Literary musings on a News Item from a Lab: New, superheavy element to enter periodic table

When Thomas Gray wrote in his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

he was certainly not thinking of scientists working in sequestered laboratories, away from the frenzy of the terrors and threats, the cruelties and crises that characterize the world of politics and religions, and much of the news about war-mongering and missile launching. But there are, thank heavens, people whose interests and attention are drawn to music and poetry, to telescopes and microscopes and accelerators. Now and again we read about their accomplishments, not all of which may be accessible to the average citizen of the world.

One of those breakthroughs recently announced is the concoction of yet another super-heavy element in a laboratory: one with the atomic number 112. That confirms the list of human-generated elements to almost twenty beyond what nature can bear: Uranium-92.

As elements grow heavier they become unstable, losing weight, as it were, by spitting out (radioactively) intolerable excesses as alpha and beta particles. So every trans-Uranic element vanishes in due course, reducing itself to a lighter element in the natural world. Now some physicists have reported (from the Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Arheiligen in Germany) that by interbreeding (metaphorically speaking) zinc and lead nuclei they have managed to create this new overweight element with a respectable period of stability: this Pantagruel will soon acquire a technical-sounding name. Except that Rabelais’ Pantagruel was the progeny of the giant Gargantua, whereas here the parents zinc and lead are perfectly normal: only the progeny is gigantesque. A more apt literary reference would be Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow where  Sir Hercules and Filomena (two dwarfs) gave birth to Ferdinando, a giant by comparison, for that’s how this super-hveavy element was concocted.

Modifying Rabelais one might say:

Readers, friends, if this news you read,

You’ll find daily news hollow indeed.

There’s nothing here that’s outrageous,

Nothing sick, or bad or contagious

Physicists are ecstatic about this event

Creating another super-heavy element.

We wish our media, instead of making unhappy noises

Reports on matters about which one rejoices.

V. V. Raman

June 11, 2009

Can Many Religions All be True?

Someone was once asked: “How come there is only one science, but there are so many religions?” The answer that was given was: Because there can be only one right answer to a question, but there can many wrong ones. This flippant reply may satisfy atheists and those who attach little importance to religions, but it cannot be taken seriously, given that religions have played such a major role in culture and civilization. It is difficult to accept that over the centuries hundreds of thousands of intelligent people have been persuaded by the truths of religion.

And yet, given that there are so many religions, it is legitimate to ask: “ (How) Can Many Religions All be True?” The answer to this question will depend on the meaning of the word true in the context of religions.

Truth, as commonly understood, is an attribute one associates with facts and other elements that have tangible existence. With this meaning, it is logically impossible for different religions, adhering to different and often mutually contradicting doctrines and dogmas to all be true. Not all the colors of the rainbow can be white.

However, it is important to realize that there are truths that touch the core of our being, that bring meaning and relevance to existence, that reveal hidden dimensions of the human condition. The truths of literature and art, in music and myths and in religion belong to this category. These endopotent truths are not more true or less true than the facts and laws that undergird the physical universe (exopotent truths): they are truths of an altogether different category. Endopotent truths have greater value to individuals, communities, and cultures than the equations of quantum mechanics, the existence of quarks and leptons, or the big bang origin of the physical universe.

Endopotent truths are multi-valued: i.e. they can be manifest in multiple modes: as Vedic hymns to ancient sage-poets in India, as the Commandments conveyed to Moses, as the enlightened utterances of the Buddha and of Mahavira, as the Sermon that Jesus gave on the Mount, as the revelations to the Prophet Mohammed, as the syncretic insights of Guru Nanak, and so on. So, indeed, there are many religions, and they can all be true in this sense, just as every interpretation of a great poem or work of art has validity for the keen student, just as every piece of music is equally music.

But it is important to realize that all truths have both positive and negative impact potentials, depending on the actions and attitudes they enable (exopotent) and inspire (endopotent) us to.

