....n how it all started..
ever since i started studying physics in my +1, Einstein's world always used to sound like an unknown land of fantasies... with many, many mysteries... somewhere hidden behind those enormous doors.. just waiting to get unlocked...
even the amazing outlines of those dark stories used to drive us wild... how the time slows down.. how the space starts contracting in.. n how even matter seems to grow within particles... n all that just when u see something moving... all of that just when that curious pair of eyes of yours perceives a motion....
n after a quite a hell of a ride of about 3 years i have ended up in iitd engineering physics... but even now... Einstein's world still neva fails to get all my wild dreams a pair of wings of its own... n still now when i see a car rushing in a Delhi expressway... it feels as if its running into a contracting crunching piece of the nothingness blowing in with it... n sometimes when i sit in the platform waiting for my train.. n i see a guy getting his lighter out of his pocket n lighting his cigarette standing inside a train rushing by... it all seems to go a lil slow...
but i guess its all just mind-games played by the sub-conscious of an obsessed mind....
even then i do believe that its just not the weirdness n abstractness of these phenomena that drives me... but deep down.. i always wanted to see Einstein's world from my own eyes...
why does it really happen the way it happens??... what is it thats driving space to contract itself?... whats making time run slow?... what really is time?... how can matter grow out of motion?... is matter just not what n how we think it is?... how did Einstein ever think of all these?... n yeah, what did he see that made him tell the things he said??....
the reason why Einstein's world looks kinda weird is not coz it doesnt exist... but coz we are living in a very small world... not just in terms of size.. but in terms of probabilities... the fact that we dont really get to perceive such high speeds n such immense motion in our everyday life... n i guess thats why the effects stay hidden...
but if you really want to track down the reasons behind these amazing mysteries of his world... we need to track down the mathematical trail left behind... n ounce you start going straight up the whole food chain of mathematical manipulations... you realize that the world of Einstein starts getting lost into that immense fog of misconception right from the time he starts to use his postulates... especially his 2nd postulate (the principle of invariance of light speed)...
'...light is always propagated in empty spaces with a definite speed 'c' which is independent of the emitting body."
weird, isnt it??... it doesnt matter how much u run away from a light pulse... u ll always see it going after u with c!!...
n the 'fact' that a photon runs with c even if you set it free sitting inside your moving car!!...
it is this very postulate that sets Einstein's world far apart from normal human imagination... it is this very thinking of his that took his world far beyond normal human perception.....
n even though they have always said that its just an assumption to keep theories synchronized with experiments... but i have always believed that science at its very base is not based on some useless assumptions.... but its based on perceptions... on the realizations deep within..... . .
the whisper in the winds..... ( part-1)
even though the questions n the thrill to track down Einstein's world was always there somewhere within me.. but i guess it all came alive after i was done with jee... no more problem sets.. no more omr sheets.. no more stop clocks.. it was as if they had set me free... free to walk out n see the world on my own.. free to to make the sky all my own...
n hence.. i was free to go out there n search for those enormous doors that had Einstein's world locked deep within...
in my free times after jee.. i spent quite a long time with Feynman's lectures on relativity.. (Feynman is one of the greatest quantum physicists of all times)... even though i kept going through the lines.. equations.. experiments again n again... but something big seemed to be missing... as if Feynman had kept it hidden in between his lines... never did i knew that it was only in these empty spaces that Einstein had preserved all the clues that would help in tracking down his 2nd postulate ['the principle of invariance of light speed in empty space'] which can ultimately unlock the doors to his world.....
Empty spaces were always believed to be a medium of its own.. 'the Ether'.. they thought that the ether is some mysterious medium within which the whole world is suspended.. it is in this hypothetical medium that light moves with c...
but ounce you look deep within the last statement.. you realize that light just doesnt move in ether with c.. but it moves with c with respect to the ether itself... so it is this 'Ether' that should qualify to be our ultimate absolute frame... it is within this ether where everything is embedded... it is believed n perceived to stay static... the same static nature which you feel when you try to think of the motion of the frame by staying in the frame itself!!...
many scientists.. physicists.... experimentalists they all tried to find the absolute speed of earth with respect to the ether... in other words.. thinking from the earth... a 'wind' of ether should be blowing by.... they tried all sorts of optical.. mechanical experiments to discover the ether wind... but none of the experiments gave any result...
after all sorts of trials of finding matter in the ether wind... trying to even detect the speed of the ether wind... they all gave sometimes anomalous n sometimes useless obvious results... like after a hell lot of calculations... u end up with 3 +3=6!!!
for some reason or the other... the ether wind stayed hidden.. as if nature is in a conspiracy of its own n is not letting mankind discover the ether wind....
after all sorts of trials... they gave up on the idea of ether... they discarded the whole concept... n the papers written on the investigation of the ether wind were thrown out of the window.. dumped in a dustbin... or were left unnoticed, unrealized under the piles of paper work in the tables of theoretical physicists........... . .
but they never realized that you might discard the ether from your paper work.. from the books.... but the real ether lies in our mind!!...
