The Three Dimensional Living World

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Friday, April 29, 2016

Yanking The Fairy Tale

One of the most influential ideas I ever came across in my life was to demolish the pre-existing Ideas on the basis of rationality.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

~ Epicurus

One day, about five years ago, I was playing with my Five-year-old and three-year-old cousins with play doe, after all, it is a perfectly adult thing to do. I was shaping them toys shaped Cars, T-Rex, and Witches. My play doe skills are pretty impressive, So I must brag. As we were talking while playing my five-year-old cousin asked me a question. "Who made us?" She asked. "What?" I said to make sure that I caught the question right. She nonchalantly repeated her inquiry. Frankly I was unsure of what I should answer, understanding the delicacy of the question coming from a child. The fraction of second before answering her question, I had a mental argument with myself. If that was a verbal argument it would have lasted about five minutes. However, our brain is pretty fascinating and fast.

Are the ideas of creationism healthy to teach? Science offers a conflicting historical story. I believe in understanding and calculated claims. Say, Quantum physics, we have many missing links in that field, However, the answer or explanation to those "missing links" is Not the "Divine Magic". The unanswered links become a quest and a mystery to be solved and is collectively resolved and iterated. Likewise, I do not think the location of Plant X will be sent across by the creator in a revelation. What impress me about the rational approach, is pushing the boundaries of human understanding. It is not just coming up with fairy tales to fill in the gaps (and adhering them aggressively, because some guy from some random time in history received a direct instruction from the creator).

I strongly believe that all the "Fairy Tales" are specifically unfair to women. Well here for the purpose of simplicity I am assuming only cis-gendered heterosexual people (No offence to LGBT friends of mine I totally know you get the worse of all the worlds and I stand in your support #Equality). Womanhood, related dogmas were something I was unprepared for during early adulthood. Despite being devoted my parents never strictly incorporated the Ideas of women/girls as the property of a male figure ... However, the faith very foxily rubs it on our faces. For instance; If they say, a mensurating teenage girl is impure to enter a building (literary!) in their faith, then I would need a detailed empirical reasoning for the same. Some may say a bleeding woman bleeds out impure blood and it contains toxins, which is not true! obviously! It is the lining of the uterus that comes out of vagina because it has no purpose to serve, as pregnancy was not established. If Period blood does anything it cleans the vaginal cavity and disinfects it. What basis are those convictions standing on, do anyone even care for a reason at all!

Damn! I am starting to get straight on the inferred issue! I had decided I will only "imply" the dreaded issue. Classic diplomat, aren't I? Let's carry on insinuating the argument. Because we all know if I start addressing each and every single issue on the topic this post will be published as Book. Besides, I intend to sleep a little more after finishing and posting it. Science on the issue of "fairy tales" is quite ambiguous, I mentioned in one of my post a thought experiment. In this post, I will point out another one. There is a very interesting new religion in the town called Pastafarianism. I would rather consider that if I must.

I Identify as an Athiest, a few years back use to call myself Agnostic because I was not sure, I still am not sure about the answer to the bigger questions about the life, universe and everything (42, perhaps). People like past-me Identify as Agnostic because they don't want to hurt anyone's religious sentiments, but the fact is those sentiments are not bolstered by anything at all. The Theists, be it polytheists or monotheists are taught to follow the idea culturally in an Identity specific manner. It is more of a zealous following because let us face it they do not know either! they are doing what they are thought to do. Religion is a hereditary scam with many innocent victims (There, I said it! ). The ideas of divine intervention and exploitation on the basis of same is quite an arrogant thing to do.

When I was younger, I was explicitly told, "God made you". I was told with a beaming certainty that God was actually some distant relative who haven't visited us in a while, so I do not remember him personally because I was too young to remember being an infant. Since all the adults around said the same thing I believed them. (Won't you believe a thing told by masses?) Besides, we often talked about God. I was even told he was always watching us. Honestly, initially it was a little uncomfortable but since he was always watching I got use to pooping while being watched by God.

When I grew up those same adults who told me that, God had made me, encouraged me to look for logic and reason. Irony oh Irony! So yes I questioned all the dogmas asked for evidence and reason in almost anything. If I did not get enough information from basic sources about the topic in hand, I was lucky enough to be a millennial with access to hell load of information on the internet right at my fingertips. I think it is impossible to be ignorant in an era of the internet unless one is clueless about how to spot a reliable information source.

