything that you see, feel and sense and Matter is everywhere around you. There is liquid matter, solid matter, gas matter. Even you are matter because you have mass and volume.

Anti-matter is exactly opposite to the matter but you cant see, feel or sense your anti-matter because you really don’t know where the anti-matter is or you don’t even know if it even exists  :P So you think I’m insane to write a blog on this topic when I’m not even sure of its existence? :P No! I’m not..:)  there are so many scientists who are investing their life time to learn about these things. There could probably be the Anti-matter.

Let me explain it clearly with an example. There is a wall in your street corner and you carefully break that wall so that you can take a single brick out of it. Then you have successfully taken out that single brick and it’s in your hand. Just look at the wall now and It doesn’t look like how it looked sometime back .Now there is hole in it..right? Now place that brick back into the wall. Once you place it into the hole, the wall appears just like how it appeared initially.

Now assume the wall is the Pure energy and the brick that you have taken out is Matter and the hole that you see in the wall is the anti-matter of that brick. When you replace the brick on its place, the wall is back to the form. This means it becomes energy once again when the matter and its anti-matter meet face to face.

Let me come to the point, the Anti-you is your Anti-matter.

When you and your antimatter shake hands with each other, there could be an explosion and you both are again converted into the energy (that’s actually from where you came).

Where does this antimatter reside? is he/she on the way to come and meet you? if that’s the case,there are possibilities that you would be on the way to  parallel universe. Again confused? :P

Yep…There could be a parallel universe (which is antimatter of our universe) or even multiverse where your anti-matter exactly does what you are doing now or behaves exactly opposite to what you do now. Their physical laws might be same as ours or different. There could be another person who exactly looks like me and writing a topic about matter which does not exist in her universe: P quite interesting isn’t it?

So In my opinion ,I think a matter and anti-matter could never meet because assume that you have a machine which travels in the speed of light that could reach our parallel universe and you are ready to travel. So your antimatter is also thinking the same way as you do and starts the journey. Now two events could happen. You both can reach the other universe in the same time and feel no difference because you see, feel and sense everything that you have done in the other universe. You have same friends, same parents, same job, same boss etc…:P only if the physical laws of both universes are same. Otherwise it could be horrible. If you have different physical laws in that universe, who knows? You can walk backwards with your hands, sleep in the standing position etc..funny to imagine right?

The other thing that could happen is …You both can meet on the way, explode and could be converted into pure energy form :P

Now!!!! Let me know if you want to meet your anti-you :P

PS: A few points at the end of the post like reaching parallel universe that I mentioned here are my own imagination. I just tried something like science fiction but the things I explained about Parallel universe, matter and antimatter are what I read from other science websites and books. I explained it with my own examples. Hope you enjoyed it

Religion and Science

The big bang is the reason for the existence of our universe and all other matters including human beings and humans are the reason for existence of something called ‘the religion’ which created aversion among themselves...wait!!! I’m not against any religion.I do find something interesting in them. I believe in some ideas which are logical and scientifically proven. 

Here I’m going to say only about Hinduism …it doesn’t mean that I’m against all other religions but it just means that I don't have much knowledge about other religions...Every religion is unique in its own way and has told so many wonderful things...

I would like to share some interesting facts about Hinduism. I don’t want to share what you already know about Hinduism but I would rather share some scientific connection with this religion...

As you all know the popular form of worship in Hinduism is Idol worship. I always wondered why on the earth Hindus worship so many GODS when there is no word called ‘GODS’. Yes that’s my belief system.Since I’m a monotheist I believe there is only one GOD and I hate the plural form of it.I also don’t believe in religious books.According to me there is only one deciding authority for the whole universe or the multiverse(more than one universe) who is formless, shapeless and eternal. This belief of mine was conflicting with my own religion’s belief where I worship different idols so I was not very much interested in it until I found something interesting while browsing through the internet and a few points I’m going to mention here are my own points and It’s just my personal opinion...

