The Next Marty Mcfly

         

Screenshot from Back to the Future

          Time travel. Plausible or not? This has been a question asked by many sci-fi enthusiasts, wanting to know if there is any way man will ever master time. Is it just some fancy idea or could there be a scientific method to actually explain and demonstrate time travel? It’s exciting to think that there could possibly be a way for you to go back and change that embarrassing memory your friends always taunt you with. Or go into the future and see how you actually end up in life. The things we could do if only we could travel through time!

          But wait! What is time? How does it actually work? And for the sake of everything holy, can anyone even describe what time looks like? Go ahead, think! Think – and prepare for the onset of a brain freeze. It’s alright, don’t overexert yourself. NO ONE has been able to explain time conclusively… Yet. It’s about time the next Einstein is born, right? Let’s just wait for him/her…

That said, we don’t have to stop guessing just because we don’t the answer, right? Funnily enough, when one starts to talk about time, we cannot go far without experiencing a little gravity, being blinded by light and moving into a whole new space.

          Yes. Gravity, light and space (or more specifically, space-time) are very heavily-related to the topic. But before we go any further, let’s take a look at a paradox.

Credit: Here

          This paradox is not merely a fun puzzle you can use to amaze, confuse and possibly torment your friends. It’s something called cause and effect paradox, whereby if you erase the cause, there will not be an effect that could possibly alter the cause by time-travelling. It’s sort of like a ripple effect, by changing one small thing, you might actually cause something major elsewhere to change. 

Let’s discuss the ‘How’s.

Theory 1: Did you know that really weird things start to happen when particles approach the speed of light? And one of those weird things might actually enable us to travel into the future. When you travel at the speed of light and everything else is moving at their normal speed, you are actually bringing time to a standstill for yourself.  Explanations for this is kind of…. er, complicated, so let’s just leave it at that. Problem with this is, a) you can only travel to the future by this method, unless you travel faster than light (which is impossible), and b) forget faster than light, you can’t even bloody catch up to it without some very serious physical damage. Still dreaming of racing with photons?

Theory 2: Black holes. Ah, the wonderful gravitational monsters that swallows even light without mercy. Stephen Hawking says black holes can actually help you approach the speed of light and time travel through the method described in Theory 1. Neil Degrasse Tyson says you might actually travel through time if you get vacuumed into these cosmic monsters. Like you go in in Year 2014 and come out in Year 23786597, in another universe altogether. So this method is not suggested for those of you planning a short trip only.

Theory 3: The last is the wormhole theory. Albert Einstein described space-time as ONE thing that is closely inter-related. For example, if say you had a time machine and you had to give it the coordinates of your destination, you will have to include a time coordinate and also a space coordinate so that you get to where you want to. And this space-time fabric is pictured exactly like that; a fabric. Now, take a piece of fabric stretched out in mid-air and put a ball in the center. Can you see how the fabric warps around the mass? That’s exactly how every object with mass and gravity warps space-time. Now, if we can find an object so large that it warps the opposite ends of the fabric close together, one might be able to step from one place to another, located far, far away in a short time.

          Problem with this theory? What I just described, if you read it closely enough, describes how you travel from one place to another that is located on the opposite sides of space. Not time, but place. It's almost time travel because moving this distance in humanly possible speed would take millions of years. So to achieve it in seconds using a wormhole should be good enough to qualify as time travel, right? Would a similar theory work with time, though?

There are more theories, of course, so you can read them if you want. HERE, go! Knock yourself out….

Credit: Here

          Well, looks like time travel might be slightly harder than sitting in a car, punching in a date and whizzing off into the future, right? No, don’t give up hope just yet. I bet you would like to hear that we already have our own method of travelling through time.

Photography.

I’m not kidding.

Nope, still not kidding.

          Photography is capturing light as you see it at one moment, so that you could look at it again in the future. That light in that picture has travelled through time for your viewing pleasure and you are looking into the past, literally. In fact, you’re looking into the past every time you look at the moon, the sun and stars far, far away. I am being perfectly serious. Light takes time to travel through space, so everything you see is what that thing was and not what the thing is. Sometimes, you even see ghosts of dead stars because they are located so far away and their light takes so long to reach us.

Cassiopeia A exploded 333 years ago. We still see its remnants today.

