By Columnist Harry Trunckles

The other day, I was talking to my wife Anna about that no good asshole she left me for and she said “He’s light years beyond you Harry, don’t even compare yourself to him!”

I just slapped her face right there. First of all, anyone who thinks that light years are a unit of measurement for how poor of a husband I am clearly doesn’t understand the basics of physics. Light years describe how time is relative to light. This is similar to using “dog years” to describe your beloved pet’s rapid decrepidation. And a light year is roughly the length of time it takes for the universe to begin and then end. Kind of a useless measurement for us humans in my opinion.

Particle Physicists (More like particle suckacists! Zing!) have debated about the nature of light for the last few years. Is it a particle or is it a wave? Since this question isn’t being hotly debated by wave physicists, I am going to assume that the particle physicists are a bunch of biased bastards. There has actually been a number of rigorous studies done to determine this. Some indicated it was a wave. Some indicated it was a particle. The lazy conclusion they came to was that light was both a particle AND a wave. Ok, before you call them all idiots for arriving at such a counterintuitive notion, let me tell you about how they found this out. You’ll laugh even harder.

Anyway, let me go into the detail of this horrible Freudian-projected nightmare. The scientist would tell you that if you have a photon entering two slits, then it could theoretically interfere with itself if you do not observe it. If you do observe it, then the photon will not interfere with itself. This is all just some bullshit fantasy that if your wife doesn’t observe you having sex with two other women, it’s okay, since there’s some kind of penile (represented by photons) interference. Jeez scientists, grow up!

Its so patently obvious that this is the Freudian expression of the scientist’s desire for an adulterous threesome. One in which his penis interferes with itself. Guess what science guys, I tried that excuse, but my wife still won’t return my calls. Kind of punches a hole in your logic, don’t you think?

Back in the day, scientists wanted to know if there was this luminiferous ether that light travelled through. They never found the luminiferous ether! No shit, you particle dumbassicists! Didn’t you read Genesis chapter 1? God spoke and He bespoke light. Clearly light is supernatural in origin. You dipshiticists. However, to be fair, science was right about there needing to be a medium for light to travel through. You see, sound can’t travel in a vacuum. And since light is composed of God Voice Particles (GVP), any over-arching theory of cosmology has to include something like deity air (not some stupid ether!) for the sound particles to travel through.

My colleagues, occasionally secular godless science can be right. One thing physicists got right was when they said that at the speed of light (you know, 9,999 miles per hour), time does not pass, so light experiences no aging just like God. So clearly light could have only originated from God. My goodness, what do these jerks at MIT do all day not to realize that ageless particles prove their own origin – their own origin being that of God!

Speaking of time coming to a stop, there’s this stupid theory called Relativation Theory (you’d think it would be about relatives or something) that says that time slows down as you approach the speed of light. Let me tell you, I tried driving really fast in my car, and not only did time not slow down, but it actually seemed to pass faster as it didn’t take as long to get to my work. I was 20 minutes early! Wow, who came up with such a terrible theory?

Another claim by physicists is that light can’t escape a black hole. How absurd! Being the natural skeptic that I am, I went into my backyard where there are plenty of holes. I tossed a mirror down one and shone my flashlight into the hole. The beam of photons bounced right back out. Maybe the scientist that came up with this theory fell down a crevasse as a kid or was just really scared of the dark. Seems like astronomy might be a bad field to work in for you guys.

Light is actually not as complex as people think it is. The mainstream opinion is that humans only percieve a limited spectrum of light known as the “visible” and that there is also “Infrared”, “Ultraviolet,” “Radio,” “X-Rays,” and a bunch of other satanic beams of light rays. The truth is that scientists saw their funding drying up after they discovered Red through Purple and went ahead and made up some new kinds of light.

Let me conclude on this note. A particle physicist once asked me if a cat in some box was dead or alive due to some quantum mechanical mumbo jumbo aptly named Schumaker’s Cat. What a stupid question. I kill my neighbor’s cats routinely by boxing them up and tossing them into a river. So I’m fairly certain that most of the time when a cat is in a box, it is dead. Especially after I run it over with my Ford truck! In the interest of testing this ridiculous claim, I took the litter of kittens my neighbor was trying to find a home for and put them all in a box. Well, big disappointment. They took a whole day and a half to die, and no matter how many times I observed them they never came back to life.

Do you really want to believe a bunch of eggheads who are afraid of the dark, like to cheat on their wives, think cats can come back to life literally, and ask you stupid riddles about dead cats?

The two slit experiment was one of the first verifiable physical phenomena that really forced physicists and eventually the lay person to allow for the possibility that the world might not be “what it seems”. Einstein’s Special and General Relativity shook the foundations of intuition and “common sense” in the macroscopic universe, and though counter intuitive and hard to comprehend, Quantum Mechanics as described by Planck, Bohr, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg forces one to suspend all disbelief. Quantum Mechanics describes and accurately predicts verifiable physical phenomena. The two slit experiment was one of the seminal works in Quantum physics and its results defy accepted notions of reality. The progenitor of the two slit experiment was the long standing debate whether or not light was a particle or a wave. Newton held that light was a collection of discrete particles, but from his death until the beginning of the twentieth century, more and more evidenced was obtained that lead to the conclusion that light was indeed a wave, diffraction experiments had shown conclusively that light exhibited wave like properties as described by Maxwell’s Electromagnetic Wave Theory. However, in the early 20th century, Einstein published a paper describing the photoelectric effect, proving that electrons emit a proton when changing energy levels. The question of whether light was a wave or a particle was opened once again. Light seemed to have both the properties of particles and waves, an absurd notion that was verified empirically. The solution to this contradictory interpretation was discovered by Louis de Broglie, a French physicist who described mathematically a relationship between the momentum of a particle and a wave length at the quantum level: p = h/λ, where p is the particles momentum, h is Plank’s constant and λ is the wavelength. Considering that a photon has no mass, this result, though somewhat confounding, can be accepted without a compromise of empirical reality. The two slit experiment attempted to determine whether or not an electron was a particle or a wave. The experiment is as follows: electrons are produced from a source and fired at a screen with two slits. The slits can be opened or closed. If one slit is open, the resulting pattern on the screen is consistent with classical mechanics; the distribution reflects the accepted notion that electrons were particles. However, when both slits are open, electrons are fired through the slits and the resulting distribution pattern looks like the intensity of a light wave, rather than a collection of singular impact points that would be expected if the electrons were hitting the screen as individual particles. If a large amount of electrons are used, it is possible to conclude that the probabilistic distribution of a high intensity of electrons is in the same pattern as an electromagnetic wave. Waves are distributed in a pattern such that the variation of wave lengths and amplitudes interfere, either destructively or constructively, leaving a definable pattern (in classical mechanical terms) on the screen behind the slits. However, if the experiment is repeated, now with the flow of electrons lowered such that only one particle is going through a slit at one time, the same pattern of wave like behavior is detected on the screen. The pattern of interference is still present, and the only conclusion is the preposterous: each particle interferes with itself. Quantum Mechanics was founded on such experimental results. The nature of the Quantum world is one of probabilities; positions of quantum particles past certain points are wholly indeterminable. Schrödinger mathematically defined the strange interpretation of the atomic world of Bohr with a set of differential equations with the ψ function. These equations described electrons in the form of a wave function, which reconciled the strange results of Plank’s results and de Broglie’s hypothesized relationship between momentum and wave length. Once an experimental measurement has been made, Schrödinger’s wave function “collapses” i.e. the probability becomes an actuality, and the wave like behavior of the electron or any other quantum particle, is annihilated and the particle itself is now identified as such.

Hai temans ! jumpa lagi di catatan bersambung gw edisi kehidupan kampus ha6 setelah selesai dengan review tahun pertamanya di ITB (semester 1 dan semester 2), kali ini gw coba masuk ke tahun kedua alias semester 3 hehehehe. Mungkin cara pemberitaannya agak sedikit berbeda dimana untuk semester ini gw kaga nyeritain per orang, tapi per mata kuliah. Kejadian-kejadian apakah yang berkesan di tiap mata kuliah? cek this out !

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Semester 3.

Pasti pada setuju kl di semester ini kita uda mulei disibukkan dengan yang namanya Praktikum ha5 ga cuma itu aja, tapi juga ada Laporan, Tugas Pendahuluan, dll dll.  Orang yang tidurnya paling pulas seangkatan pun kalo dibisikin, “oi laporan oi..”, pasti langsung bangun sambil panik hahahahahaha. Pada masa-masa ini gw mulai terjerembab dengan kerasnya kehidupan kimia, sampe-sampe gabisa ikut melulu kl diajak maen ama temen2 SMA gw.

Temen SMA : “nay (panggilan gw ‘sinay’ pas SMA), maen yok”

Gw : “duh gabisa euy, kudu ngerjain laporan”

1 minggu kemudian

Temen SMA : “nay, jalan2 yuk, uda pada bisa ngumpul nih”

Gw : “wah sory euy, gabisa ikut”

3 minggu kemudian

Temen SMA : “nay bisa maen gak”  <—– pertanyaannya uda berubah

Gw : “gabisa euy, sibuk”  <——- jawaban ala direktur

Temen SMA : “ampe kapan lu teh sibuk mulu”

Gw : “sebulan lagi kynya praktikumnya udahan”

6 minggu kemudian

Temen SMA : “nay nomad yu senen malem di ciwalk, gw traktir”

Gw :  “ck ! gabisa, lagi minggu ujian” <—— uda mulei mengeluh

Temen SMA : “edan lu kapan ga sibuknya edaan udalah lu ga diajak maen lagi siah nay”  <—- mengancam!

Gw :  “semester ini kayanya gabisa maen ey, sorry” <—- jawaban hopeless.

Hahahahaha itulah sepenggal kisah yang tak sempurna dan tak berujung antara gw dan temen2 SMA gw yang kebanyakan kuliahnya di univ swasta dan (tampaknya) belom begitu sibuk pas tingkat 2. Gw jamin pasti kalian jg ngerasain hal yang sama ky diatas ha4. Gapapa deh, coz gw uda sadar yang namanya kuliah di ITB ga akan bisa nyantei. Ganbate kusumawardana !!