Before I explain the connection between Hindu gods and the universe I would like to tell you how exactly the universe works(for those who r not aware of some facts about universe)…

The foremost thing that existed before Big bang might be a Pure energy with extreme temperature or identical reversed universe as per Loop Quantum Gravity theory suggests or something else (no scientist in the world is sure about what existed before big bang but something should have existed right??? Anyway that’s not important…let’s assume like pure energy existed) Everything else was created after big bang and everything that was created is well organized and maintained properly be it a flower blossoming in the early morning or a tsunami sweeping out a whole country…everything happens for a reason..a reason which we don’t understand... I believe ‘Nothing is good or bad, big or small until you relate it to something‘ according to the relativity law…

Here comes the connection between the science and Hinduism

In Hinduism, I personally believe that every story that was told and every character in that story represent each thing that occurred or occurs or going to occur in our universe but it never happened in reality ..they are just like metaphors.

For instance...One of the most popular images in Hinduism is that a lotus that comes from lord Vishnu’s navel with brahma inside it. Here the Lord Vishnu represents the pure energy form(as per our assumption) or something which is beyond universe that existed (or still exists) before big bang which is eternal. Lord brahma represents the creation of universe and all matters and lord brahma is not eternal.

Brahma’s span of life is 100yrs and each day he creates everything and gets back everything he created during the night time.This means Universe is not eternal and a new universe is created and destroyed everyday of brahma and this cycle continues until brahma dies off in his 100^th yr (The next brahma is said to be lord hanuman. Who knows?  the whole system might completely change once hanuman takes over the job..:) )

Each day of brahma is equal to 8.64 billion yrs(according to the time on earth) and we are living in the first day of brahma’s 51st Yr.I don’t want to confuse you anymore by explaining it in detail with all calculations because I want this post to be very simple and I want to say everything from a layman’s point of view.

Here I would I like to say something regarding time travel..the time is not constant and it changes depending on the speed right? Do you know time slows down near black hole? The machines which travel in the speed of light can travel into the future but forget about the idea as human beings are not capable of creating such an extreme technology... now will come to the point . Something should have struck your mind by now and there is even a story about time travel in hindu mythology.

In Mahabaratha, the King Revaita travels to heaven to meet Brahma and is shocked to learn that many ages have passed when he returns to Earth.Yep! Ancient Hindus were clear about these facts that time is not constant and it keeps changing as we go deep into the universe.

So the idea according to Hinduism that lord brahma is a creator and lord Vishnu is protector who is eternal seems to be logical. Right now I don’t have any idea about the how lord shiva represents destruction but I will surely let you know if I get any idea or if I come across any such article.

An interesting fact that I read somewhere is as follows

There are totally 10 avatars of Vishnu and these avatars represent the  evolution theory. here it goes

1.   Matsya avatar – Fish : As we all know aquatic life is the first form of life that appeared on earth.

2.   Kurma avatar – Tortoise :  An amphibious creature which lives both on land and in water.

3.   Varaha Avatar – Boar : A complete land animal..(There is one more interesting fact I should    mention here .The image of boar carries earth on its nose and that earth is round in shape(not sure if it’s oblate or round). It seems our ancient hindus were aware of the shape of earth )

4.   Narasimha avatar- Half man and half animal : Transformation of animal into the man. (but I wonder why it was not an ape instead of a lion when scientists say our ancestors were monkeys:P who  knows? there might be some reason :P)

5.   Vamana avatar: Dwarf sized human
6.   Parasurama avatar: Forest dweller : Who developed weapons and axes. It indicates the first settlement of human life in the forest.

7.   Rama avatar: Righteous man who developed superior weapons like bow and arrow and formed villages and protected people.

8.   Balarama avatar: Developed agriculture and they were no longer dependent on forest for food.

9.   Krishna avatar : Developed advanced human civilization and ecomomy which still continues.

10. Kalki avatar :He is on the way to destroy the world with extreme technologies (like nuclear power plant).

And the cycle continues J

Thanks for reading my post. I will be happy to see your comments.