The 2012 Doomsday

For many years now, the year 2012 has been highlighted as the one by the end of which the earth, as we see it at least, will cease to exist. There is a certain basis for it, definitely. But that basis does not directly talk of annihilation of the Earth, to say the least. This article is an attempt to put things in perspective as a practical person would see them.

The Maya civilisation has been long projecting the “End of Days” as the 21^st of December, 2012. And of course, for most calendars that have relied on the stars to keep track of the days, the Winter Solstice sun will be a very significant one, in 2012. The Sun will rise directly in front of the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, thus eclipsing it from the Earth’s view. This is a very rare event, because it occurs once in about 26000 years. And yeah, the most significant events in the planetary history have been marked in a period of time this long. The last most significant event being the last ice age (forget the movie series; this time marked the end of the Neanderthal man and the advent of the Cro Magnon man). Things have happened at such times that cannot be neglected. Well, so much for history, let’s move on.

There are very complex phenomena arising from eclipses. These have nothing to do with superstition. For once, in each eclipse, the tides create havoc. Generally, ports get so affected that their operations are required to be paused for three to four hours. Such an effect is observed for eclipse by small bodies like the moon. And the galactic centre is obviously much bigger. The effects, if not overwhelming, will definitely be very intense obviously.

In this article, to elucidate the Mayan concern of the date 21^st December 2012 (which we shall henceforth call as the predicted doomsday), we shall quote the work of an independent researcher, John Major Jenkins, who has worked throughout his life to decipher the Mayan prophecies. In this context, it turns out that:

a) The time has arrived when our local Milky Way galaxy is interacting with our local star system and the most dramatic changes ever to impact on human destiny are now taking place. Humanity is currently being transformed beyond anything ever imagined. All of the Mayan priests knew of this end date as the renewal and rebirth of a new world age resulting from the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator, and the earth aligning itself with the centre of the galaxy.

b) All ancient cultures were aware that alignments to the galactic centre do periodically occur, and that these alignments offer spiritual renewal for humanity --- not catastrophe and destruction as is commonly promoted by modern-day interpretations of the end time.

c) Precession has the same ratios of frequency and cycles on the quantum levels of existence as it does on the macro levels of our solar system in relation to the galactic centre. The changing field dynamics of the electromagnetic fields emanating from galactic centre are linked to biological evolution. A scientist Dr. Oliver L. Riser states that ". The coil of life (DNA) which supplies the architectural pattern for the fabrication of all organisms has something to do with the earth's rotation and its magnetic polarities, and the cosmic ray showers which originate in our own spiral galaxy."

d) The Maya not only understood precession, but that their 2012 end-date predicted a special happening in our universe. Our galaxy has a centre which all the stars take millions of years to revolve around, and it is located in the starriest part of the Milky Way, as seen from Earth. On four occasions within the 25,800-year cycle our galactic centre aligns with the sunrise of a solstice or equinox. The last time it occurred was on a fall equinox 6,450 years ago, approximately the dawn of Old World civilisations. On Dec 21, 2012, which is a winter solstice (Northern Hemisphere) this centre will align with our sun once more. Jenkins presents a mass of astrological, monumental and mythological evidence to show the importance of this event for the Maya, and how their calendar runs out on this day for a reason. Unfortunately he is not sure what that reason is.

Well, so much for the Maya prophecies. Now we take a quick peek at what logic has to say. I am sure you’ll appreciate this viewpoint if you have an open mind.

a) For once, celestial events of this big a scale do not occur on one precise date. They are more of a long-term event as far as human timeline is concerned. Even a lunar eclipse lasts for a few hours. For bodies that are so large and moving at such low relative rates, it is very difficult to locate the time of maximum influence. There might be a tolerance of 50 years either side of 2012, if only gravitational and electromagnetic effects were to be considered.

b) As 2012 approaches we have a growing list of what "experts" feel might occur. Despite the sincerity and long-winded explanations, it's all just guesswork. There is no scientific evidence that anything untoward will happen in 2012. All we have to suggest that 2012 will be any different to 2011 or 2013 is that the Mayan Long Count calendar ends on Dec 21, 2012. The Mayans themselves had almost nothing to say about what the end of the calendar held for humankind, and this suggests that they merely inherited the calendar from an earlier culture. Maybe the Maya culture hadn’t expected to live through 2012, and thus had made the calendar only that long.

c) There might be a host of calamities that might hit the Earth in and around the predicted doomsday

Ø Asteroid/Meteor/Comet - ancient, advanced civilisations have one distinct advantage over us - they may have observed the skies for longer, and may have spotted an orbit that will culminate in a collision with Earth in 2012. This is easily the most predictable disaster for 2012. With recent discussion of "dark comets", we have become aware of the possibility of our planet being struck with little or no warning.