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Okeeeee kembali ke prodi, kita liat ada mata kuliah apa aja nih.. hmm…yang pertama adalah Fisika Modern.Dosennya Pak Freddy.Gw coba mengingat2 ada kejadian apa di kuliah ini…………kynya ga ada kejadian menarik, soalnya gw gabisa fisika ha5 amit2 dah kl misalkan ada kuis lisan dadakan :

“Marcell, dimana kamu bisa menemukan elektron dengan kebolehjadian tertinggi?”

Gw bakal jawab, “meneketembreng pak, di stasion mungkin?”. Haghaghaghaghaghag

“Tingkat energi yang bagaimana yang sesuai dengan fungsi gelombang yang mengikuti kaedah Hund?”

“Pada saat energi segini, dimana elektron berada?”

“Kenapa elektron ga ada disini?”

“Kenapa adanya di pojok situ?”

“Ngapaen aja dia didalem kotak 1 dimensi?”

HHUUUUUEEEEKKKKKKHHHHH bisa muntah elektron gw lama2.

Di mata kuliah inilah gw ampe kesel ama tokoh yang namanya Schrodinger itu yang katanya punya resep-resep persamaan buat nemuin kedudukan elektron. Inget ga tentang pemikiran dia yang ada kucing didalem kotak, yang ada racun2nya gt? haduh plis deh…not importante…Coba aja kalo tokoh ini ga ada, mungkin fismod gw bisa dapet A hahahahahaha.

As fas as I can catch (sejauh yang bisa saya tangkap) inti dari fismod ini adalah lo harus bisa nemuin posisi elektron.

Itu aja?

Yap.

That’s it?

Yes it is.

Perhitungannya rumit abis kaya kode ukiran di piramid Mesir Kuno yang blm terpecahkan. Begitu terpecahkan, eeehhh itu masih berupa KEMUNGKINAN. Gmn ga putus asa, kl lo uda ngotret semalam suntuk, dan lo finally menemukan posisi elektronnya, n then lo bilang ke dosen, “Nih pak, saya uda ngotret siang malam nonstop -bahkan saya mimpi saya lagi ngotret-, akhirnya ketemu dimana si elektron berada.”

Dosen : “oh iya? Wow banget ! Mana dimana anak kambing saya?”

Lo : “KEMUNGKINAN di sebelah sini pak”

Ghahahahahahahaha in other words jawaban lo blm fix, blm tentu bener, MASIH BERUPA KEMUNGKINAN ckckckckckck

Peace anak2 fisika n komputasi! Peace on earth ! Greenpeace !!   v(^.^)v

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Kita tinggalkan Fisika, langsung menuju mata kuliah yang laen, yaitu Matematika Sains alias Matsa atao Matematika Sadis ! Dosennya keren sih menurut gw. Namanya Koko Martono. Isi diktat kuliahnya juga sama ky fismod : penuh angka dan lambang-lambang aneh. Kalo gw nemu diktat itu ditengah jalan, gw bakal nyangka kalo itu adl buku bersejarah dari peradaban suku Aztec Kuno abad 9 SM coz banyak simbol aneh yang ga pernah gw liat hahahaha

Yang berkesan dari matsa ini adalah pas ujian boleh bawa lembar contekan setengah A4. Sebagai mahasiswa normal pasti kita semua langsung nyalin SEMUA contoh soal yang ada di diktat dengan tulisan sekecil-kecilnya. Kecil sekecil-kecilnya pisan biar 1 diktat setebel 40 halaman bisa muat di setengah lembar kertas. Luar biasa, skala perkecilannya adalah 80 x (40 halaman jadi setengah lembar). Sekecil apa itu ujung bolpen?? Untung gw ga ngeliat ada yang sampe minjem mikroskop ke lab biokim cuma buat ngebaca contekannya pas ujian hahahaha

Ada 2 nama yang gw inget berkenaan dengan Matsa ini. Asri Sri Rahayu alias Unyil, yang kl ga salah sempet punya nilai ujian tertinggi  (brapa nyil? 98 ? hahahah mantap!). Nama kedua adalah siapalagi kalo bukan sang SuperHan alias Handajaya Rusli hahahahaha. Gmn sih kejadiannya gw lupa2 inget. Pelajaran buat lu Han, kalo mau bisik-bisik dikelas tu TOA harap di nonaktifkan dulu haghaghaghaghaghahag.

Gw akan tutup pembahasan tentang Matsa ini dengan satu kalimat dari Pak Koko yang masih terngiang-ngiang di kuping gw…….

cheating is a part of survival.

Hahahaha like this pak  !!

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Oke sekarang masuk ke prodi kimia tercinta, dimulai dari Kimia Analitik I alias KA 1. Gw sih (genap) kebagian dosennya Pa Buchari. OMG, dengan segala hormat, dosen ini suaranya keciilllllllllll banget. Ha5 pasti uda pada tau la ya. Ada 1 kuliahnya ruangannya di GKU barat gt, ah udah dah itu mah. Kalo lu ga kebagian duduk di bangku deretan paling depan, lu ga bakal bisa denger suaranya (Serius! Di barisan kedua dari depan suaranya uda ga kedengeran). Kita-kita yang duduk mulai dari deret ketiga ampe paling belakang cuma bisa berharap si bapak lebih banyak nulis di papan daripada ngomong. Walkisah gw kalo kuliah ini seringnya baca komik hahahaha

Btw percaya ga lo lo pada, kl gw pernah ngebuat Pa Buchari ini ketawa cekikikan di depan kelas?? Hahahaha saksinya adalah si Christine yang duduk di belakang gw, dan Devi disamping gw (uda pada tau la ya artinya apa kl gw duduk di sebelah Devi. Artinya gw duduk di deretan paling depan hahahahaha ).

Pada saat itu rambut gw kan uda mulei gondrong2 eksotis gimanaaaa gt (ha5!!), dan sebelum kuliah dimulai gw menyempatkan diri ke kamar mandi buat cuci muka dengan tujuan biar ga ngantuk dikelas. Karena siang2, jadi biar ga panas gw skalian cuci tangan n basahin rambut jg. Karena kagok kl cuma basahin doank, jadinya gw bilas lah itu smua rambut gw ha5 so gw masuk kelas dengan keadaan kaya orang abis keujanan : tangan, muka, rambut, semua basah ha5.

Dan pas kuliah dimulai, ga butuh waktu lama buat bikin gw jenuh (heran jg sih kenapa bisa2nya gw duduk paling depan. Posisi skak mat : depan ada Pa Buchari, samping ada Devi). Gabisa ngobrol kemana-mana, tidur, ato makan siang, gw mulai maenin rambut gw. Dan gw keasikan maenin rambut gw yang masih basah, kriwel2 gmnaaa gt ha5 akhirnya gw coba bikin poni ala Superman : poni huruf “S”, dan gw tunjukkin ke sebelah gw.

Sinayman

Si Devi langsung kaget kenapa disebelahnya tiba2 ada Clark Kent ha5 n dia langsung ketawa2 gt. Sejak detik itu gw sibuk sendiri ama rambut gw, yang TANPA GW KETAHUI, si Pa Buchari ternyata jg meratiin kl gw lg sibuk ngatur2 huruf “S” di jidat gw itu hahahahha.

Gw baru diceritain ama Christine n Devi pas bubar kuliah klo si bapak daritadi cekikikan mulu gara2 ngeliat poni Superman gw hahahahahahaha.

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Oke kita tinggalkan Kimia Analitik dan poni Superman gw, masuk ke kuliah berikutnya, yaitu Kimia Fisik I : Energitika. Kalo gasalah ini dosennya Pa Bunbun. Kesan gw…gilaaa gaenak banget kuliahnya dapet ruangan di depan himpunan elektro itu yang ada fotokopian ckckckckck ruang kuliah macem apeu itu ha5 ga enjoy lah ruangannya.

Ga ada yang nyangkut di ingatan gw kecuali 1 kejadian pas lagi praktikum. Entah KF1 ato KF2, pokonya yang modul Termokimia (A-1), yang ruangannya terpisah sendiri tea, terisolisir dari dunia luar. Gw inget banget gw lagi smangat buat praktikum, gw nyiapin semua materi semalem sebelumnya, jadi pas praktikum gw uda menguasai ceritanya hahahaha. Jam praktikum dimulai, pas masuk ruangan A-1 itu, eehhhhh tiba2 alergi gw kambuh.

Gw alergi debu, so kalo ada debu gw langsung bersin2 troos tiada henti. Walhasil sejak tes awal dimulai pukul 08.00 sampe detik mau keluar lab jam 11.00 kerjaan gw cuma 1 : bersin sana bersin sini ha5. Tiap jengkal ruangan itu ga luput dari bersin gw aja ha5 yaeyalah secyaraa slama 3 jam praktikum itu gw cuma muter2in ruangan sambil bersin2. Untung si kakak asistennya pengertian, jadi gw gapapa ga gawe ama skali ha5.

“Duh kak, saya alergi debu. Liat nih saya mw bersin…..WUACHEEE!!!……izin ga ikut kerja ya kak, takut nular ke temen2, kasian….” (ngeles!ha5)

Gapapa dah, toh kelompok gw (Catherine, Irfan, Kevin, Koyim) uda terbiasa kerja tanpa gw hahahahahaha (emang biasa gw gawenya ga bener)

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Dari ruang termokimia, kita masuk ke mata kuliah trakhir, yaitu Kimia Organik I : Monofungsi. Gw kebagian dosen Pak Yana ha5 (dosen yang nyidang gw!!). Ini entah gwnya yang ga serieus ato dosennya yang ngajarnya ga bener, gw ga dapet ‘feel’nya kuliah ini. Gw suka ketuker-tuker mana yang SN1, SN2, E1, E2, sampe2 ga lulus hahahahaha shame on you, Marcell !!

Temen2 seangkatan mah banyaknya yang ga lulusnya tuh di kelas ganjil (Bu Ciptati), ai ini gw uda dpt Pa Yana masih aja ga lulus..huh !! Jadi we ngambil jatah SP ama Bu Cip. Anehnya, pas SP ama Bu Cip ini malahan lulus hahahahaha kadang2 suka ngelawan arus emang gw.

Pokonya mah kata Azis Adharis kimia organik tuh kaya futsal aja : saling serang.

Kl gugus ini nyerang lewat sayap kiri, bisa gol ga? kalo lewat sayap kanan? Ya bisa, kl kipernya ga siap. Kl kegolan, brarti dia kalah, kipernya kudu ganti. Hooo gt tho..oke dah ziz !

