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An Epitome of Relativity
“There was a young lady of Wight
Who travelled much faster than light
She departed one day
In a relative way
And arrived on the previous night.”
From this limerick you can guess what is going to be in the article. We are now diving into the great paradigm shift of modern physics which will start of from the anomalies in the behavior of light to the new understanding nature of light and space-time. The theory of Relativity. The measure intellectual revolution that has transformed the way of thinking about universe. The theory not only talks about curved space but also curved or warped time as well.
Einstein once quoted that ‘ for the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is’. So, let’s sit on the beam of light and start our journey into strange form of reality!
Before directly hit into Relativity, let’s first understand what space and time actually is.
Space is what we speak of when we ask “Where?”, Time is what we speak of when we ask “When?” If I ask, “Where are you?”, a possible answer might be “at home”. If I ask “Where is Mumbai” a possible answer is “it’s in Maharashtra, India.” Now if I ask ” When do you meet” the answer would be “at 5 PM “. So when you want to meet someone, you need to give both space and time details for that meeting to take place. “We will meet at 5PM in Cream Cafe, Mumbai “, to define your position of your event you need this entities, space i.e. X,Y,Z dimension and Time as fourth dimension. Thus one can think that space and time together as a four-dimensional entity called Space-time. Each point of space-time is labelled by four numbers that specify its position in space and in time.
Before Einstein, everyone understood the universe in terms of Newton’s three laws of motion. Classical physics which said Laws of physics were same for everyone and time is constant entity anywhere in the universe. But Einstein was troubled by this. He began thinking of behavior of light. He did a “thought experiment” and this led him build the foundation of special theory of relativity. Accordingto Newton, space and time was absolute but if someone attempts to synchronize the clock with the one that is moving, light would have to speed up or slow down to keep the clock synchronized. But James Clarke Maxwell said that light only moves at one speed. Now either Maxwell is correct or Newton is, but it can’t be both! This thought intrigued Einstein and result of this he put his own theory of “special relativity” ahead.
Imagine you are standing at railway station. Now imagine a train racing very fast in front of you, faster than any train you’ve ever seen. Now as the train is flying past, two lightning bolts crashing beyond the tracks in the sky at the same time 100 meters apart. From railways station where you are standing still, these two lightning bolts crashing simultaneously. Now imagine you are standing at the middle of the train during the exact same scenario of bolts. Would the lightning bolts be simultaneous? If you look closely, they aren’t simultaneous! Because you are moving towards one and away from the other. You’re not still, you are moving. How could one experience this same event differently? Because, Time is not absolute! It varies according to your frame of reference. Time is relative! It flows differently according to the state of motion and so that distance is also relative.
One of the most famous equations in physics also comes from special relativity. The equation “E= mc^2” – means ‘energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.’ This equation is demonstration for ‘why atomic bomb is so powerful’, when its mass converted into an explosion.
This equation also shows that speed of light(c) is the fastest velocity at which an object can travel. As object moves, its mass also increases and near the speed of light, the mass is so high that it reaches to infinity and would require infinite energy to move it. Thus putting the limits on how fast things can move. This conclusion also ruled out the time travel in the past. But wait, we have other ways, according to our current understanding, time travel can’t be ruled out. There’s a hope in M-theory!
Another strange conclusion of Einstein’s work from the realization that time moves relative to the observer. Time dilation. Moving object experience the time dilation. For the one who is moving, time moves more slowly than the one who’s standing still. This becomes extremely apparent when one approaching the speed of light. If 15 year old kid is traveling at 99.5% the speed of light for 5 years. When this 15 year kid came back to Earth, he would be only 20 years old but his classmates would be 65 years old. This phenomenon is practically tested with the astronaut revolving aboard space station, who aged slowly than his twin brother on Earth who aged little faster!
This is how physical world behaves! Though it looks weird but it has measured proofs. We think time is something we know about instinctively but actually, its a profoundly strange in reality!
In future, when human civilization will colonize other planets in the solar system we will require ungodly amount of energy and we can it get it through our Star ‘Sun’. Yes, Sun is the ultimate source of energy. It is 100 quintillion times more powerful than our nuclear reactor. It shines with the energy of a trillion nuclear bombs per second.
So, do you know how can we get its whole energy? Not some of it, as we get through solar panels! For getting its whole energy we’ll have to build a mega structure called as ‘Dyson Sphere’.
Currently, we are slowly moving towards renewable energy and if human civilization doesn’t get destroyed due to our own petty politics or due to nature, we’ll be able to create a ‘Dyson sphere’.
It is a cosmic and hypothetical mega structure known as ‘Dyson sphere’. This Dyson Sphere has power to consume the total energy of Sun.
So,what woud it look like?
A solid shell enveloping the Sun is probably not the way to go. A large rigid body like that would be vulnerable to impact. Possibly it would be liable to drift and could also crash straight into the Sun. A practicable design for this mega structure can be a ‘Dyson Swarm’.
Dyson swarm is an enormous set of many orbiting panels that collects the Sun’s power and beam it to any other place.
Such thing will give humanity unlimited source of energy. But have you ever thought why we still didn’t make it? Sun holds 99.8% of the solar system’s mass and if we compare Earth to Sun, Sun is 109 times the diameter of Earth. So we would need many satellites for it. Suppose size of each satellite is 1 sq.km we’d need around 30 quadrillion for surrounding the mighty Sun!
Also we need the energy to actually put the parts together and also to deliver them to their specific positions around the Sun. So, currently its impossible for humans to make ‘Dyson sphere’.
This mega structure has its mini version.
