The Universe in a Nutshell

What has physics done to me lately? Does it help me in my life? and the answer is Yes. The study of nature is considered to be the only way to understand our universe. Back in B.C's most philosophers believed in Flat earth model, instead of the current model, which is the Oblate spheroid ( rotational symmetric ellipsoid ).

Once a well known scientist (Bertrand Russell) gave a lecture on astronomy, he explained all the orbitals and the movements of the moon around the earth and the earth revolving around the sun. At the end of the lecture an old lady stood up and said "What you have told is rubbish, the world is a really flat surface and is supported on the back of a giant tortoise". The Scientist gave a smile and questioned " What is the tortoise standing on?". "You are very clever young man".

This short part is an extract from the book-A brief history of time.( I wrote a review on this book).

The thing behind this is that the old lady just believed in things which made sense, but she didn't give a try on understanding what she was actually believing.How was the earth just staying there in its orbit without falling? The reason behind this is the Gravitational force. The law of gravitation states that every object in the Universe attracts every other object which is directly proportional to their product of masses and inversely proportional to the square distance between them. This law was stated by Newton, a legend who discovered gravity and well known for the the paper he published. His paper 'The Mathematica Principia' is considered as one of the greatest papers of all time. It was hard for him to calculate the gravitational force between objects and many other problems in other topics using elementary mathematics. So he developed a new level of math 'Calculus' which helped him solve the equations. Calculus was both developed by Newton and Leibniz . His works have been published in many different book and his major contributions had lead to Classical Mechanics.

In Physics, it is really hard to relate tiny atom in an apple with a huge planet in our galaxy. So physicists figured out a way to extend this study which is known as the Quantum Mechanics. Classical mechanics is the study of macroscopic level and Quantum Mechanics is the study of microscopic level. If we get a chance to link Quantum Mechanics with Relativity theory then we might have finally completed the quest on finding the theory of everything. But the problem is that if the theory is too complicated, then we might want to sort it down and split the topics again to make others understand the way it is.

I recently read this book - Six easy pieces by Richard Feynman and he has explained the importance of the atom hypothesis in the introduction part really well.

For Example (Feynman) -
If suppose the current generation snapped and we all have 5 minutes left for the death, but there are possibilities of life in the land and you have given a place to store something for them. If this is the case and if you choose knowledge over everything. Then which is the most preferable knowledge you would like to share it with the next starting generation?
The answer would be the atom hypothesis.
The atom hypothesis - Everything in the universe is made of atoms.This is the basic fundamentals of science. The clue given to them would be- Everything is made of atoms, which is in perpetual jiggling motion and its characteristics might change if you experiment with them. This particular clue should be depicted as a drawing so that it is well understandable to them. This might take a few years for them to understand it, but their science will be developing more rapidly than ours.

A better definition of Science

Science is said to be the study of nature.
To understand this, consider a chess board which is our universe here, and the moves are made by the God. The moves he makes in order to save his king, we have to figure them all out. Each move is consider to be a change in the universe. For instance, moving a bishop diagonally results in change in climate (rain). So here we assume our universe as a chess game played between Gods, and the moves made by him in the game are the changes in climate. So we deduce all the rules from the chess board in order to predict the future weather. But if something strange happens that the moves have changed their rules in the chess game and you try so hard to figure it out by relating it all the rules deduced but you just cant get them related to the new move. In this case, we come up with a new rule which is said to be Castling in the game. Here's a twist and now it is said that all the rules cannot be correct, when time changes the rules or laws keep changing.

Theory of everything

In 1995, when Albert Einstein passed away. Each and every newspaper published the picture of his desk.
And they quoted it as "The unfinished manuscript of the greatest work of the greatest scientist of our time". The unfinished manuscript in this context mentions the Theory of everything. The dream and the goal of every cosmologists is this theory of everything.What exactly does this theory of everything mean?