Nah bicara tentang organik, ga lengkap kl ga ngebicarain kejadian di lab alias praktikum. Gw punya satu nih ha5 kejadian kocak banget. Jadi hari itu tuh praktikumnya bikin kristal gt. Gw seperti biasa, ga gawe hahahaha kerjaan gw selama praktikum adalah jalan-jalan kesana kemari mengelilingi lab, ngeliatin temen2 pada gawe layaknya pimprak yang nyamar make jaslab putih. Hahaha secara di kelompok gw uda ada Cath, Irfan, ama Kevin (Koyim ga diitung, soalnya suka gw ajak buat ga gawe jg hahahaha), plus tambahan 2 volunteer dari NIM atas gw : Moci dan Cicit, jadilah ini kelompok heboh sana-sini : disana kerja, disini ngobrol hahahaha

Diawal praktikum kelompok kita dibagi jadi 2 kelompok kecil : Cath-Irfan-Kevin dan Koyim-gw-Moci-Cicit. Kelompok yang sangat bertolak belakang hahahaha

Singkat cerita, hari uda sore jm4an gt, gw uda bosen jalan-jalan ato ngobrol keketawaan ama Koyim (hahahaha ga gawe aja bosen), uda pengen pulang aja, ntar minjem laporan ke Irfan / Kevin. Tiba2 si Cicit manggil sambil menyodorkan labu distilasi yang isinya kristal2 gt.

Seinget gw dia bilang gini : “sel nih, cuci yak”.

Wah gw langsung seger donk, very excited, asik uda bersih2 alat, siap2 mw pulang, uda sore juga kan. Langsung lah gw cuci bersih sebersih2nya itu labu distilasi pake sabun, pake sikat, pake busa, lengkap dah ampe kinclong. Tak lupa dibilas pake aseton kan biar kering dan mengkilat.

Abis itu gw langsung ngadep lagi ke Cicit, memperlihatkan hasil cucian gw, “nih cit, uda dicuci bersih sebersih2nya, tanpa noda setitikpun, silakan dicek”.

Kirain gw dia bakal antusias, eeh gataunya ekspresinya malah syok banget gt sambil nahan napas, persis ky di video klip lagu apa tuh yang ada cowo kaget nemuin cewenya lagi selingkuh didepan matanya hahahahahaa.

(hening beberapa saat)

Ga lama, dia bersuara, “sel itu kan kristal kelompok kita?!”

Gw, “hah?”

(hening beberapa saat)

Cicit, “sel itu kan kristal kelompok kita?!” <—- kata2 yang sama tapi nada lebih tinggi

Gw, “hah?? Iya tapi kan tadi lu suru gw cuci ??”

(hening lagi beberapa saat)

Cicit, “sel itu kan kristal kelompok kita ?!?!?” <—- kata2 yang sama untuk ketiga kalinya, memperlihatkan betapa syoknya orang ini.

Gw, “iya, uda gw cuci n keringin kan??” <—– belagak polos

Cicit, “maksud gw di rekris sel !! lah ini gmn donk kelompok kita gapunya kristal???”

Hah gw sempet kaget bentar tapi langsung tanpa asam-basa eh basa-basi memberikan solusi tersimpel, terbaik, dan tercepat bagi kelangsungan kelompok kita, “ooow yauda pake datanya Irfan aja…..”

GHUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sejak saat itu mungkin dia trauma kl gawe bareng gw hahahahahaha

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Woooowwwww ga kerasa gw uda nulis sebanyak ini (6 halaman Ms. Word) hahahaha

Smoga bisa sedikit mengingatkan kenangan-kenangan yang berkesan buat yang terlibat langsung ato ga langsung di cerita gw ini.

Smoga yang baca bisa merasa terhibur jg hehehehe

Oke, sampe jumpa di semester berikut,

GBU

Hay un artículo de Carlos M. Madrid Casado que habla de las posibles diferencias de cardinalidad entre la mecánica cuántica ondulatoria de Schrödinger (continua) y la mecánica cuántica matricial de Heisenberg (discreta). Pese a las pruebas de equivalencia matemática (que supondrían una equivalencia a nivel “instrumental”), el problema no se resolvería, sólo se desplaza a un nivel “ontológico” o “filosófico”, surgiendo un problema de interpretación. Las dos teorías, aun válidas matemáticamente, filosóficamente son incompatibles, contradictorias en sus fundamentos. Ontológicamente seguiría habiendo una diferencia de cardinalidad entre ambas teorías y, con ello, no habría una equivalencia “física” total, sólo “matemática” (a nivel de “resultados” sí, pero no iguales en “esencia”).

Aquí lo tenéis, a ver qué os parece, se titula el artículo “Entre Física, Matemáticas y Filosofía”:

http://www.nodulo.org/ec/2009/n085p01.htm

- Extracto (siendo MM la Mecánica Matricial de Heissenberg y MO la Ondulatoria de Schrödinger, la negrita y subrayados son míos):

“Nuestro propósito es construir un argumento por reducción al absurdo contra el realismo estructural a partir de nuestro caso de estudio. Supongamos por hipótesis que los modelos matemáticos MM y MO son, respectivamente, isomorfos a las estructuras de los sistemas reales X e Y que aspiran a representar. En principio, si la relación entre modelo y realidad es de isomorfismo, las estructuras de X e Y deben ser también isomorfas, dado que MM y MO lo son (Teorema de Equivalencia de Von Neumann) y la composición de isomorfismos es isomorfismo (si X es isomorfo a MM, MM y MO son isomorfos y MO es isomorfo a Y, entonces X e Y son isomorfos). Ahora bien, realmente, ¿son la estructura de X y la estructura de Y isomorfas?

Si lo fueran, deberían tener la misma cardinalidad, como es matemáticamente bien conocido. Pero esto no es, ni mucho menos, así. La estructura de X es discreta, dado que el dominio de MM son los números naturales (lo que se asociaba a una concepción corpuscular del microcosmos). En cambio, como estudiamos, la estructura de Y es continua, dado que el dominio de MO son los números reales (lo que se asociaba con una concepción ondulatoria del microcosmos). MM y MO nos dibujan dos estructuras de la realidad no isomorfas. Resumiendo: MM y MO son matemática y empíricamente equivalentes, pero estructural y ontológicamente incompatibles. Contradicción.“

Recomendado por “el niño subliminal” en un comentario a los apuntes sobre la sección áurea un interesante vídeo titulado “La sección áurea y el pato Donald” que puedes ver en youtube. En mi opinión, no sólo es útil para entender la sección áurea sino también como aproximación al papel de las matemáticas en los pitagóricos y Platón.

La sección áurea aplicada a la Leda atómica de Dalí

Sobre este tema de la sección áurea también recomienda “el niño subliminal” el documental titulado “Dimensión Dalí, la obsesión de un genio por la ciencia“. En este se muestra la profunda influencia de los descubrimientos científicos del s. XX en la obra de Dalí. En su pintura influye no sólo el psicoanálisis de Freud sino también la relatividad de Einstein, la descomposición atómica de la materia, la mecánica cuántica a través de Schrödinger , el ácido desoxirribonucleico descubierto por Watson y Crick, la matemática de las catástrofes de René Thom y también la sección áurea a través de su amistad con el matemático rumano Matila Ghyka. Esta influencia es evidente en la conocida obra de Dalí Leda atómica.

Dalí, Leda atómica, 1949, Museo Dalí de Figueras.

De acuerdo a la ecuación del físico ganador del premio nobel, Erwin Schrödinger, todo átomo que posea mas de un electrón existe en mas de tres dimensiones. Así, un átomo de dos electrones, existe en seis dimensiones, un átomo de carbono, con seis electrones, existe en 18 dimensiones. Un núcleo de uranio, por ejemplo, tiene noventa y dos electrones, que corresponden a 276 dimensiones o mundos diferentes. Esto nos lleva a la existencia en el Universo de dimensiones paralelas, esto implica que es muy posible que cada uno de nosotros viva al mismo tiempo en un universo diferente, una vida diferente, sin ninguna conexión consciente el uno con el otro.

En los otros universos o dimensiones, pudieran existir versiones de nosotros mismos, solteros, casados, divorciados, ignorantes, cultos, con carreras diferentes, muertos, vivos, y posiblemente conviviendo con gente que en este universo nunca conoceremos. El pasado no solamente significa lo que fue, si no que también lo que pudo haber sido que coexiste en algún lugar que se desarrolla al mismo tiempo que esto a lo que llamamos vida, también el futuro no solo es lo que será, sino lo que podría ser, las posibilidades son infinitas, lo que piensen que podrían ser a lo mejor ya lo son en algún otro lugar.

 El tiempo no existe, inclusive tengo la sospecha que pasado, presente y futuro ocurren al mismo tiempo en algún lugar que no podemos acceder. A lo mejor lo que pensamos que son recuerdos de otras vidas, son recuerdos de otras dimensiones de otros yo, haciendo cosas totalmente diferentes. ¿Nunca les ha pasado que conocen a una persona y sienten como si lo conocieran desde hace mucho y se quedan pensando, tal vez en algún otro lugar si l@ conocí?.

Seria fantástico poder viajar a las diferentes realidades para visitarnos a nosotros mismos y apreciar en que nos convertimos y que pudimos haber hecho en circunstancias diferentes. Así sabríamos que decisiones elegir para sacar el mayor beneficio. Esto es tan solo mi manera de ver las cosas y no representa ninguna verdad, todo son teorías.

Realidad Alternativa de Josefina

Fuente: Google Maps

Este verano crucé en coche Salobral. Poco más que un puñado de casas, como tantos otros pueblos en Castilla, que parecía levantarse a duras penas del barro.

Y sin embargo, pensé, esto es un pueblo: aquí ha vivido gente ininterrumpidamente desde hace ocho o nueve siglos. Unos han muerto, otros han nacido que los han reemplazado, y el pueblo ha mantenido su identidad.

Esta gente es el pueblo, mucho más que las casas. Pero hay algo aquí paradójico. La identidad se mantiene, digo, pero cambia la gente. El conjunto {habitantes de Salobral en 2009} y el conjunto {habitantes de Salobral en 1909} son seguramente disjuntos. ¿Cómo pueden ser el mismo pueblo?