Ø Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from our Sun - a CME was behind the solar storm of 1859. It occurred in September of that year, causing the failure of telegraph systems across North America and Europe. Accompanying the storm were auroras that are normally only seen in the Arctic and Antarctic, but were visible as far south as the Caribbean. Typically we would expect a storm of 1859's magnitude cause power blackouts and wreck satellites. But do we really know how big they can get? In 2009 NASA told us to be wary of solar storms, and warned of the dangers to America's ancient overloaded power grid. Being without power for a few months, in the developed world, is a lot more serious than most people realise.

Ø Magnetic Pole Shift - pole reversals have been happening on average once every 400,000 years, with the most recent one being 730,000 years ago - so we are well overdue. Not only do we not know much about reversals, scientists are still unsure about how our magnetic field is generated. Long thought to be a by-product of the movements of liquid iron in our planet's core, recent studies are suggesting that our salty oceans might be the cause. Scientists suggest a geomagnetic reversal takes thousands of years and does no harm. They are wrong - it could just as easily happen overnight. No mechanism is known for the cause of the magnetic poles swapping places. Our magnetic field is known to be rapidly declining (10% in the last 150 years), and the magnetic North pole is moving around at an accelerating pace - it has been predicted it will move from Canada to Siberia in the next 50 years. These changes could be indicating an imminent reversal.

Ø Religious Apocalypse - or rapture, or "judgement day". Most religions predict such a day. Conspiracy theorists suggest that many world leaders have apocalyptic beliefs, and may even be attempting to cause Biblical prophecy to be fulfilled in 2012 via their actions. If it helps, the Bible says “But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.” But then again, maybe God changed his mind since the Bible was written, and told some people the date of the apocalypse? Maybe he told the ancient Mayans? Possibilities could be argued ad infinitum.

Ø Ice Age - right now the buzz is about "global warming", yet a mere thirty years ago we were worried about an impending Ice Age. There is evidence that parts of our climate system work more like a switch than a dial, and if a certain level of temperature is reached, it may cause what is known as "abrupt climate change".

Most of these above calamities may strike the Earth on the predicted doomsday, but there’s no denying that they may not occur on other days as well, say, today!

Most people are of the belief that whatever disaster might strike the Earth whenever, it’s not worth making much of a fuss. Let’s face it, we might not be able to do much of a preventive “Armageddon” stuff, because nature shows its worst side sometimes. The dinosaurs couldn’t take it. We too might not. Or, we can, in sense, become cockroaches of the world, lying underground, safe from most calamities. But that sort of sustaining technology isn’t available either.

My advice to the wuss – “Take each day as it comes by. ‘Kya pata, Kal Ho Na Ho...’”. Live life to the fullest each day and take all doomsday discussions as a sort of time pass.

A more pertinent question, though, is whether such a fuss and hype and so much business (look at the bulk of money invested in the movie) should be made on an event that is so uncertain. Yeah, the movie was great, and it was fictitious too, but I'd like to bet that quite a lot of children will have sleepless and nightmarish nights, all that just for a date like the Y2K, but only, by analogy, occuring in the Maya calendar, which has far too less influence on our daily lives anyway!

I'd like to see what you people say...

The Time Machine

As an unofficial disclaimer, I do state beforehand that the work on time machine is not claimed to be mine(come on, how can it be?), but I do quote the discoveries of the man, and build my views on them

Till the end of the nineteenth century, travel, in the very basic sense, meant traversing along any direction over the plane of the earth. You travelled by rail or road from New York to Los Angeles, or sailed to a vacation in the Hawaii. So in essence you travelled in two dimensions, either North-South, or East-West, or a combination of both. People had the idea of travel in the third dimension,that is air travel (but obvious, birds have been flying around for as far back as the civilised human mind can historically see), but just didn't have the means of doing it. Some greats did see through the tricks of the trade, but that was just about it.

That notion changed in the twentieth century, as early as 1903 when the Wright brothers flew for a few fleeting seconds. Today, aeroplanes are as natural a means of transport as the horsecart used to be a couple of centuries ago.

Also, the twentieth century saw space travel, an extreme, or should we say ultimate proof of man's conquest over the three dimensions of space. In a layman's terms, North-South, East-West, Skywards and Earthwards (if you'd care to accept this bizarre jargon, else suit yourself).

As one of the prominent contemporary scientists in this field has said, if the dimensions of physics have been stretched to include one for time, why not practical issues like travel? And this is a very valid practical question, only to be cut short by another question "Do we have the means?"

