'Let Us Dream, Ladies and Gentlemen!'

‘Let us learn to dream, ladies and gentlemen, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth. But let us beware of making our dreams public before they have been approved by the waking mind’. So said Friedrich August Kekulé, nigh 120 years ago. If people don’t know him, that’s really a shame. He was one of those free born scientific minds, which wander through the jungles of uncovered information, to find the treasure of truth.

And, if you haven’t read your aromatic hydrocarbons chapter yet, he told us how the Benzene molecule must look like.

It is very interesting to know how he got the idea of the molecule. One fine day he was sitting in his study, with the question rambling through his mind, ‘how does the benzene look like’. Of course, he had some leads, the reactions, the percentage masses, the peculiar behaviours, and of course, ah! The smell!

However, like many before him, he did not have any idea, as to how to connect this jumbled piece of information together. So, not getting anywhere, he dozed off. Now, the humorous quotient aside, it happened to him in the dream of that sleep, that he saw the benzene molecules floating across his mind. He writes later, “Again, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of this kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformations; long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twisting and turning in snake like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled around me mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I woke…”

 

Lo! There was the birth of Benzene! Kekulé then spent the night working out the necessary details and consequences of the structure, and it occurred to him, that it must be right. X-ray studies indicate that the benzene structure is indeed the one he proposed. Coincidence? Indeed, if anything called coincidence exists in this world! The structure, I think, was revealed to Kekulé much the same way as God revealed himself to Moses.

How otherwise can you explain the dream and the correctness? Kekulé had no leads whatsoever going into the problem; it is only by coincidence that he found that structure.

These incidents reinforce my faith in science. It indicates to us that we are indeed headed onto the right track, with the full blessings of the almighty! After all, aren’t we deciphering the tumultuous mysteries that exist in his creations? Aren’t we deciphering him?

Yes. And we are on the right track.

Flopenhagen

The Cop15 Copenhagen summit got over very recently at Copenhagen, capital of Denmark.

The Copenhagen Accord, accepted and acknowledged by many countries, was the outcome of it. Let us inspect on it.

Having read the Copenhagen Accord, I came to some conclusions which are:

It does not legally bind whatever it says. Countries can violate it without sanctions.

It does not assure the world or any country as to how and where the funds it proposes would go.

It does not indicate the reduction in per capita emissions.

However it does have some merits.

The Accord recognizes the importance of afforestation to control emissions. Hm.... Perhaps someone else was shouting hoarse at the same thing for many more years.

It also establishes a Technology Mechanism to accelerate the development of sustainable technologies. I think this is the only good outcome from the COP15.

It does not specify the peaking limits of many countries.

If peaking limits were only reduced , for the currently developed countries, to levels of the now-developing countries, the world would be a happier place.

Thus is how the Copenhagen Summit resulted; it was an utter failure. It failed the hopes of many people who thought that now would be time when eveything else would be resolved. But it didn't turn out that way.

Except for the Afforestation adress there was nothing more to take not of. Where is the mechanism? Where to invest? How much more time? Nothing was specified.

Such outsomes in meeting may only result in more loss of time. A more equitable method and mechanism needs to be developed in this regard.

No wonder this dampened the spirits of many climate activists, I am certainly not very happy with it. That is why perhaps it is now being called "Flopenhagen".

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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Ministocracy

In India, the world marvels at a great democracy; but such democracy-maniacs, and you can count me in them too, are in for a true shock. It appears, as evidently as sunlight on a sunny day, that India is more of a ministocracy.

See, in India, we don't run the government. The government runs us, i. e. drives us mad. In India, it is not by the people, for the people, to the people. It is rather by the people, to the ministers, for the ministers. At least that is what the boiling underbelly of the Indian bourgeoisie says: we elect ministers, but they suck.

Just come to Nagpur this winter and you will see why.

Nagpur is a city in central India, without much of a fanfare, but it stirs when our derisory ministers come and our local babus (or local bhaus), which literally means our great Administrators, wake from their slumber and realise that the city is a little to bad in condition to welcome them. So they start work in hectic schedules that leave the citizenry baffled and add to woes of already congested roads and make them even more congested.

In short, whatever they do, only increases the troubles.

I know what the people think about them: ludicrous paunch-displays. But I don't know what misconception they have about themselves; perhaps they think that they are some sort of elite.

Let me tell you, that the the word minister is known from c.1300. It literally means "one who acts upon the authority of another". It come from Old French ministre meaning "servant" and Latin minister or ministri meaning "servant or chiefly priest's assistant " . From early 16th century it means subordinate or a subordinate to the crown.

In general, this displays what actually the word means, and those who are attested to the word must do. They are the servant of the people, serving for the well being of the society and of the people who have entrusted the administration of their country to the hands of the individuals.

Any common man would know how that administration is: corrupt, inefficient, illegible, and ridiculous.

However, this is not to mention the way they take on the various issues of the country.

A few months ago, a book by Mr. Jaswant Singh, Jinnah : India-Partition-Independence, caused so much furore, that our ministers lost sleep and shouted hoarse debating the legitimacy of history. But they were all blissfully asleep every other time. This is indeed a grave problem to our ministocracy: everything for the ministers, yet highly inefficient.

How highly inefficient?

