The precision of the inverse square law of the gravity

{EAV:721c6ebe7b30b97e}
The precision of the inverse square law of the gravity

Just how precise and correct is the inverse square law of gravity. I mean everyone who has heard about it knows that every mass attracts every other by certain force. And so Earth pulls the objects in its vicinity such as a satellite (or an apple) towards it. Thats gravity. But those who practice at least some form of gravity on their education or in their profession know the fact that its an inverse square law. That is, the force becomes as weaker as the square of the distance between the earth and the object. This is called inverse square law therefore. And if you know another fact about gravity, its that, gravity is a so called central force. That is earth will always try to pull you towards its center. (then why the airplanes that crash, fly off in random directions and end up anywhere. ) And so will any mass that will apply its gravity on another, it will pull the object towards its center. And this is different from another kind of force where the forces are directed away from the center. These guys such as a nuclear object, knows how to pull but misses the central direction, why, why is personal, there might not be any answer to that)

So Gravity is a central and inverse square law of force. How is that related to the precision with which we know that its inverse squared and central. I often find it very aching when I rotate on my chair. I get a head ache if I rotate very fast, even from just a couple of rotation. I realize that when we are sitting on the earth we are rotating on a wheel chair which is moving like 30 kilo met ps around the sun. If Sun were to keep the precision of a central force for the objects on earth such as we then we wouldn't feel a thing while rotating like that. And we dont. But rotating a few met ps on a chair we feel a great deal of turbulence. And if we were to know the precision of central force we wouldn't feel a thing. So our precision which is hardly the disturbance of a little fluid in side our head which would be as large as only a head of our size , at the maximum, is quite small compared to the precision of the Sun which is taking the earth on a scary merry go round. If we can measure the tiny force that is responsible for causing a little head ache because all the fluid in the head is moving then we would know how precise we are with a central force. And do we know a way for it. Also to know the precision of a inverse square law we could place a container with fluid and measure the forces on the empire state building and we would know the difference on the ground.

Why is God so venerable

God must be a sucking architect if he created Universe. I mean where is the living room, just the planet earth. And where do we poof. In the living room. And where do we study and sleep, in the living room. Where a scientist like me finds such an idea for a living room, a joke, Religion would find it brilliant. See, He is a great creator and architect, Its the best studio apartment in the whole Universe, Planet Earth. So religion is a manipulation, where as science is showing a path never known before..I mean Science is like hello we know how to Google the Universe. Religion is like we lost the key to our Universe, But, He, who is God, takes care of it. But given that the unusual rash ways of science, howsoever endearing they may be, they are just to be adored and respected. But the unattended mind usually choose to follow. Thats the triumph of Religion, not God. Thats not the failure of science. Its not either a limitation, Its an exit. Hello, you wanna pull out to Sanity Ville or be enchanted and enamored in the feelings of religious God.

And if, scientists do not sound to be quite sane to you, its only because they are so restrained in their thoughts that they may usually laugh themselves out rather than explain because that would take the sanity out of them. They will perspire a life times sweat. But to enchant you and to make you a bondage of religious God that is the power of the Pope, Saint Vincent, and a religious doctrine monger. Like one who says Science explains but Religion interprets. Whoaaa. And why religion cant explain. Because there is no reason. And reason is an enemy of faith. Science does the interpretation first before the explanation. And explanation is not necessary if the interpretation is wrong. See where I am going.

And also God must be a sucking terrorist. He created a Universe by exploding a Macadamia Nut. So we must convert him into an acceptable unquestionable form of reverence that transcends human beings instinct to query because it throws doctrines into a pool of unsavory pathogenic gel from where only a Saint would try to rescue it. I have reverence for such a saintly persona, in direct conflict with my verbal irreverence. And I have verbal irreverence for such an idiot in direct conflict with his saintly persona.

A warring dilemma in my mind in conceiving the pain of being a scientist.

Given my attitude of expressing my inability to write more than I do, which can be overbearing on my unconscious ways of gaining a reputation that I can write a humongous amount on just about anything I have come across, which bounds to infinite, its only a matter of time that I gain a focus and make myself cozy enough to write and just write and forget that I might have another business to attend to. But I have also realized that there may not be enough of anything pressing at the time and that brings certain amount of feel good to my mind to embark onto writing my mind. In the alternate scenario I can not sit at any one place let alone think of involving something as thought and time consuming as writing.

And despite of my popularity of being a focused thinker, which may strike with as much impunity, as is needed for me to set my goal on writing my next blog, still, I take time to think. And I take time to think before I embark onto my next article because someone's thought may be lurking at my own existence and this may easily run into tons of people in my mind-scape. This preoccupation may not allow me enough of free will to exercise my judgment to write my own mind. My purpose is often not to talk about myself as may sound from the outset because of the loose ends and half tones you may find in what I say. My purpose is to make it clear an I do so by allowing myself to review. This is possible if I can find the time and will to do so again and I do.

One may jump his gun and say this is preposterous how this may be called any suitable use of ones time. I would rather continue doing this, that is continue to be preposterous and frivolous than take up somebody's ill-found doubts about somebody's else's judgment in utilizing his time. I say so based on the reasoning that its not possible to find so much time to judge on another persons use of time. I think this reasoning might have gained some reputation for me to be a bit self willed and self absorbed.

And some foxy and pep reviewers would advise me that this better fit into a habit of keeping a journal or diary of yourself. But I put this habit of mine to sit back and write into rather a very necessary meditation for an unusual person like me, more than Yoga. Yes, Yoga is physical but unproven albeit widely and unquestionably followed. I think, Yoga is not very proven to be scientific whereas writing as a physical and spiritual exercise where the mind is a little bit more dominant is a good way of meditation at least for the mind and as far as mind influences the physical body positively, for the physical body as well.

I may confer that reading and watching something in motion as serene as an isolated patch of nature are as well good ways of meditation for the mind and body. Have you ever seen a spring in the midst of a forest quite far away from civilization? Isn't it peaceful and serene as it fills our mind with an awe unmatched to any other thrill we know?

So writing is a meditation. You may say so is Yoga. I am a bit less a fan of Yoga, because I agree I am a self confessing anti cosmopolitan. I would much rather enjoy my bout of sports activities and sweat myself so that I would inspire myself to take a shower. Given that this is something I have been unable to enjoy in a rather long spell of time (no not the shower, the sports) I am onto other felonies of modern life.

I enjoy a time of solitude and think about how it inspires me to discover my wild side. I also enjoy it to put myself into a session of mindful pleasure of self imagination. You may call it self gratification but I am no saint Vincent who proclaims himself to be scientific both at the same time. I believe you will rather appreciate that I am a scientist and I do not claim myself to be a saint.

I may be a saint if you understand the meaning of being a scientist, not a saint Vincent who goes up onto TV, captures a great deal of wealth and lives a hidden life. The Voyeurism of-course puts him into the category of Ron Jeremy. But that's the advantage of being a saint Vincent. It gives him the pleasure of a hidden desire. Possibly of all human beings to get appreciated in the involvement of that act without at the same time knowing that he has been caught. You know what I mean.

I am writing a piece of essay on the dilemma in my mind and one advance alien civilization has a camera where they can capture my imagination far away from where I am sitting and even broadcast among the alien elites and giggle about it while enjoying their pungent smelling beer. Their beer is called anti Corona by the way, in my wild imagination. And can the aliens be involved in the act of Voyeurism against humanity? May be we ask Hawking.

If you ask me though I would discourse on an unproven theory of Quantum Mechanics where our imagination is a wave function and gets transmitted like a wave and gets caught by the aliens by their Hubble like telescope which converts such signal into a Xray video clip. But then given their sense of reality which has no connection with our intelligence and understanding we may not realize what we are looking at even if they send us one of their DVD via Netflix.

So my pain of being doesn't necessarily involve human civilizations affairs and trials and tribulations on planet earth. It also constitutes a pain of being in being a mind per se. This mind resembles a physical human much less comparable to aliens than the earthlings. A mind which moves unbounded between the head (this time the skull) and the limbs. A mind which is supreme in any standard to be involved in the acts of human tendency but sprinkles the imagination of a regular human with all desires thinkable (and add 7 more for each day of the week). The pain of being therefore is a physical pain as similar as anyone humans but understood and realized completely differently. A pain which carries in it the notion of hope like it would carry a notion of despair.

To focus more on the purpose of telling you how then such a pain directs us towards the dilemma that connects to the doubts and uncertainties of science and how at all this can be called science is a purpose worth pondering. I do not have an answer as of now.

Who needs a Science war.

Wars often do not bother me because I have never known one let alone participate in one. But they are a reality. Arent they. We get to hear about them on our TV and news media. But who cares, we do not prepare ourselves for the next morning because there is a war.

And I guess even in World War I, II life was normal. How else we survive so much and know so much about the wars themselves. In some sense the terrorist attacks are more ghastly than the wars. The war is so formal and we are prepared about it with defense line ups made to retaliate at the very moment there is a fear of strike.

But with terrorism its all bizarre, in just a moment of ill fate, everything is gone. We did not know or knew that we know but could not stop, such an attack. So call these Jehadi wars or wars without an enemy. The enemy is often an administration or Governmental organization marked by their color or racial identity, or even ideological identity , not the innocent civilian. The latter is only a bait. So here is a war which is lethal but targets the unsuspected because the real enemy is faceless.

