(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 here are born; having been born, by which they remain alive; 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. 

Out of our Solar system

Now we are out of the solar system and into the dark and mysterious realm of Interstellar space. 

We move further away from the solar system into the Solar Interstellar neighbourhood and we can see many more stars.  

The nearest star to our solar system is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.243 light years away.  

We move further away into space and we find that our Sun is a part of the Milkyway Galaxy.  

Milkyway is a spiral galaxy some 120,000 light years in diameter and contains approximately 400 billion stars.

The solar system is located within the disc in an arm of the galaxy about 27,000 light years from the galactic centre.  

We move further away and see the Local Galactic group. Milky is one among the many galaxies in the local Galactic group.  

We move further away and see the virgo supercluster. The local Galactic group is a part of the Virgo super cluster.   

We move further away and see that this Virgo super cluster is a part of the Local super cluster.

And then finally we find that the Local super cluster is a small part of the observable Universe.  

This is the extent to which we the humans with all our Scientific and technological achievements in the 21st century have been able to observe.  

Beyond this is all the imagination of the Scientists, equipped with Mathematical and Theoretical Physics calculations. 

Now what you see above is a computer generated image of the Universe, based on the scanned images of the cosmic microwave background(CMB)(by the Plank spacecraft of ESA) of the early Universe when it was just 330,000 years old, combined with complex Astro-physics calculations.  

Now for a reminder of where we started........
In front of the Gopuram(tower) of the temple of Srirangam (or Bhooloka Vaikuntam).  Just imagine how small this tower is, in this observable Universe. 

To be continued.......   

BIRTH OF OUR UNIVERSE

Now for a reminder of where we started………

NASA’s pholosophical questions………

Where did we the mankind, come from? Where are we? and Where is our end?

So, here is the version of Scientists, as to how this Universe came into existence.

We have seen that each galaxy has more than 400 billion stars. And there is countless number of Galaxies in this Universe.

The scientists believe that the Universe is 14 billion years old and will continue to exist for another twice this time. And space, time and the forces of nature themselves has come out of nothing. 

All distant galaxies are slightly red in color. Scientists suggest that according to an effect called Dopler shift, the Galaxies are all moving away from one another and in fact the whole universe is expanding in all directions and getting bigger and bigger like a balloon inflating. 

So to know the beginning, all we need to do is to stop time and go back into time, till all the galaxies and everything in the universe gets closer together.  In fact everything, every single thing converges to a point, 13.7 billion years ago.  Before this there was no ‘Universe’, no ‘Space’ and not even ‘Time’.

Scientists believe that the birth of our Universe took place some 13.7 billion years ago, the universe simply burst into existence in an event called the ‘big bang’. ‘The Big Bang’ is the scientific theory that is most consistent with observations of the past and present states of the universe, and it is widely accepted within the scientific community.

At the very beginning, it was just a tiny ultra hot form of Super energy, smaller than the size of an atom.  Then the big bang happened in total darkness, because light did not exist.  If we have to see it, we need some kind of cosmic night vision. But even this cannot be viewed from the outside, because space did not exist either. So there was no outside, the only place that was, was inside. 

This early universe was a very strange thing indeed, the standard concepts of time and space, does not apply here. 

Then it expanded with a tremendous gust of radiation, from, smaller than an atom, to the size of an cricket ball, in less than a trillionth of a second.  The universe simply inflated into existence, unfurling, unfolding, getting bigger and cooler at every passing moment. 

While this was happening the pure energy of this inflation began to cool and create matter in the form of countless millions of sub atomic particles. The first stuff there ever was.  Half these particles were matter, the same kind of stuff the makes us. The rest were made up of the opposite of matter called anti matter. When they both meet, they destroy each other in a flash of a second.  Fortunately there was more matter than anti-matter. Just 1 billion in a part survived, and that residue is what makes our universe.  You could say that we are made of the smoke of the big bang. 

At 10^-32 seconds the temperature was 10²⁷ degree centigrade and the Universe was a seething soup of electrons quarks and other sub atomic particleas. 

At 10^-6 seconds the temperature was 10¹³ degree centigrade and the Universe was rapidly cooling permitting the quarks to clump into Protons and Neutrons. 

Within 100 seconds it was as big as our Solar system, trillions of miles across.  

to be continued .........

Birth of our Universe - continued

When it was 3 minutes the temparature was about 10⁸ degrees Centigrade, still too hot to form into atoms and charged electrons & protons prevent light from shining. The universe was a superhot fog.

By the time the universe was 10 minutes old, it was already 1000s of light years in diameter.  After that it spread out and cooled for about 330,000 years, when finally the fog cleared up and the universe became visible. Electrons combine with Protons to form mostly Hydrogen.  

picture of Universe when it was 300,000 years old.

When the Universe was 1billion years old the temparature was -200⁰C. The force of gravity made Hydrogen and Helium gas to collate to form the giant clouds that became galaxies and smaller clumps of gas formed the first stars.  

picture of Universe when it was 1 billion years old

13.5 billion years ago the universe was mostly hydrogen gas, gravity pulling it closer to vast clouds.  Hydrogen is the simplest of gasses, but it has a very special property. It is a tremendous source of power. Heat hydrogen to 10 millions degress and it begins to produce energy that makes the stars shine and supply the universe with warmth and light.  

Hydrogen atom

When vast amount of hydrogen gas is compressed to smaller and smaller space and as the hydrogen gas compacts, the atoms of the gas start dancing each other and the temperature begins to rise by the time. When compressed to very small space the hydrogen reaches the critical 10 million degrees and a process called ‘nuclear fusion’ begins. The hydrogen starts to fuse together making a new heavier material Helium.  With every step of this tiny bumpy grain, some matter gets converted into pure energy.  A star is created. 