Fuente: 3B Scientific

Y, bien pensado, ¿no soy yo también una especie de pueblo, una población de células en la que unas mueren y otras nacen? Al cabo de un par de semanas se habrá renovado toda mi piel; al cabo de diez años, todos mis huesos. Y cada una de esas células está hecha de átomos que se renuevan aún más rápido: una buena parte de los átomos que forma una célula hoy no estarán en ella al cabo de una semana.

Fuente: Cell to cell health

Sería ingenuo pensar que hay una especie de átomos dorados de la identidad; átomos esenciales que, mientras los conservemos, somos nosotros. No: la identidad no está en la materia, la identidad está siempre en la estructura.

Pueden cambiar todos los habitantes de Salobral, y el pueblo seguir siendo Salobral. Pueden cambiar todas las células de mi cuerpo, y yo seguir siendo yo. Y pueden cambiar todos los átomos de una célula, y la célula seguir siendo la misma.

Cuando llegamos a este escalón, sin embargo, generalmente nos paramos. En los átomos, o más bien en las partículas elementales, retrocedemos al concepto ingenuo de identidad material. Quizá porque no podemos concebir aquí una estructura. Estructura es orden, organización, pero en una partícula elemental, sin partes, no hay nada que organizar.

Si pensamos así, es que no hemos llegado a captar realmente la idea de estructura. Somos como los niños que no pueden abstraerse de las cifras arábigas (0,1,2…) al pensar en los números. La idea de estructura, como la de número, es abstracta: no necesita ningún soporte material, aunque pueda haber objetos materiales que la realicen (como unos trazos en el papel realizan las cifras arábigas, que a su vez realizan los números).

Y es aquí donde hemos llegado de Salobral a Schrödinger. Porque esta es justamente la idea que él expone en Ciencia y Humanismo:

La antigua idea [sobre las partículas elementales] radica en que su individualidad se basaba en la identidad de la materia que las constituye. Esto es, al parecer, una coletilla gratuita y casi mística que está en claro contraste con lo que, según acabamos de ver, constituye la individualidad de los cuerpos macroscópicos, bastante independiente de tan burda hipótesis materialista, y que no necesita su soporte. La nueva idea es que lo que es permanente en esas partículas finales es su forma y su organización. El hábito del lenguaje cotidiano nos engaña y parece exigir que, cuando quiera que oigamos pronunciar la palabra “hechura” o “forma”, ésta deba referirse a la forma o hechura de algo, que haya un sustrato material para dar forma. Científicamente este hábito se remonta a Aristóteles, su causa materialis y su causa formalis. Pero, ante las partículas finales que constituyen la materia, parece quedar excluida la posibilidad de concebirlas como formadas por algún material. Son, por así decirlo, pura forma, nada sino forma; lo que tenemos una y otra vez en sucesivas observaciones es su forma, no una pizca individual de materia.

Pura forma, pura estructura. Salobral es una estructura formada por hombres. Cada hombre es una estructura formada por células. Cada célula es una estructura formada por partículas. Y cada partícula es una estructura formada por… nada: pura estructura. Así que, en realidad, si aquí sobra el sustrato material, también sobra en la célula (las partículas), en el hombre (las células), en el pueblo (los hombres).

Dos palabras resumirían esta metafísica: sola structura. O una sola: matemáticas.

Un jour, on m’a dit:

(clic pour voir en un peu plus grand)

Désolé.

Alors j’aurai pu être novateur et créer une bande pas dessinée, si cela n’existait pas déjà. Pour ceux qui ne connaisent pas encore, je vous conseille ce blog de Navo, qui est particulièrement drôle.

D’ailleurs, j’ai reçu aujourd’hui ce merveilleux t-shirt, commandé sur le site.

Pour ceux qui ne connaitraient pas le chat de Schrödinger, je vous invite chaleureusement à lire ceci.

Solvay Conference 1927

Erwin Schrödinger fue un físico austriaco que ayudó a crear los fundamentos de la mecánica cuántica. Al igual que Einstein, Schrödinger no estuvo de acuerdo con los extremos a los que otros llevaron la nueva ciencia. Fue uno de los pocos científicos que se alinearon con Einstein en contra de la mecánica cuántica, intentando buscar una teoría unificada que mejorase las teorías que todos los demás apoyaban. Hasta que ocurrió un terrible malentendido.

Einstein y Schrödinger trabajaron juntos en los primeros años 30 como profesores del Instituto Kaiser Wilhelm en Berlín. Ambos destacaron en esta institución extremadamente rígida y formal como profesores que trataban a sus alumnos como iguales. Los dos disfrutaban de paseos juntos, a pie y en velero, y llegaron a ser amigos íntimos.

Como muchos de sus contemporáneos, Einstein y Schrödinger comenzaron a escribirse acerca de su trabajo mucho antes de conocerse en persona. En los años 20, toda la comunidad de físicos se concentró en una nueva clase de ciencia que había dado en llamarse mecánica cuántica, ya que estaba basada en la idea de que la luz y la energía no eran flujos continuos, sino que estaba formada por paquetes llamados cuantos. Einstein fue el primero en sugerir que la luz estaba hecha de cuantos, por lo que participó en el desarrollo de la mecánica cuántica desde el principio. Pero este campo estaba empezando a adquirir lo que Einstein y Schrödinger estaban de acuerdo en llamar un giro estrafalario.

Cuanto más y más se aprendía, más parecía que la mecánica cuántica eliminaba las leyes de la causalidad, insistiendo en que los procesos atómicos eran tan aleatorios que no se podía predecir exactamente lo que ocurriría a continuación. En 1925 Werner Heisenberg propuso una nueva clase de matemáticas matriciales que podían usarse para hacer predicciones probabilísticas acerca de cómo un átomo podría reaccionar en una situación dada. Este trabajo fue saludado, y con razón, como una gran ayuda para la incipiente teoría, pero también implicaba la idea de que solamente se podían hacer “conjeturas” acerca del comportamiento del átomo.

Al año siguiente, Schrödinger publicó lo que esperaba que fuese una alternativa mejor. Ideó otro conjunto de herramientas matemáticas para que sirvieran de ayuda con la mecánica cuántica, llamada mecánica ondulatoria. Einstein se alegró mucho con la noticia. Las matemáticas de Schrödinger, haciendo referencia a las cualidades físicas de las ondas como hacían, parecían dar esperanza a la idea de que había una razón física tras las rarezas del comportamiento atómico. Einstein, que estaba muy a disgusto con las probabilidades de Heisenberg, escribió a su amigo Michele Besso en mayo de 1926: “Schrödinger ha aparecido con un par de artículos fantásticos sobre las reglas cuánticas”.

Pero la euforia de Einstein no duraría mucho. Casi inmediatamente, se demostró que las matemáticas de Schrödinger, tan diferentes de las de Heisenberg a primera vista, eran de hecho idénticas. Schrödinger había confirmado esencialmente la inherente aleatoriedad que otros científicos estaban pidiendo ávidamente. Schrödinger estaba tan contrariado por el giro de los acontecimientos como el propio Einstein, llegando a decir que si hubiera sabido lo que sus artículos iban a desencadenar no los habría publicado. Con todo, la cuestión de si era mejor usar la mecánica matricial de Heisenberg o la ondulatoria de Schrödinger se convirtió en un debate acalorado. Aunque no le gustase la forma en la que otros interpretaban sus matemáticas, Schrödinger entró en la refriega defendiendo su propio trabajo, lo que fastidió a Heisenberg, que escribió a su amigo Wolfgang Pauli diciendo: “Cuanto más pienso en la parte física de la teoría de Schrödinger, más repulsiva la encuentro [...] Lo que Schrödinger escribe acerca de la visualizabilidad de su teoría ‘es probablemente no demasiado correcto’, en otras palabras, son chorradas”. Hoy día el más usado es el enfoque de Schrödinger.

A pesar de su importante contribución a su desarrollo, Schrödinger tuvo reservas sobre la mecánica cuántica toda su vida. En su famoso experimento mental conocido como el gato de Schrödinger, trataba de burlarse de una ciencia que insistía en que nada en el mundo atómico puede conocerse a no ser (y hasta) que se mida. Lo absurdo que le resultaba a Schrödinger pensar que el gato pudiese estar a la vez vivo y muerto le convencía de que la teoría de la mecánica cuántica no era todavía comprendida del todo, la misma posición que mantenía Einstein.

Independientemente de la frustración con la que veían cómo otros científicos se entregaban a los absurdos de la mecánica cuántica, tanto Einstein como Schrödinger sabían que la teoría hacía un fantástico trabajo a la hora de predecir las probabilidades de los acontecimientos atómicos. El trabajo de Schrödinger con la mecánica ondulatoria era una parte crucial de ese éxito, y Einstein fue uno de los que nominaron a Schrödinger al premio Nobel varias veces. Schrödinger ganó el premio de física en 1933.

Dado que Schrödinger, como Einstein, no creía que la física cuántica estuviese completa, se unió a Einstein en la búsqueda de una nueva teoría. Einstein se refería a ella como la teoría del campo unificado, ya que sería la teoría omnicomprensiva que uniría toda la física. Consecuentemente, en los años 40, cuando Einstein vivía en Princeton y Schrödinger había dejado el odio de Alemania para vivir en Irlanda, Schrödinger era una de las pocas personas con las que Einstein compartía sus ideas. “No envío esto a nadie más”, escribió Einstein en 1946, “ya que tú eres la única persona que conozco que no lleva anteojeras en lo que respecta a las cuestiones fundamentales de nuestra ciencia”.

Pero la colaboración tomó un rumbo inesperado cuando Schrödinger anunció que él había resuelto el problema completamente. Estaba convencido de que había encontrado la teoría del campo unificado gracias al uso de la geometría afín. Anunció sus hallazgos el 27 de enero de 1947, no en una revista científica, sino a bombo y platillo en una rueda de prensa a la que asistió el primer ministro de Irlanda, Éamon de Valera

Einstein se quedó estupefacto: el trabajo era idéntico a lo que él le había enviado. Si bien Schrödinger se las había ingeniado para hallar una nueva forma de derivarlas, las ecuaciones que había anunciado eran las mismas que Einstein había encontrado y que, a esas alturas, ya había descartado por incompletas. Einstein hizo unas feroces declaraciones al New York Times en las que venía a afirmar que una publicidad exagerada como la de Schrödinger hacían un flaco favor a la ciencia, ya que “el lector tiene la impresión de que cada cinco minutos hay una revolución en la ciencia, algo así como un golpe de estado en alguna de esas pequeñas repúblicas inestables”.

