Wednesday, September 4, 2013

(From Vedas to Higgs Boson)

In search of God?
or In search of Particle?

Introducion : 
The intellect of the Human race is always thirsty and in persuit of “Knowledge of the Ultimate”. This quest for ‘knowledge of the Ultimate’ has two distinct paths. One is the Philosophical and the other is Science. In other words, what I am going to discuss is the philosophy of Vedas and the Philosophy of Modern Science, which claims to have discovered the “GOD PARTICLE”.

According to the Historians the Vedas date back to 1600. BCE. But according to the Hindu calender it predates 3000.BCE. and it is about more than 5100 years old. (According to Kali Yuga Sahaaptha calender, this is the 5113th year - as on date 16-11-2012 of the common era). The present day modern science dates back to 300.BCE and is about 2,300 years old; where it all started from the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt.

First of all we have to know what is “that Ultimate knowledge”, which both the Science and the Vedas are reffering to. Vedas call it as the ‘Para Brahman’. The modern day science has named it as the ‘God particle’ or the ‘Higgs Boson’. The objective of this article is to discuss both, in detail, as follows:

1. A detailed explanation of the path in knowing the ‘Para Brahman’ through the Vedas.
2. A step by step study of Science, which will lead us to the understanding of ‘What is Higgs Boson’. And an enquiry of whether it is proper to call it as the ‘God particle’.
3. A comparison of both the studies.
4. And finally the conclusion of what both has to offer.

The pleasure in writing on a subject that covers two distinctly different and extensive subjects is, that it may run into several pages and finally into a voluminous book.

Before starting this article I conducted a survey to know the awareness of the people who are interested in this subject.

My first survey was at the Madras Sanskrit College, where was attending classes as a student for three years. Many of whom I spoke to, did not know much beyond the basic sciences.

My next survay was with Science & Engineering students. Most of the people with whom I spoke to, did not know much about the Vedas at all. And the worst thing is that they did not either know much about the ‘Higgs Boson’ or had some very vague ideas about what it is.

Considering all these, I have decided to write, starting from the basics of both Science and the Vedas. I have taken extensive references from Science books and Science films, to explain the Science part of this article. Books of ‘Carl Sagan’ and ‘Stephen Hawkins’ were the real inspiration to start writing this article. This article is intended for people who are interested in Philosophy as well as Science and so I have avoided using any mathematical formulas.

I have also taken extensive references from the original Sanskrit texts of the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavat Gita, etc.,

I dedicate this to my father late Shri.Kondda.V.Rajaramji, who was an administrative officer in the Maharishi Institute of Creative intellegence. He was also a teacher of Yoga and Meditation.

Chapter-1

Chapter – 1
Hello, my name is Ravikondda, Producer & Advisor of educational T.V films and Multimedia. I have been producing Educational T.V films in Science & Technology, since the past 30 years. I have also learnt Sanskrit and studied Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas. And my interests include “Philosophy” and “Science & Technology. I am interested in knowing the ultimate secrets of this Universe. I am interested in knowing the extent of this Universe, the existence of this Universe. I am interested in knowing the secrets of the Ultimate particles, which are the building blocks of this Universe. I am interested in knowing the secrets of our very existence. We are a part of this Universe, but where did we come from, where do we exist and where is our future?

Even during our existence, is it possible to live eternally happy? Everyone wants to live happily. And even all the fairy tales have the same ending, “And they lived happily forever”. “Is it possible to live happily forever”. Does Science & Technology have an answer for this question?

Or does any religion have an answer for this question? It is believed that “knowledge of the Ultimate” will bring eternal happiness. That is the reason, why both the Scientists and the Philosophers are running in search of this “knowledge of the Ultimate”. How far have they gone in this search? Shall we try to investigate.

I have a little knowledge of Science & Technology, a little knowledge of Philosophy and a little knowledge of Sanskrit (to interpret the Vedas). With this background, I am on my journey to scan the entire Universe, with no boundaries in space, flying past backward and forward into time. I am free in my mind to imagine anything within the laws that govern this Universe. Please do join me in my journey. Come let us check it out.
 ***************

to be continued...... updates every week..... 

Chapter-1 - continued

About 15 years back I saw a Science documentary film on ‘space’ produced by NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Association of USA).  The film started with the visuals of the Space shuttle taking off and various visuals of the space.  But it was the starting commentary part which was very interesting and it was as follows:
“Where did we the man-kind come from?
Where are we? and
Where is our end?”

And subsequently it goes on to explain, that the philosophy of NASA spending billions of dollars is to find a satisfactory answer to these 3 questions.  Well it is true that these three, are indeed billion dollar questions. 