It's an equation which summarizes all the physical forces in the universe and this equation should be as simple as possible. This theory is said to be the ultimate theory, we might even get to predict the future. To understand this topic deep, we must know the concept of M-theory (Membrane theory) which is quite complicated. So I'll drop the concept here. If you have interest you might wanna take a look over it, its quite interesting but I cant understand it. To learn this we should be familiar with classical mechanics, quantum mechanics and Cosmology. But you still can try getting a vague idea of what string theory is.

Conclusion
Aren't you curious to know how our universe works? What is the need of science in our life? Why cant we travel to the past or the future? Science is the only answer to all these questions. In fact we live in a world in which everything around us is related to science. (The tables, laptop, people etc.) We all are made up of infinite number of atoms which is relatively negligible when compared to the infinite number of starts in our galaxy. And physics is one of the sub candidate of science which might help us get to know the real concept of the Universe (The Ultimate theory of Everything).

Review on A Brief History of Time

Genre: Cosmology (Study of universe)

This book was written by Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest cosmologist and theoretical physicist after Albert Einstein.

"His is a brain of extraordinary power"-The New York Review Books.

Even though he is suffering from Motor Neuron Disease, which unfortunately paralyzed him for the rest of his life, he is still free in his mind and has the capability to think to any extent. He was fascinated by science during his childhood. Once, when Stephen was young he asked his father "How does the universe work?" and his father told him that he will let him know it soon. Of course he didn't know the answer to it in fact non of us know it either. And when he was recently interviewed he quoted that he is still on a adventurous quest to find the answer.

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” -Stephen Hawking

The only key to understand it is the Ultimate theory of everything a.k.a A simple theory which explains everything in the universe. This theory should be so simple that even a normal layman should be able to grasp it. And one of the candidate falling below which stood firmly was the M-theory aka Membrane theory. It might seem complicated if you have no prerequisite idea of it. But its fine, Go browse related to it or else the best way to understand these are by knowing the fundamentals first. So start reading this book if you would like too.

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.” -Stephen Hawking

Stephen hawking is one my inspirations. During his PhD on astronomy he worked on his research paper, which lead him to the theoretical prediction of Black hole radiation, now known as the Hawking Radiation. Hawking radiation is the radiation emitted by the black hole this was predicted mathematically by Stephen Hawking and his assistant.

This book gives you an idea from newton's time to Albert Einstein's period. "From the big bang to the black holes" as quoted in the book. He makes us fall deeply into the book where the question arises to yourself - How do we understand our universe? Why do we live here? What is the need? How does the universe work? He asks a lot of  questions which makes us THINK. I'm pretty sure that If you start reading it you will be greatly influenced by his writings. He simplifies the complicated topics just to make sure that each and every layman is able to understand it.

The introduction was written by Carl Sagan, a popularizer of Science, theoretical physicist. The TV show "Cosmos" was presented by him. This is a Science and technology genre(Cosmology). Sadly, I could finish only one episode of the first season. Its a 1 hour show but worth it. I should probably start watching them later and maybe then I can try giving you all a vague idea on the mysterious physics theories he talks about. As far as I know this show is best known to give a better understanding on the theories by relating everything to the examples of nature elegantly.

Now back to the book.Stephen starts off really well by making us question ourselves. This book was really inspirational to me. After a few chapters he comes up with a chapter named 'The Uncertainty principle' you all might have learnt it in high school. That is, it is impossible to find accurately the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. But it is also believed that suppose if it is possible to find both accurately at the same time then it os possible to predict the future approximately. That is, if you know the particles position at any time then it can be said that we we will be knowing its position even after 100 years or 10^6 million years. He gives us all an understandable gesture of it in the book.

I loved reading this book. it was a Page turner, he fascinates us with many facts which makes us desperately know the answers.

If your really interested in cosmology, then I suggest you to read this book first.You can also find a Pdf of it. Google it. I'll soon write more articles on cosmology.

Holistic Learning

Introducing Holistic Learning

We are continuously learning a lot of things in our lives starting from our childhood, but the question here is do we learn it in a correct method or do we just memorize sentences and repeat them into the paper just to score higher grades.