Schrödinger mandó una disculpa a Einstein, intentando explicar como podía haber cometido ese error colosal, pero Einstein no cambió de opinión. Einstein escribió a Schrödinger para decirle que deberían tomarse un descanso en su carteo y concentrarse en sus trabajos. Pasarían tres años (hasta poco antes del fallecimiento de Einstein) antes de que reanudasen su correspondencia.

Imagen| Metsuke_iLife

“It is still not fully understood exactly what causes the placebo effect, although the patient’s beliefs and expectations may invoke a “conditioned response” (as in Pavlov’s dogs). We are conditioned to believe that medicine makes us better when we’re ill, so any treatment that we receive may make us psychologically confirm this belief.” – The Placebo Effect, skeptiks.org.uk

At 9dpo a woman can convince herself of anything. Please remember that at this time, in a woman ttc there are hormones affecting her once rational brain and making her essentially certifiable. So to while away the evening hours where I start to wonder if I’m just being a bit too hopeful, I’m considering the placebo effect. In this case, instead of the dissapearance of symptoms, could the knowledge that it is viable that I am pregnant be producing symptoms on a pavlovian response to the tww? Could each of these twinges in fact be a response to the placebo that is an LH surge line on a stick? Am I placing too many of my fragile eggs in this fertility basket? 

Here the Schrödinger’s cat theory comes into play. The Schrödinger’s cat experiment is a ’thought experiment’ which describes a cat, placed into a box with a vial that may or may not contain poison – until the box is opened the outside world does not know if the cat is alive or dead, and in this way becuase either state is possible the cat is both alive and dead to the outside world. This is a comparrible paradox to the tww – I may or may not be pregnant and until I see proof either way I am in both states, I am both feeling possible pregnancy symptoms and possible pmt symptoms. What I’m saying here is that I could read into these feelings until I am blu in the face (and Mr T is bashing his head against a wall), but there’s no way of knowing until there’s a line on a test.

This however does not stop me from recording every tiny little event, just in case it’s a sign or may give me a little bit more hope… So the charting – temps are still at 97.90 (at 6.45am! Woo!) and when I compare it to last month it looks sort of better (although I can’t really tell because I had the hissy fit and didn’t temp for a while, idiot me. Anyway, here’s the pics for the day – usual up to today pic and a comparrison to last month because I’m obsessing :

Ok, so a bit of analysis… like I said, these could be symptoms or they could be the placebo effect:

So today we have…

•  Sort of sicky, not actually sick, just that weird feeling in the throat
• Bloaty gassy feeling
• Tired, not grumpy tired, but calm tired
• Weird cervix pain (now here’s the bit that got me wondering) – the jeans done up, I can feel them press on my tummy when I’m sitting down which sets off this pin type pain into my cervix (wtf??!). So I move the jeans away and it stops. Had this sort of yesterday and all of today.
• Boobs made entirely of bruises, or at least that’s what it feels like. Now this makes me think it’s actually pmt becuase I do get sore bbs before af.

So there we have it. Could mean anything. 9dpo sucks – it’s way past 1dpo so nearly there but feels like 100 years away from 12dpo and my ever elusive bfp.

Bah! Am off to indulge myself in CSI (and anything else to ignore the tww).

Schrödinger's rapist

The above xkcd comic prompted this post by Kate Harding. The 600+ comments on that thread prompted a guest post on Kate’s blog coining the term Schrödinger’s Rapist. That post has got about 1,000 comments.

A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead.

*

Schrödinger’s cat isn’t a philosophical problem, but a thought experiment on quantum entanglement, since for the observer, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. The term Schrödinger’s rapist applies to all men (or strangers) who approach women. These women consider all men as potential rapists, so-called Schrödinger’s rapists, men that are simultaneously rapists and are not rapists.

I was made aware of Kate’s site recently, I can’t remember the reason. The only reason why I came to this post was because of Belle de Jour’s post today.

Go ahead and THINK we look nice all you want. We do that too! This post is about what happens when you decide it’s a good idea to talk to that nice-looking woman.

*

Si estoy en una fiesta y digo cualquier cosa sobre Einstein, quarks o la mecánica cuántica (ó, siendo holandés, la naranja mecánica, pero esto es otro asunto), lo más probable es que alguien se pondrá a mi lado y empezará hablar sobre el budismo. Los físicos, hoy en día, somos populares. Primero porque somos tímidos. Y segundo, porque somos capaces de destruir el mundo en menos que 7 segundos. Es una combinación super-sexy: la timidez y la destrucción masiva.

Total que, de una manera, la física nos llega, inevitablemente, al budismo, holismo, y todo ese sarta de chorradas de la gran obra de arte “y tú que sabes?”. Si yo me atrevo a decir que esa pelicula es una sarta de chorradas, la respuesta normalmente es que “los físicos tenéis suficiente imaginación!” Sea verdad o no, pero entonces por qué justifican sus creencias espirituales justamente con lo que según ellos es la física moderna? ¿Por qué fundar sus ideas irracionales en una ciencia de por una parte no saben nada y que por otra parte no han entendido?

Es como hacer una paella, pero al final hacerla con espagettis porque te gusta el arroz. ¡No lo llames paella, pues!

Es por eso que en un otro articulo, mencioné las cuatro maneras de mirar a la luna.

Primero, hay los que la miran y sencillamente disfrutan mirarla. Según algunos eso es más bien estupido pero no estoy de acuerdo. Sencillamente disfrutar las cosas es una de las cosas más dificiles en la vida, así que cualquier que sea capaz de hacerlo merece mi admiración. Igual un día me pueda explicar cómo lo haga.

Luego, hay los que lo convierten en arte. No me molestan mientras no sean plastas que hablen sobre el contexto de la sociedad o metáforos simbólicos (los que suelo llamar “franceses” por razones obvias).

También hay los científicos. Miran a la luna y se preguntan a dónde va durante el día. Con una combinación de observaciones y deducciones llegan a la conclusión que mientras la luna gire alrededor de la tierra, la tierra misma gira alrededor del sol y en realidad es las posiciones relativas del sol, la tierra y la luna que establece cómo es el aspecto de dicha luna. A partir de estas observaciones, pueden hacer más observaciones que llegan a un sistema de ecuaciones que describan las relaciones entre fuerzas, masas, distancias, velocidades y una gran etceterá. Luego, descubren que estas relaciones se repiten otras situaciones medibles en la naturaleza y mediante estas generalizaciones se llega a conceptos más abstractos como energía, entropía o tiempo-espacio. Conste que todas estas relaciones y observaciones son expresadas en algo que es mucho más y mucho menos que un lenguaje: la matemática. Es menos que un lenguaje porque no expresa opiniones, moral, sentimientos. Y mucho más que un lenguaje porque en vez de expresar opiniones, moral, sentimientos, expresa conceptos lógicos. Conste que la matemática no sólo describe lo que ya conocemos o lo que ya pensamos. Cualquier relación entre entidades, conocida o no, se puede expresar en matemática. Luego, es la física que toma la matemática y escoge qué parte es aplicable a la naturaleza y qué parte no. O sea: toda las leyes que gobernan el comportamiento de la naturaleza es matemática, pero no todo la matemática es naturaleza. El proceso de medir, describir matemáticamente los resultados, diseñar nuevos medidas que verifican o ponen en duda las descripciones anteriores…, este proceso es lo que hacen los físicos. Es este proceso que crea el Gran Catedral de la Física.

Si el parágrafo anterior te ha aburrido, no pasa nada. Tómese un té. Cante una mantra abajo un arbol. Pero déjese la física en paz. Si la física no es la tuya, acéptelo, y no hables sobre la física.

Por que ahora hemos llegado a la gente que aunque no tienen ni la más remota idea sobre la física, sin embargo piensan que es la física que les da razón en sus creencias “espirituales”. Saben que tienen razón, “porque Dios se los ha susurrado”, “lo han soñado” o lo han leido en un libro escrito hace muchos siglos por uno u otro tribu vagando en el desierto. Y, porque la física cuántica “lo muestra”.

Esa gente admiran los torrecitos de la Gran Catedral de la Física mientras piensen que los muros pilares abajo son aburridos y sin importancia.

La gran verdad que sin entender la matemática, es imposible entender la mecánica cuántica. Es imposible entender Kafka si no sabes leer. No tiene sentido, sin conocer la matemática, comparar las leyes que gobernan el comportamiento de las partículas elementales con las sabidurías de gurus de India (o Mayas sabias, Incas nobles, Egiptos místicos, …)

Es la gente religiosa.

No me refiero a los engañadores. Los que no creen pero se aprovechan de los que crean. Los papas, curas, imanes, gurus, medicos homeopáticos y los “consultants” de empresas internacionales que enseñan a los “proyect managers” que el camino al éxito va por medio de la alma. Esa gente son como la gente que simplemente disfrutan la luna. Sólo, en vez de la luna, prefieren al sexo, el dinero, el poder, la fama. Atacar a ellos, es más bien un trabajo para Johnny Rotten ( Religion II ). Personalmente, no me molesta tanto la gente que quiere mucho sexo, dinero y poder. No sé si serán felizes, pero, en realidad, quién lo es?

Prefiero atacar a los que de verdad crean las tonterías. Especialmente los que piensan (en realidad “pensar” no es la palabra) que la ciencia moderna justifica sus creencias. Quizás parezcan nada peligrosos, pero al final es la misma ignorancia que a menuda lleva a las masas facistas o comunistas (¿qué diferencia hay?) o a conversaciones aburidas en fiestas.