          So, moral of the story? Start paying attention to the wonders around you! Don’t just think that time is the reading you take with your watch. Don’t take technology (*coughcameracough*) for granted and start looking closer. And finally, let’s get the ball rolling, alright? Who knows where the next great thinker might be born? So if you read this post and got interested in explaining the mythical, magical workings of time and eventually become the person who actually nails it, please do tell me so I can be proud of myself for it, okay?

What other ways of time travel have you heard of - scientific or not - that you find interesting? Please do share! :D

Look up

When we look up, you and I, we see very different things. As I ponder over the equations that keep us ticking, you mull over the wonder that is the universe. Our eyes follow the trail of the same meteor as it tears through the sky, but I compute its datas and the casualties that it may cause while you stop and stare in marvel. Does it make sense for us to label each other based on this completely personal opinions of ours?

This time, I'm intrigued to share my thoughts on something I've been hearing often these days. Religion and science, these two never went hand-in-hand since the beginning of time, did they?  I am most intrigued by the 'why's.

Religion, through a skeptic's eyes, is an excuse. A lazy conclusion to problems that we've never found answers to. The crusaders of this religion boat tend to always make their point strong by pointing out how certain things cannot be explained by logic. What lies beyond the edge of the universe? How did we come to be? Are humans merely genetic mutations of primates? But instead of trying to figure out an answer to the questions that boggle them, the religious ones are prepared to give in, satisfied with the idea of an omnipotent being, capable of even the unimaginable.

It doesn't help that religious affairs have been causing destruction in some parts of the world, further fuelling the skeptics'... well, skepticism.

On the other bead-spinning hand, religious ones would go to such extents to prove their point that atheists will burn in hell, because science is not their saviour. There are more religions in the world already than what can be counted and whoever is still going around defying the fact that a superior being exists and orchestrates our lives, is plain 'ole dumb.  Science is for the foolish; the real answer lies in their respective god's hands.

Of course, this is a crude generalisation and no one deserves to be put in a drawer with a label saying 'Ignorant fools'. But sometimes we have to acknowledge this is the kind of world we live in, a world that loves a label for everything.

This is my problem; what if I'm stuck in between? I'm not the most religious person out there, you see. But I have never denied that there is a Big Guy up there somewhere. We give Him different names, human attributes, stories, legends, traditions and build our whole system of beliefs based on these things. But I've always felt His presence as a comforting warmth, ever patient, ever loving. Perhaps this too is part of those human characteristics we've given Him that has been planted deep within my conscience. Now, I realise some might feel very compelled to refute me at this point. You could, I would love to hash this out with people (I've only ever done it in my head, but I'd love a third party to join in besides me and my head.) But I cannot stand it when these religious people throw things like 'Because God is Almighty, what else do you need to know?' in answer to scientific questions.

And the other half of the equation is that I feel very... umm... uneasy (?) when scientists call themselves atheists because they know there is an explanation for everything, just waiting to be discovered. Or maybe that's just me unable to understand why they would feel so, what with my limited knowledge. Dr. Niel Degrasse Tyson has said that he neither believed in nor refuted the existence of God. But he often asked himself if the benevolent God that everyone spoke of could exist, when all he saw was millions of ways of doom coming upon us when he looked up into a starry sky?

My little theory in my perfect little world would be that God existed. But we do not know what he (or It) is exactly, we lack the ability to comprehend that. We have every possibility to uncover truths about anything at all in the universe. We may figure out how everything works one day. And on that day that we have nothing left to wonder about, we will finally wonder about this unseen force that had been waiting for us to find our way to Him. He would be the only thing we could never understand. It's something like saying that someone gave you a treasure map filled with unknown symbols that you crack one by one until you've cracked it all and you still do not know where your loot lies. A paradox in itself, a wonder in itself. Gives you something to think about, doesn't it?

So what if I am a believer, just not in the conventional way? So what if I am a skeptic that's asking all the wrong questions? Where do I fit in? Do I even need to fit in? Because our perceptions may be different, but it's the same sky above our heads, isn't it?

Radioactive Love

Marie Curie (born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland) is a woman that has been decorated numerous times for her contributions to science. Her work in the radioactivity field - she discovered radium and polonium - together with her husband has secured a place for her name amongst other great thinkers in history. How was her work so important to us, besides combating cancer and all, you ask? Well, she just invented a way to look into your body to find broken bones and injured organs without having to actually cut you open, that's all... X-rays, heard of it before?