When I heard these 3 questions, I was reminded of the phrases from the Vedas, which I had been reciting since my young days.
यतो वा इमानि भूतनि जायन्ते
एन जातानि जीवन्ति
यत् प्रयत्यभिषंविषन्ति
तद् विजिज्ञासस्व   तद् ब्रह्मेति
yatO va imaani bhUtani jaayante.
yEna jaatani jIvanti.
yat prayantyabhisamvishanti.
tad vijijgnaasasva.
tad brahmEti.
Meaning of the verse:
“Seek to know, that from which all beings (entire Universe) here are born;
having been born, by which they remain sustained;
and into which, on departing, they enter. 
That is Brahman.”
(Brahman here means the Supreme Godhead) (this Brahman is not to be mistaken for the four headed  demi-god Brahmadeva)

I was really surprised to see that these are the same 3 questions for which NASA and Scientific organisations the world over, are spending billions of dollars, to find an answer.

Come let us find out how much of answer do we know of these three questions. Join me in the journey from our earth to the edge of the whole universe.  

From Bhooloka Vaikunta to Vaikunta

From Bhooloka Vaikunta to Vaikunta.  The title may seem to be misleading, but I will certainly show you the Vaikunta before the end of this long writing. 

Before we start our journey we should know about the distances and how it is measured. 
Everybody knows what a foot ruler is. A foot has 30 centimetres.  A meter ruler has 100 centimetres.  1000 meters is 1 kilometre.  Road distances are measured in kilometres. 

But when we go out into space, the distances are so large that it cannot be measured in kilometres.  So distances are measured in light years.  Now let us see what a light year is. 

Light travels at a speed of 300,000 kilometres per second. 
1 year = 365 days.
365 x 24 = 8760 hours.
8760 x 60 = 525,600 minutes.
525,600 x 60 = 31,536,000 seconds.
Hence, 1 year = 31,536,000 seconds.
31,536,000 seconds x 300,000 = 9.4607 x 1012
So the distance that light travels in one year = 9.4607 x 1012 kilometres.
The distances between planets, stars and galaxies are measured in light years. 
 Let us start our journey from an auspicious place, say Srirangam Temple. 


India is a land of hundreds of temples, Srirangam temple, also known as bhooloka Vaikuntam, is One of the biggest temples in India is in Srirangam town, near Tiruchi in Tamilnadu.
The temple is spread over an area of 156 acres of 
land which is equivalent to 631,000 sq.mts. and has 21 gopurams (temple towers). 
 The main gopuram(temple tower)has 13 tiers and has a base of 5720 sq.ft and a height of 237 feet (72 metres).


Chapter-2 - From Bhooloka Vaikunta to Vaikunta - continued

This is an aerial view of the Srirangam temple complex, with the Gopuram(tower) in the middle.
The aerial view of the temple from further away, where you can see all the 156 acres of the temple complex. 
We move further away and we can see the entire town of Srirangam, an island between the rivers Cauvery below and Kollidam above.  
We move further up into space and we are able to see a part of Tamilnadu state in India. Srirangam is seen as a pin point.  
We move further up and we are able to see the whole of Tamilnadu and kerala states along with Sri Lanka.  From Chennai to Nagercoil at the end of the peninsula, the distance is about 700 kilometres.  Srirangam is not listed here, since it is too small to be noticed.  
We move further up and we see the whole of India and the state of Tamilnadu, too small to be noticed. 
 We move further away into space, where all the continents of the world are visible and the whole of India is very small.  
We move further away into space and see the planet earth. 

to be continued...... updates every week.....

Solar system

Planet earth has a circumferance of 40,075,017 kms at equator.  
The moon which is a natural satellite of the earth is 384,400 kms from the earth.  
Planet earth is the third planet from the sun and is 149,600,000 kms from the Sun or simply about 8 light minutes. 
The solar system has 9 planets, mercury, venus, earth, mars, Jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune and pluto. 
Well how big is the solar system?  
The Scientists are themselves divided in their opinion about this. 
Some say that it is 9 billion kms, while some say it is 27 billion kilometers and some say that it is roughly 4 light year or 40 trillion kms. 


Voyager-1&2

U.S space agency launched Pioneer 10 & 11 probes in 1972 & 1973 respectively, on a very long haul mission of leaving the solar system on a one way journey.  


Then in 1977 NASA launched its better equipped Voyager-1 & 2 probes, both of which flew by Jupiter & Saturn, Voyager 2 also explored Uranes and Neptune.  It has sent photographs of all these planets along with their moons. 
Voyager-1
Officially NASA’s Voyager-1 Spacecraft is the first man-made object to have left the solar system for the dark and mysterious realm of Interstellar space.  It has covered 19 billion kilometers since its launch 36 years ago at a speed of 17 kms per second.  
= 1020 kms/ minute.
= 61,200 kms / hour.
What will take a highway motorist 20,000 years to 

cross this distance. 

Continued in older postings.
Click on the older postings below to see more postings.