the concept of ether will develop on its own in the mind of any student who has done classical mechanics from all the depth of his heart... coz classical mechanics is like an illusion of its own... its an image that develops in our very subconscious by understanding physics, by looking n perceiving the world around....
n the empty space.. the nothingness.. the 3D space thats so extensively mathematically modeled in classical mechanics is a very big part of the world we look around us....
so the concept of ether might have been discarded by physicists... but if you have ever believed in classical mechanics... the ether has got to be there.. might not be in the world around us.... but somewhere still there in the world within us... as if somehow our very ears are still able to listen to the whispers in the winds... in the ether winds............ . .
the whisper in the winds.... (part-2)
till i came to iitd the concepts of ether winds n the realization of Einstein's 2nd postulate was still lost somewhere within the fog of distorted conceptions...... until that day of course.......
after i was done with my 3rd days' classes in iitd... i was sitting in the library trying real hard to figure out all my confusions with ether winds n invariance of c...
just then i saw that about two tables away a really beautiful girl was sitting... she was facing me... just beside the window ..reading a book.... n yeah.. she might just be the most beautiful girl i had seen till then... wow.... . .
she had long open hair..brown n straight.. she was fair.. a bit too fair to be an Indian i guess... might be an European in an exchange program... her looks had a really different genre... definitely not like the Northies over hea... long face... sharp long nose.. engraved deep eyes... natural.. smiley lips..... . .
words just simply fall short to describe her...n they still say that girls are an endangered species in iits.. huh!!....
she just sat there deeply lost in her book.......... n i was staring in all the half eyed ways..
not that i m the kinda guy who stares at girls... but i guess i couldnt help it...
i neva could realize how quickly n... how spontaneously my mind had bid good bye to Einstein n his theories... to all those ether winds n to everything else of course... yup... after all... the brains a male brain u see...;-)
just then a strong wind from outside hit us... n her dark brown hair... went all air borne.. flew all across her face... n just then it really really felt as if time has just stopped by... i somehow.. someway got trapped right within the timeline!!.... she looked so damn enchanting then.. wow!!..
but she was so deeply into her book that it took her sometime to realize n get her hair from her face... by the time i realize that i am just being stupid... got busy with my thing again.... finding it hard to catch the wave again.. i decided to take a break n left the library.... just under the library theres this small shop for coffe n all.... i ordered a cold coffe n stood there.... thinking of what exactly am i supposed to think......
then just from nowhere something struck my mind.... something so damn captivating that i almost felt like reaching the edge of my excitement.... i came up with a thought experiment of my own....
i was standing right within the ether... in the middle of just shear nothingness.... a 3D space completely mathematically modeled.. with every point having a coordinate.... n like some 3 meters away... i saw her table with she sitting n reading her book.... only this time i was seeing her frame moving in a certain direction.... so if she is moving through the ether.. she must be able to feel the ether wind.... she should be able to feel all the numerically marked points blowing around her.... but then i realized that she actually wont!!....
yeah she wont.... coz this time its no ordinary wind... its the ether wind!!.... this time even if she closes her book n tries to look around n feel the wind... but she wont!!....
coz the moment she tries to imagine the ether around her.... its 'her mind' that ll work n project the ether before her eyes this time... n since she is thinking with respect to herself.... in her frame... she is static... her mind doesnt know that she is moving... n if her mind itself doesnt know she is moving..... how can it project a dynamic.. blowing ether... how can it show something that ll help her know she is moving.... so even if she is moving... she is going to see a static ether before her eyes....
n since we both are seeing static ether around us.... we both ll see light pulses to move with c.... coz we know that in the static ether... light moves with c...
so in all the frames... doesnt matter if its a static frame or a moving frame... the light speed remains just the same.... n hence Einstein's 2nd postulate gets proved.....
n i was so so SO DAMN EXCITED!!... i just proved Einstein's bloody postulate before our coffee shop.... i felt like saying...
'fuck u Einstein!!... i just kicked ur bloody white ass...'
hehehe!!...
sorry for the last part... but i m no Shakespear.... couldnt really find a good way of expressing the bloody excitement n the adrenalin rush i felt within me.. at that very instant.... i finally opened up the world of Einstein!!.... oh yeah\w/
i drank my coffee n went back to the library to give back the issued book.... i did look for her in the library.. yeah i did.. i searched for her everywhere.... but i couldnt find her....
i walked towards the librarian to give back the book... a call came... some of the guys back in the hostel were asking for going out somewhere..
aise hi... just to chill out for a while n all...
while returning the book i did look excited i guess... i mean i had to.... i did open up the world of Einstein... something that i dreamt about for so long... now i can freely go across all his equations n theories without any kinda prob....
just when i was about to leave.. the librarian mam called out....
'why do you look so excited??... huh?? new girlfriend in Delhi!!?'
i smiled back n said... 'aisa kuchh nahi hai mam.... its just that i have found out a new place to hang out!!' ;-)
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| the whisper in the winds.... . . |