Greatly, tremendously, incredibly inefficient. I mean, would you call a government who could not ascertain a way to mitigate the problem of electric power shortfalls? Who are blatantly biased towards their own communities? NO!

It has been over 2 years now, that Maharashtra region is facing load shedding power cuts - yet there is no respite.

Only some political ministers are good, take the case of Mr. Devendra Fadnavis. He is a little know MLA from Nagpur, but I like him! He takes up the necessary steps and agitations that we expect out of a man like him! WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE HIM!

I sincerely hope that people like him would come to the foray Indian politics. That is needed. Our current lot are tried, tested and failed; we need a younger and vibrant lot, crying hoarse on global warming and sustainable development, than a silly old Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.

Tell them! That this is not the way! This is not the way! Make India a Democracy!

Henry's Handball

Well, there goes controversy again. Thierry Henry, arguably a legend of our times, handles the ball like the prince of Football once did, back in the magical days off 1986. But he question comes, whether he was a villain or a victim?

Whether or not history and millions of passionate fans would ever forget Mr. Henry for his , eh.. mishandling of the situation.

Diego Armando Maradona, as believed by many to be the best player ever to have touched the ball, shunted his slam dunk past Peter Shilton in the 1986 Quarter Final against England. It is perhaps one of the most famous (or infamous) moment in the History of football. But his goal stood the tests of time, or perhaps for the reason that the next goal Maradona scored was to be called the " Leg Of God "

Maradona go the ball from Enrique, then cuts open the England defence and feints the Keeper to the back of the net... oh yeah, the best solo ever.

Perhaps God played twice that game on Maradona's side.

But this case is entirely different from the ferocious Maradona pouncing on the ball with his bare hands; Thierry Henry didn't cheat so blatantly!

If people would look at the replay, all in real time, there was hardly any time lag between his hand and his cross. Perhaps he was expecting the whistle to blow; he was waiting the whistle to go, as people score from offside and then the whistle goes.

If it doesn't, you don't nudge on the "advantage" the referee gave.

But, as genuine sportsman, I would have like it better from the french to have told the referee immediately, but then again: would you have done the same?

It is easy for us to say it with confidence, that yes, of course, we are saints come back, and we won't accept a trice of cheat-dirt. But, consider this situation: you are carrying the burden and expectation of more than 10 million fans, wearing the honours of a proud Footballing country, and you have the reputation of your carreer; would you still have done it?

Would you still have asked for a rematch?

I agree with Henry, he didn't mean it: it all happened in the heat of the game, where our rationale is very ill balanced.

But now, when all things have been said and done, I think FIFA should have a replay of the match. It is essential for a healthy relation between two countries, and for the broken and hurt pride of sporting men; it is good for the benefit of football.

Let this shameful incident be dusted but not forgotten!

Prudence over Emotions?

A very dilating question. Yesterday i saw this interesting destructo-film called '2012'. Obviously, it is a fictional film, with lots of destruction, some neutrinos causing a type of thermal outburst from the core, which goes on to become a cause from Earth's crust getting displaced; this in turn nearly wipes out human race from the Earth, a massive catastrophe. We call it, in many languages, apocalypse; and all of this is predestined to happen on 21-12-2009 (British date), as predicted by the end of the Mayan calender.

I know it is ridiculous, but it brings to fore some dire problems that humanity faces today in its present.

For instance, the humanity is left for its doom, while the elite and the rich and the famous are taken away to an Ark, which is a secret plan, like Noah built to save the humans and the animals from the deluge.

This shows us the gaping disparities in human social structure. Something like this evident in Rio de Janeiro, with one side decorated with glittering skyscrapers to the other side filled with favelas.

The thing I liked was the American President staying behind to aid his fellow countrymen at the final hour. Such noble spirit lifts up the mind of a dying human on the very last!

I would leave it to you to rate the movie, but let us ponder on the wavering question: Prudence over emotions?

Let me put you in this delicate situation: you are a patriot, but the world is going to end, and you must either choose yourself or your people. What would you do?

I would choose the people over myself. The reason being that prudence herself is not enough to successfully grant justice.

Prudence herself derives her morality from the emotions of human beings.

Thus, it is futile to call for the justice without the feelings that guide it

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

The outcome at the last UNSC meeting was to urge all countries in the world to take action to stop production of nuclear fuel, or any related equipment. It also urges countries to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. However, what it did not do is to ensure the world that it is free from the threat of nuclear Proliferation.

I say this because we have had this going on for years and yet not have arrived at any logical conclusion. It is only treaties treaties and more treaties.

I am sorry, but i just cannot imagine myself as safe by knowing that a powerful state has signed a treaty by which it promises not to hit me. Promises can be broken. What security does the treaty give us?

International retaliation? Well , when the world will go in the hands of fanatics, that is hardly a deterrent. We should understand well enough that if even a single nuclear bomb is launched, we will be dead, many of us at least.

Even though India has not signed the NPT, I firmly and strongly have the faith that Indian Nuclear weapons shall never be used, fro the person who shall use them will be taken from his house and hung on the streets. The power of the Indian people is much stronger than any treaty India has ever signed.

This is what I write about. There is no such mechanism to prevent use of nukes. Only treaties.

It is high time that our leaders finally realize their folly and make out such an international mechanism that could prevent any state to use the nukes. Only then can they convince the public that indeed they are safe.