Enough about the character of wars. What about science wars. I never participated in one. But this so sound like one I would rather participate. It would be fun.

Actually science is such a misnomer. Exploration of knowledge. If it were really so we would hardly see any knowledge being explored. Because knowledge can never be explored. Can you really explore something which is so out of your own limits that you would rather go bungee jumping.

Science is beyond our limits but a feel about it starts to pour in, once we get experienced with its ways and that takes like a decade. And then more is needed before it vanishes like a charm lost to a tornado. And most of the heroes of knowledge or science continued looking for their own charm and another decade passed before they realized charm can not be recovered fully. It was just a youthful demeanor. It better be lost if we are to live any peace.

If so little is possible with 2 or 3 decades that we are hardly left to go to any war let alone one of verbal epithets how can we indulge in one science war. If science itself can be a misnomer then so called science war is a mythical video game. It just happens in our imagination. Then in the exchange of imaginative canons and bullets and stingers we are just indulging in self gratification.

And if it turns out to generate some mental heat name it a science war. I think thats the whole basis of a new phenomena called science wars. It had a value more of an epistemological connection with those who do not understand you so that you can call them Kaffirs and they can retort back at you with their non-knowledge of your knowledge and name it a war.

Call it a spoof, but in the fun of things we have started igniting each other. So its all a fun game. Didn't I promise so. Its fun, seriously fun. But in modern times its just a phenomena of human tendency. If the internet is not invented and we live nearby we celebrate every leap year by throwing stones at each other. We need a reason for that and in the absence of a reason call it a special reason. Now that internet is invented we can happily do anything we want to without invading anyones personal space in a physical way. But we can throw many stones at each other once we know what some one can be ascribed for in his mind.

We had civil wars and then we had world wars. Matter got out of hand and then we all focused on our life. Then it was cold war. A simmering feeling of animosity that many feared would lead to a war. But actually many people spearheaded the world out of the danger of a cold war. What a contribution to peace of the world. You know cold war can lead to another hard hitting war. Really. So your cold ice-cream can lead your gas burner to catch fire. Thank God you dont wear cold pajamas.

I mean just how foolish we can be. But our propensity to go to war or more appropriately to call even a verbal duel a war did not let us sleep in peace. So we invented the science war. Ofcousre we also invented the star wars which is more respectable given its a glaring example of our unlimited imagination.

But science war being the kind of imagination that make even geeks look like pale masturbators of uninformed verbal junkies has a special place whether in a dictionary or wikipedia. It does not constitute any war. It does not constitute any science either.

Do I believe in democracy

Do I believe in democracy? (With some gossip)

Democracy is a system of governance, which took over from the Kings. But actually it took over from all forms of Royal authority. The latter can also be often called a feudalist system. It was a way of society for millennia or more. Of-course there is no way we can revert this present day system of governance despite of the fact that there could have been many dark alleys in this system which are worse than what was with the Royal system. 



But I am not here to advocate for the royal system. I have not lived any royal system of governance. So my feelings would be what I could ascribe to imaginative influence of stories and movies, theater, drama and so on.

But my feelings about democracy are the ones that can be ascribed to how our system behaves when we say we all are responsible towards forming our rules and policies. Given that I have come across many different systems of governance in day today life, and as I have tried to understand the people behavior in such systems, I am of the opinion that democracy is not a system of governance that will ever lead to an equitability of the basic civil needs of many communities.

If these 3rd world communities are tied to the horsepower of the advanced countries in some way, the latter is often fettered by the lack of true understanding of the cause of such poverty. 



One of the basic failures of the American or Indian democracy can be realized from the few facts of opinion I give here. 



The American policies are often an example of poor understanding of world affairs. But the paranoid response is to formulate arm-twisting. If it worked for a decade, so far so good. Now invent another trick. Bullying, yes, that’s the oldest one as far back as the early of the atomic era or precisely from the time of the Nuclear Bombs use.

If one trick fails there is always one more up the sleeve, it’s called diplomatic wallet, and in each of these, the policies must reflect a deep understanding of international affairs and dynamics. 

But the real reason why many such policies fail is the fact that there is no true underlying sympathy or human concern in applying these principles.

Even if such policies are often formulated by great deal of insights or vision when it comes to implementation, there are these usual foxes that take care of the rowdy aliens. One glaring example is the homeland security. Everything that we do not like about the alien must come under the purview of homeland security. 



How about understanding the fact that the world already changed their impression about the goodies of the USA. This is no more a place, which treats everyone equally. Whether that’s because of an attack on the conscience, coming from the external world of terror or something that had been happening around the world and the USA is not out of the bounds of this world needs some deeper introspection. 



Actually the USA needs to forego that repute of the land incredible... opportunities incredible. Because in its fear of the worlds rise, it has lost its sleep, gone through insecurities, which now it does not understand how to take care.

I am always hopeful as it’s in the world’s interest to preserve that status of world power and land of freedom but the world doesn't forego. 

The world doesn't create its order out of obligation to Barack Obamas call nor can Barack Obama procure such an order from Natures lap because it got this illuminati appeal.

I am for one not a believer that worlds top leaders can be a member of such esoteric clans, but who knows where the secret inspirations come from. For another thing Nature didn't make an amendment to its thermodynamics principles in a really really long time. But the chance that it will do so is feeble. As feeble as the noisy dots on your TV screen when everything is quite clear.

Now, look at the failures of Indian democracy. The first failure started when the Indians went for the so-called freedom struggle. A struggle that continued for a century. They struggled to not understand the fact that most of the material development and some reasonable spiritual and conscience development did come from mainly the British. But that was so because the Brits dwelled in the lime light for like only 2 centuries.



And that saw most of the modern growth of today’s India, so visible, that to counteract such a fact one has to resort to pure hooliganism or impure logic. There is just no way we would be even where we are today.

If it were only the politically minded citizen that would refuse to see the grain of truth it was going to be fine. But with adulteration of history with untruths and power controlling of the production and distribution of history and to patently block history of India of non-Indian origin with a fear of the same origin that saw us to struggle and declare our independence has blocked the judgment of the most educated in this country. 



That’s why, secretly, many years ago I wished every Indian at least get one chance to move out of the bounds of their own country and to get that cherished education that would redeem at least some Indians of the falsity and faults of history, or need I say more, unhistory.

That time reached primarily because of many reasons happening at the same time, not just because the westerner immediately became enticed by the prospect of having the Indian, irrespective of the latter’s blatant lack of respect for each other, let alone a person of another culture or community. 



But so suave these folks are for a while, that they will make the best of the best look fool. The inherent dogged greed to enjoy the merry of another country, to enjoy, and to show proclivity towards what brings one profit are the priorities that made these suave folks in possession of the same problem that I wished were redeemed.

But it’s not entirely because of a mindset of the Indians. 

I have seen and I do not see any reason why I should not share this is the fact that the so-called westerner enjoys to entertain the falsities of the Indian as long as the Indian knows how to please. Because the Indian is often brilliant or mostly bright, comes with new ideas pretty quickly and knows how to be disrespectful towards another Indian and knows how to be respectful towards even the not even westerner it all adds a charm to his ways to become successful. 



Am I sounding too cynical? Sorry I am just telling you stuff as I have seen them. If the fact that some ones hair is brown sounds cynical to you or even inappropriate, sorry.

Now that the Indian has the charm and the temporary success and he is also contributing greatly towards the success of the westerner where is the problem? What’s the big hue and cry about outsourcing? What’s with the smell of the curry and the pooping with tissue paper in your mouth? It all adds to incredible India.



But I just hit 2 points if you observed. If we are so good to each other why we dispel each other from our psyches. Or do we? We cannot stay together but we need each other. Doesn't Independence Day sound like a divorce drama now? 



I mean look at how many people from our shores are living abroad for like decades and even generations. And this number is into millions and in every corner of the world. Did I say it’s a bad thing? No. I mean our great father Gandhi Jee lived sizable amount of his life abroad. How was it possible back then in a not an independent India? 



And the fact is that he did, why was he so desperate about not wearing western clothes. God I would have liked him in jeans with a Kuch Kuch hota hai on his lips. Or may be he could have told us more about how to seduce a firangi lady.

Nah it was Nehru’s flamboyancy that worked wonders. Lord Mount batten was clueless about the power the real Indian possessed. But Gandhi, he was just happy with his Sabarmati ladies. 



And what were we to learn from history? To go Indian ladies in the tunes of Bhagbad Geeta or something. God! Release us from the fetters of our psychopathic ways. Please let us learn some blues or hip-hop. 

No, it will never happen. We will always have the Baba Sehgals and Stereo Nations. But God does that give us a pleasure, yes it does, more than Rabi Shankar or ...

But we are elated when we get the approval from the westerners. 

One time in Chicago airport one white lady was way too proactive in telling me she saw the movie Monsoon wedding, probably before making sure, I care or not. But God, I was flamboyant and I reciprocated like a true American, I said glad you enjoyed it. I did not mind I was 10 minutes late.



In another great democracy half way across the globe, the lady at the immigration counter made me simmer my agony inside for half an hour because she continued asking me every detail, how to go to US?, how TOEFL is taken?, How GRE is taken?, how admission is obtained ? and so on.

I guess two reasons, either I am handsome or she could not resist or she has a younger brother who she wants to send to US and she could not find any other way t o extract this info rather than to make someone wait for half an hour when he is flying. 

