Hola Amigos,
Quite after a long time! Ideally, quite after a long space-time. But who cares to be that precise. Even with the modern knowledge, we are still going on with our weight represented in kg, whereas even a school boy knows that the unit of weight is Newton. I was recently
watching A Beautiful Mind, starring
Russell Crowe and playing the character of great mathematician John Nash. I was
awestruck in one of the marvelous scene of this extremely pleasant movie. In
one of the scenes, he and his group are observing the college girls and imagining
various “games” with them in their mind. The approach is perfectly boyish. All
for one (duh!). Now, there is the complexity of human brain and behavior. All
the other group members are trying to woo one same gorgeous blonde and so the
normal world problem of “Who goes first?” comes into existence. Born genius,
all those math wizards put on their thinking cap and ponder over the problems
playfully yet deterministic. But as they are mathematicians, there moves to
woo are as real as their hypothetical theories. Nash is already stuck with his
career hitting a dead end and is mentally somewhere else already. The
atmosphere of the bar is hardly any concern to him. But just at that instance,
in his subconscious, he starts to think about the problem his friends are
having. They propose using a very famous the then economic model of father of
economics, Adam Smith. Simplistically speaking, the model proposed that if each
one of the group members played for his own interests, the whole organization
will be benefited. Enter the genius, Nash. Sublimely and with his day dreaming
eyes, Nash declares that Smith is wrong as his theory seems incomplete. He
proposes a theory which initially radicalizes the thought process of his group
for achieving their target. Then, he storms out of the bar thanking that blonde
in a real genius manner i.e. looking into her eyes momentarily and with utter
thinking train rumbling fast in his mind and eyes. From that little incident,
he proposes a theory which technically, uproots the 150 years of backbone
theory of governing dynamics of economics. Rest is history. Brilliant movie, but
still a tragedy to a great extent.
I was listening
to my mum, talking about her mother, my nanny. She told that even without the
formal education, she was so brilliant. Though being a sub matriculate person,
her common sense was par excellent. I almost hope that most of the readers will
agree with this thing that their forefathers, or even their fathers and
grandfathers were much “cool” in common sense and knowledge. I was listening to
my mum, with great gusto. A minute later, after she left, I was immersed in my
thinking. I started with our ancient Indian scientists, rolled towards
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hawking. Then I started to think
about them more when suddenly my mum came back and asked me about the iPad and
its gorgeous performance and features. I then had my “little” speech of 20
minutes starting from modern computation and retrospecting the Shockley et al
inventing transistors and silicon chips and logic gates and binary. When I
informed her about the working of binary system in computers, she was amazed.
That watery sparkle in her eyes gave me a shudder of greatness. Of what?
Greatness of how those early geniuses came up with such mind bending ideas. Who
would have thought of processing information in just 1 and 0? How can someone
digitize everything into 1 and 0? I, myself, was thoroughly amazed that I knew
them. And I was disappointed too because I ONLY KNEW them.
Thoughts are
like wild fire. They destroy and also reconstruct the entire landscape. I was
flying in my own ideas and a question arose in my mind. Are we advancing or
retreating in science? In music, there is a prelude or an overture that slowly
starts any piece of music to thrill the audience. Subsequently, starts the main
piece or the symphony which spellbinds them. And then, the finale, an obvious
ending of a masterpiece. I started comparing music and science, as both of them
have a huge impact on thinking humans (HR fans, bitch please!). Science started
with genuine curiosity of ancient humans. Some of them assumed what they
thought and kept on hauling that idea as the reason. Some over smart tried to
get some basis. Experimenting, checking the authenticity. And when the notion
fell apart, they began to re-search about the probable explanations. This is
how science ever came into existence. Mild curiosity was transformed into
strong emotions to know. Ironically, also to let down the theories proposed by
the enemies. But of all that, we got was the science of everything. Religion is
also a science of living a life with utmost humility and intelligence, all
rolled into one. I marveled and relished the yesteryear inventions and was
getting chills of nostalgia.
The pre Newton
era was actually the most controversial phase of humans in science. Zillions of
theories put forward. Millions discarded. They injected God element to ignore
the unexplainable phenomena. Then come the rationale like Copernicus, Galileo
and Newton, who changed the way the human race, would ever think. Newton never
had a calculator. Neither had he had access to super fine resolution telescopes
nor did he have any electronic devices to help him out nor did he have internet
access to various forums and ask “Why did that apple fall down and not go up?”
Let me rephrase it, can we do the same? Things, right now, are so simple. You
have a doubt, you search on the Internet, ask on various forums, have an easy
access to various libraries, Skype and what not. Just imagine, how would have
Newton formulated his laws without super sensitive sensors. Without Mathematica or without any references
available from Google or Wikipedia. Furthermore, he never had any scientist
buddies on Facebook or a group there, who would verify his papers, theories and
suggest him solutions! Neither was there any group on Facebook during Galileo’s
time that would protest against the church or sign an online petition to save
Galileo’s work from being burnt! The overture of Science was just getting
better, bigger and thrilling.
