Theory of Everything-3

Theory of Everything

Its the grand unification of all the forces known to mankind, from the Quantum level to the Macroscopic level. Its an abstract theory which describes almost everything in the universe in just one single mathematical equation. This mathematical equation might just look like E=mc^2 equation. An equation which is just 1 inch long but gives us vast information about the energy-mass relation. Physicists all around the world are contributing to this theory. And Just as our other physics theories, this one too has sub candidates. The main candidate that helps in constructing this extraordinary theory is the String theory. This theory states that everything in our universe is made of oscillating strings. Each and every vibration of a particular string corresponds to the behavior of a particle.

"String Theory describes energy and matter as being composed of tiny, wiggling strands of energy that look like strings. And the pitch of a string's vibration determines the nature of its effect."-Roy Williams

Unfortunately, the problem with this theory is that it is not experimentally proven. Because of this, many physicists criticize this theory by calling it a pseudoscience. The reason why it is still not experimentally proven is because we are not yet capable of magnifying a particle to its lowest level; in other words we just don't have the technology to do so. But that doesn't mean that the theory is false and there should be an end to this quest. Maybe one day we might achieve the required technology that is capable enough to find the wiggly strings. String theory has been theoretically proven with the help  of mathematics. We should encourage these hardworking string theorists rather than demotivating them.

Mathematics has always been our language to describe our universe. I would describe Mathematics as an Universal language. A language which helps science to describe events occurring in our Universe. String theory should not been considered as a pseudoscience. People thought Einstein's General Relativity theory was crazy. Only few physicists that time who believed in mathematics could appreciate his works. He deduced it all with just a pen and a paper. He believed that math was the only key to unravel the mysteries of the universe. But It took approx. 100 years to prove his theories were experimentally right. Maybe String theory might also work the same way.Einstein's dream was to unify all the forces and understand the universe completely and this has been achieved by today's string theorists.

Soon after few decades we might be able to unlock the mysteries of big bang and the black hole with the help of this theory. And who knows Science fiction might one day turn out to be our reality.

"Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding.." -Brian Greene.

Theory of Everything -2

Sequel to Grand Unified Theory -1

Despite all his greatest achievements, Einstein wasn't satisfied. He was still looking for the ultimate answer. So he set on a goal to achieve this by relating his new picture of gravity ( General Relativity) with Electromagnetism(EM). During the early 19th century, Electricity and magnetism were scientists great interests. Both Electricity and magnetism played an important role together and was also helpful in further telecommunications systems. It was so important that it demanded a specific unification. For instance, if suppose you are in a hill station during a thunderstorm you will probably get the idea of how electricity and magnetism are closely related. i.e the thunder strike creates a magnetic field that will  show abnormal functions in your compass. This field was unified as the electromagnetic field and was developed using the language of mathematics. How fascinating is it to see just a four line mathematical expression showing the relation b/w electricity and magnetism. This equations were deduced by Maxwell. Just as how Newton revolutionized physics with Gravitation, Maxwell has equally helped in understanding our universe. Einstein believed that this unification of both his view of gravity and electromagnetism would give birth to the answer to everything. This step was the first try on understanding our universe completely. He was one of the physicists who wanted to know the mind of God(entire picture of our universe). In fact this is the goal of today's string theorists; To unify almost everything within one simple theory - From the big bang to the black holes.

As Einstein started working on his theory he found a major problem in unifying it, he noticed that there was a huge difference b/w the strength of the Electromagnetism and Gravitation. i.e the strength of EM force being far more stronger than the gravitational force. Wait! How is that even possible? Gravity is so strong that its even capable of bending light! Gravity probably should be the strongest force. Yes, that is partially right but it is a known fact that it is certainly not as much stronger than EMF(Electromagnetic Force). In fact EMF is billions time stronger than gravity. The reason behind this lies in the microscopic level and is also the reason why we don't fall right down into the center of the earth. It might seem quite strange but its the truth. Everything in our universe is made up small bits of atoms, in which the -ve electric charges are present in the outermost shell of the atom. Now remember, the force which keeps you on the earth's surface is EMF, because there is a strong repulsive force between the two -ve electric charges.(One being the electric charge of yourself and the other being the earth's surface's charge). Imagine the repulsive force created to sustain almost each and everything in our earth. In layman's language, we all know that gravity pulls you down to the earth. But guess what now you know that EMF creates a massive repulsive force which prevents the gravitation pull towards the earth. Now, do you think gravitational force is much stronger than EMF? No, certainly not. This was the underlying reason for the major problem in unifying them both.

To be continued in the next article-Importance of mathematics in physics and Quantum Mechanics. 

Theory of Everything -1

Einstein's Dream

The Grand Unified theory is one simple mathematical model which expresses all the forces that governs the universe, from the quantum level to the macroscopic level. Its a quest in merging both Quantum Mechanics and General relativity. And it is of course one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. Einstein's dream was to achieve this stage. But unfortunately, he wasn't able to. But physicists of our generations has found a candidate which might give us an ultimate answer.

