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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00057 Oct 2002

 
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Sri:
Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:

Dears,
Salutations to all. This post highlights some "controversial 
issues" in Modern Physics leading to philosophical implications. 
Instead of saying science,I would prefer to use the word Physics 
because biologists do research at molecular level(biological life 
which is made of complex molecules proteins and DNA are explained by 
Chemistry which in turn explained by physics),chemists at atomic 
level and physicists at particle level on the one hand and 
astronomical level on the other. Universe is made up of 
elements,elements made up of molecules,molecules are of atoms,atoms 
are of particles(electron,proton,neutron). Till 1960's these three 
were the fundamental particles but with the Nobel Prize winner Gell-
Mann(1969),protons and neutrons were no longer elementary particles 
but are further made up of smaller particles called quarks. If one 
wants to couple quantum physics and relativity(marriage bwteen the 
two),the picture is not rosy. Relativistic quantum physics explains 
all obervables nice at microscopic level but does a poor job at 
macrolevel(astro). But if you assume that quarks are made 
of "strings"(they are not particles just similar to a guitar 
string),then atleast it's able to account for gravity but it has its 
own drawbacks(there are many versions of Super String Theory,recent 
one is M-Theory,mother of all super strings).

Physicists are also trying to unravel the mystery of the universe. 
The fundamental forces of nature are gravity,electromagnetic,weak
(radiactive decay)and the strong(nuclear force). In the very very 
early stages of the universe at Planck's time scale(10 power -40 
sec,just imagine!)and less than that,all the four forces were in an 
undifferentiated form(note the similarity 4 forces-4 vyUhas)and the 
symmetry was unbroken and the temperature was of the order of 10 
power 33 Kelvin(core temperature of the sun is 6000 degree Kelvin). 
Let's not go into those nos! As the exapansion started,the temperature
was reducing and only nuclear force was dominating and as time 
evolves slowly weak force enters the scene,then electromagentic and 
then finall gravity. The first three forces have already been united 
successfully and it's gravity which poses lot of problems. That's 
called Quantum Electro Dynamics(QED). The quarks come in 6 colors
(compare it to the six guNas)namely top,bottom,up,down,strange and 
beauty. Then it became Quantum Chromodynamics(QCD).

The famous statement "God does not play dice" was uttered by the all 
time greatest theoretical physicist Einstein in his objection to the 
then prevalent quantum mechanics view(Copenhagen Interpretation of 
Quantum Mechanics). The conference was held in Copenhagen(hence the 
name)and the advocates of this view were Niels Bohr,Heisenberg,Pauli 
etc and the staunch opponents were Einstein(top list),Schroedinger,
Dirac. This view leads to all kinds of contradictions and reflects 
some of advaitic principles(will come back to it in the next post).
What does it contradict? BTW it was the year 1935 and the saddest 
thing is the advocates especially Bohr brainwashed generation of 
physicists saying that all problems in physics have been resolved and 
there can't be a better a explanation than those views! It simply 
means(whether he realized or not)that Physics has reached the end of 
the road(dead end)and the whole chapter was closed(as far quantum 
mechanics interpretaion was concerned)for three and a half decades.
Just imagine if Sri Ramanuja had written a commentary on TiruvAymozhi 
and made a statement that his is the final word and any other version
(even if better)will be outrightly rejected. Situation is similar.
Only since 80's the road to the original interpretation of quantum 
physics(Copenhagen)was once again open. There are lots of researches 
going on to come up with a better interpretation of quantum 
mechanics. 

The copenhagen view contradicts causality,determinism
/certainty. The game of dice is related to the theory of probability. 
Einstein till his last breath did not accept it and always said it's 
incomplete and will crumble down in a century or so just like 
Newtonian mechanics did. He came with a famous thought experiment to 
counter arugue the Copenhagen standpoint.I wish Einstein's vision 
come true maybe after a century. According to Copenhagen 
interpretation,matter does not exist independently of the observer. 
The universe does not exist if there is no observer. In short when a 
tree falls in forest there is no noise if there is no observer. 
Einstein believed in a thoery which is observer independent. A theory 
can be verified by experience but it is not wise to set up a theory 
based on experiences(will end up with many theories). Einstein's 
belief is that this universe exists(and real) independent of the 
observer. Einstein was a firm believer in God. Relativity Theory of 
Einstein,which is a one man contribution(unlike the quantum 
theory),has yielded insight into universes,orbits of planets,black 
holes,stars and galaxies. Black hole is a solution of his field 
equation and he regretted that he left his equation unsolved and was 
solved by Schwartzschild. The term radius, sitting in the denominator 
of the field eqn,called schwartzschild radius,when becomes zero
(physically it doesn't make sense,assume point radius),leads to a 
singularity called balck hole but this was given by Chandrasekhar in 
1936 but even Einstein couldn't imagine(a point with infinite density)
the outcome and the astronomer who verified Einstein's results 
experimentally,was a stumbling block for Chandra. So Chandra shifted 
his field itself(after his phd thesis)because of Einstein and 
Eddington. It took Physics community 5 decades to recognize Chandra's 
work and was awarded Nobel Prize in 1983(where 1936 is and 1983 is?). 
It's not an easy joke to convince people!
Physicists themselves call quantum mechanics as "quantum absurdity". 
The american physicist Feymann says "I can safely say that nobody 
understands quantum mechanics;but how can that be?". 

What are the philosophical implications and how Einstein stands apart 
from the rest when it comes to physical insight? We will see in the 
next post. These are all prep for the necessity of Divya Desam 
worship!!! Sorry to have pained you all with a lengthy post. 

AzhvAr EmperumAnAr Jeeyar TiruvadigaLE saraNam
nappinnai





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