Yeah, I can hear you saying “At last!”. It’s about time I wrote something here to keep this blog alive. So here goes…
The last week, Tux and me spent a considerable portion of the IC Engine class discussing electromagnetic waves. I was trying to understand why the interaction between electromagnetic waves and matter must depend as heavily as it does on particle size. As I tried to reconcile the idea of visible radiation striking off suspended milk particles presenting the white colour that is “milky white”, Tux said, “Dude, let’s do it step by step. ” We began analysing how moving my hand actually produced an electromagnetic wave. We quicly moved on to the refractive index and how it presented the accumulated effect of individual reflections off and diffractions around atoms.
Here, Tux presented his funda-of-the-session: “Dude, look at the power of abstraction. Does Balaji Rao have to worry about electrons clattering around inside PCBs when he’s hacking at the speed of light?” I had to agree. At least the second point Tux presented was true.
The ensuing discussion was quite illuminating. As science progressed over the years, brilliant minds like Dalton to Einstein have dug into the very basis of matter, identifying the atom, then the nucleus, the electrons, then quarks, bosons, muons and gluons. But names are merely that – names. What scientists have merely been able to do is provide names to particles that grow increasingly smaller and elusive to the eye. We’ve progressively understood matter as a collection of the newly christened particle. But does the end to this identification of the specific seem in sight?
We could probably spend the rest of time doing the same, till we reached the ultimate substratum that unites matter all over. Upon reaching which, we might simply be at a loss for a name. Come to think of it, doesn’t this seem akin to Advaita? Is this the Supreme Material that unites the individual soul and God? It now seems like it’s been abstraction the other way round all this while! Think about it.
(I introduce to you my companion Tux, who prefers to be called Balaji Rao in non-Open circles)
4 Comments
January 3, 2009 at 7:50 am
I was hoping u end ur blog post with something scientifically provocative.. Why do u want to bring together god and boson Dr. Karthik Venkataraman??
Anyways, time well spent at IC engines class..god i miss that class (:P)
January 3, 2009 at 7:56 am
Actually, that’s the beauty of this discussion. Now that we’ve come to a conclusion that all of matter in universe is essentially made of quarks, we’re able to see an underlying unity in everything. This could continue till probably youdiscover another particle inside the quark called the ‘nutramion’. Once again, what is being achieved is reestablishing the oneness of everything in space. What say you?
January 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Things I used to do in IC Engine class:
solve crossies
write discographies
hatch plots to laugh at KV
stare aimlessly
sleep
One thing that I would have NEVER done in 100 years of IC Engine class:
discuss about electromagnetic waves
I rest my case.
January 6, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Btw, other than someone who absolutely abhors novels, one would have come across the advaita-boson theory in angels and demons… but anyway…