He compilado una lista (nada completa) de unos errores típicos que hace esa gente:

1. “Los científicos piensan que saben todo”. No!. Es exactamente la gran diferencia entre los científicos y cualquier otra disciplina. La ciencia exista gracias a las dudas que los cientificos siempre ponen en sus teorias. Son estas dudas que justifican sus experimentos tras experimentos. También, son por estas dudas que al final confiamos más en un avion que una alfombra mágica cuando viajamos a India. Sabemos que este avion ha sido un producto de un proceso de pruebas, dudas y más pruebas, mientras que la alfombra, bonita que sea, no nos lleva a ningun sitio.
2. “Einstein mostró que Newton no tenía razón”. No!. Es imposible mostrar que una teoría es falsa, si ya ha sido comprobada. Sólo se puede mostrar que una teoría no es completa. Entonces, ¿Einstrein mostró que faltaba algo en las teorías de Newton? Sí, pero esto ya lo sabía el mismissimo Newton. Las leyes que desarrolló Newton funcionan muy bien con velocidades bajas y sistemas macroscópicos. En otros entornos ha de usar la teoría de relatividad o la mecanica cuántica, pero conste, que estas nuevas teorías siempre tienen que estar en acuerdo con lo que dijo Newton. Son mas amplias, nada más.
3. “Einstein dijo que todo es relativo.” No!. Einstein dijo que la velocididad de la luz es absoluta. Dijo que las leyes físicas son absolutas. Normalmente, una velocidad sólo tiene sentido con respecto a un observador. Una pelotita de ping-pong tiene una velocidad con respecto a la mesa de ping-pong. LLamemos esta velocidad “X”. Pero si ponemos esta mesa de ping-pong dentro un tren que viaja con 200 km/hora, entonces, este pelotita de ping-pong tendrá una velocidad de 200 km/hora más “X”, con respecto a un observador fuera de tren. Sin embargo, con la luz, resulta que su velocidad es igual para un observador que se mueva con respecto a la raya de luz como para un observador que no se mueve. Tiene un valor absoluto. Claro, si llamaramos a la teoría de Einstein “la Teoría de Absolutos”, los místicos no le citarían tanto.
4. “La mecánica cuántica dice que todo es conectado.” No!. Dice que el resultado de una medida a uno de una pareja de partículas enredadas dentro un sistema aislado depende del resultado de una medida al otro de la misma pareja. En inglés eso se llama “entanglement”. Hay, sin embargo, una diferencia obvia entre “dos particulas de una pareja enredada” y “todo”.

Dejo para otra día el gato de Schrödinger, ese imbécil japonés que hace fotos de agua, el calendario Maya, y el idea que nunca han habido gente en la luna. Es que no hay fin a las supersticiones.

The Economist reports on a couple of scientists who will try to perform the Schrödinger cat experiment on living organisms for the first time. I must admit, despite having studied physics for a full year at the university level, I never really grasped the relevance of the Schrödinger experiment. Anyway, it is the first time I’ve seen such an accurate and at the same time brief description of the experiment in the popular press:

[One] of the most famous unperformed experiments in science is Schrödinger’s cat. In 1935 Erwin Schrödinger [...], who was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, imagined putting a cat, a flask of Prussic acid, a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, an electric relay and a hammer in a sealed box. If the atom decays, the Geiger counter detects the radiation and sends a signal that trips the relay, which releases the hammer, which smashes the flask and poisons the cat.

The point of the experiment is that radioactive decay is a quantum process. The chance of the atom decaying in any given period is known. Whether it has actually decayed (and thus whether the cat is alive or dead) is not—at least until the box is opened. The animal exists, in the argot of the subject, in a “superposition” in which it is both alive and dead at the same time.

The thing I struggle with, I guess, is Don’t the cat know if it’s alive? Now, what the cat know may be irrelevant for the purpose of the up until now hypothetical experiment. The point is that an object can be in more than one state at the same time. Or, at least it makes the equations add up.

 Coins can be loaded. Using cats may result in fair trials for any decision.

I had been thinking a lot about asymptotes, but then I tripped over the cat.  They love to wind around between your feet.  Elephants do not usually do that.  Bonjour, mes élèves, does everybody remember Herr Professor Doktor Schrödinger and his elephant (Elephas, of course, not Loxodonta)?  You seal an elephant in a box with a canister of  poisonous gas which will be released if / when the Geiger counter inside the box detects radiation from the randomly decaying radioactive substance also enclosed in the box.  You will correct me if I misrepresent the experiment.

Until the box is opened, it is impossible to know whether the elephant is dead or alive.  I think we can agree so far.  What makes this all so delightful is that under some systems of quantum epistemology the elephant is BOTH dead and alive and/or NEITHER dead nor alive – until the four blind men open the box, one of them perceives the elephant as a wall of leather with or without a pulse, and the elephant, quick like a bunny, IS one or the other.

Well, de gustibus et theoriis quantulorum non disputandum.  If you find it fun to argue about the state of the elephant’s health, be my guest, I will just sit quietly at the back of the room, so as not to disturb the other students, and draw a picture of an elephant that we can pin on the board.  Or maybe a cat – it is uncertain which is more probable.

There is a famous story from Buddhist lore.  A teacher and his disciples, living off charitable contributions.  One day the teacher up and says, “We are low on food and out of cash.  I want each of you to go to town, keep your eyes open, and if you see something of value and no one is watching, steal it.”  The students, knowing the guru’s word is law, disperse into town.  In the evening, they all report in.  One has a necklace, one a gold coin, one a sack of rice, etc.  Except for little Erwin.  He has nothing.  “Erwin,” says the teacher sternly, “why didst thou not as I instructed thee?”

“O great guru,” said Erwin, “I went to town at your behest.  And I walked around looking for a chance to steal.  But wherever I was, I was watching.  And you said …”  Applause, the guru commends Erwin (the current incarnation of the Buddha, I believe) as the only one who understand.  Curtain.

WE can not know is the elephant alive or dead  till we fumble blindly with the catch of the box.  But isn’t the elephant herself an observer, at least as long as she is alive?  If she dies, does she suddenly start being BOTH dead and alive because the elephant observer died?  And if Schrödinger meets the Buddha on the road, and no one is watching, should he kill him?  And if he did would he be dead, alive, neither, or both?

The hyperbola is suspended between (or, at infinity, from) TWO asymptotes.  There, I got back to asymptotes.  I had an argument with my friend Ahmad Mubakkar [no relation].  He maintained we CAN know what kind of music the first humans danced to.  I maintained that binary vision only allows us to resolve an image up to a certain distance, that the first human music is too far in the past for us to know.  The finite mind does not have access to the infinity of truth – that is one asymptote.  And I argued with Professor Daffy Downing.  He maintained that there is no truth, that the world is for each of us as each of us perceives it, with no Ding an sich.  And there I was, un bourgeois gentilhomme, arguing as a Kantian without knowing it, that regardless of the finity of human understanding, infinite Truth IS.  And there is the second asymptote.

Yes, Virginia, yes, Georgia, there IS a reality.  And No, Carolina [of course we abhor dialect humor], we cannot absolutely attain to it.  But if there be a noumenon, if there be an immanent Being, observing whether or not participating, the elephant IS dead. Or she is alive, I am not absolutely certain which it is.

I’m done.  Time to sneak into the kitchen and see if there are any animal crackers left in the box.  I especially like the elephant-shaped ones.

Mi se pare acum straniu când îmi privesc trecutul. Un amalgam de evenimente de neînţeles transformate de mintea mea umană într-un soi de traume menite să mă urmărească pe tot parcursul vieţii. Salturile de cangur ce le-am făcut m-au adus cu picioarele pe pământ, ce arunci în sus, va trebui cândva să cadă. Dar am păşit pe apă, ştiu asta. Sunt aidoma lui Chris Angel în lumea mea în care aş înţelege fizica cuantică si m-aş transpune întro altă lume. Sau nu, aş rămâne în lumea asta, dar în alte dimensiuni. Aş fi un fluture sau o morsă? Sau aş fi pisica lui Schrodinger.

Mi-e greu să cred că mai am de adunat pietre, că le voi culege pe drum până voi ajunge la cea violet, ce mă va urca pe culmile idealului, mi-e foarte greu să concep că mai am de ajuns altundeva, că va mai trebui să mă renasc de o mie de ori până ce voi ajunge la împlinire, că voi mai zbura spre altă ţară, sau nu. Că, poate, în mintea mea se vor naşte alte concepţii despre ideal iar el va fi coborât, sau urcat mult mai sus. Mi-e la fel de greu să cred că o decizie de-a mea ar putea influenţa durata vietii mele sau a altora,sau că într-o secundaă aş putea alege de voi fi întreaga mea viaţă o vânzătoare sau un doctor.

Ce frumos, nu? Avem viaţa în mâinile noastre. Ce-i de facut?

Thoughts after reading the novels Hunger, Mysteries, and Victoria by the Nobel-prize winning Norwegian author Knut Hamsun

Every July, the inhabitants of Stockholm pour out of the city and tourists come streaming in.  It sometimes seems as if everyone in Stockholm must take the entire month off work.  In our district, the few children without vacation plans for July (including my son) were all moved to a central daycare, the only one that remained open.  The daycare my son attended was located next to a nature reserve by the Igelbäcken stream, so the walk there, although quite a bit longer than usual, was absolutely beautiful.  There were also two water fountains located along our route where my son always insisted on stopping in the afternoons on the way back home.  We were never in any hurry, so when the weather was nice (which it often was this July), we stopped at the water fountains so Anton could chase after birds and I could read.  I chose several short novels by the renowned Norwegian author, Knut Hamsun, as my reading material. The novels were very quick reads, both because they were short, only a few hundred pages each, and because they so easily absorbed the reader in the story.  I was finished with each one in only a few sittings, and Anton was happy to play outside by the fountains while I read.

The first novel I read, Victoria, was a tragic love story with a twist.  Unlike, say for example, Romeo and Juliet, where the lovers are doomed because of external factors entirely beyond their control, the plot in Victoria is set up so that the external obstacles, while compelling enough to provoke sympathy for the characters, are by no means insurmountable.  Unfortunately, however, the lovers do not have enough faith in their love to take the leap, and they end up torturing each other in a perverse attempt to find some kind of objective proof capable of giving them the will to overcome these obstacles. Of course, such proof does not exist, and in the end, it is the lovers themselves, and not the obstacles per se, that bring about their own doom.

The contrast between inner life and perceived reality is also brilliantly portrayed by Hamsun.  To spectators, Victoria’s sudden decline in physical demeanor – her pale look and faded beauty – were due to her fiance’s tragic hunting accident.  In reality, her appearance reflected the news that her true love had, in the mean time, also promised himself to someone else.  Likewise, to the outside world, the narrator of the book was a wildly successful author and entertainer, but in reality, all of his books and poems were inspired by and written to one person:  Victoria.  She was the only reader he cared about.

The second book I read, Mysteries, I think I enjoyed even more than Victoria. The book centered around a stranger’s visit to a coastal Norwegian town. The stranger possessed striking intuitive insights, which often unnerved the local residents.  This book also contains elements of a tragic love story, but unlike Victoria, the book is not centered around love, but has a more expanded scope on intuition in general.