The typical American in me voiced she is a bitch, just get going. The typical Indian like me would interpret what an emotional story line for another great Indian movie.

I do not know any more than the above about democracy so I told you my favorite airport stories.

Internet is a brilliant tool in the hand of man, Internet killed the TV star.

Internet was invented in the last two decades. It was envisioned and realized in the high energy physics labs. But its scope of transferring data from one node to another or between computers that were geographically restricted to a small scale of space, where the satellites were not used to redirect the signals has undergone unprecedented metamorphosis. I mean from where one could only send some information across to virtually all of human existence, that's one big leap in a matter of two decades.

The revolution of internet is comparable to the classic industrialization and even renaissance. With the massive commercialization that opened its doors to the internet you not only purchase your air ticket or your lovers favorite lingerie, you can order Pizza over the internet. If times will be nicer you can order your morning idli and tea from the comforts of your living room.

When and if airfare will be mind cloggingly expensive you may drop your plans for a business trip and give your presentation from your office. Yea, its happening already and we use video conference so much, but only as an option, not the only option. Of-course it does not give us the pleasure of physical travel, but think of the old man who can not travel much or the financially constrained who needs to make that video connection because he can not have his immigration documents in time.

Talking about immigration documents what happens if there is a war. Can all sorts of communication be influenced including the internet communication itself. I am thinking, if the possibility of all future wars has become a myth given the tremendous mobility of information and knowledge which wasn't possible even 2 decades ago. With this advancement of communication whats only in sight as a valid factor to the possibility of a future war is the so called propensity of human civilization itself, to go into war. But what I am hinting here is the fact that the tremendous mobility of information and communication itself can avert wars to the point where any war happening just for the sake of happening, out of human beings need to imagine it happening is a rare thought.

If wars do not happen there is no need to stop oneself from physically traveling. But a war can stop all modes of communication including the internet although the internet is more controlled by the Governmental misdirections, eg the recent Wiki-leak event and ban on Skype and Google. War or no war there always will be civil strife. And in times of such strife I conjecture that the most effective means of communication from one community to another will be internet. Although such a robust and sophisticated internet system is yet to take birth. If we compare present day internet with the infant internet, the one that was borne in CERN, as we are told, then the internet I am envisaging is the one that is to be compared to the present day internet and the present day internet will look as an infant to this future internet.

So in this future version we will have no other communication media, everything will be internet. And if that happens you can easily say internet killed the TV star. Your TV, radio, newspaper everything will be replaced by a machine. Well such an internet may not come in just 2 decades. But if some of the best inventions yet to be realized but waiting at some corner of the world to come to life , which can not happen if unexpected wars, strife and calamities happen, then that can only accelerate such unification of the world media and communication systems. And it will be for the good.

We do not know as of now, but given the trends of recent times in the next two decades we might have internet replacing our watchmen and burglar alarms. If an American is sleeping and he has outsourced his video surveillance system someone working here in India or Indonesia may give a safe wake call. If he has forgotten to deactivate that video ss and is walking on his park instead, the caller from India can recognize this from some intelligent message from the system and say “ hello happy hanuka.. ”

So there is massive amount of information today running across the globe to reach anyone divided by the great geography of planet earth. Almost all of the business is done by some sort of tooling from the internet. At some level the internet is involved for any business transaction. And its only wise and smart to do so. If you convert everything you have into some sort of electronic form without losing the quality or quantity you are only doing yourselves a favor.

Of-course this may also produce a massive amount of junk and simultaneously you have to keep the paper copy. I am a fan of the storage technology but more so the antique looks of libraries and storing places. When I will have my house I will have a special room for saving garbage. Another special room will be for saving books and expensive stuff. The fact that I have a garbage room will remind me that garbage is always produced in any process that needs to be kept and recycled and my garbage will help me remember that I can make a search and find something if needed no matter how difficult.

I may continue to think about many more brilliant applications of the internet today, that has fundamental significance for the future of internet technology. But this will probably need another session of motivated thinking. And right-now I must go to bed..

“Why is there so much bias in the minds of the westerner scientists towards the Indian scientists?”

What kind of treatment really a title of this kind deserve? For one thing this cuts more juice than one can drink. Scientists, Indian scientist, westerner scientist, bias. And add to that the question of background of the author.

The back ground of the author is undoubted. He is undoubtedly a scientist. And everyone who knows this, knows that. This is also very dearly believed that he is a man of his own ways as much as he is a man of his own words.

So as the author of this topic, I need to stop on the temptation of self description and give a little justice to why I am speaking of such a bias. Does such a bias really exist? Has anyone else mentioned of such a bias? If there is plentitude of such a fact then how does the author, the renowned scientist, deals with such a mind blowing scene in the international scientific community? (Its mind clogging, any more, than its mind blowing, I tell you)

But before answering such an interesting (funny) topic I need to point out with the charm of direct speech or the so called literal meaning. Because the title is in itself a direct one, one usually does not see such direct hammering. First of all “why?” is a personal question. You may have heard the version of one scientists understanding of “why” and you may have come across another’s. And then yet another’s. It’s all interesting and depict something quite opposite to what we all hear in high school. That, in science we are often inspired to ask the why. And then each of the scientists above they come forth with the explanation that it’s not a why it’s a how. That differentiates a scientist from the not so ones. They know what the latter know from their training even if this training means a dogma which is carried out religiously. The scientists therefore can come up with clear insights like “it’s a how not a why”. The why is a personal question. The how is a technical question. Its in the details, it’s about the process and effects and not about our whims or arrogant rejection of truth. The latter, of which you may also come with trillions of examples, is personal while the former belong to the understanding of nature as much as it is a question of pure inquiry. Inquiry of that kind which comes up with answers of tremendous value has made our life worth living, despite of the pain nature inflicts on us, it also shows us way to alleviate such pain, without linking it to third power such as Gods. Nature is not amenable to religious manipulations. I may not know enough and I may not know complete picture of such a Universe. That makes my life worth living. But I know enough to say God is a third power as much as Natures ways are concerned. And I can take a beautiful trail in the midst of nature and not concern myself about my lack of knowledge towards the worldly affairs. Because in these worldly affairs a God seats with thousand smile when men so venerate him by making fun of their own intellect and succumbing into their fallibility by making their Gods and their beliefs about such Gods infallible.

Now that I have shown you the charm of direct speech I may not continue onto the other such personal depictions in the title. But I just initiated my essay. So now I must take into the meaning of bias. Well, showing a little less restraint than I intend I am attracted to using the language of science again, to replace bias by prejudice. Because in doing so I would be more personal, in line with the punch of my topic title. Bias is often understood in science as a measured or a measurable variable that must be taken into account to reach a desired result or a technical tool to understand something. That is bias is a systematic change or a change introduced by a system and as much we are trying to understand that change we are trying to understand the system as well. They are interconnected and bias therefore is a necessary variable in any study of the system. And nature is a system. And it must be devoid of a God because God may interfere with nature with his whims and nature doesn’t like that. But if you contrast bias with prejudice although they may be used interchangeably in a social perspective you will do yourself some good by realizing that prejudice is like a social stigma. That prejudice is a social variable and therefore the very fact that one society can hold it against another is a fact enough to create further prejudices and not further knowledge about such prejudices. That is, one prejudice will lead to another like in a chain reaction. It’s like an epidemic. A bias on the other hand leads to further understanding or just a blind spot. Period. Therefore my topic title must read:

“Why there is so much prejudice ………….” And if I would have done so you might have come up with your answer “You know people can really be ignorant about others culture to a degree they consider the others culture to be inappropriate”. But I made a mistake which I realize now. Because of that I gained some insight. But now that we are here discussing many interesting ideas so far, what’s really the role of this topic title??

But this is exactly where I hit my nail. Or I would prefer to. Hasn’t the so called western society been propagating a culture of science whose torch bearers are held with high esteem? And when these torch bearers have shown the path in science, they hardly called upon themselves as great Greek soldiers and great European scientists. Their voice did reach beyond the continents. And of such luminaries all were almost westerners although I have to do a research to find out exactly when the word westerner was created. Because such luminaries as Galileo and Einstein and Newton and Tesla are held with great veneration in the non-western world. Well the first three are venerated with a zeal that doesn’t cut any resemblance with geographic, nationalistic or cultural linkage. So the whole prejudice of “western scientist Newton” doesn’t cut any meaning at all. And such prejudice is not only meaningless it won’t find any adherent either, except in the perennially stupid. But the 4th of the list I gave here is a well accepted scientist from the western shores well into the non-western shore possibly because his genius and scientific temperament being well accepted in the west was transferred to the non-west via literature and media and communication and with time people came to know about him, from where he is not from.

So there is possibly no prejudice in the minds of non-westerners that many great scientists and thinkers of present and recent times (many centuries) are westerners. But this whole concept of being a westerner is such a whack. What the hell we really mean when we say westerner?? I mean Minneapolis is west of Winnipeg. So is someone more learned in the ways of science if he is from Minneapolis? “Well you know we usually mean the west of the globe and east of the globe.” I see what you mean by a westerner. You fought 3 wars on the scale of the west and then called it world war (or two?) based on the fact that the world is in danger because of one particular type, the Nazis. I think the history of western wars is so less understood by me that I tend to call these wars of whims rather than wars of any real animosity.