So back to our living room episode, some five years back. No! I wouldn't prefer feeding a young mind with information that I know is not rational. A Generation-Z child is even less inclined to fall for that. I simply told what I knew "We are a product 4.5 billion years of evolution". Well them I was not quite unequipped to break it down in 5-year-old's vocabulary. I was trying to explain in simpler words the meaning of "Evolution". The child's parents entered the room I got some help from the child's mother as she broke it down [...] "Oh okay!" said the five-year-old.

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Thursday, April 28, 2016

Our Ex Planet X

This blog post is brought to you in the memory of Ex-Planet X aka Pluto (Not the Disney dog, he is fine!). Growing up in the 90's we were told we have nine planets. My school teacher told us an acronym. "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets-MVEMJSUNP", So the order of planets was on my finger tips.

Until one day in the August of 2006, the International Astronomical Union declared that Pluto is not a planet any longer. The IAU imposed new rules for a heavenly body to be regarded as a planet.

It needs to be in orbit around the Sun – Check!
It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape – Check!
It needs to have “cleared the neighbourhood” of its orbit – Oh Crap!

So, just like that, an era ended. We often find ourselves lost in thoughts, of the time when Pluto was a planet, on the verge of crying. It has been a decay since the "break up", still cannot believe it. *Sigh* Now, Pluto is just a Dwarf Planet.

It is not a secret that many of us haven't quite moved on after our first Cosmic-Solar-Planetary Breakup. In case you are one of those people who has cried a river, watched "Love Actually" thousand times and listened to "Unbreak my Heart" on repeat and still not over the Pluto, then I am here to get you the ice cream, cuddle up with you as we read this post about our Ex PlanetX.

Let us take a walk down the memory lane of our disastrous heartbreak with our misfit beloved Ex PlanetX. Every time I hear a new planet X is "maybe" spotted I roll my eyes and think well it won't be as good as the Ex-Planet X was. Literary engraved with love and loyalty. How could anything ever be as good as our Ex-planet X, Pluto?

Though we must understand it is over and it was never meant to be ...

Going Down The Memory Lane
It was in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh first saw our dear Pluto. However, in 1978, we made it "Spacebook official" that is, it was formally declared Pluto a Planet of The solar system and it was a hell of a ride. You see, we had a star-crossed prophecy to be united in a relation of Planet-Ship. It was in 1846, a wise man named Percival Lowell, after the discovery of Neptun, made a "prophecy" that a legendary Planet X is to be found. Since the orbit of Neptune and Uranus was wobbly, that indicated there was still an undiscovered planet in the outer Solar System. So, Lowell suggested there was a Planet out there to explain the wobbly orbit and motion of Uranus and Neptun (I totally intend the Pun). He called in a quest to find the "Planet-X", as the naming of a planet is the prerogative of the astronomer finding it. So our beloved Planet was referred as Planet-X in the fable. When Clyde Tombaugh saw a tiny dot of light he thought it was "the One". However in truth, what Clyde had found, was not big enough to explain those wobbling perturbations. Furthermore, they called the search off anyway, calling that tiny dot "Pluto" and crowning it with the official status of the legendary PlanetX. Pluto was a planet, 1930-2006 (um! not that long time in the context of Planet-ship, though).

New Horizons spacecraft's Flyby Stalking
In 2015, The new Horizons Spacecraft flew by Pluto. The mission was intended to understand the Pluto's system better. We saw our Ex love and with teary eyes, our heart was filled with love and our internet with memes. What can I say, it is all too fresh you see. We were still struggling to "move on".

Reconsidering Taking It Back
After the flyby, many considered that we should take Pluto back. Although, with that proposal, we will have to take all the Draft Planets (like pluto) under the wing of Planet-Ship. Honestly, that will also make learning planets of the solar system a complex task. Also reconsidering and taking back an Ex always disappoints, It did not work out the first time for a reason! #ProTip, we learned it the hard way.