Yes this structure is mini version of Dyson Sphere. (This structure also isn’t made by humans still but after 200 or 300 years we can make this structure) As satellite orbits the Earth, this structure will also orbit the Earth and they will absorb Sun’s energy. As satellite sends us signal in the way it will send us solar energy and looking at the speed of human’s advancement in technology approximately after 100 or 200 years such satellite will be orbiting our Earth and this will be our need in future because at that time we’ll lose most of the energy sources like Petrol, Diesel, Coal, etc. present here on Earth and also it will help us to get energy on other planet too!
This mini version of Dyson Sphere has its mini version too! and the good thing is it is made by humans!!!
This is it ‘Solar Panels’ a device which can transform some of the sun’s heat energy into our electricity and this Solar Panels which you seeing now aren’t just Solar Panels they will be our necessity in our future.
In the end I would like to say that human civilization will be totally depended for energy sources on these structures.
Hope you have found this interesting!
The Creation Story
As Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is to never stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.” This curiosity leads us to many great ideas, innovations, and discoveries, basically everything we see around us. It raises many unanswered questions too. As our universe is very vast and old and keeps expanding further and faster. But we don’t know the exact reason behind the expansion. Astronomers suggest many possibilities but none could stand strong expect a few.
In ancient time astronomers thought the earth was the center of the universe but as they keep observing the things, they encounter many fascinating facts like earth and other planets revolve around the sun, our solar system is a part of the galaxy, and our galaxy is not the only galaxy that exists in the whole universe. So they end up on one question, HOW? How it all started? Many astronomers try to prove their theories about the origin but 4 theories make more sense than others.
1.Steady State Universe!
This theory was popular and nearly accepted back in the ’20s. According to this theory, the universe has no beginning and no end, it’s just there from always and remains forever. But as its constantly expanding; however the density (weight) of the universe remains constant.
This theory was proposed by James Jeans in 1920 but it got real fame in 1948 when Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, and Hermann Bondi reformulated it. But as new observation and pieces of evidence were taking place, astronomers slowly started to oppose the theory. Like certain features or behavior of the distant galaxies weren’t seen in the nearer galaxies, and this makes sense about the birth of the universe.
2.Simulated Universe!?
This theory is a modern theory and quite an interesting one. Have you watch one of those movies which stories are related to a simulated world like Metrics, Inception, Ready Player One, etc. What if I tell you our whole universe might be a simulation game? Well, this theory is getting a hike due to a recent statement by our beloved Elon Musk the visionary guy. He said in his one interview that we might are be living in a simulation game controlled by higher dimensions. We just don’t feel it because we are programmed to do whatever we are doing right now. As we see the progress graph of video games, we are come from windows XP to virtual reality and augmented reality, these technologies are near to reality. Soon we’ll unable to spot the difference between reality and simulation. So maybe that’s the case with us too. Let us know what you think about it.
3.Big Bang Theory!!
When it comes to the creation of the universe the strongest theory that comes in our mind is The Big Bang Theory because it is widely popular and nearly accepted by everyone as it makes more sense about the origin. Well, this theory was suggested by a Belgian priest named Georges Lemaître in the 1920s. He said the universe began from a single atom which is existed from the very beginning. He called that atom cosmic egg. And from that cosmic egg universe expands to get as huge as it is now. Later in the 1930s, Edvin Hubble observed that other galaxies are moving away from each other which suggests back in time they all were very close to each other. Fun fact, Einstein opposed this theory because he believed that the universe was static, and due to that he introduced the term in his General Relativity Field equation called cosmological constant. This term was trying to prove that the cosmological constant holding a universe in a static state. But as Hubble and Lemaître jointly publish their observations and pieces of evidence regarding the Big Bang, Einstein kinda convinced and removed the cosmological constant from his equation. It was Einstein’s biggest blunder in physics. But as more observations have taken place and found pieces of evidence, this theory got special attention and started to opposing Steady-state theory.
Anyway, the theory suggests that at the very beginning there was nothing but a tiny atom with infinite temperature and density called Singularity, and suddenly it exploded and created the universe we know today. Scientists found out the evidence of the explosion as they detect CMB i.e. Cosmic Microwave Background. CMB is the electromagnetic radiations left from the early stage of the universe, also known as the image of a baby universe. It represents the heat leftover from Big Bang. Even if this theory makes complete sense about the creation but still there are a lot of flaws in this theory. Like it violets the 1st law of thermodynamics which says that matter and energy neither be created nor be destroyed. This law is opposing the big explosion that happened during the Big Bang. This is why this is not widely accepted.
4.Vedic Rashmi Theory
When I first hear about the theory, it got my attention and I became more curious about this theory because it has a background of Vedas. It is a recently introduced theory by Acharya Agnivrat Naishthik. Rashmi means the very first ray of light. This theory gives three causes to the formation of the universe.
- Efficient cause = Anything cannot be created without a creator. The creator is always needed.
- Material cause = Any created thing can never take form without basic materials.
- Normal cause = Any created thing always needs a purpose. Creation cannot occur without purpose.
It is explaining three Gunas (qualities) as a form of creation is mass, force, and motion. But higher science spoken by Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Geeta says,
इन्द्रियाणि पराण्याहुरिन्द्रियेभ्य: परं मन: |
मनसस्तु परा बुद्धिर्यो बुद्धे: परतस्तु स: ||
Meaning = ‘Subtle, they say, are the senses; subtler than the senses is the mind; subtler than the mind is the reason; but subtler even the reason is He (Atman—Supreme force)’
This means the highest thing is beyond all these things and in that state, one can know all the mysteries of the universe.
All the theories we discuss the creation of the universe are just THEORIES! when we practically prove any one of them it’ll become a law of the universe. As Carl Sagan said’ “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known”. Let us know your thoughts on creation.
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