General Relativity 

General Relativity is geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. Well, we all might be familiar with the Newtonian Gravity. But there is far more interesting than that. The attraction force between two bodies as Newton predicted it as the mysterious gravitational pull was well known to Albert Einstein than the father of gravity. Albert theoretical found that the curvature of the space-time is responsible for gravity. Space-Time- A four dimensional world where space is 3-D and time as 1-D. To get a better understanding of it Click here Space-Time (Article on Space-time continuum).

Physicists were dazzled after reading his paper. But some theoretical physicist thought this idea was a misconception , whereas the others wanted it to be experimentally proven as to be believed, because science has always been this way. Only if it was experimentally proven or witnessed, people will start believing in it. In fact, Richard Feynman has quoted that "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong".

Physicists wanted to know the reality behind it. So they began exploring and started working on constructing a framework which shows us the existence of space-time curvature. After everything they decided to launch a satellite -Gravity Probe B(GP-B) on 2004. The mission's aim was to measure the space-time curvature near the earth. And the results were finally proved that there is existence of space-time fabric and the curvature of space-time fabric is due to the presence of mass which explains the gravity taking place there.  Einstein was right. All physicist were amazed by this true fact. After almost 100 years Einstein's theory was proved right experimentally. And far more than that Einstein was even able to calculate the speed of gravity i.e the speed of gravitation waves in the space-time fabric. In general relativity theory the speed of gravity was equivalent to the speed of light in vacuum. The paper explained all the forces that governs the macroscopic world. Its quite strange that Einstein got Nobel prize for Photoelectric effect rather than this beautiful mathematical model.

The idea of General Relativity was thought by Albert when he pondered over light and was focusing on his earlier paper i.e Special Relativity which was published in 1905. Special Relativity deals with the speed of light. It says that speed of light is an universal constant, it does not change relative to anything.

Most of the people know that the light travels in a straight line. But that isn't always right, light bends due to gravity. It seems quite bizarre but it is the truth. As I've already mentioned before, scientists always look for evidences for the truth- as General Relativity predicted it. This is apparently known as the Gravitational lens. This is the phenomena explains the bending of light. This theory was confirmed in 1919 during a solar eclipse, when Arthur Eddington, a British Astrophysicist who observed the light from stars passing close to the Sun was slightly bent, so that the stars appeared slightly out of position. Einstein once again was right. He almost predicted most of the things which explained the macroscopic level of our universe. This was a huge turning point in understanding our cosmos. A legend who predicted most of the things theoretically. The only tool which he used to explain all these extraordinary and fascinating theories was Mathematics. All started from this Genius, who worked as patent clerk in a Swiss Patent office in 1903...

To be continued in the next article related to Quantum Mechanics and String theory.

Space-Time

The very basis of knowing how our universe looks like

If suppose we remove each and everything in our universe. From the very macroscopic level to the microscopic level. What would you call it? A void? Many of them would call it 'Emptiness'. Yes that's right but it is also wrong. If you look deep inside the so called 'Nothing' in our universe. It would be just the Space. Space as existing in three dimensional.

But our universe isn't just 3-Dimensional. Time is a dimension in which events occur. And this event's occur only when there is space. So if I ask you, with what respect to are you moving? No matter what frame of reference. Even if your sitting in one place right now. The answer is we all are moving through space-time. A 4-dimensional universe, where space existing in 3-D and time playing the role as fourth dimension. In cosmology, the concept of space-time combines both space and time to a single abstract universe. Mathematically saying, its known as a manifold consisting of events which are described through co-ordinate system. Picture infinite no. of  lines and no. of other lines which are passing through it perpendicularly. We come up with a picture which has numerous no. of square shaped boxes. And this is what we call as The Space-time Fabric. This extraordinary fabric has the ability to fold, curve, vibrate etc. Everything in our universe lies on this space-time Fabric. This might be a complicated topic, but knowing the basis of how it works isn't a waste of time. It at least gives you an idea of how our universe looks like.  

Gravity is a shape

We all know that, Newton is credited for his works on gravitation and the story of the apple falling on his head. Newton's law of gravitation states everybody in our universe is attracted by each other with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Even though Newton discovered gravity, he failed to understand it deeply. He didn't know what exactly was this mysterious force which made the apple fall. He couldn't understand how his own theory works. But Einstein, a very well known theoretical physicist was the one who understood what gravity was completely. His works on general theory of relativity gives us the best understanding of how the gravity works.

If suppose gravity isn't a force then,

Have you ever pondered how our earth revolves around the sun actually?


Einstein view of gravity explains it all. A curvature of the space-time fabric occurs due to the presence of the sun. The sun's mass acting on the fabric, tends the fabric to curve and create a gradation. Now, imagine as if you are rolling the earth towards the sun. Due, to the presence of the curve, the earth keeps revolving around the sun. And the curvature which took place is very well understood as the gravity itself acting as a shape. Therefore, gravity is caused only because of the space-time warp.

A picture depicting the working of the gravity. The space-time warp (Bending of the space-time fabric) caused due to the presence of the mass of the earth, which tends the satellite to move along its orbit.This is considered to be one of the best workings of Einstein. But he has done far more extraordinary than this. We still have numerous things to find out about our universe...We just know only about 1% of it. I hope you all were able to understand it. If not, I'll soon upload a animated video clip in the video tab, which explains it well enough.

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