With both religion and science, then, what is important is to inquire is not so much their truth-content in the conventional sense of the word (which will invariably lead to confrontation and mutual disrespect, if not contempt and belligerence), but to be concerned about what their impact potentials are. Any religion that leads to positive actions and attitudes such as caring, compassion, ecstatic spiritual experience is desirable; and any that engenders hate, hurt, and persecution is not. Likewise, any science that leads to improving human health and the human condition is preferable to one that can be used for destruction and devastation.

V. V. Raman

April 15, 2009

The Brain as a Detector

The (current) view of physics is that there is no color in the life-less physical universe: there are only electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths (frequencies).

But the marvelously wonderful human (and some other) brains have optical systems that see the differing frequencies as different colors.

Now there are two ways of interpreting this:

1. The enormously complex brain has the unique capacity to turn some e.m. Waves into color which simply doesn’t exist in the universe.

2. The universe has two quite different kinds of characteristics: The physically tangible and the physically intangible. The latter are latent dimensions of the universe, which only a complex system like the brain can render explicit. Somewhat like a painting that simply cannot come into existence without a paper or a canvass or a plane surface, color and meaning and order and symmetry are implicit aspects of the universe, which the human brain (or similar structures) alone can actualize. According to interpretation (mine) meaning and mathematics are very much intrinsic to the universe, but just as we can never become aware of double star systems and or spiral galaxies without a telescope, one needs a brain to become aware of these.

What we sometimes call an emergent property is analogous to the “emergence” of pulsars when the sky is scanned with a radio telescope.

What is Science?

There are perhaps a hundred different definitions of science on none of which there may be consensus. These definitions are not unlike the descriptions of the elephant by the six blind men: all of whom were partially right, but none totally so.

Recognizing this, let me offer my own definition and description of science, subject to the same constraint as any other.

“Science is a collective trans-national effort by Homo sapiens to understand, appreciate, and explain every aspect of perceived reality that has been acquired through thorough and systematic observation with the aid of instruments, concepts, and mathematical methods (when possible) in a coherent, consistent, sharable, verifiable, and rational framework, with the conviction that there are no supernatural entities behind natural phenomena.”

The totality of understanding and interpretation thus acquired constitutes the scientific knowledge of a given period. This knowledge is always in a dynamic state, susceptible to modification, improvement, and even total replacement as a result of further scientific activity.

There may be other modes of grasping other dimensions reality (presumed or actual), but the criteria for accepting their validity are different from the ones adopted by science: coherence, consistency, rationality, sharability, and trans-national verifiability.

V. V. Raman

Three Kinds of Time and Objective Reality

There are at least three aspects of time: experiential, conceptual, and physical. Experiential time may drift ever so slowly (often for the young, who are impatient for adulthood) or flee all too fast (especially as one approaches the precipitous terminal cliff at an advanced age). Experiential time is perhaps the most insubstantial element in human consciousness. It is with us all through our waking hours, apparently drifting silently and ceaselessly in the external world as well as within the very core of our being.
Conceptual time is like an imaginary straight line that can extended to infinity in either direction, taking us to realms way beyond the bracket whose bounds cosmologists proclaim as the big bang and heat-death. It has no beginning and no end, just an imaginary stretch the mind constructs.
Then there is the steady flow of physical time in a given frame of reference, the sort that is measured by physicists and chronometers, taking advantage of periodic changes, either at the lunar and stellar levels or at the microcosmic domain of atomic transitions. Physical time, as per current cosmology, had its birth with the big bang and was nonexistent prior to this ignition of the physical world.
Theologians have argued about whether God created time. The simple answer could be, “Of course God did, for did not God create everything?” Or, “Certainly not, since there was no God prior to thinking man.” In other words, the two simple answers depend on whether a person is a theist or an atheist. The Svetasvatara Upanishad describes God as the “architect of time”: kâlakâro. For Pythagoras, time was the soul of the world.
What is relevant to recognize is that experiential time plays a role when we are bored or having fun, conceptual time comes into the fore when we are logically analyzing the nature of time, and physical time matters when we are doing serious physics or cosmology.
Shakespeare once described time as both our parent and our grave. Indeed, each one of us tastes a slice of time, and when the lights go off in conscious life, we drop out of the steady stream in which we seem to be drifting. It is conscious life that perceives the presence of the stream. When we are thrown into the invisible stream of physical time, it turns into experiential time, a portion of a stream that continues indefinitely. What we do during that interval is what really matters.

