The answer to life, the universe and everything

SCI-TECH

 |  6-minute read |   01-10-2015

MINHAZ MERCHANT

 @minhazmerchant

Stephen Hawking, arguably the world’s greatest living theoretical physicist, recently stated: “We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth. So in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life.”The successful launch of space observatory Astrosat by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on September 28 places India in an elite league of nations. The space observatory can “listen” to signals from outer space, including those from intelligent life in other solar systems and galaxies.

Polls conducted in various countries show that more than 50 per cent of people in Britain, Germany and France believe that intelligent life exists in other parts of the universe. According to a recent report by Katrina Pascaul in Tech Times, “A new survey has found that more than one in two individuals in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany believe there is intelligent life out there in space. According to new YouGov research, the majority of the public in these three countries believe that living entities, which have the ability to communicate and do not hail from Earth, exist. Findings show that more than half of Germans (56 per cent) believe this, the most likely to do so among the survey participants. Fifty-four per cent of Americans and 52 per cent of British people share the opinion. The British people who believe alien life exists say the most likely reasons for the paradox are that intelligent life is too far away for us to be able to contact it, and that our technology is not advanced enough for communication.”

Other reports confirmed that Hawking is supporting “the biggest and most ambitious search plan yet (in which) astronomers plan to study more than ten times more space than ever before in and around the Milky Way and neighbouring galaxies in a bid to seek out potential radio emissions that could come from advanced civilisations. The project, known as Breakthrough Listen, comprises a $100 million, ten-year search, launched by the Breakthrough Initiatives group at the Royal Society in London. The research will survey one million stars in the Milky Way, as well as the stars in the 100 closest galaxies.”

As an undergraduate student of physics, the first paper I wrote was on the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. The answer seemed self-evident: the universe must surely teem with intelligent life. The problem is we are Earth-centric. Life in outer space need not be humanoid. The laws of physics are still evolving. Plasmoid life and indeed life beyond anything we can imagine today is possible. The law of probability underscores the reason for life in outer space being a virtual certainty. Here’s why:

1. There are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

2. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has several hundred billion solar systems.

3. Our sun constitutes just one of these solar systems.

4. Several million, possibly billion, solar systems in the observable universe have planets with environmental, atmospheric and chemical conditions suitable to harbouring life.

Prior to “Time Zero”, the stage when the universe was created, there was – literally – nothing. A perfect vacuum. From that vacuum has emerged everything in the universe – atoms, stars, galaxies, black holes, quasars, dark matter, planets – and, on Earth, life.

At the point of “singularity” when there was nothing, in that fraction of a fraction of a second before the Big Bang that created the universe, lies the greatest mystery physicists and mathematicians like Hawking and Roger Penrose continue to wrestle with. What precisely was the event that created this universe from a perfect vacuum at the point of singularity?

Hawking calls these the most important questions facing humankind: How did the universe emerge at the point of singularity from a perfect vacuum at Time Zero? Are we alone in the universe? And finally, why does the universe exist at all?

This is where science, philosophy and faith intersect.

Within this absolute space-time vacuum (postulated by the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems based on Einstein's general theory of relativity), an event occurred which no leading scientist has yet been able to fully explain. That event probably involved the mutual annihilation of a positron-electron twin pair carrying identical (positive and negative) charges and mass. The result of this vacuum fluctuation was the Big Bang, the widely accepted theory of how our universe began.

Before Time Zero, during the pre-universe "nothingness", it is hypothesised that constant and instantaneous mutual annihilation of positron-electron pairs occurred several trillion times every second. These multiple collisions cancelled each other out, leading to a perpetual state of zero mass, zero time and zero space – the perfect vacuum. The mutual annihilation of electrons and positrons, however, occurred in unimaginably small crevices of time – 10^-100 seconds or less.

To the observer nothing was occurring: the event started and ended before it could be observed and therefore, as far as the observer was concerned, had not occurred at all. From this nothingness a freak, once-in-a-quadrillion positron-electron pair escaped mutual annihilation 13.70 billion years ago, causing the Big Bang and the creation of our universe as well as a "mirror" negative universe.

Are we alone?

Our nearest solar system is Alpha Centauri. To get there, travelling at the speed of light, would take 4.3 years. Travelling at the speed of the world's fastest experimental spacecraft, Helios II (1,57,000 mph), it would take over 12,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. Other solar systems are even further off. Galaxies are, of course, trillions of miles away. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains around 350 billion solar systems – many, as NASA's Kepler space telescope confirmed, with orbiting planets like the Earth with surface water, moderate temperature and life-supporting oxygen. Andromeda, the galaxy closest to the Milky Way, is even more massive with over 1,000 billion solar systems. It is around 2.70 million light years away from us. So if electromagnetic radiation originating from a planet in Andromeda began transmitting 2.70 million years ago (the Plio-Pleistocene era on Earth) it would have barely reached us this year.

And in these distances lies the answer to the question: if it exists, why hasn't intelligent life from extraterrestrial planets, presumably with highly sophisticated communications and transportation technology, made contact with us? Humans, after millions of years of evolution from Australopethicus hominids to Neanderthals through to "modern" man, began sending out electromagnetic radiation (in its earliest form as radio transmissions) a mere 125 years ago. Those signals have today scarcely reached the edge of our solar system cluster. Time and distance, both unimaginably vast, explain why no contact has been established with us by other intelligent species.

So while we are certainly not alone in the universe, we may not make contact with other planetary life for centuries. But there is little doubt that one day contact will be made. What shape, form and mode that contact takes is uncertain. But when it does happen, it will mark one of the most important events in recorded history.

