The sounds of the Universe

Our Universe is vast. It is nothing yet everything. Absolute.

We often imagine it to be empty and nothingness. It is just empty in between stars, separated by light years of void. But it is not so! It is vibrant, it is beautiful. It is the best creation of the God. No wonder why we are so insignificant in comparison with it.

It is huge, while we lie beside a small star, almost invisible to its grandness.

The Universe is a three-dimensional canvas for God, filled with miraculous creations. I would think of astronomers as the great connoisseurs of God's great astronomical works. The creations slowly metamorphose in time, changing their forms from one to another. A great visual delight for the true sight of the infinite power.

Where there is none, we simply think as nothingness. But it is not so. Humans as we are, we can only wonder at the marvelous mystique surrounding the surrealist works. God shrink's Salvador Dali, the best surrealist in our human perceptions, to a mere bystander beside his works.

The way to wonder at God's works is not only through eyes, but eyes and paper too.

James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, are only a few of many who provided fundamental insight into the ways and creations of the God.

And one of them states that even the nothingness of the universe encompasses its existence.

The Universe has a vibration, even where it has no visible matter. That vibration is the magical essence of the universe. It is caused by the ground state fluctuations of oscillating quantized-fields in the Universe, and such fields include the Yang-Mills field of strong and weak interactions.

As this concept of ground state fluctuations is valid for all gauge theories, let us take the photonic ripples of the spacetime in a Maxwell elcectromagnetic field. The stars around the universe are radiating and emitting EM radiation over a wide range of wavelengths, and this radiations are abound in the universe. I ask myself, cannot these seemingly endless space allow the radiations to cancel, amplify and mix themselves into one resonating frequency all over this Universe?

May not it be that our Universe mixes all waves to one single vibration, which is fairly constant all over the Universe?

Many thinkers have thought about this. For example the Chinese thinkers think of the mysterious energy force Chi. Can't this chi be resonated with this Universal vibration?

Yes It can!

If we go on about vibrations, then other notable thinking and practical use is of the Hindu Rishis. The use of the syllable "Om" in meditation isn't just hocus-pocus ideas. It is a concept deeply thought! While pronouncing the word, the body feels a deep vibration coming from deep within, even as the eye seeks whilst it surveys the creation of God. In music, the best classical musics really do bring about that dreamy state of mind, as I find myself unto now. The correct beat, the right tones and right fluctuation can bring us forth this Universal rumble, which mea permeate the very fabric of reality.

And thus this is the sound of the Universe! The masterpiece of the heavenly Maestro!

How can we we enjoy this? Just switch on some great Mozart or Beethhoven or Bach, you will surely find the gauge field permeating through you.

And then you will feel, the world giving away, and you enjoying the secret pleasures of the vibration. Jai Guru deva..... OM ......

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Betelguese

Yesterday, one of my friends told me about the end of Betelguese, α Orionis. It is a star, if you do not know, and it is generally the second brightest star in the constellation of orion, whose picture I provide.

If you do not know, then Betelguese is a hugely massive star. It lies about 640 light years away from Earth, and is about 20 times the mass of the sun. It is one of the largest stars known to man, being a Red Supergiant.

If placed at the center of our own solar system, then it would gobble up the space upto Mars!

This star is only 6-10 million years old, but its massiveness is burning its hydrogen fuel up. Sooner or later, it is doomed to become a supernova.

A recent study (well, recent if counted in astonomical senses) conducted in the UC Berkeley's Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) atop Mt. Wilson Observatory in Southern California that Betelguese's diameter has shrunk dramatically by 15% since 1993, in the past 15 years! And surprisingly, I was born since then! May be I am a bad omen for Betelguese.

This rapid shrinking is due to the fact that Betelguese is receding towards its ultimate end, if Dr. Charles Townes is to be believed. And we must beilieve him, for the evidences are clear --- Betelguese is going to become a supernova.

This is the scientific prohpecy of a super-star's super death, but the Internet is being flooded with messages that the star's end would mean the end of the Earth! I vaguely remember someone telling me that a black hole will suck the earth inside out once the LHC started. Gosh! I am inside a black hole..?!

This is pure rubbish. I don't know why people misinterpret everything as the earth's end. Why, aren't we destroying the Earth while we guzzle gallons of gas in our SUVs? That, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason for end of the earth, not Betelguese.

Evidences suggest that the supernova is due on 2012. Oh my god, another date! Isn't that the year the mayan calendar ends, the apocalypse of Earth? Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, it is not; unless Osama Bin Laden gets hold of Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons, it is not.

We are our own perils, and no astronomical phenomenon poses a greater threat to humanity than the greenhouse effect or the humanity itself. As for Betelguese, it will die a magnificent death. The supernova it will create will shine as bright as the full moon, or even brighter, temporarily making it the brightest star in the night sky. Imagine the moonless night being flooded with red light- ah! a poet's delight of a wonderful, but sad, phenomenon.

I would like to quote Shakespeare, "When beggars die, there are no comets are seen. The heaven themselves blaze forth the death of princes".

Julius Caesar, Act 2,Scene 2, Lines 32,33.

Now think about the death of the prince of the stars...

Such greatness does Betelguese posesses, which makes it my most faourite star. I will be bereaved to find such a friend gone, but it cannot be helped. He must go someday.And his death will be studied and analysed by countless Scientists, for it will be a spectacle that all astronomers await.

But there are fears that the X-rays and Gamma Rays might cause a mass extinction on Earth. I may rest assure you that the Gamma-ray Bursts it will cause will be directed outwards of the Earth. Also, it is very far away! It can do absolutely nothing to us, but we can only wait and see.

It would be very sad indeed for Betelguese to go, but who must die, dies. That is the law of nature.

Perseid! Perseid!

Ah!

If today's day were clear, I would have rather gone onto the roof to wait until three in the morning.But alas it is not so. However just as I speak, the clouds are clearing. And hopefully I will get to make a wish tonight.

For some of the astronomy-enthusiasts in India, Perseid Meteor Shower is an elusive phenomenon. Not because we can't see it, but because it is mostly overshadowed. Why, I can remember the last time I saw the perseid, it as more than 4 years ago and that too an elusive one amongst clouds. I know it might be no different today, but yet the excitement of meteor showers doesn't stop.

But it was not so for many years!

Up until the 19th cnetury, no one linked meteors to rocks falling from space, but thought of them as Atmospheric phenomenon. Thomas Jefferson wrote "I would more easily believe that a Yankee professor would lie than that stones would fall from heaven." He was referring to Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman' investigation of an 1807 meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut. Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833.

This was called the Leonid Storm. There are no photographs of the shower itself, but there are some woodcuts and paintings which survive. Take for example, this on:

This picture shows the magnificence. Over a hundred thousand meteors appeared in an hour, some of them crashing down in the backwards of people.

Generally, Leonid is considered to be most active of the meteor showers. But recently , the comet which brought meteors of the Leonid had a close encounter with the gigantic Jupiter. This

has disrupted the path of the comet, and any plus one hundred thousand meteors per hour is highly unlikely in the near future.

However this leaves us the Perseid. Today, it is the most brightest and spectacular Meteor shower today.

Hopefully, you will see mnore of them tonight, for it attains maximum Hourly Zenithal Rate (the rate of how many meteors appear in an hour) at nearly 3am tomorrow night (i.e 0830 GMT on 13th August 2009). Keep an eye on the Constellation of Perseus. And just above the star

of Algol the Demon (The Winking Demon, Algol) you will see the Meteors rushing through.

Make a wish!

Happy wishing!