V.V. Raman appears with Brian Leftow, the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, Ernan McMullin, William Lane Craig, and Robert Russell in “Did God Create Time?” the 24th episode in the Closer to Truth: Cosmos, Consciousness, God TV series, hosted and created by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The series airs Thursdays on the PBS HD network and many other PBS stations. Every Friday, participants will share their views on the previous day’s episode.

Labels: Closer to Truth

On Religious Conversions

Our scientific understanding of the world arises from systematic exploration of the natural world and/or by learning about the results of such studies. However, this calls for serious study, experimentation, clarity of analysis, and the like. The scientific understanding of the physical world can be enriching and uplifting, but it is not required for everyday living.

Our religious affiliation often arises from how and where we are brought up.

We are enriched spiritually and humanized ethically by enlightened religious guidance. Every religion lauds the glory of God. Someone said here recently that extolling the glory of God is something Hindu. True enough, but is also Jewish: Hebrew psalms extol God’s glory.  Christians sing in Church: in exelsis Deo (in God’s Glory). Arab Muslims sometimes greet with the phrase: al-hamdu lillah (glory to God), In the Bible we read: all to the glory of God.

As we grow and acquire new knowledge and experience, our religious convictions are strengthened or weakened, confirmed or unconfirmed, depending on our by personal experiences. Often in the face of deep disappointment, in context of facing some difficult, even unbearable situations, while reflecting on social injustices, natural disasters, and the like, one refines, modifies, rejects or switches one’s religious beliefs.

Proselytizing religions do not subscribe to this (from our point of view enlightened) view of religion. Traditionally, they believed that they convert people in order to <save> their souls from a terrible after-life (called Hell).

Right or wrong, as a result of their zeal, today those religions (Christianity + Islam) together have more than three billion adherents of all races and in all regions, whereas Hindus number barely 900 million.

There can also be intra-religious conversion. This can be of two kinds: (a) sectarian: e.g. Catholics to Protestants; Vaishnavism to Shaivism (rare these days); (b) interpretations unenlightened to enlightened: Orthodox to Reformed Judaism, caste-observing to caste-rejecting Hinduism; traditional to Unitarian Christianity.

February 26, 2009

Science Day

Science Day

While a handful of thinkers in the Hindu world are debating about the right planetary and zodiacal configurations on which the birthdays of divinities and other festivals are to be celebrated, India also observes  National Science Day on February 28 (Gregorian calendar). Started just over two decades ago (1986), it is a day which inaugurates a whole month of Science-related and Science-inspiring activities, and also awards prizes for the best science-popularization efforts in magazines, newspapers, lectures, and books.

Most importantly, like Black History Month in the United States, the goal of Science Day is to raise science-consciousness among the masses, gradually weaning them away from outworn beliefs, silly superstitions, and a general fear of what science is all about. People are encouraged to watch the skies, locate stars and planets, do experiments and read science books.

We live in a world where, contrary to earlier hopes and expectations, science has come to be marginalized in the minds of many. The general public has been led to believe, thanks to academic philosophers who play clever I-gotchya-you logic, that science is just another way of describing the moon or appreciating the rainbow, and has no greater claims to knowledge than mythology, religious revelations, grand poetry, and speculative philosophy. Science is often seen by the public as no more than a tool for games and gadgetry, for medical technology, washing machines, and creature comforts. Then again, some zealous scientists, by degrading the religious dimension of the human condition, have created the impression that science is derisively religion-unfriendly, and is therefore more dangerous than desirable for human culture.

What needs to be emphasized is that the deeper essence of science expands our mind, enhances our appreciation of our world, and uplifts our spirit. These aspects must reinforced periodically in science courses and through public proclamations like Science Day.

Perhaps the United Nations Organization should follow India’s lead in this regard and declare a whole month as Science Month in all countries.