All of human intelligence and wisdom, from Aristotle and Aryabhata to the Vedas and Einstein, does not have an answer, however, to the most fundamental question that has divided sages and philosophers over the centuries: Why does the universe exist at all?

As even scientists today concede wryly, God alone knows.

Source: dailyo

Beef Wars

“What’s your beef?” is a common American phrase. It’s a question a person asks someone who talks or acts without reason or goes off on a rant with no purpose other than creating a confrontational situation. This is the question to ask many media and political ranters who have been trying hard to link every incident to Modi.  "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian” said ex-Beatle Paul McCartney who turned vegan long ago. Since they don’t, people put up such pics on SM so others can see:

I have kept the pic small so it doesn’t offend too much. Five years ago, a café owner was ordered to remove an extractor fan because the resident next to the café was offended by the fumes of bacon. This was in England where bacon is a routine food item. For those who are not familiar, bacon is made from pork – from pigs. Do you want me to tell you the Faith of the complaining neighbour? I don’t think so; it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that out. Now, bacon is common food in almost all western countries and for a Muslim to complain about the smell of bacon from a café (where even Muslims were patrons) should be considered absurd. But such is the stupidity of councils and govts that they will pander to the nonsensical victimhood of minorities (read the full story here).

Cow-slaughter ban has existed in many states in India for ages. Some states have adopted that policy in the last few decades. For centuries the cow has been a sacred symbol in India, particularly for the Hindus. Recently, the Maharashtra govt extended the ban to bulls and buffaloes too. The Maharashtra ban on cow-slaughter has been in place since the 1970s but govts never enforced it strictly. There is nothing wrong in respecting the sentiments of Hindus. Consider this – Every hotel, airline and food stalls at airports now put up a sign saying they use only “Halal meat”. Surely, that is not to respect the sentiments of Christians or Jews, is it? It is highly unlikely you will find hotels and restaurants that routinely offer pigs (pork) as food. Will you? Why is it that only Muslim sentiments must be respected over what food is offered and how the animal is slaughtered?

Once the Maharashtra government slapped a ban on sale or possession of beef there were responses from all the Sickular scoundrels. Bollywood reacted (slide show). The usual Sickos in MSM reacted. Others from political parties reacted. That’s how this new beef war started. Earlier, to defy the cow-slaughter ban some morons held a “Beef eating festival” at Osmania University in 2012 which led to violence. Do note, there has been a cow slaughter ban (in then what was united Andhra) since 1977. So why would the authorities allow an activity that brazenly breaks the law? If it offends Hindus, no law is important, one can break it – that’s a social law in India in most states. If these people had eaten beef privately in stealth it wouldn’t have mattered but they wanted to make a public statement. Criminal media passes this and the bigger jokers will even celebrate it like the Monk and the Moron:

The StreetThug wants to eat steak immediately after the beef-festival debate and the Category5Moron wants to eat meat dripping with blood. I doubt anyone cares what morons like these eat – they can eat rats, dogs, insects, bats, snakes. And if they want to break the law and express their defiance even more strongly - they can even eat dead human-beings. These Anti-Hindu thugs just want to keep offending Hindu sentiments and that is all. Govt should usually not make laws over social issues and food habits. After all, I doubt there’s any law that says only “Halal meat” should be sold but everyone is offering that. Isn’t it?  The respect for Hindu sentiments on cows should have come naturally. But most of these people in media and politics who want to kill cows don’t want it to end there – they want Hindus to disappear so that a Chrislamic State can become a reality. You just have to give 15 minutes to Akbar Owaisi (family friend of the Monk and the Moron).

They want Hindu traditions and customs to disappear. They want Hindus to stop celebrating Holi. They ridicule and condemn even Raksha Bandhan. They wantkite-flying to stop because the string sometimes slashes some birds. But they want to kill cows. Someone put it nicely when he showed that these same morons have extraordinary sympathy for stray dogs that are becoming a menace in many cities:

So, the latest round of outrage is over a 50-year old man, Akhlaq, who was lynchedby a mob because there was a rumour he and his family consumed beef. The family denies it and claims it was mutton and that was what was stored in their fridge too. Given the consistent pattern of our media getting news wrong I would naturally be sceptical about the reason for the attack. However, let us assume he was lynched for the reason the reports say. Now, nobody… nobody has to die for eating something. Even if that offends anyone or breaks the law, nobody needs to die. But this culture of madness and killing in UP happens for many other reasons too. But the outrage and the attempt to link it to Modi and Hindus wanting to kill a Muslim is the kind of stupidity that is criminal by our MSM and many politicians. Fortunately, such media-scams aren’t passing anymore, thanks to SM.  

How brazen and stupid can it get? Well, there is Akhilesh Yadav – CM of UP who, instead of assuring strong action against the killers, asks the PM to ban the export of beef. And the entire media carried his ignorant crap like a box of parrots. All it took was for someone to educate this beef-challenged kid:

The beef-export ban is already in place for some time but our UP CM wants to pin the nonsense in UP on Modi. That is the whole game of politicians and media – as if Modi is policing every nook and corner of this country. It is true that there are a lot of social issues that Modi is failing to address but he certainly can’t be a cop monitoring every corner. What are CMs and local police meant for? To talk nonsense when crimes happen in their region? But the overall trick is to bring up some issue to outrage on before every election. Remember the “attack on Christians” fraudulent campaign before Maharashtra and Haryana elections? Well there is Bihar around the corner. So, the already prosecuted Beef-war in progress now becomes a Muslim killed over beef. Hope for the losers is eternal. I am not sure this will work either. What’s their beef? 

Source: mediacrooks