Nuclear Fusion

 Back in space the gravity compressed the hydrogen gas over millions of years until deep in the centre, hydrogen became hot enough for fusion to take place. 

The first star burst into life, pouring its energy into the vast universe, according to the laws of nature and the raw material left behind from the big bang. It was almost a 1000 times bigger than our sun and burnt a deep blue.  Later many stars were born.  

Nuclear fusion in star

Supernova

Stars are giant factories.  Now let us split a star and see how it works.  Once the star is born, hydrogen keeps fussing to create Helium and in the process produces the star’s energy.  But Helium is slightly heavier than hydrogen and so sinks to the center of the star.  As the Helium atoms fuse together, they produce even more energy and in the process, produce even more heavier elements like Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon etc,.  The process repeats itself over and over and the star becomes heavier.  Closer and closer to the center many more elements form …….. like, Nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, argon, potassium, calcium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese and iron.  

After iron is formed, things change. Iron does not produce energy when it fuses, so the fire begins to go out.  More and more Iron is produced in the core until almost all the fuel runs out.  Now gravity takes over and squashes the star into itself. As its core gets more and more compressed, its temparature soars until it is 100 times more hotter than the core of our sun.  Then finally the star collapses and explodes.  This is a SUPERNOVA.  

This is a picture a Supernova taken by Hubble telescope

The death of a star. And, the birth of something new. In these brief micro seconds a massive shock wave passes through the star.  The blast is so powerful that it forces some of the iron to fuse into even heavier elements.  And that is how heavier elements like gold, platininum, lead etc., are made, forged in the heart of an exploding star.

Today, 27th of December 2023..... almost 10 years after I have posted this post in 2013. 

I am updating some new information.

Now we have the new James Webb Telescope peering the entire Universe for new things.....

Looks like the search for the first star that was ever formed in the Universe is likely to be located .... 

Watch the video from the below link....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GjS9mRtXg 

Birth of our Solar system

Our solar system, lies about 26,000 light years from the center of our galaxy the Milkyway, or around 2/3^rd the way out. 

Milky picture from NASA

 6 billion years ago, an ancient star exploded littering space with its swirling clouds, with materials what it had made during its life time and the heavier materials it created as it died.  They are called NEBULAE.  And they are very beautiful and in every case they are different.  And in ours it contained Nitrogen and oxygen and all the stuff needed to build a world like ours.

CRAB NEBULA 

Butterfly Nebula

Then the force of gravity started pulling it all together and the heavy engineering that produces planets began. Vast spirals of dust began to form.  At the center of one of these, a rocky planet called earth started to take shape, built of star dust.  First for 100 million years it grew into a giant ball sweeping all the millions of tonnes of celestial debris.  This is where the earth came from.  

And then 93 million miles away, in a part of the giant nebulae the temperature and pressure of hydrogen gas had become so great that the atoms were beginning to dance. A new star, our sun was coming to life.

As the sun ignited it gave a huge blast of solar flare and radio active dust and energy. This blew all the remaining gas and dust that was remaining, out of the solar system, which is why everything is so nice and orderly today.  

In the outer reaches of the solar system, we have the huge gas planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And in the inner, we have dense planets mercury, Venus, mars and of course our earth.  

  
To be continued.................

‘God particle’ or ‘Higgs Boson’

Till now we have seen how, at the very beginning, it was just a tiny ultra hot form of Super energy, smaller than the size of an atom, which burst into a big bang and subsequently how the earth has come to be.

We started this article under the heading ‘In search of God particle’ and the first sub heading was ‘from Vedas to Higgs Boson’.

Now let us see what is meant by ‘God particle’ or ‘Higgs Boson’ in scientific terms. 

The Higgs Boson is named after Peter Higgs, one of the six Physicists who in 1964 proposed the mechanism that suggested the existence of some elementary particles. In the mainstream media the ‘Higgs Boson’ has often been called ‘God particle’.  The nickname is strongly disliked by many Physicists including Higgs. 

The unanswered questions in fundamental Physics, is of such importance that it led to the construction of one of the world’s most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date the ‘Large Hadron Collider’, able to create Higgs Boson and other particles for observation and study.

Large Hadron Collider experimental facility

Large Hadron Collider experimental facility

Large Hadron Collider experimental facility- From the three photos seen above, one can imagine the scale of this experimental facility. 

The term hadron refers to composite particles composed of quarks held together by the strong force (as atoms and molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force) the best known hadrons are protons and neutrons.   

In lay men’s terms, this is to try to understand what happened during the initial stages of the creation of Universe, which is still a mystery.  

We are now coming to the end of the science part.  I think that the knowledge of science has come to an end at this point.  I may be wrong also.

Here we have to recollect what we have seen earlier, In the creation of this Universe and its 14 billion year old history.  

click on the picture to see enlarged view

Why is it that the elementary particles were named as ‘God partilcle’?  I think because, it is generally believed that “Religion begins where Science ends”.  

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, believed the universe had existed forever.  He believed that if creation of Universe was accepted then a creator has to be accepted, which will lead to the argument for existence of God, which he did not like. And subsequently all the Scientists believed in this theory for a very long time.   

In 1915, Einstein introduced his revolutionary General Theory of Relativity.  We have made tremendous progress in cosmology since the days of Aristotle. The General Theory of Relativity and the discovery of the expansion of the universe shattered the old picture of an ever existing and ever lasting universe.

But, the general theory of relativity on its own cannot answer some of the important questions in cosmology! For example, Why is the universe the way it is?

Though there have been many achievements in Science, till date not everything has been solved.  Will the Universe keep expanding forever? Or will it reverse itself into a big crunch, back to singularity? 

Still our questions remain unanswered by Science.

Where did we come from? 

Why are we here?  

continued........ 
click on the older posts below to read more posts.