Finally, the last book I read, Hunger, now ranks easily as one of my favorite books of all-time.  Hunger’s main theme was artistic inspiration, although again, elements of tragic love and intuitive insight also appear in the book.  The main character, a writer who would sooner starve than suffer spiritual or moral corruption, could have been a guardian or philosopher king in Plato’s ideal city-state.  Hamsun, however, caught his hero in an all -too-plausible inversion of Plato’s ideal, and left him dependent on the vulgar and base for shelter and bread.

The genius of all three books, in my opinion, lies in Hamsun’s ability to portray both the extreme fragility and the supreme importance in those phenomenon which, although outside the scope of scientific enquiry, in practice play a large role in human affairs.  According to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, these are the things which “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”  Or, as put by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger:

Earlier I have commented on the fact that for this same reason the physical world picture lacks all the sensual qualities that go to make up the Subject of Cognizance.  The model is colourless and soundless and unpalpable.  In the same way and for the same reason the world of science lacks, or is deprived of, everything that has a meaning only in relation to the consciously contemplating, perceiving and feeling subject.  I mean in the first place the ethical and aesthetical values, any values of any kind, everything related to the meaning and scope of the whole display. All this is not only absent but it cannot, from the purely scientific point of view, be inserted organically.  If one tries to put it in or on, as a child puts colour on his uncoloured painting copies, it will not fit.  For anything that is made to enter this world model willy-nilly takes the form of scientific assertion of facts, and as such it becomes wrong.

-Erwin Schrödinger, from What is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

Hamsun transports us out of the realm of science and into to the realm of the ideal – into the arms of art, religion, and philosophy -and shows us how these things can be everything and nothing at the same time.  And so love, for example, “is only a wind whispering among the roses and dying away,” but also “an inviolable seal that endures for life, endures till death.”  How does one know whether one is in the presence of the former or the latter?  From a scientific perspective, it is a meaningless love affair – a firing of neurons,  a release of chemicals.  The possibility of the latter exists only subjectively, in the mind or spirit of an individual.

The subjective nature of Hamsun’s themes is what makes them so extremely delicate.  Love, intuition, inspiration:  how fleeting the feeling, how easy it is to doubt, to dismiss.  There can never be an objective confirmation of the meaningfulness of these occurrences in an individual’s life. But one ignores them, or analyzes them from a scientific perspective (which at best amounts to the same thing, and at worst can drive a person insane*) at one’s own peril.  Hamsun here enters the domain of Kierkegaard’s repetition and Dostoevsky’s miracles. While the notions are somewhat different for all three authors, there is a common thread.  For Kierkegaard, “repetition is the raising of [ ] consciousness to the second power.”  It is “the movement by virtue of the absurd that commences when one has reached the border of the wondrous,” and it occurs when:

. . .being has been split . . . the moment it is apparent that the individual can lose himself in events, fate, lose himself in such a way that he therefore by no means stops contemplating but loses himself in such a way that freedom is taken up completely in life’s fractions without leaving a remainder, then the issue becomes manifest . . .

- Soren Kierkegaard, A Little Contribution by Constantin Constantius, Author of Repetition

This point, when the crisis comes, when “being has been split” is the same point at which Dostoevsky saves his hero in The Brothers Karamazov by a miracle in the guise of a meaningful coincidence linked to a dream.  And time and time again in Hunger, Hamsun’s hero also reaches this point of absolute despair, but as soon as this point arrives – the moment he begins to curse God and welcome his death – he is saved by a sudden flash of inspiration or an unexpected act of kindness.  Such occurrences appear as a lifeline thrown out to the character which, if he does not reach out and grab, will leave him to fall and drown in the dizzying depths below.

Hamsun is a brilliant writer, but his stories are dark and his characters profoundly unhappy.  The mood of the novels contrasted sharply with the idyllic scenery surrounding me, and I often found myself worrying whether so much happiness was bound to be cursed.  I think I have had my fill of Hamsun now for a while, but am sure to pick him up again when I feel capable of reading Pan in Swedish (much, much closer to the original Norwegian than is possible with an English translation).

Anton sitting beside one of the fountains on the way to "dagis," the Swedish expression for daycare.

* The trap of analyzing such phenomenon from a scientific perspective is, I think, masterfully demonstrated by Vladimir Nabokov in The Defense.

from here.

Today is Judgment Day!

Suicidal planet on a death spiral with star.

That upcoming posthumous Michael Crichton book is about pirates and is entitled Pirate Latitudes. And Steven Spielberg wants to make a movie out of it.

Is House actually science fiction?

The monster with 21 faces.

DNA swap could cure inherited diseases.

The porn of Franz Kafka.

Futurama porn.

Watching robots kiss is actually really fucking creepy:

Am I right?

That beautiful place where peep shows and love hotels meet.

Please don’t feed the gorillas pop tarts.

Child bride’s nightmare after divorce.

“I’m happy because I’m stupid, scared of spiders, scared of flies.”

“Physicists use the wave theory on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the particle theory on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.”

-William Henry Bragg, quoted in the Dictionary Of Scientific Quotations.

Robot doppelganger!

An android is a robot designed to appear as a male, while a gynoid is a robot designed to appear as a female.

Robots can carry out conversations and even sing.

Is human space travel actually feasible?

I hope that when I’m dead, my friends/family/enemies don’t find out via twitter.

The trailer to Christopher Nolan’s Inception looks mind blowingly awesome. Set within “the architecture of the mind,” huh? With that and Lost, can it be 2010 already?

“Toast always lands buttered-side down, and a cat always lands feet first. I propose we strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches from the ground. With a giant buttered-toast/cat array, a hovering monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.”

-Jon Frazee, from the Journal Of Irreproducible Results.

from here.

Wave-particle duality.

Lorrie Moore, as reviewed by Jonathan Lethem.

Reading Rainbow is over. That’s seriously depressing. I loved that show. And even more depressing is that it’s ending partially because of funding, of course, but also because of George W. Bush. The “why to read” is just as important as the “how to read,” kids.

Speaking of which: The 61 essential post modern reads. How many have you read?

The future of reading: Read what you like.

Reading is sexy.

Advaita and Science – III
In the earlier post in this series, a Vedantin-Scientist’s conclusion on the advaitic way of the development of modern physics was presented.  In the following excerpts this view is seen to be shared and reiterated  by others as well.

An excerpt

http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/advaita-vedanta/144903-re-there-light-enlightenment-einstein.html

Namaste Sri Ananda,

>Einstein’s basic approach was simply to ask what reality is
>seen in common, beneath the varying appearances that depend
>on different points of view. And he saw that while space and
>time are varying measurements, light shows us a background
>continuity that does not vary in this way.

It was enjoyable to read what you said about relativity and Advaita.
Here are just a couple of comments to consider.

Einstein’s theory of relativity really rests on one fundamental
pillar, not two or three, as sometimes reported. It is that the
fundamental laws of nature are the SAME for all observers.

For example, Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism are the same for all
observers, and hence the speed of light is the same for all
observers, since this follow directly from the equations. From the
constancy of the speed of light, everything else in the special
theory follows, namely that spatial and temporal measurements of the
same events will be different for different observers in relative
motion.

So the spatial and temporal measurements differ, but the laws are the same.

I can’t help but think that this uniqueness of the laws must be a
manifestation or reflection of the fundamental advaitic unity of the
divine nature. It seems like too much of a coincidence otherwise.
That is, when the ‘unity’ of the divine consciousness manifests in
the multiplicity of phenomena, the laws governing those phenomena
somehow reflect the underlying unity of the divine source, which
remains latent in the swirl of multiplicity.

But I draw a further conclusion from relativity, which nobody else
seems to. If measurements of the same events differ for different
observers, then this can only mean that there CANNOT be any objective
reality outside of consciousness corresponding to the events. For
example, if the measurement of the length of a rod is different for
different observers, then there cannot be a ‘real’ and unique
material rod external to the observers, which they are all looking
at. If there were such a unique rod, external to consciousness, then
it could not have a varying length. This is my own unorthodox
interpretation of relativity, which most physicists would probably
deny.

The various rods are thus only in the consciousness of the observers,
which is how they can have different lengths in the first place.
They are all images in the minds of the observers, or else they are
purely hypothetical entities derived from images (i.e. observations).
I make that last remark, because sometimes scientific measurements
are made without being able to see an image, e.g. on meters and dials
and so forth. In that case, the alleged object is entirely
fictitious, but since this idea is so radical, I won’t belabor the
point. (Some would argue that this is in fact a reason to
reintroduce realism, but I am prepared to fight them to the death.
Well, I guess we don’t need to be so melodramatic.)

Anyhow, relativity can be used to give INDEPENDENT confirmation of
idealistic principles, which I already believe in for entirely
different reasons. And the proper philosophical idealism is the true
interpretation of Advaita, which makes it all clear and reasonable.
That is why I am so enthusiastic about it, even though many others
stubbornly resist it, because they do not fully understand it.

And I might add that other unrelated developments in quantum
mechanics are totally consistent with this viewpoint and are
virtually inexplicable except in terms of some kind of idealism. It
is not New Age nonsense to claim that modern physics cries out for
the principle that Consciousness is everything. The arguments are
very subtle and profound and require the utmost intelligence. This
represents the current frontier of human thought, and the recent
developments are astonishing, even more so than the original
relativity and quantum mechanics of the early 20th century.

Regards
Benjamin

Another excerpt

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Vedanta.htm

Advaita Vedanta has influenced modern science enormously. Schrödinger was a Vedantist, and he claimed to have been inspired by it in his discovery of quantum theory. According to his biographer Walter Moore, there is a clear continuity between Schrödinger’s understanding of Vedānta and his research: “The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrödinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on superimposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One.”. Fritjof Capra’s widely proclaimed book The Tao of Physics. The Tao of Physics (full title: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism) was a 1975 book by physicist Fritjof Capra. It was a bestseller in the United States, and has been published in 43 editions in is one among several that pursues this viewpoint further, as it investigates the relationship between modern (and particularly quantum – a quantum is the smallest increment into which many physical properties are subdivided. Most commonly, quanta are the fundamental units of something measurable. Electromagnetic energy, for example, is quantized into photons, wavelike packets of fixed freq) physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions including Hinduism,

Om Tat Sat

Namaste.