(And excuse me the world is in danger because of us human beings and not because of the nuclear weapon, many people devoted their whole lives to prove just this and won many peace prizes, but also to their credit there is no more war involving the nuclear weapons. but there still are wars, everywhere, Palestine Vs Israel, Iraq Vs Hegemony, Iran Vs axis of whim)

And now it’s all become “one west”. What is it which is so unificatingly true about all the westerners (the Japanese people sometimes think themselves a part of the western bandwagon) Is it a blind race theory? The skin tone? Because if that’s so the westerner is yet to see the non-westerner in its full variation. And since my topic may consider Indians as the lot facing that as a prejudice the westerners is yet to see the full Indian spectrum. But there could be something unificatingly stigmatized in the Indian and erroneously associated with the scientific output of the same. Like every other stigma this needs to be taken with importance and save him from the vilification. Eg I have read many stories about the glorious past of India in contributing towards science. This is mostly written by the Indians themselves. But this doesn’t have the desired outcome.

(To my knowledge even many other countries have similar responses towards the seemingly “western” prejudice towards their scientific contributions. But I think this is quite closely linked with what you may call “internet mob”, One guy writes something, the other likes the idea behind it and then propounds his own version about something and it propagates before forming a formidable myth)

But to bring forth the desired outcome one needs to consider a lot of factor. Such as establishing truly scientific enterprise with an academic purpose not necessarily with an academic rigor. I think an academic rigor is less important than a scholastic investigation. And such a topic can really be an interesting effective research object of an anthropologist, a sociologist, a philosopher and a scholar of religious study or the historians of science. The fact that there are folks in such academic spheres but they are writing merely to propound their master’s credibility, when this master is a Nehru or Indira or name any so called visionary statesman who propounded science in India, they are doing a disservice to the goal of seeking truth and as such their studies can not be taken very seriously. If a scholar does not use or leverage his scientific tools towards exploration of truth it’s not scholarly, actually. And if, today the west doesn’t know much about Indian science its because, somewhere down the line of history, all the scholars, the scientists, the truth seekers and the philosophers and the researchers they all became slaves to their masters and when they were beating drums of independence music and irritating lore of folk chirping and shouting and what not they were doing a dis-service to the nation as well as to the inter-nation and the international community.

I believe and very honestly believe that I am right, that the west is sometimes quite prejudiced in not respecting the true colors of Indian science but India is as much a culprit of their own behavior and narcissistic pleasure in forgetting to discover their true self and making a 100 scriptures of noting their true scientific heritage, linkages, history and vision because they are always busy somewhere else which are often mindless pursuits at large.

Why science revolves so much around language?

For one thing science does not revolve around any language. But the fancy words and word plays are often observed as a gimmick to cover the face when the heat is too much to bear.

That science is often obstructed by our conditioning where language plays a big part is a bright idea. Before I venture more into other such ideas I recall one piece of essay written by Frank Wilzek, a recent Nobel Prize winner whose essay I read some 3 years ago. Hasty as I was, back then, but starving from intellectual rigor I took on that piece from some journal. All the idea that I received was science is liable to be obstructed by the fancy of language. But I do not completely remember and so I think of researching a bit to find that essay.

After successfully retrieving that article after a few minutes of search on internet (internet is a brilliant tool in the hands of man, will write another blog, I promise) this is what I find. And I can not access it at the moment because I am working as a guest in my sister’s home where I have access to fast internet but not free internet. So whoever made that movie “fast and furious” need to make a movie “fast and free”. Also note that I remembered Nature as some journal. But I swear it’s an unintended mistake that I realize because of internet.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nature 410, 149 (8 March 2001) | doi:10.1038/35065756
When words fail
Frank Wilczek
Abstract
Scientists have to struggle with words that don't fit reality.
Language is a social creation. It encodes the common experience of many people, past and present, and has been sculpted mainly to communicate our everyday needs.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day I read that article I thought of writing an essay myself and I still remember I got a coffee (no not from burger king) to have read that essay. And I wrote what I thought about magnetic monopoles. Then I woke up in 2010 and now I am writing.

Now since I can not access that essay immediately I am venturing into my mind to see what I would think. But I can not promise chocolates here.

Well said. Language is a social creation. And it’s created with an aim to communicate. Then why it behaves like a bitch and we fail to communicate? Pardon me? Well it does, right? Like if you said kiss me it does not sound kill me. If you say hit me no one is heating you up. Then why is it that if you say “E equals to m into c squared “ then language behaves like a bitch and then no body understands what’s being talked about?? {Right now it’s happening in my mind “why is there so much bias in the minds of the westerner scientists towards the Indian scientists”, so I need to write another blog) What has science got with language and what has language got with science?? And why these two can not make any peace with each other?

One geek’s way of explaining that, is: look there is a capital E here and in language even if you shout like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE no body has a clue what you are saying. You probably had a bad dream. And you are shivering because some one hit a knife on your groin. But then you go ahead and say “equals to” which sounds more like you said something mathematical and half of the folks are looking outta the window thinking you are talking about mathematics. By the time you say “aim into” they are like “where?” and when you are speaking “c squared” they are like okay enough for today and you do not know enough about psychology to deal with class behavior. Ask me. I have taught in many different situations and many different kinds, class behavior can be more aching than a mob behavior.

So here is the jest of the situation why language and communication (?) behave like a bitch when it comes to science. It’s not just that the words do not fit reality. All most no word fits reality. Give me one example, well except perhaps one. But hey if words will fit reality they will become reality themselves. And does the scientist really remember every word “word by reality” so as to communicate reality to the earthy aliens that are masters of words? What makes scientists so special and what makes them so much of a supercomputer that they surpass the limits of nature? We are trying to communicate reality. And reality is not as simple as is often told. Reality is immensely complex. Communication is a virtue as much as it’s a technology. I have communicated my need to raise the level of “hotness in a dish” in a land as alien to me as Japan, not by technology, by communication. You can say I knew the right words, even though I am not fluent in speaking much Japanese. But that’s a communication skill. You chose the right word, and that comes by experience, and then use your charm, it comes by lack of experience, so un-experience your experience and then decide what you want to communicate. Eg when the lady is serving you hot beverage you don’t ask for serving hot feelings. It’s a bad communication art. If you really are interested to know the trick you read “surely you are joking Mr Feynman” or you pay me direct cash of one hundred $ and I will tell you.

It’s a good communication ploy to be prepared about the event. So if I am going to talk trash to someone I better be prepared with a lot of trash talk. If I am going to talk reality I better know what stuff mean and keep it to a minimum.

But I also remember that there are no bounds to curiosity neither is there any bound to the limit to which young and enthusiastic people can ask you questions. In a recent talk I gave to an audience of about 15 folks where almost all the Professors were missing, there was just one Professor and to my liking he was one I knew from a decade ago. It was a pleasant surprise to have met him.

(God, the Government is paying them just to listen and interact but still they are so busy they can’t make it there and this is a trend in so many places. In the last 1 and half years I gave such talks in about 3 places and didn’t have an opportunity to give this talk at one place because having a big student mass was not very expected. Also if Professors are considered insulated from the requirement to attend seminars it’s a fix up much like match fixing, in India. This should be considered a strict rule for everyone present on campus to attend talks, if you think some ones research is not worthy of such a presentation at such a place then you better point that out, of-course what will happen is if a tiny creature is not quite comfortable with the idea, given his or her ignorance, I have met a few, they will even go to the extent of insulting credible scientists, and less well known speakers and even well known speakers as long as they don’t have the fame of Stephen Hawking )

But the young students there asked me questions as interesting as “Does the beam in your experiment bend because there is an applied magnetic field?” to “How much temperature is needed to produce this or that” and so on. These are so interesting and raised my confidence to a level of my knowledge about these stuff, so much so that I did give good answers to almost all of them.

(The feed back usually comes from a few folks who are good friends and they are reliable because I usually do not persuade them to say this, they come with the appreciation, I have been previously criticized about my age and experience and my status with a particular involvement which may as well be crap which I may take very kindly but I advise to those who keep or spread such opinions to just write their blog, then they will realize what it takes to maintain writing blogs about your-self.)

And this is the usefulness of giving a talk on particle physics in an astrophysics institute and if possible vice versa because it generates interesting questions which is good for science.

And you can also see that talking about particle physics to astrophysicists is much like talking about science to the lay audience. But if chosen with preparedness and skilled in communication*** the folks are not only going to understand what’s talked about (my talk was really, really technical) but also going to take part in it as enthused participants. That just serves one purpose of doing science. To spread the reality, not just to spread the word.

(*** not just language, I am an American for many practical purposes and more so with language, which may not be readily appreciated because of my communication applications)

Now that I have skipped a bit off from the original topic let me check back exactly where. I am Scrolling up. Are you with me?

Yes, science often needs communication, not language. Language is a bitch, and scientists often struggle with words that do not fit reality. But that’s not my topic. My topic is why science revolves around language and since language is a bitch it should stop calling her, right? OK so science is taking a leap of faith at communication, in the hopes of having a dependable relationship.

