Unearthing the Earth’s History

The answer to the development of universe still lies somewhere within the universe

 We have often wondered and speculated how our own planet might have appeared billions of years ago. What if there was a possibility of watching earth’s evolution in real time? Even though those times have already passed, the image still lingers somewhere in the space. We can observe galaxies that are billions of light years away from us. The images that we see from those galaxies today show the position and conditions of those galaxies from billions of years ago. An observer placed at those galaxies will view images of Earth from billions of years ago. What if we discover some mirrors in space that are at distances in magnitude of light years from us. If our planet is aligned at an appropriate angle from those mirrors, then they would reflect light back from earth and show us images from far away times of our own planet. These images when viewed at high resolution might be able to tell us so much about the history of our own planet and even show us the formation of the Himalayas or the breaking apart of continents.

If discovered, what will be the nature of these objects? Will they have the properties of a white hole or just a reflective glass? A white hole is the opposite of a black hole. The gravity of a black hole is so strong that it doesn’t even allow light to escape and everything is concentrated at the point of singularity. But the white hole will emit everything from the singularity so that nothing can enter it. Even if such bodies are a theoretical possibility, they will be hard to recognize. This is because when we see one, we will feel as if we are looking at another galaxy or system and hence there is a possibility that we might have already missed it out despite observing it.

Depending on where the mirror is placed, we can watch images from different time periods. Closer mirrors show more recent past. If multiple mirrors were discovered we will be able to view different eras. The speed of the video will depend on the speed of the mirror relative to earth and light. If it starts moving away from earth at speed tending to the speed of light, we will constantly observe a single image. At the other theoretical extreme, if it moves towards the earth at the speed of light and assuming that it doesn’t crash with our planet, we will see the entire history in one single moment of infinite images. Stationarity with respect to the earth implies real time images from the past.

White holes are considered unstable. In contrast to black holes, they will act to decrease the entropy of universe and therefore, their existence for elongated periods of time is in violation of the laws of thermodynamics (even though it’s a mathematical possibility). So another possibility is manually placing huge mirrors at far off galaxies. But this will require travel at a speed faster than light. To solve this problem, the mirror will be placed through a shortcut- a wormhole in space, which is the only way to defeat light in a race. Now suppose the mirror is placed x billion light years away from us. It will start reflecting the images from x billion years past. Those images will take an additional x billion years to reach the earth. As a result only the generation born x billion years later will be able to view the past. This has an easy resolution – once a transceiver has been placed through the wormhole, information will be relayed back to the earth through the same wormhole. Thus the discovery of a wormhole – a bridge through space will be useful in another way to add to human knowledge.

Irrespective of the likelihood of such possibilities, a thought about them brings us closer to the understanding that in the universe, space and time might not really have different natures and one can blend into the other. If planets were humans, we might just as well look at the situation as a metaphor of an old man looking in the mirror just to discover the child he used to be.

Image Courtesy: Google

Can having a little less make us happier?

Incentives are the biggest motivation behind individual actions. How people perceive incentives has evolved according to the structure of society. In every society a person is assessed based on certain criteria which are an indicator of the socioeconomic conditions that prevail. Tribal societies deemed an individual worthy based on his ability to hunt and protect the family. The tattoos and engravings on the body were a symbol of his fearlessness and ability to handle adversity. These evaluation criteria have faced a gradual, albeit incomplete transition over time.

Today, in an era of Neo-Capitalism, the perception of an individual's value is determined to a large extent by the income he or she makes. And as an individual gets shaped by the mould he is living in, he ultimately starts perceiving himself according to the benchmarks set by the society. Here, the aim of having a large income does not remain confined to consuming that income or having security in the future but it associates itself to the intrinsic value of having the income along with a better perception of him within himself and in the eyes of his society. Value of money surpasses the value of time along with the other subtleties of life. With commercialization of every aspect of life, the real value of amenities declines when the basis of evaluation is monetary rather than abstract. When this happens, the focus moves away from enjoying whatever luxury life provides an individual, to extracting the maximum out of the money we paid for. When we start believing in the fact that more is preferred to less, the concept of a bliss point immediately vanishes away. Despite the fulfillment of needs and desires, the construct related to non-satiation keeps our mind restless. This presents a dilemma where either our mind isn’t satisfied by the level of consumption or we have over-consumed a commodity, which again results in us moving away from the true bliss point. At this point we also need to consciously distinguish between how much we really need for ourselves and how much we buy just to impress others.

To get you in the context, degrowth or decroissance is the idea that the richest economies and individuals should consciously cut down on their consumption in order to take care of our already burdened environment and tackle growing social inequalities by allowing the poor economies to grow. The happiness will be achieved by non-consumptive means such as indulging in art, activities and sharing based economy. When we talk about Gandhian economics, concepts such as frugal abundance immediately come to mind. Diminishing marginal utility theory of consumption suggests that it is precisely this frugal abundance that protects us from the marginal utility of consumption reaching so low that we ultimately end up being jaded –we gain no more happiness from consuming more, but we still end up consuming more.

When we see that the happiest economies are not necessarily the ones that are richest as reflected in various happiness indices (for example, The Happy Planet Index), it gives some hope that developed nations and individuals truly have incentives to push for degrowth and by the positive consequences of degrowth on the environment have an incentive to bestow positive externalities upon others. I believe we have enough incentive to help out others given the cooperation problem among individuals is solved which will give life more meaning and lead to happiness which is a win-win situation for all. Considering the long term view of history, the possibility of a utopian society where the measure of an individual's net worth will be his contribution to the community does not seem unreal.

Deep South

When i have something on my mind,
i cant think beyond the second line.
Trying to frame something fine,
i cant figure whats beyond the salty lake of time.

Still i have something to remember,
sinking ships and burning embers,
treasures locked in hidden chambers,
and dragonflies with haunted reindeers.

And behold the wonderous cloud,
that rained in vain and thundered loud,
upon the valley of the ruthless crowd,
just one could have the marvel renowned.

Still unsung was the lonesome lad,
firm and keen but grimly clad.
Floating along in his trireme,
he ascended upon a solemn stream

The crowd fought for the single draught,
of the elixir that angels sought.
Brothers all slain till one survived,
only to stand at the edge of his life.

Regarding the lad,
he was osiris - the lord of death.
Eyes gleamed in ambush,
and a fiery breath.

The Catapults

What I tell of is a tragedy that comes from reality
It sure holds some gravity,
As each syllable is uttered, my mind gets some more clarity

The troops were ready,
The horns were steady
The spears were so fierce,
With flesh to be seared
Gold plated armors
No more did they look- ordinary farmers
And just so you know,
It’s not a brainstormer

The general had shouted,
The armies had mounted
Few even now were wounded
The faces were clenched
Soon the whole place would be - scarlet drenched
The armies were face to face
Each wanted to smash other with his mace
There were Towns to be razed
Leave behind no trace,
Of any living race

It’s hard to understand
Which part of earth is their homeland?
It’s becoming a trend,
To outstand,
The enemies that go out of hand
The swords of knights shone like the angry sun
And soon outshone the original one
Within minutes the damage was done

The steeds neighed over corpse strewn mud
Then there came a joyous flood with prized studs
Rejoicing the victory over the blood