Antigravity Engine and some brilliant ideas!
(via physicsphysics)
Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.
The only way to deal with an un-free world is to become so absolutely free that your very existance is an act of rebellion.
The Art of Learning: Different Approaches
Art is an aesthetic way of achieving a certain standard and learning is by every means an manifestation of art. During childhood and adolescence, my endeavour of learning primarily consisted of regimented curricular activities which, irrespective of my own opinion, had the primary goal of securing best possible marks. I am not denouncing that way here but in the process I realized about two different set of feasible paths to learn and they are quite interesting with their varieties. To begin with, one of the ways to learn is like performing algebraic operations. First, believe the things you’re being taught and check their validity from opposite directions, perfectly similar to solving an equation. Don’t oppose or raise questions at first, just check the acceptability subsequently. A trial and error method at its best but works great because of the definite construction of knowledge at primary levels. In reality, a great number of people do not even bother to consider the validation and believe in blindly following the information for optimum scores. On the other hand, a tedious and often tiresome way comprised of following a logical path from beginning to learn the ideas associated with different topics sequentially and arriving on the resultant theories we are being taught is another approach which is seldom ventured. This particular route has a lot of barriers to cross and requires acute determination and enthusiasm. People learning in this manner may be slow to react at first as they take their time to understand and conceive the situation, but they are definitely good in problem solving and excel in unpredictable circumstances. Now, if one questions about supremacy of a single system among the two, I do not have a definite answer. Personally, I am inherently inclined towards the later but the first has its superior aspects too. Unfortunately, the initial approach can be and is usually heavily abused to acquire short term objectives. On the other hand, methodical nature of the later can sometimes obstruct the free flow of thinking and famous for letting people land on sticky situations. Even though, I believe in the second manner and feel a hint of the first is the spice of learning.
The Beginning of a Discovery
The most significant elementary step for great quests is to be amazed by an event. “Do you believe in miracles?”, someone might ask. Yes. I do. Affirmatively, every miracle is still bound by the strings of logic and reasonings and we are to discover them sooner or later. But it is the minuscule period of time, a infinitesimal perhaps when we forget obligations for enlightenment and feel the moment of ‘wow’. Our faces light up and we wonder how amazing the event was. It is that instant which kicks off the great odysseys of human being.
The necessity of Observer
As long as the classical physics grew, nurtured by an enormous number of peers over the course of history, it also shaped the metaphysics around it. The question of consciousness has always driven human minds and physics is no exception. Theory of relativity which makes a lot of important corrections to Newtonian classical physics, also doesn’t go beyond the reasonability of a question before asking it. According to their viewpoints, we shouldn’t ask questions about interactions of things which we don’t understand. When quantum mechanics was first conceived at the beginning of 20th century, all those physicist holding the mantle of classical physics were sceptic of the new theory, save for Heisenberg, Born and a handful of other physicists. They argued that the inability of quantum mechanics to predict the position and momentum of an electron precisely at an instant makes the theory inconclusive. “So where’s the electron and what is its momentum?”, they asked, on what Heisenberg beautifully denied the scope for such questions from experimental point of view.
Quantum mechanics definitely showed us that consciousness is not absolute necessity. Even in theory of relativity, an observer is meant to observe phenomena and conclusions are drawn from the observations. But essentially, the effect of observer in that phenomenon is neglected. Simply for example, taking a case of classical electrostatics, we measure the field due to a number of charges in a space by introducing a small test charge and calculating the resultant field on test charge by all charges but itself. But this doesn’t answer the effect on resultant field of pre-existing charges after introduction of test charge. Therefore, classical nature of physics puts an observer on the seat of God, making it possible for him to observe phenomena without affecting it or getting affected by them. But experimentally speaking, this is quite impossible. It may wind down to the often used question, “Does it make a sound when a tree falls in a forest?”. Well it does, but if there’s none to hear it we can say it doesn’t! This is a point of classical physics and also of related philosophical views which always put the observer before the phenomena, but doesn’t care about the effect of observer on outcome. Nature doesn’t work like this and fortunately we came to understood that as well. Therefore, it’s safe to say that the world is not classical. But is it entirely quantum? We don’t know that yet.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift. That is why it is called the ‘present’.
Oogway to Po, from the movie Kung Fu Panda.
(P.S. He’s also insisting that we don’t need to study about relativity :P)
Q:WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?
At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