How is communication different from language? Well communication is a scientific language system. By system I mean, theory, experiment, application, practice, art, skills, goals everything taken together. There are even ideas. This has so much value for science. So when language makes a whimp out of science because reality misfits with language, science hangs up for a while and then goes onto creating a way of communication which understands the feelings of science. OK, science did give into temptation once and fell into week moments twice but here is the newly wed, communication. Now science does not revolve much about language. It’s a happily wed union where Murray Gellman can give a talk about the significance of symmetry and the classical connection between unification of present days with that in Newton’s days. As long as that idea has been flashed in some ones mind one doesn’t need to find the right word (or language) as much as one needs to find the right communication. If Gellman flashes that idea in his ppt slides Mohan reads it on his laptop, far away from where Gellman stands and when he reads the idea he can write about it how he understands, Mr dandy Nabrang can seat in his place and write about it like he understands and Miss whinny bottle-pecker can write about it from where she is reading it. And if these folks really understand the ideas they can go ahead and write about it in languages that “fit” such reality. And if the language is still bitching then “die hard” and find another day because ‘Something’s gotta give”.

Science has found its union in communication but is communication an infidel??

The depiction of Hindu Gods in American folklore..

The Hindu Gods are neither a very well understood bunch nor any less venerated for their true meaning. Neither in their Mother land nor in lands far away where their popularity soars sky high possibly because of the interest and philosophy they generate. Mystical and antiqued they are for ever. This is almost in line (originally wrote in consonance) with their true perspective.

In Feynman’s words Gods are created to solve mysteries. And if they fail in that purpose they become mysteries themselves. But why antique them? Possibly to save them from erosion. We human beings are a selfless intellectual entity (ha). We decay but we do not intend our cultural beliefs and mis-beliefs to be loathed as much as they need not be iconoclast-ed. We antique them.

Of-course (we antique them) in polytheistic practices which are erroneously equated with a savage and paganistic culture. In monotheistic beliefs Gods have a name and purpose that resonate with a thousand icons but do not have a form in an antique and its variants.

The variants of antiques is a much old practice whose evidence is found in cultures as varied as that of Japan and India. You can see in Japan the “million Gods” depicted with their original “Indian” names although the form or the antiques are a variant. In that belief a Japanese can have an Indian name, but it never caught up.

I formed a notion of Indian Gods as understood by the average unsuspecting American equally on both sides, positive as well as hilarious. In a positive depiction where Philosophy cuts the bounds of science in a way tolerable by strict-arians like me Hindu Gods had a place in Quantum Physics.

Yes, the three quantum mechanical operator, creation, annihilation and conservation, were a function-ification of the Hindu Gods Brahma the creator, Shiva the destroyer and Bishnu the conservator. Very aptly these Gods were the most fundamental trinity that assigned themselves the priorities of these responsibilities after the big-bang created the Universe.

Brahma chose to create, like he created the Universe (through a big-bang?), Shiva could be angry enough to destroy anything at sight through a 3rd-eye and his 6th sense usually pardon the good, never destroyed the good, never spared the evil, a fundamental character of Gods to sympathize with the good.

And Bishnu had 10 incarnations on planet earth to see after his responsibilities of seeing the well-being of the intellectual and non-intellectual entity, that so venerates him as a conservator.

What a coincidence. It’s a moderate approach to make science interesting. I heard another fanciful hilarious depiction of the Indian God by an American friend. Brahma in his understanding is the animal with a bow, the Brhma-bow and Ram the incarnation of Bishnu, in the famed dashaa-vatara or ten-incarnations, is the American sheep.

I always wondered why they spared the “Shiva”. Shiva opens his 3rd eye and destroys anything in sight, what happens to a loathsome blaspheme??

But Indian philosophy is so filled with infinite meaning of the same entity, given to its corruptibility by none other than the modern Indians themselves, that a seemingly unloaded mind will make a disappearance before he can be enticed to pay a lending ear.

And the Indian is usually laced with an attitude of grandeur. So is every non-sense I have seen including the famed reflection God, the mirror. And the grandeur of the American often gives in to the defunct notion “I know it all because I have never seen an alternative view point as strong as mine”

In the possibility of that candid allowance Jesus Christ is a mocking bird and Shiva is a Black phallic icon.



Next in line “Why science revolves so much around language?”

My opinions on "Has Science declined in India"

The outset of such an article, which is so titled, is bound to get some attention and indeed elicit as much interest from anyone who would come across this post.

First of all "who am I?" to write about science and India and in such a short title also draw clear the fact I am going to hit a topic as prophetic as predicting its trends. What do I know about history and what exactly are my scientific credentials? I think this much is enough for me to get started on this article.

But I must also answer the above if I were to justify my raising such questions in the first place. My scientific credentials do not include a Bhatnagar award in India or a MacArthur fellowship in the US, I don't have an Infosys prize in science.

I am not a director of any elite institutions in India that gives me a great deal of power to say I can direct some of the perceptions this way or that way or I can write something and call it authoritative.

In the same lines what do I really know about India and what do I know about history. In-fact in a span of 8 years two people who I would have respected a great deal, otherwise, hurled this question at me, albeit in a hurried exasperation because their long held beliefs were subjected to a sharp criticism. "What do you know about history?"

And almost any self respecting man who has an iota of knowledge in the social issues of the times one lives in, would retort "What do you know anyway???" But I reserve such upfront remarks to incite further interest in a hot discussion to a friend or a friendly companion who I am sharing a corona or a carlsburg with

(look at my open advocacy of these two beverages but I can't help in 2010. I can also say, I can ask these fellows "What do you know about beer" but such a scenario does not arise ever.)

Such a question was uncalled for given the age and experience of these two giants. I do have a big deal of respect but I would rather let go of that. But little do I know what kind of insecurity I can generate in a discussion with another fellow.

There was also this tiny creature who was advising me about stuff that I did know inside out because such discussions usually sticks in my mind. Long long ago I read such stuff on the internet and knew this interests the gossip mongers in the (scientific) community so much.

I just don't know if I am the kind of person that creates such unbounded interest in subjects that are not metaphysical but catches so much fire in the scientific community. Like the question of "to eat beef or not?", check one of my earlier blogs about the nature of the Indian scientist.

This young fellow with seemingly no understanding of what he was talking about was spewing knowledge of culture and history and my sharp rebuttal of its falsity incited a sharp reaction summed up above from his companion, the giant. "What do I know about history??".

In a flash of moment in which I remembered what my answer was 8 years ago I restrained myself and somehow the sequence of arguments and counter arguments was broken into a halt. It was indeed attempted to initiate the discussion from where it was broken by my temporal thought adversaries, but I had cleverly remodeled myself in that small break. I took off with a hearty welfare.

And I am thinking after a month. I think I have a pattern of thoughts which just happens on its own. Although now I have a better control over it. Now I can be counted as a self propagating contentious knowledge monger but very confidently I can direct my opinions at you and most definitely you will accept that this is one of my endearing qualities. In the trap of this endearment I possibly lose my case but who is here to win a bet anyway.

Now that I have countered why its not that important, what I know about history anyway, my answer to the questions posed at the beginning of this article is that my credentials in science lie much in the fact that I am an international class scientist who has experienced and interacted with scientists from anywhere in the world, is knowledgeable in the ways of science and how its done including how its done in India.

I have, starting as early as the last decade, been to and lived sizable amount of time in several places(labs and academia) in the world, met and talked to tons of people who do science and those who do not, and have taken a keen observation vantage point in looking for answers as historical as the state of affairs of science.

I have even interacted with ministers and other religious travelers, teachers of history and science about such issues as meaning of science and affairs of scientific communities and significance of our thoughts, meaning of reality and so on.

So has science declined in India? Yes, it has. And why I think its declined. One measure is of-course the fact that the number of world famous scientists, has gone down. World famous signifying not just internationally credited, e.g. some one has a degree from Oxford, someone visits Harvard, someone worked with a Nobel Laurette or someone wrote a paper with some connection with a giant in the field.

You see giants often ask questions like "What do YOU know about history". World famous can be more understood if I explain it with some examples. In citing world famous scientists I would take the example of Raman, Bose, Chandrasekhar, Bha-Bha and even Narlikar.

Examples that would not count in my head as world famous, not withstanding the fact that a big deal of stuff can be written about them in the Wikipedia , because fame can transcend Wikipedia, are Mr short star and Mr long star. These are more so connected with political lobbying and power game rather than count as examples of world famous scientists.

The truly world famous, to give more examples, I am not necessarily citing the ones that necessarily alter the field with every paper, are Ashok Sen and say Amartya Sen.

I actually tried hard to recall more famous scientists of recent times. This number can increase but not in a way that says Prof CNR Rao is a more world famous scientist than Bose of the Bose Einstein condensation. One reason being the internet didn't contribute to Bose's fame but fame transcends internet as well.

Look how much Bose can be discussed and debated for his contribution to that famed paper. That's a sure shot sign of fame and we can not deny that. Prof CNR Rao is more of an expert rather than a world famed scientist. In that sense Prof Yashpal is a more of an India famous scientist than a world famous scientist.

So one parameter to measure the decline is in terms of the number of world famous scientists and it is substantiated.

What are the other reasons we have to say science has declined?? Well the number of research institutes and research funding has gone up 100-fold. This has created a great pool of scientific expertise, which is not bad in itself. But what has it brought in terms of direct recognition of Indian science in the world?

How many people today can work in India like Chandrasekhar worked in the USA?? How many people can work in India like Stephen Hawking works in England? How many people can work in India like Kobayashi and Masukawa can work in Japan?? Or are these people missing??