Looking For a Replacement
So the legendary quest to find the Planet X was not over because the "Not-Big-Enough" Pluto was never the legendary Planet X. Theories about the mysterious Planet X is all over the internet. Some claim that the calculations by Lowell were faulty and there was never any "PlanetX". Some say NASA is hiding the PlanetX because the Bible [...] well let's leave the idiosyncratic fairy-tails aside. Long story short there is a lot of conspiracy theories on the internet.

So, recently NASA has announced that they are quite hopeful to find the promised PlanetX. The motion of many asteroids, that gets dislodged from the Kepler belt and fly into the solar system indicate strongly that there is indeed a Planet X. Multiple occurrences of this phenomenon have bolstered the evidence pertaining the PlanetX. Evidence are indicating that the planetX is ten times the size of Earth and have an orbit around the Sun that is about 15000 Earth years. Only the time will tell if Planet X will be found. The scientists studying the phenomenon at the Subaru Observatory in Hawaii believe they'll have an answer in 5 years.

Well, that will be a new start. However, even if the Planet X is a myth and we never find it. We are better off with the memories of the time when The solar System had Nine Planets, and Ninth Planet was Pluto.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Weirdness of The Colour Spectrum

Visible light, on passing through a prism, gets separated into its component colours of a rainbow pattern. That pattern is called the Spectrum of Visible Light; it includes Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Each colour in this spectrum has a unique wavelength and that is its identity.

Magenta, on the other hand, is an improbable colour! The weird thing about Magenta is that we do not see it in the spectrum of visible light, which should technically include all the colours that are in the visible light wavelengths.

We see images due to the reflection of the image in our eyes. As the reflected light enters our eyes the Retina stimulates the brain. To see colours the reflected light stimulate a special kind of cells called cone cells. The cone cells send the signal to the brain and we get to see what colours we see. We, humans, possess three types of cone cells dedicated to Red, Green and Blue light. When we see an object that is Blue in colour the Blue cone cells are activated and they send a signal to the brain, likewise, when we see Red or Green objects the brain receives stimulus from the respective cone cells.

Those are the three Primary colours that we see and every other colour is a combination of those colours. So when we see a yellow object Red and Green cone cells are activated and our brain perceives it to be something in between Red and Green on the visible light spectrum. Similarly, when we see Cyan the Blue and Green cone cells are activated simultaneously, as cyan is in between Blue and Green (the primary colours that we are capable of seeing)

Our eyes cannot measure the wavelength of light directly. So we have three check-post on the spectrum namely Red, Green and Blue. Depending on the stimulated cone cell type we see the picture of objects as our brain perceives it.

Now let us assume we see an object and it is stimulated by both Red and Blue cone cells. The colour we should be seeing must be something in between the Red and Blue on the above spectrum. However, the colour in between the Red and Blue is Green! But there is no Green colour clearly, as it would have stimulated Green cone cells. In such a case, the brain makes up a colour! That made up colour is (drum rolls please) Magenta!

On the level of wavelengths, magenta does not exist! it is just the same old white light with the absence of green wavelength! Every other colour we see has a dedicated wavelength but magenta is a construct of the human brain and is purely perceptional.

So how do we know that we all see the same colour as "Magenta"! or any other colour, for that matter! We all grew up being taught that the Sky is Blue and the Grass is Green. We learned about our colours in a highly subjective way. We were taught based on what we see. So, how can I be assured that my Blue and your Blue looks the same? Well, the answer to that is: We cannot be assured that we see colours in the same way! Colours are mental perceptions and there is no way (yet) to find out that we indeed see the same colours.

Some experts argue that the inability to explain colours in words is the problem and suggest that it is a lingual failure. Frankly, I don't know if that is more comforting or seeing colours personally is more pleasant of a thought! All our perceptions, be it colours, taste or olfactory sense are our own we do not have any way to testify if we all sense and perceive things in the same way. In a way, we are all alone in our brains. However, we find ways to relate and connect and that is the beauty of it, we are all in this together.

To solve the confusion on magenta not being in the visible spectrum we often use a conceptual representation called the colour wheel. It is bending the visible spectrum in a way that makes Red and Violet meet. Another cool conceptual representation is this book called the colour atlas. Is it just me or do you also see a little hint on unperceivable higher dimensions? Alright, just me then!

PS: If your favourite colour is magenta, get over it! Technically it is not even a real colour.

Colour Mixing

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