February 28, 2009

Wars between Old and New

The mindless veneration, often distortion, of poorly understood or anachronistic sacred texts have led to unhappy consequences in all religious traditions. When these are extended to the realm of societal mores and values in a changing world, the excesses of religious zealots degrade and denigrate the very best in any religious tradition.

There is a tug of war going on the world over, under the umbrella of every culture and tradition, between radical forces that are out to change societies in every respect – whether in matters pertaining to social justice or sexual morals – and those who will neither budge nor tolerate any deviation from their own perspectives on what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is to be allowed and disallowed, on the basis of the Ten Commandments, the Sharia, the Manudharmashastra or whatever that they regard as the last sacred word in moral law which one and all should accept, or else….

This morality-war is waged in increasing intensity among casual commentators on the internet and deep-thinking intellectuals who write books and give lectures, whether in India or the Middle East, in Western countries or wherever. Now and again, ideological warfare spills into the open, instigated by the prating and preaching of the more extremist elements who feel that unleashing a mindless mob can be more effective in achieving their goal of an imaginary Utopia than reasoning or persuasive discourse. The fundamentalists who burn abortion clinics in the Western (Christian) world, the honor-killers of their sisters and wives in the Islamic world, and the attackers of women in pubs in the Hindu world, and the like, are all spiritual cousins who belong to the same religion of Intolerance and Self-Righteousness. If such moral extremists are a periodic nuisance in civilized societies, they can become monstrously dangerous when they come to wield political power and police in any nation.

At this crucial juncture in human history it is incumbent upon spiritual and lay leaders to argue for the preservation of all that is good and glorious in their traditions, and also condemn unequivocally mischievous, criminal, and violent misbehavior in the name of any religion that tends to snub free expression of thought and stifle human freedom of action.

On the Impact of Darwin

On the Impact of Darwin

This year celebrates the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth. It is also the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his scientific classic, On the origin of Species. During these hundred and fifty years, more pages have been penned on Darwin and his work than perhaps on most other scientists and theirs works: more perhaps than Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein, more certainly than Leonhard Euler, Michel Faraday, or Heinrich Hertz whose contributions have touched the core of science and altered the course of history no less.

The reason for this is that Darwin’s discovery touches our self-appraisal as beings in the universe far more profoundly than Jovian satellites, gravitation, or the curvature of cosmic space, more directly than differential equations, electromagnetic induction, or the transmission of electromagnetic waves. The only time such a jolt had occurred before was when the Copernican discovery summarily kicked our habitat from the prestigious center of the universe, and transformed it into an insignificant speck in a vast and silent expanse. Darwin’s work removed us from the pedestal wherein we were seen as the crowing jewel in God’s creation. In the view of some it not only mercilessly reduced us to just another of the countless life-forms that crowd the earth, but also revealed our lineage to be simian rather then saintly, or as one wit quipped, we are nor not so much the apex as the ex-ape of creation.

It is both biological and cultural to regard oneself as the center of the universe. The sun seems to rise and set from our perspective, we evaluate the world and react to changes with self-preservation as the bottom line. So it is not surprising that practically every religion gives a special place to humanity among the plethora of life forms. Other creatures, bereft of language and scale of values, have never protested this presumption in any biological court of law. Darwin’s suggestion that we were not molded by clay, nor fashioned on the sixth day, nor come into being from the mind of God, as reported in religious mythopoesie, but that we just emerged as a result of slow changes over the eons, like so many other sister-species, not only belies assertions in sacred texts, it also seems to trivialize Homo sapiens, and certainly appears to take away all sanctity from this special-to-God creature.