On the other hand one may counter my opinions saying look how much we are involved in world science in US/Europe/Japan. Well this was always the case. We were not so much involved in the big particle accelerator or a satellite experiment. But do we have one to our credit in India in present times??

Look at another blog of mine where I propose 10 ideas, such as the International Linear Collider or a dark matter experiment in India. Why not? OK I am hardheartedly hitting at the country's meager resources. But look how many houses Mr wine star is having around the world? Somewhere I read he has in 27 countries. Just from wine?? Well the flying soccer as well.

But hey its this kind of big wealth that has brought a great deal of scientific efforts to mission, around the world. And its not just the Mr wine star. I just ruined my chances to seek funding from the billionaire. Look how many billionaires there are in or from India.

So while I am hard hitting at some realities I am not that mistaken actually. I think this is an important point in the decline of our science. Remember Jamshed Jee Tata ??? Anyone?? He was the one who donated some of his wealth to the creation of the Indian Institute of Science, if I am not incorrect.

There are a few more examples but none so much for doing science. The present situation with Vedanta University, despite of Anil Agrawal's philanthropy, is a glaring example of the apathy towards having world class organizations for educational and scientific enterprise.

I have a blog towards Vedanta University. This is another measure of the decline of science. Science is greatly buffered through education and education is a turbulent affair in India. Why?

If you have a basic degree you go for the professional education, MBA and the likes. If you have an advance degree like a PhD from this country or abroad you have the license to do bad science and not get affected because that's the trend. You are making enough money and as long as that's satisfied who cares what's happening with science. So this is another reason for fall of science in this country. Blatant disrespect for education and progress through education. Science is just a namesake.

What's another factor that's causing so much decline in good science?? Well the young and old division for one. The young can never be powerful in science. Their enterprise is directed towards self gratification or to the trash basket. The old is hapless and insecure even if a self proclaiming giant.

And this division sometimes works in union by working together towards the dismay of the ideal and achievable in Indian Science. Otherwise I wouldn't be a writing a blog here in the first place and wasting my time. This lackadaisical system must be changed if we are to make any true progress.

And those who quote Gandhi Jee's famed "Be the change that you want" here is my answer "Have you ever seen a highway constructed, its a change that comes up even if you are not a change that you want, cities are built, institutions are built, privatization has happened in this country, why not a change in our mindsets to accept that we can do world class science if we recognize the potential in our youth. Even if our old is not much experienced in the matter of international science they can either lead the way or let the way to be led by the young. Now voting for Rahul Gandhi wouldn't sound that difficult either, eh??"

So despite of the decline, I am proposing a rebuilding of the nation, a sloganeering in nationalistic tone, for the realization of an ideal scientific progress.

I am in no mood after this to preach the conditions of today's science in India. But here is what's not picking its truly desirable place. The current deficit in the progress of the newly built scientific organizations in India. May be I need another blog, another day.

confession

This is what I learned from some religious teaching which is vast anyway in its scope. Its called confession.As I understand, in the religious teaching, especially Christianity, it means you confess your sin towards the end of your living your life, one fine day when you realize there is no more time for freeing your soul from the sins of your life, and GOD will happily relieve you from the burdens of sin. "What an exploitation" but I do believe in confession although in living my life not just towards the end when freedom is not in sight...

Why Odisha needs Vedanta University

Why Odisha needs Vedanta University
(something I said more than a year ago)
Manmohan Dash
9th January 2009

This article is present with recourse to no hitherto used arguments, in previous discussions, like statistics and comparison to world standards, I am casually aware of them though, the arguments in this article are purposed to be more personal.

This article is aimed at a very small group of enthusiasts, who are culturally aware about the state of Odisha, a beautiful scenic state in the eastern bounds of India. This also aims to draw attention of the small group of world citizen that cares to know whats happening around other parts of the globe.

Odisha in the eyes of its inhabitants, intellectual citizen and visitors is a great old civilization with myriad forms of culture and dance, mainly temple oriented architecture, ”mysterious” forms of religion and rites and visually friendly populace.

As much as India can be described as a village of the world, Odisha can be described as the village of the country. This is true but not strictly so. The village nature of India is generously found in other states of the country and poverty doesn't spare almost any state in the country.

The city culture and amenities are on a development curve but more so as a matter of financial accumulation.

It is in this backdrop of current times that Odisha has seen an enviable flow of business ventures, in some way the largest in the country in modern times. This is because of the huge mineral resources, concurrent financial growth of the country and large sea coasts and virgin lands.

As an immigrant out of Odisha, the author himself, in the last 7-8 years, has personally experienced the ”on the rise” development quotients of the state. There has been a betterment in the lifestyle of the general populace, better roads, better equipped hospitals, plenty of jobs, private educational institutions with better facilities, a little more transparent and accountable system of governance, last but not the least the citizen is willing to travel a little wider and far for education, employment and sight seeing.

On the other hand, the author who never had a long vacation in the home country for more than 7-8 years lived on for a few months. Shockingly enough there has been a lot of reality change at the ground level.

One prime factor of such a state of affairs is the so called problem of Naxalism. It was not much heard of in the youth of the author. It had come up like the terrorism problems of the country and the world, in a natural way. But the the shear sensitivity with which Naxals strike their ”opponents” now is more a matter of technology, strategy, crime and fear.

Their opponents is none other than the system of Governance itself. In the last few months of the author’s stay, he saw two deadly massacre of military magnitudes against the police force. In each of these incidents that happened in row in a matter of weeks more than thirty police personnel were killed each time.

In another incident, not clear how much related, a renowned sear was killed with vengeance, for religious ideologies and responsive attacks were mounted on religious alternatives in the form of social riots.

This ensued for months and particular ideologues were victimized. This made national and international news. In political compulsion the plea of particular groups were heard and of others disregarded.

Another shocking but unrelated ground truth the author realized is the conditions of the infrastructure that has deteriorated in just a few years. The highways are extremely unsafe and actually taken because of lack of choice and every now and then there is a ”killing”, this time the killer being the situation on the highways.

With so much told about the ground truths and with a title heading, why this state needs an University, could be misleading to a normal audience. The purpose was to give a truthful account rather than a social activist’s account or an over-zelous account of a random war-lord.

Coming to the intended discussion thus, its worthwhile to give a background of the proposed Vedanta University. This University is purported to be one of the best universities in the world although this time in unsuspected, India and in one of its most unsuspected states, Odisha.

This is claimed to be developed into the ranks of Stanford and Harvard with an equally astounding sum of fund declared. In-fact this is one of the highest philanthropic donations from personal fortune anyone has ever made.

The man of such respectable generosity is the business tycoon Anil Agrawal, the owner of Vedanta Resources, which has set up large scale industries in the state of Odisha it self. This has not been only an welcoming phenomena,the efforts of building the university are already in place with world renowned architects designing and building the university.

The matter of contention however is consistent opposition from a few quarters of intellectual citizens. Although such oppositions have often sounded traditional for a innovative venture like VU, it has ranged from populist vibes to legal obstructions.

Some of the oppositions have withered with Government action and much of the opposition is actually selfish in nature. Many discussions have rounded the web and a few links are maintened on the web that can be browsed with simple searchs.

Why anyone would want such a University or academic establishment in a community. The reasons are very clear. We want to extend our educational systems to the best in the world. This is a prime goal of any civilized modern society. To have the best of the education, research and scientific body of knowledge.

To that end we not only need primary education and a few set of technical education so that we can get ”jobs” but also we need to prepare a community of learning and sharing that will usher us into a confident social stature in the world community.

It will bring with it a viable but robust economic system. Generate unprecedented pools of jobs. Take care of the research and development needs of a so called ”third world” economy. Open up the path to prosperity and show us in true color how much the world wants us to benefit from what we have invested for hundred years to keep this impoverished nation from faltering! Education.

Education is what we had invested in, the fruits of which we are harvesting. Education is what we’ll invest in, the fruit of which will be enjoyed by our children. Smart forms of social maneuvering and populist vibes are like an unhealthy epidemic. This must not only be rejected but their root causes must be known.

Why someone would spend his personal fortune for such a noble cause? Well, there have been many successful acts of generosity and the gentle-man definitely belong to their categories. Generosity is an act of people who have, not an act of people who question.

How many failed donations of such nature there really have been? Cite a few. None to the authors knowledge. Another question, why United States of America, Japan and other developed nations allow, actually promote huge chunks of population from other countries.

While this has financial significance, these are purely generous acts. Millions of Indians are today spread around the globe and are employed in a system of education, research and academic activities which do not belong to us Indians.We wouldn’t allow so many foreigners in our own country, we just do not have such resources. In other words we are not capable of such generosity.


These learned, alternatively cultured and experienced professionals of Indian origin will enrich the academic environment of Odissa, not indulge in deteriorating their own social base. The outcry of brain drain will cry out.”What went forth has come back” and for the good.

International researchers and experts who spend their energy and expertise in Japan/Korea and Europe will be happily available for an Orissan academic enterprise. This will enrich, strengthen and modernize Odissa and its inhabitants.

There are many talents who can not go abroad for a quality education. This will be produced at home in an international environment. Similar ideas may be present on VU web-site but what is presented here are the authors personal ideas, thought out long before VU was envisioned.

In-fact the VU dream was a shock to author. When the author saw VU proposal on the web it was like a dream come true. This time the dream came from someone who can give out his personal fortune for such a noble cause. This is a once in life-time opportunity and must not be missed.