The symphony
began between late 18th and early 19th century, when brilliant
minds like Bohr, Rutherford, Einstein, Planck and almost incredibly brilliant
minds were born and came into action. It maybe the Industrial Revolution that
is being considered that has redefined us but I strictly believe that this
whole lot of scientists were the backbone of what we say, the modern science. Those
who are even a little bit familiar with quantum mechanics would know how hard it
to visualize is. It is just stupendous to think so much out of the box. Dual
nature of light, photons, orbitals, existence from zero, black holes, quarks,
gluons, leptons…Oh! I am exhausted. Most of the theories were tested in an
unsophisticated environment, without computers and circuits. Relativity! One
word and we bow down with respect and thorough amazement. (People always argue
about relativity’s real life utility. I say, “Just give it a little space-time!
;)”). The explosion created by Einstein stirred the entire world just like the
by-product of his theories, the atomic bomb. Newtonian Universe was in a head
on collision with Einsteinian Cosmos. Ramanujam was almost a poor man with
richest brain, which boggled the minds of high profile mathematicians like Hardy.
Chandrasekhar proposed an elegant theory of Chandrasekhar limit which the
arrogant Eddington refused to believe till eternity. Von Brown created rockets.
Destructive at first, that maverick invention is reason you can read this blog
at home without suffering the pain to see me in person! So on and so forth,
clashes of human intelligence and actual smartness led to some of brilliant fireworks
of brains. Ford introduced the concept of assembly line which is the foundation
of current industries and production. People enjoyed, the world progressed. They were all INVENTION.
Coming in the
early 20th century or the 90s, the humanistic progress was throttled
with the groundbreaking discovery of computers. The telephones, cellphones and
all those amazing devices came into existence due to Shockley et al gigantic invention
of transistors in the mid-20th century. Nerve bending computational speed and
complex data calculation and accumulation changed the way we used to see the
world and vice-versa. Music was revolutionized. Movie making was
revolutionized. Everything was revolutionized. It was INNOVATION.
Nothing to prove
and nothing to grieve, but this is the thing I am concerned about. The human
life and its progress started with meager curiosity. We landed on invention and
now it is in the phase of innovation. Thing is, invention is a phase where
something maverick comes out. To summarize, invention is like the Big Bang
moment. It may not be having any strong factor or base, nothing at all in the
time before. Right now, people are obsessed with the word innovating and
creativity. They throw those words relentlessly and freely. Yes they are
important. Innovation is very important. Modification, ramification, changing
the perspective, yes, is important. But, have we invented everything? Is
everything already invented that we need to just modify them now? I highly
doubt that. Current concern is this thing. Apple and Samsung are two giants
whose locking horns are giving the geeks orgasms of electronics. What I have
observed, that nowadays, the only thing that is coming out is the apps. The
high end graphics, the superb touch, this many GHz, that many cores and CUDA
and teraflops and petaflops but no ground breaking invention like transistor.
No path breaking theories like gravity. No unnervingly brilliant ideas like
quantum. We are just flowing with the flow of river or to be frank, like a
flock of sheep. The only difference is that some of the sheep are thinking a
little different. We have encased our thinking to the limited theories that we
know. To the limited devices we can improvise. But can we have a device, just
as astounding as computer, now? Unfortunately, even innovation is being subdued
by resurfacing of creativity. And creativity is dryly apprehended as designing
a little better with totally a consumer utility based logic. Seems that
consumerism is the main culprit here. Moreover, we are losing the magnitude of intelligence too. With reference to my mother's inputs about my nanny's times, people had a greater common sense and practical knowledge. Of course, they weren't all that geeky smart but the overall intelligence and reasoning of the mass was stronger. Right now, the intelligence of a handful of mass is staggering. You can't compete with them but the common man is really turning into a stupid common man. Their mind has been purged from the quintessential common sense. I always ask my mum in a sarcastic but genuine worry tone about who is going to follow the legacy of cooking now. Their delicious hand made cooking is also becoming extinct, as a greater mass of fairer sex is getting involved with job. I have the same worry about invention. Legacy lost? God, hope not!
Nash didn't
overthrow Smith’s theory for money. Einstein didn't oppose Newtonian mechanics
for any monetary gains. Chandrasekhar didn't argue with world class physicist
Eddington to achieve any financial appreciation. Ramanujam died poor. All these
examples point us out that in the race of earning money; we have devolved from
inventors to innovators. Furthermore, innovators will be converted to mere
formula restricted designers. All of the things that changed our entire human
race’s thinking were not just to encash money but were the fruits of original
and myriad brainy thinking. Tesla is nowadays considered to be one of the
greatest innovators. But his genius was more in the arena of inventor rather
than innovator.
Anyway, the
world is moving fast. Hoping for a better future of science and better
definition of invention.
Must see: Apple's WWDC XIII keynote. Something for the readers to get spellbound beyond words. Enjoy!
Signing off
*Dump*