It is both understandable and legitimate for traditionalists to resist the Darwinian view of anthropogenesis not only as an affront to human dignity but also as assault on the religious framework. There are at least three ways of reacting to this predicament. One is to declare cold-bloodedly that the religions are dead wrong on this matter, as they are on many other issues pertaining to the phenomenal world. The other is to proclaim that that since the scriptures (revelations by God Almighty) cannot, by definition, by wrong, it is Darwin who has been misled by superficialities which hide the true essence of things, and must therefore be rejected, or at best, be accepted as just another theory formulated by the finite human mind which can never fathom the Ultimate Infinite Mystery. The third alternative has been to find a reasonable via media by recognizing the role and relevance of religion as an important and meaningful cultural and spiritual experience, and also interpreting religious texts in symbolic and metaphorical rather than in literal modes, while maintaining the integrity of science and its methodology. The oft-mentioned warfare between science and religion is between the ardent protagonists of the first two schools while members of the third group write such books as “How one can be a good Christian/Hindu/Jew/Buddhist/Muslim etc. and also subscribe to Darwin and evolution.”

My own suspicion is that the first two groups, in their own belligerent ways, are perhaps closer to their truths, but the third course is the best for a peaceful world where science can flourish and religiously inclined people can find fulfillment also. This approach is difficult for those who see every aspect of the human condition in black-and-white terms: a point of view, which inevitably leads to intolerance, self-righteousness, and bigotry, when taken to the extreme. But it is the only way by which we can handle this situation which may seem quite simple from the perspective of die-hard rationaltry (worship of the Goddess of Reason alone) or mindless faith, but which is enormously complex in the context of human emotions, culture, sensibilities, and psychology.

With all the problems that have emerged from the Darwinian Pandora’s Box, it is appropriate for enlightened humanity to pay homage to the name and memory of a scientific searcher who relentlessly pursued his quest and uncovered one of the great mysteries of the phenomenal world, namely, the emergence, continuance, and extinction of countless species with an incredible range of properties and propensities that adorn our planet, and of which we ourselves happen to be among the more remarkable ones. It is no less enriching to regard ourselves as one culminating end-point in the complex web of life that has been unleashed on the planet by the marvelous laws of nature, with potential for further change, than to imagine ourselves to be the most wonderful creation of the Cosmic Creative Principle that many choose to worship as God

V. V. Raman

12 February 2009

The Royal Society’s Zeal

This week (Seeptembe 15, 2008) , the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science, forced Michael Reiss to resign from his position as director of education because of a speech he made in which he reportedly said that “creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a worldview,” and therefore students must be allowed to discuss it in class. He also stated that a “student who believes in creationism has a nonscientific way of seeing the world, and one very rarely changes one’s worldview as a result of a 50-minute lesson.”
In the eyes of the prestigious Royal Society these are blasphemous utterances. According to a statement released by the venerable society, “Professor Michael Reiss’ recent comments … were open to misinterpretation … .While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the society’s reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the society, he will step down immediately.” Whoever wrote this lofty condemnation of Reiss, a biologist and ordained Church of England minister, obviously does not realize that this move has probably led to even greater damage to the society’s reputation. One would have expected the society to clarify Reiss’ comments and avert any misinterpretation of them instead of summarily relieving him of his position.
If this reminds some of us of the treatment that Galileo received at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, it should. In the one case, it was a fear of scientific knowledge, and in the other case, it is a fear of respect for religious visions.
An unexpected long-range effect of the Enlightenment has been to develop in rationalist thinkers and movements a veritable phobia for anything smacking of religion. After all, Voltaire’s injunction “Ecrasez l’infâme”—Wipe out religion!—has still not been fulfilled after more than two centuries.
This is quite irritating to many. In their enthusiasm to eradicate God from the hearts and religions from the minds of millions of people, those addicted to ratioaltry (the worship of reason alone), like all who are constrained by mono-visions, can’t brook any expression of a different view. When a devotee of Darwin (like Reiss) so much as suggests that we should allow other perspectives to be expressed in a classroom, he is pounced upon as a dangerous supporter of the forces of superstition and anti-science.
What such rationalist zeal fails to see is that by its intolerance it is not only stifling free thought—stooping to a level that science is supposed to condemn—but is also engendering sympathy and support for the forces that regard science as a dangerous element in society. It alienates millions by creating the impression that science is out to destroy everything that they hold to be uplifting, fulfilling, and meaningful.
Those who fear an idea usually silence those who express it. If you are not against my enemy, say people who are insecure, then you are not my friend. You don’t have to be a religious fanatic to behave this way.