Humanity is incomplete without insanity

Humanity is incomplete without insanity !!
Monday, 11 am, 08 Dec 08

it was a Sunday morning and I drove to the super mart
I pulled out on the parkin lot
I saw this lady, clad in a white cashmere
She turned her blue eyes onto me
She had the gleam of a moose and the warmth of a blanket
She whispered, "Want a me...Want a me"

I rushed to the entrance of the store and looked away from the ........[ho]
She followed me

She saw me buying celery
I said lady I am no saint but can you keep the distance I need,

She had bruises on her elbow
except that she was quite mellow,
I said hello,
lady
I passed a fifty,
quietly,
into her hand
and said could be,
good me

My opinions and views on religion as I understand it and as it is associated with social and cultural phenomena that I have seen...

I hardly have views on anything. Or more appropriately I keep them to myself. I was once advised that our views in the world doesn't matter. Not knowing how to deal with that view I let go.

So I am ready to imagine that these are not views rather these are my opinions and as they come if the world doesn't see any value in them these opinions are liable to be rejected, criticized, un-understood, despised anything but be treated for what they really are, opinions. Opinions are like taste.

I have met many folks who do not like the taste of green tea, or a pickle or a movie or a conversation. A brilliant conversation by some peoples taste standard is a lousy one for another individual or a group. This is the single most powerful logic why one must have his own set of opinions despite of its acceptability. That is we can not please everyone so we must have our opinions. But we must see that Our opinions doesn't cause us inconvenience. Because we hardly have any control over our or another persons tastes. We may have some respect for another persons tastes or opinions but we seldom think its appropriate to show it, and we do show it sometimes.

Enough about tastes and opinions. How is a view different from an opinion. A view is more so connected with what we see (which may be unique again, because there is one observer) than a opinion which is a matter of taste, what we like and do not like, irrespective of what we see. Although a view has a connotation of relevance a bit more than the relevance of an opinion, in the real world opinions makes more sense than a view. And if your opinion has no value for a uncanny type of individual how is he going to give value to your views.

To be able to respect others views, which is more important, we must in someway develop some tolerance for others tastes. So in that sense a view is a refined opinion, howsoever gorgeous it sounds, at the level of our understanding, its an opinion. 


Without cutting more grass than needed for the horse, I am therefore, going to express my views on religion as I understand it.

I am borne into a Hindu Brahman family. This in my mind has no more significance than say the social and cultural settings in which I grew and the quality of my life which is insured by such a connection, if it is and oppositely the amount of vulgarities that is supposedly deserved by me because I am a Brahman. If this sounds a self abasement then you are hearing me partly, because I am just trying to give a complete picture. Some of the advantage that are supposed to be applicable but rather hardly seen by me can be of historical reasons. And I am not borne in another historical possibility so who am I really to give you an opinion about such. Except the fact that I can only make an attempt at telling you what is invalid in such a opposing scenario.

So talking about these privileges, I have been privileged to have a modern education despite of how history sees it fit. Brahmans can be and have been one of the most successful social layer in today's India despite of the natural disadvantage India 2000 is posing towards this group. I can tell you stories about how a bunch of traditional Brahmans with lack of modern education and an excess of historical and traditional dogmas can view those who are not. I can also talk about how a rather negative mindset of the non-brahmans with a seemingly modern outlook and education plays foul in creating myths and loathsome description of the brahmans. And this is the middle of my essay, so if you find it irksome or uncomfortable, remember this is about my views about religion as I have experienced it and you can make this comfortable by living this essay.

And what disadvantage I am talking about the Brahman connection. The disadvantage is Brahmans are a minority in India and they need to be seen in that prospect. Is being a Muslim or christian in India makes ones position one of disadvantage, despite of how the bugle blowers can depict them? But they are a minority, right? And I am aware how the antagonists of such an idea would try to counteract my view, do you also propose to make every caste a minority in India? My answer is I am not proposing anything constitutional or legal. I am expressing my views on a purely logical and supposedly simple viewpoint. Brahmans are a numerical minority in today's India despite of their social and cultural prestige in the society and this has withered in today's India supposedly to correct historical wrongs which do not make sense to a Brahman borne in 1978. And this Brahman does not believe in historical wrongs and historical supremacy. This Brahman has a lot of fan following and friends from all walks of life. This Brahman shares a loving relationship with every human being that is amenable to the reasons of natural laws.

In someway the Brahmans of India are the Jews of the western world, in a way traditionally the Brahmans have been torch bearers of Indian society. This is not to say that others are not a torch bearer or they focus their light where it is not needed. If you are laced with your knowledge of history you can retort, have the Brahmans been holocaust, have they been lynched, have they been persecuted. I am also laced with my knowledge of history and let me tell you. If the Jews were really so persecuted how can they hold positions of power and prestige in the social as well as academic spheres of the western world? I will keep a secret here which may lead to more personal misunderstanding than the one that is really into play, my personal identification.

But apart from that the proof is that persecution doesn't necessarily happen through lynching, setting someone into fire or mayhem , that's just the violent outburst of the prejudiced conditions of a community. But persecutions happens through a dogged behavior very prevalent in our societies and others. Gray hound or Brown hounds, hounding is the attribute which is often preserved to apply it when the time is necessary, or as they say it, when time is ripe. They can imagine time to be ripened much in the same way they can imagine burning human beings into ashes. And its this violence which Gandhi is not the only person to de-taste.

There are millions of sons and daughters in this country and in many others who adhere to such philosophy. Asoka and the Buddhists propounded it. Gandhi is a torch bearer in modern times. But talking about persecution it happens through a personal sense of inflicting injury by taking advantage of ones situations. How else can the Nazis persecute the Jews? Where as the Obamas and Clintons can not. Because everything has a place for it and America is not the place for Jew persecution. India is not the place for Brahman persecution. (And everything has a time for it as well) You can easily persecute a Brahman in the United States by creating a myth which is culturally and socially un-understandable by the natives. To see the innocence of the religiously free mind is a lesson in itself. And sometimes this lesson comes with a price tag.

So that's my view on the corresponding social status of the Jews and Brahmans although it may be hard to fathom . It could be that Brahmans and Jews are really just the same people that lived different place, time and historical roof in different continents. So a pure Brahman in India, in recent times hard to notice, may actually be a descendant of a Jew and the Jews in many different continents are really Brahmans that immigrated from where these Brahmans or Jews are originally from.

Now Brahmans and Jews are not the central point of any conversation neither are they the ones that exert the centrifugal force in any situation. So what are my views on religion really? Well they should be without any doubt a result of my social upbringing, and cultural settings, right? Well not necessarily. If that were so, my views would cut a great deal of similarity with another bunch of folks view. And in present day India (1981 to now, when I really started kicking my mental horizons) religion in India hardly happens in a way that makes it identifiable like a religion of the west except for the externally visible ways, like wearing a tilak or breaking a coconut.

So religions in India are identified by whether you break the coconut to initiate a ceremony or what kind of attires identify you. Whether you wear the turban or not. whether you keep a long beard or you believe in the sanctity of social conduct in one way or another. Given the myriad different ways this can be depicted and linked with mythical philosophies, whether to draw a benefit from such linkage or not, they all embody the Indian religion. But our Bharat Bhagya Bidhatas have categorized them partly in accord with their lack of knowledge and partly in keeping with their masters word.

The master can be a social pressure group in the form of a Hindu conscience congress or an Islamic (pseudo) scholars congregation, it could be Max Muller or an American church circuit that secretly funds divisive politics in India. It could be a out of the way sympathy of the most prestigious family of India for the pseudo religionists of any country or it could be a historical perspective which is quite unlikely truthful in its account.

Religion is always amenable to cater to the socially powerful, if it gets distorted in anyway its only a bizarre and disfigured ritual. And when religion becomes a central and unquestionable authority in devising our ways of life, our code of conduct for our dressing taste, our love expressions or our night lives or a rave party that we had, despite of the pompous claims of secular governance we must realize we have fallen into an anthropological black hole, from which we have no hope of survival, whatsoever and howsoever we want it. To tell in simple words we are governed by what we say is our religious conscience because that's the way we are. We do not like any change in our regressionist psyche. And if that defines our religious identity , I have hit a jackpot of my views on religion.

To talk about the western religions then is not a matter much different from ours, if we realize that they too are constantly trying to come to peace with their identity in a society which is materially much accomplished but spiritually in unrest. The religionists in the west are promising the westerners a spoonful of Amruta in the form of spiritual fulfillment. In that hilarious claim you can attain a personal relationship with a God and such a God is already a person, only if a couple thousand years ago. What they are essentially promising to a Physicist like me is Go back a couple thousand years ago. Be an anti-modernist. Or in their defense the present times is sinful, we do not know how peaceful the past was.

Why then the folks killed the God? Well the God was a mockingbird. Believe it or not someone actually said me that Jesus Christ was killed because he was too condescending towards others. If he was such a mocking genius he should have tried Physics. He was going to win a MacArthur fellowship or something of that kind.

And the eastern religions mainly from India has a very mystique presence in the minds of the westerner , equally alike in the minds of a native as much as its in the mind of a backpacker. Although the backpacker is more happy with a religion that allows drinking wine and beer the native is more concerned with a visual pleasure. Did our forefathers drink wine in social and religious gatherings? Do not cite the Soma rasa. We do not know. Actually like religion we hardly know anything about our history in truthful perspective. We are Indians, when we claim we belong to a half of a decade of a civilization in counting the period in units of 1000 years, we hardly know ourselves past a couple hundred years ago.