Right from the time the western world could get a fairly good exposure to Advaita, there has been an overwhelming interest among scientists, thinkers and a cross section of other specialists in the world-view presented by Advaitic thought.  Not surprisingly, the physicists have shown deep interest in the study and assimilation of Advaitic thought and have explored ways of applying it to their quest for the truth underlying the world-phenomenon.

This interest gave rise to a number of breakthroughs and the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is one such.  Several papers came to be written, discussed and published.  A number of books authored by scientists came to be widely read and studied further.  Here are some excerpts from a couple of articles that are interesting in more ways than one.

http://www.bambooweb.com/articles/a/d/Advaita.html

Advaita and Science

Advaita may seem like a philosophy on the outside (it is practiced as a religious stream by many Hindus), but this may very well be the place where Scientific world intersects with the Spiritual world. Many of us are aware of the Plancks equation E = hν, where E = Energy of a wave, and h = Planck’s constant and ν = frequency of the wavelength. With the arrival of Einstein it was also established that E = mc² where E = energy and m = mass of a particle and c = speed of light.

When we combine the two equations, we get mc² = hν which gives us a very interesting relation which directly relates the mass of a particle to frequency, which means anything material has an associated wavelength namely, De Broglie waves . To sum up, matter is another form of waves which in turn is another form of energy and so on.In fact it so appears that the whole mesh of this Universe is in fact blending into that One which exhibits itself as many (namely, mass, energy, wave etc). This is where Advaita takes over to explain that everything is but the manifestation of that “One” which is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Even the concept of these fundamental waves is seen in Hindu (and consequently Advaita) belief as Aum.

For interesting reads on the same:

1. The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav
2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Another excerpt:

http://www.here-now4u.de/ENG/advaita_and_science_.htm

//As Advaita can be shown to be quite scientific in temper, modern science, on its part, is closing in on this philosophy. Modern science, especially quantum mechanics, gives us a completely different world view of reality from that so far given to us by classical ‘Newtonian’ physics.

In fact, it shows that classical physics, or the world as we know it, is merely a special case scenario of the more comprehensive new physics. The world-view of modern science comes remarkably close to that of Advaita, and several books have been published correlating the theory of Advaita with modern science, see (1) to (5). Some recent scientific discoveries also correlate very well with this theory, for example, discoveries of the way the brain functions (6) and the discovery of the so-called Zero-Point Field (7).//

A brief description based on the Schrodinger equation and the Uncertainty Principle is found here:

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2007-November/041230.html

As and when some interesting articles/excerpts are found they shall be brought to the attention of readers.

Not a scientist myself, I am interested in trying to appreciate the lessons the scientific quest draws from Vedanta.  Readers having questions on the technical details of the above papers are best advised to seek clarifications/further study with appropriate authorities in the field.

Brahmavidyaa sarva vidyaa pratiShThaa [Brahmavidya is the foundation of all fields of study] (Mundakopanishat)

Om Tat Sat

El científico debe poseer un conocimiento completo y profundo, de primera mano, de ciertas materias. En consecuencia, por lo general, se espera que no escriba sobre tema alguno en el cual no sea experto, siguiendo una conducta de noblesse oblige. Sin embargo, por esta vez, pido poder renunciar a la nobleza y quedar dispensado de las consiguientes obligaciones. Mi excusa es esta:

Hemos heredado de nuestros antepasados el anhelo profundo de un conocimiento unificado y universal. El mismo nombre, dado a las altas instituciones de la enseñanza, nos recuerda que, desde la Antigüedad y a través de los sigos, el aspecto universal de la ciencia ha sido el único que ha merecido un crédito absoluto. Pero la propagación, tanto en profundidad como en amplitud, de las múltiples ramas del conocimiento humano durante los últimos cien años nos ha enfrentado con un singular dilema. Por un lado, sentimos con claridad que sólo ahora esmos empezando a adquirir material de confianza para lograr soldar en un todo indiviso la suma de los conocimientos actuales. Pero, por el otro, se ha hecho poco menos que imposible para un solo cerebro dominar completamente más que una pequeña parte especializada del mismo.

Yo no veo otra escapatoria frente a ese dilema (si queremos que nuestro verdadero objetivo no se pierda para siempre) que la de proponer que algunos de nosotros se aventuren a emprender una tarea sintetizadora de hechos y teorías, aunque a veces tengan de ellos un conocimiento incompleto e indirecto, y aun a riesgo de engañarnos a nosotros mismos.

Sea esta mi justificación.

…

Prefacio de ¿Qué es la vida?. Erwin Schrödinger. Dublín, setembro de 1944

It is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the destruction of Hiroshima. From the scientific point of view, the atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination of genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of mankind. Atoms are so minute that it might have seemed impossible to know as much as we do about them. A million million bundles, each containing a million million hydrogen atoms, would weigh about a gram and a half. Each hydrogen atom consists of a nucleus, and an electron going round the nucleus, as the earth goes round the sun. The distance from the nucleus to the electron is usually about a hundred-millionth of a centimetre; the electron and the nucleus are supposed to be so small that if they could be crowded together it would take about ten million million on end to fill a centimetre. The nucleus has positive electricity, the planetary electron an equal amount of negative electricity; the nucleus is about 1850 times as heavy as the electron. The hydrogen atom, which I have been describing, is the simplest of atoms, but the atom used in the atomic bomb is at the other end of the scale.

Uranium, the element chiefly used in the atomic bomb, has the heaviest and most complex of atoms. Normally there are 92 planetary electrons, while the nucleus is made up of about 238 neutrons (which have mass without electricity), 238 positrons (which have positive electricity and very little mass), and 146 electrons, which are like positrons except that their electricity is negative. Positrons repel each other, and so do electrons; but a positron and electron attract each other. The overcrowding of mutually attracted and expelled particles in the tiny space of the uranium nucleus involves enormous potentially explosive forces. Uranium is slightly radioactive, which means that some of its atoms break up naturally. But a quicker process than this is required for the making of an atomic bomb.

Rutherford found out, about thirty years ago, that little bits could be chipped off an atom by bombardment. In 1939, a more powerful process was discovered: it was found that neutrons, entering the nucleus of a uranium atom, would cause it to split into two roughly equal halves, which would rush off and disrupt other uranium atoms in the neighbourhood, and so set up a train of explosions so long as there was any of the right kind of uranium to be encountered.

Ever since the beginning of the war, the Germans on the one side, and the British and Americans on the other, have been working on the possibility of an atomic explosive. One of the difficulties was to make sure that it would not be too effective: there was a fear that it might destroy not only the enemy, but the whole planet, and naturally experiments were risky. But the difficulties were overcome, and now the possibility, which scientists have foreseen for over forty years, has entered into the world of practical politics. The labours of Rutherford and Bohr, of Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, and a number of other distinguished men, the ablest men of our time, and most of them both high-minded and public-spirited, have borne fruit: in an instant, by means of one small bomb, every vestige of life throughout four square miles of a populous city has been exterminated. As I write, I learn that a second bomb has been dropped on Nagasaki.

The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be averted.

For the moment, fortunately, only the United States is in a position to manufacture atomic bombs. The immediate result must be a rapid end to the Japanese war, whether by surrender or by extermination. The power of the United States in international affairs is, for the time being, immeasurably increased; a month ago, Russia and the United States seemed about equal in warlike strength, but now this is no longer the case. This situation, however, will not last long, for it must be assumed that before long Russia and the British Empire will set to work to make these bombs for themselves. Uranium has suddenly become the most precious of raw materials, and nations will probably fight for it as hitherto they have fought for oil. In the next war, if atomic bombs are used on both sides, it is to be expected that all large cities will be completely wiped out; so will all scientific laboratories and all governmental centres. Communications will be disrupted, and the world will be reduced to a number of small independent agricultural communities living on local produce, as they did in the Dark Ages. But presumably none of them will have either the resources or the skill for the manufacture of atomic bombs.

There is another and a better possibility, if men have the wisdom to make use of the few years during which it will remain open to them. Either war or civilization must end, and if it is to be war that ends, there must be an international authority with the sole power to make the new bombs. All supplies of uranium must be placed under the control of the international authority, which shall have the right to safeguard the ore by armed forces. As soon as such an authority has been created, all existing atomic bombs, and all plants for their manufacture, must be handed over. And of course the international authority must have sufficient armed forces to protect whatever has been handed over to it. If this system were once established, the international authority would be irresistible, and wars would cease. At worst, there might be occasional brief revolts that would be easily quelled.

But I fear all this is Utopian. The United States will not consent to any pooling of armaments, and no more will Soviet Russia. Each will insist on retaining the means of exterminating the other, on the ground that the other is not to be trusted.

If America were more imperialistic there would be another possibility, less Utopian and less desirable, but still preferable to the total obliteration of civilized life. It would be possible for Americans to use their position of temporary superiority to insist upon disarmament, not only in Germany and Japan, but everywhere except in the United States, or at any rate in every country not prepared to enter into a close military alliance with the United States, involving compulsory sharing of military secrets. During the next few years, this policy could be enforced; if one or two wars were necessary, they would be brief, and would soon end in decisive American victory. In this way a new League of Nations could be formed under American leadership, and the peace of the world could be securely established. But I fear that respect for international justice will prevent Washington from adopting this policy.

In view of the reluctance of mankind to form voluntarily an effective international authority, we must hope, and perhaps we may expect, that after the next world war some one Power will emerge with such preponderant strength as to be able to establish a peaceful hegemony over the rest of the globe. The next war, unless it comes very soon, will endanger all civilized government; but if any civilized government survives and achieves supremacy, there will again be a possibility of ordered progress and the utilization of science for happiness rather than for destruction.

One is tempted to feel that Man is being punished, through the agency of his own evil passions, for impiety in inquiring too closely into the hidden secrets of nature. But such a feeling is unduly defeatist. Science is capable of conferring enormous boons: it can lighten labour, abolish poverty, and enormously diminish disease. But if science is to bring benefits instead of death, we must bring to bear upon social, and especially international, organization, intelligence of the same high order that has enabled us to discover the structure of the atom. To do this effectively we must free ourselves from the domination of ancient shibboleths, and think freely, fearlessly and rationally about the new and appalling problems with which the human race is confronted by its conquest of scientific power.

by Russell Bertrand, 1945