When we are trying to study a topic, it is really important for us to understand what we are studying. Holistic learning is a method of learning in which there is a complete understanding of any particular topic and is perpetual. There is no need to master it by stressing yourself too much. In fact holistic learning can be improved only by applying and practicing it frequently. This method of learning is mostly related to VISUALIZATION.

For example: Take a topic on Torque (Physics)
Torque: Is the twisting force that tends to cause rotation.
Understand each and every word and in overall you should know what the sentence means. And then think of a door rotating about its axis when you apply force to it. This rotating force is said to be Torque. (You are applying Holistic learning here)

If you study like this most of the time, then pretty good your going in the right path. But there is more to know about holistic learning don't just give up. Keep reading.

At first, it will be hard for you to visualize topics and relate every topics at once, you should gain practice at first as I told you before. Put pencil to the paper, make weird drawings! Try your level best to change those words into your wonderful art, which is always understandable to you at any time.
This is the basis of doing the holistic learning. As far as now for me I feel really comfortable including another technique which is known as the Feynman Method of learning technique. This method was taught by Richard Feynman, (Theoretical physicist) to his students at cal tech. Only after publishing books on his lectures it has became quite popular now.This method doesn't suit everyone because when I taught my friend the Feynman method of learning, he didn't really feel comfortable with it, rather he made his own method of understanding topics.
I would suggest you all to make your own method because it will be much easier for you.

I will write another article on Feynman Method of learning technique for you. 

This is just an introduction by me. I have attached a link at the end of the article, which has more information on it. 

And I came to know about holistic learning through that links eBook's author Scott. 

Comparison of Holistic learning to Rote memorization 

Holistic learning is just the opposite of Rote memorization.In Rote memorization they learn a particular topic by repeating the same sentences again and again in order to memorize it, this type of method will work, but our brain is not having the capacity to store a large amount of crowded words jumbling with each other for longer period of time, you may forget them soon. But Holistic learning will let you organize each and everything in a tidy manner and will help you recollect the facts you learnt before.
The PDF file link given below, has more info about the comparison between both of them. Check them out if you have time. 

SUMMARY

Problems I faced :
I had so much difficulties with understanding things, but the main problem for me was that I was never been able to do rote memorization. I would take 15 mins approx. to memorize a particular sentence without understanding it. ( I used to do these for my Second-language subject- Hindi when I was a 5th grader).Recently I had trouble facing Physics derivation. My tutor told me to learn few derivations for a test. Later when I took a glance at it, all I saw was weird numbers and alphabets with a proportionate, inversely proportionate, equality and inequality signs. I din't understand most of it, so it was pretty hard for me to continue with it, so I decided to just stop learning it. Another reason was that even if I could memorize something without understanding it I would forget that particular topic within a few days and my main blunder was that I  din't try to understand it. I was just too lazy. 

But now Holistic learning is really helpful and will be helpful to you too that's why I'm sharing this in my blog for you all to overcome all your difficulties. With holistic learning u can save time by learning more things in short time.

Trust me you guys Rote memorization maybe helpful for 1 month but you will soon forget it.
It has no value for the hard work you've done. 

If you want to know more about holistic learning, here's a link to a ebook written by Scott.
http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/Programs/HolisticLearningEBook.pdf

Hello!

This is my first entry into my blog, so if your reading this I would like to welcome you.
The main reason I started blogging is to share all my knowledge and interests in a pedagogical way.

I like to specialize my own pedagogy because I was inspired by one of the great theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman. A well known physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his works on path integral. The way he explains the concept is so vivid, and the numerous analogies in his lectures are of great relation. Even,  New York times has quoted that "Feynman lectures are like Mozart's Symphonies". Yes, he totally drags our attention towards him and keeps us all motivated through out his lectures. In this blog i'll be sharing most of the methods of learning, interesting theories, videos, movie review, book review etc. I will try my best to keep you all motivated.

Hopefully you guys can give me your feedback on my posts. I highly appreciate criticism, because I'm just an amateur blogger. Thank You.