We take great pleasure in expressing our ability to preserve culture and tradition (civilization is not our forte) but is it really preservation or fortunate survival ? If we describe the India of our times we will see a Naipaul is vindicated 1000 times in saying what a wounded civilization we are, of-course from the invasion of the non-natives. I have seen folks criticizing him for his lack of a sense of owing towards his connection to India, but how true. We can also wound ourselves in a desperate attempt to express ourselves in what we think is the rightful expression rather than hear somebody out for his depictions. And we can become violent in destroying some body's dignity let alone his personal works of art or imagination, because we have to be right. Planet earth has only one country where people do not know how to be wrong, golly, despite of their ignorance. If somebody can walk his path when his eyes are blindfolded and you make that a sport in Olympics that's the only sport the Indians will win a Gold. Everywhere else he can win accolades for having the spirit to show a pelvic failure.

Now isn't that a religion? It is if you agree that religion is nothing more than a set of set of beliefs howsoever crippling they can be towards our own rising, and why awake arise and stop not till the goal is reached, if the goal can be made to look embarrassing, before you are even awake, that is you are in your dream state, you do not have to care to arise and walk. Its a sense relativity in the minds of a self denying trigot I must say. (trigot is the next level of accomplishment of a bigot) Religion often makes us end up in a blind spot from where there is no seeing sanity. And science gives us binoculars so lets not put them both on a straddle.

And since I have diverged from my views of western religion, may we return. I can not promise much to anyone here because I do not know as much here about the nitty grit-ties of the western religions. But I do not have the risk of running wrong with the depictions or any jargon because mostly in my experience I am an observer as opposed to a participant. (so am I with the Indianic religions but I have observed for longer) The western religion is more close towards its visible nature. On the one hand a westerner will often claim its adherence to no religion, such a stance may be categorized as atheism. But that's only in the surface. Because deep inside they are just exploring their own identity and that makes them an adherent when push comes to shove.

So the atheists are a bunch of modernists or post modernists who can sway either way when push comes to shove. I usually meet the post modernists in my dream because I do not know how they look like. And then there are these Mormons that you can meet anywhere. If your room door is open they can invade you to your bathroom. I happened to have experienced them at-least thrice. Once they came to my house as the room door was open and I was in my towel. But still they wanted to have my time.

The next time I met them in a bus stop where they wanted me to have a bible and I missed my bus as I could not quickly avoid them. They started by asking if I know Beethoven, which I obviously knew, then they jumped to Jesus Christ. You see if you are a non-westerner and you happen to know as young a guy as Beethoven its very likely that you may know the older chap.

The third time I met them in a bus stop and I knew how to escape and more importantly why. Just do not give them any attention. When you are waiting for a bus or an airplane never entertain a religionist. So that's one of my views of religion, you see. So the western religions have modernized themselves even if they are wearing the same veils. They even know a trick or two about marketability. One of these guys can hand you a bible when you are walking on a street or you may hear a commercial about how much we have furthered from our relationship with God.

And if you succumb or subscribe you are going to have a gala of a bad time. 100s of proselytizers in different rhythm and different forms. But this can also be a good opportunity for taking some one home, if its a weekend. You cant have a personal relationship with God without having one with His followers.

On numerous occasions I have had interactions with fellow God believers where they wanted me to have a personal relationship with God and I wanted them to know that I am still getting out of a bad relationship, so it will take some time before I go on the relationship path again. Fair deal. But on many occasions I meet folks who are young and bright and interested about science and I have a real good time. The only thing I miss is a good recording device that can capture my ideas and imaginations as I go, than after I go.

These kind of proselytizers are in demand. I have seen such folks traveling as far as Japan (or are they natives of Japan !!) who can roam in as unsuspecting a place as a railway or bus stop and come running to you like they are there to help you. But in a moment of exasperation you realize they are there to talk God. And why do they always happen in a bus stop, railway stop or a plane-way stop. I will never know.

Another characteristics of religion in the US that I find is the mixing up of science and religion. Make the power of science mix up with the needs of religion if you are to succeed, that's the mantra. You will see a PhD scientist writing a book about religion or more appropriately about God, and its not long before you discover its Jesus Christ in his favorite gown. The mocking bird is still looming large. It could be a scientist giving you a seminar on biological evolution and suddenly the mockingbird pops up from nowhere. It doesn't take you 3 years to realize these are not scientific seminars. And in most of these seminars you will find a large Keralite population (Why don't they call them Keralian or something like that, may be Keralise, why they want to rhyme with Sterlite, Keralite is not another type of stone). Easy to form a relationship with God in Kerala, that's how they invented the phrase, Gods own country.

Another facet of the western religion is what I liked a lot. Watch the movie dogma, and see how the dog,master becomes the dogma,ster. And how fun can be poked on the mockingbird. Mock the mockingbird, do not kill the mockingbird. I think such freedom which in the religionists mind is excessive but in the freethinking movie makers mind is modernism isn't quite appreciated by all. But USA has a very balanced composition of all faith. At-least it doesn't have a risk of offending too many religions because there is one religion. The mockers.

A few thoughts on reincarnation (from a discussion)

WHAT IS YOUR FEELINGS ON REINCARNATION

Mr A T M
I think "I disagree" gets your point across without referring to an ancient religion as "horse shit".

Mr M B
Well... let put in this way, there is no prove that there is reincarnation, more worst I think there is no way to formally prove it (I mean in a scientific way). It is not affecting my "actual" life... so I do to not care at all and I spend my time thinking about other stuff... ... but again why do you ask it in here, in a "scientific" forum?

Mr A T M
On the contrary, if reincarnation does exist, then it should affect your current life by urging you to adhere to the tenants by which you return as a more enlightened being.

Mr M B
The problem is who decide the "rules". May be my life is already good and changing it it will make it worst and I'll end up returning in a less enlightened being... so why I should risk? And anyway I do not think this is the best place to discuss about Religion, that I think is completely different from science.

Mr A T M
If the "rules" are truly beyond human comprehension, then you are correct - any random lifestyle is as good as any other. Since such a system cannot be appeased (that is, you cannot hope to satisfy the rulemaker), the rational wager is that the rules coincide with the basic notions of "goodness" that lies at the heart of many religions. I invite you to read the following short article I have written on a similar idea:

Mr A R I
some renowned authors have cited "facts" of people remembering their past lives- a clear case of reincarnation, though only determined by the subject's stand. also, psychiatrists have noted people with unusually high IQ's, like 300+, which may also be connected to supernatural phenomenon. great topic to discuss!

Mr A T M
"some renowned authors have cited "facts" of people remembering their past lives- a clear case of reincarnation, though only determined by the subject's stand."

I don't understand what you are saying here. You put quotes around "facts" as though you are skeptical, then claim this is a "clear case of reincarnation", then further cast doubt by saying it's subjective.

At any rate, the brain is a strange thing. A strange fact about death-related experiences is that they most often agree with the individual's religious beliefs - no matter what religion. One interpretation (though by no means the only interpretation) of this is that the experience is delusion at best and fabrication at worst.

Mr Manmohan Dash
I do not believe reincarnation. What would it mean to have "reincarnated"?? What part of us will be reproduced and by what "methods" or mini-explanations are we going to corroborate it??

Also to some previous posts I don't think reincarnation is a strictly religious issue. Its more like a philosophical question. it might just have its root in religious myth. And it certainly has a place in such forums.

It may be, scientifically speaking, an unscientific belief. But then how can we decide to make a forum scientific without allowing freethinking on just about anything. That will cut out pieces of the scientific boundaries and make science pertinent to just a few type of methods, geometrical diagrams, rate of a process, causes of a disease.

Equally important is an earnestness to answer the urges and whims of anybody howsoever uneducated someone might sound in posing a question.


Mr A T M
"What would it mean to have "reincarnated"??" I think it the belief presumes the existence of some identity to which a body belongs but is not the body itself (e.g. a "soul"). To be reincarnated, then, is for the body which has been assigned, if you will, to one soul to die, only to be replaced with a new body.

"What part of us will be reproduced..." See above. "...and by what "methods" or mini-explanations are we going to corroborate it??" A soul is beyond physical observation by definition, so I don't know if the question of its existence is amenable to the methods of science.

Mr Manmohan Dash
Thats exactly the point I was trying to get at. If its going to be governed by the laws of nature then it must be amenable to the methods of science. Otherwise we can still talk about it but without a purpose.

I still tend to think a soul is physical in the sense it exists in the physical body and has no sense after the physical body is dead biologically. Its an abrupt end to the soul or the spirit.

By spirit I mean something that's perceived by ourselves only and not by others. Because others can't have our senses, our feelings etc. But this spirit or soul is still physical. We can feel ourselves, right? When the body is dead these experiences or feelings have no meaning at all.

Its then only fabulous or childish or religious or philosophical that these souls exist and go on, into another body. This is a clearly understood boundary now, that if this is accepted it has to be accepted as an unscientific idea and not one that makes any sense to truly learned men ( scientists). It can still be discussed because as i said its fabulous, its childish, its religious or mythical and its philosophical and interesting. (I rest my case...)