And his answer is "Not yet, but just."

And this takes us to our main topic of discussion at last - "What exactly shall it mean to travel in time? And what shall be the basic underlying concepts of the physics of it?"

For starters, let's consider this situation - Answer for yourself "Can you be at the same point in space at two different instants of time?"

And now if I ask you - "Can you be, at the same instant of time at two different points in space?"

You'll probably consider this being bizarre. But what was Science fiction 15 years ago is well on its way to becoming a fact (Sarah Connors may rejoice). Time travel is just the answer to this question.

Now, talking about its viability and governing laws, as of now, human teleportation just isn't possible. And it's tough, believe me.

The highest level of teleportation that has been achieved is for ions, which have been proven to be entangled (Einstein called this "spooky action", one of my posts in the near future), and this makes the possibility of human teleportation rather thin, as of now.

The time machine basically works on the principle of teleportation through entanglement.This is like transfer of the quantum states of one particle at a point in space to a paricle of the same nature in another point in space.

For example, to teleport an electron from Madras to Shimla, there will have to be another electron at the other end of the teleporter at Shimla, whose quantum states will be changed by the teleporting device to match the one at Madras. So the electron will effectively be at two points in space at the same time (Starters don't worry, I shall explain entanglement in my next post).

Now time travel can be to the future, or to the past. Travelling to the future is easy. Travel for some time at near speed of light and then return. You'll be less aged than people around you, because the clock runs slow for you. This is reality, and not an illusion. The twin paradox is an event which can be proved the day spaceships are made to travel at, say 0.6c, or 0.7c(obviously you won't try doing this on the face of the earth, or you'll be charged a ticket for speeding).

That's one of the direct inferences from the Special Theory of Relativity.

But traveling to the past is not only difficult to realise, but is unethical too, to an extent. It also has its share of paradoxes and other if's and buts, and leads to an enforcement in the belief of the existence of parallel universes. I ask this fundamental question - "If I can change my past, then suppose I go and kill my grandfather when he was a young boy, then I wouldn't be born in the first place, but since I killed my grandfather, so I exist! So why this paradox?"

And I answer - Time travel to the past will not mean that you can change the outcome of events that already took place. You will at the most make failed tries. But nothing that you do shall change the history in this universe.

Now for the basic setup of the proposed time machine...

I quote the work of Prof. Ronald L. Mallet of Connecticut University, who with the help of one of our own people, Chandra Roy Choudhury, has created the first effective time machine.

It is basically a setup where Laser paths are retraced in a loop. In that way, you might have the phenomena of frame dragging, and also ones like closed timelike curves.

This setup hasn't actually come into being, but the only major problems with its existence aas of now is the technical aspect, where a laser that powerful and a path complimentary to its power is on the way of being designed. Some questions have been posed at the theory of it, like the linear singularity it creates shall stay on even when the lasers are shut down. That shall violate some laws of energy conservation, but rules, as we know are made to be bent or broken, who knows. And this objection does not in its very basic essence, prohibit the existence of any set up of this sort. I insist that you visit: http://www.physorg.com/news63371210.html

Now, coming to the very ethics of time travel. Given that time travel shall be possible in the near future, what ethical problems shall it pose? After all, all of us humans will like to go back to some point in the past and change a few things that we regret the most. But is this not a way of tampering with nature? Do we not, in a certain sense, question the existence of a Supreme Power, that watches over our deeds? Put even that aside. Will it be worthwhile traveling to the past or the future, given that you cannot change outcomes in this universe, just to watch things happen? Although yeah, golden moments of ones life are very special indeed, but that itself is the catch. They occur just once. That's why they are special in the first place. Please share your thoughts on these.

My Tryst with Physics

Physics is a very easy subject, or so we would have our friends from standard 9th think.

Just substitute values in the equation, and wolla!! You have the answer that is accurate to the 100th place of decimal. And yeah, throw in a few conservation laws, and the syllabus is as good as done.

This had been the state of physics as Newton described it. But there were new mysteries that needed to be unlocked. New mysteries that were seeking to be unravelled and uncovered. The consequent centuries saw the development of physics, but who was to know that the very basic subject that science spotlit as a crusade against hypothetical philosophy, would turn against its very own want for order and accuracy in the world?

Physics today is no child's play.

Studying it's depths requires a mind of an artist, a philosopher, more than a mere childish brain which takes physics to be a subject governed by quadratic equations.

In this blog, I shall try and reveal the most intriguing conflicts between the modern day physics and layman logic, which might be food for thought for many. No doubt my opinions may differ or be wrong, but that does not decrease the potency of the material posted, even one bit.