Marie Curie and some of her buddies... You might have heard of the names Einstein, Planck and Rutherford, maybe?

Now, one cannot mention Curie without speaking about how she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Or the fact that she was the first person to win it twice, one for Physics and Chemistry each. In fact, if you read her biography, you'd see her name being associated to a lot of firsts. Pretty awesome right?

But aren't we forgetting something even more important here? Aren't we forgetting the person who had worked with her to achieve all these marvelous feats? Aren't we leaving out the person who won those Nobel Prizes with her (directly and indirectly)? Aren't we forgetting the 'Curie' in Marie Curie? Yes, her husband Pierre Curie. A physicist no less brilliant than her and just as passionate to do something for the world in the name of science.

And with that, I have finally arrived at my blog topic for today; Radioactive Love.

Marie Curie was born in a period of time where women in science were ridiculous notions. At that time, it was agreeable that women received some education, but not too much (no, that would be bad, of course.) She was born in middle-class family of scientific background, though they were just teachers. They earned enough to get by but did not dare dream of the riches. Pierre Curie was born in no better condition, but he was a man. That definitely made things slightly easier for him.

Their love story begins with them meeting as lab partners and eventually turning into life partners. Their marriage doesn't last long because Pierre dies in a tragic accident, but they have achieved enough to last many generations to come within that short frame of time, as you could probably already tell if you're reading this.

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.Epicurus

What I find most intriguing about this story is that Pierre saw this woman's potential and wasn't intimidated by it. Consider the era they were living in for a bit. Can you imagine a man being so accepting of a woman wanting to learn so much? Here is a quote from one of his love letters to her. (You can read the whole letter here.)

"It would, nevertheless, be a beautiful thing in which I hardly dare believe, to pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams: your dream for your country; our dream for humanity; our dream for science."- Pierre Curie. 

Doesn't it make you want to go 'Awwwww...'? But sighs of adoration aside, this brings me to something else I have been itching to talk about. Let me start with a question.

Ladies, are your guys treating you right? And guys, your ladies?

They say it takes two to make it work, this complicated mechanism that people often refer to as a 'relationship', or more specifically, a romantic relationship. Now, I may not be an expert in this field (not at all, actually) but I do have common sense and a pair of eyes and ears. I've seen and heard a lot to have come up with my own theories and hypotheses. (Bear in mind, these are no conclusions, as they would have to be backed up by experimental evidence if they were. These are the workings of my imagination.)

I am a feminist. And if that gets you off on a rant about how feminists are too 'extreme', well, the truth is that they have to be in order to integrate the radical into normalcy - something like what Marie Curie did to pursue her passion. If the thought that a woman has the same voice as you - just a few pitches higher - challenges you to immediately fight against that notion, then you sir, are at the wrong place right now. If I told you that women are strong and the first evidence you look to to refute that is that we run away from cockroaches, then you sir, need to be educated.

That said, I won't go into a rant about girl power and being equals in a relationship and whatnots. These are the things most people already know (and blatantly ignore.) No, what I wanted to say goes both ways, I'll speak for the guys too. Have you already found that one word that identifies you as a person? Because that's what you are, a person. *gasp* You are an individual, you are unique and you do not have to be like anyone else to be special, 'cause baby you were born that way. Why do most of us rush to build a unit, a family institution or a society even, before we even discover who we are first?

To put it more simply: If you identified yourself using your partner and what he/she wants of you, who are you when he/she is no longer there for you? A nobody?

I have nothing against first loves or dating. Far from it. I'm just like any other girl, who sobs at the beauty of it all when reading of it and smiles like a fool when watching it in real life or in movies. All I'm against is the thought that to be in a relationship, both individuals would have to have the same outlooks on life and essentially, just merge into one state of being. Sharing interests and passions does not equate to adapting the other's way of life, mind you. It just means that you have found the perfect one for yourself. Love can be strengthening and motivating, but to think you have found it with the wrong one could have toxic repercussions.

Love could be radioactive. It would be relevant to be noted here that Marie Curie died of overexposure to radioactive elements. Connect the dots for yourselves...

I respect the men that know how to treasure their girls for all their uniqueness and becomes her support system in achieving her full potentials. I respect all the women that stand strong behind their men, encouraging and pushing them to go that much further. I respect the couples that know how to work their individual minds into their relationship and let it strive, instead of letting it shrivel and die in some dark, lonely corner. I respect people who want more for themselves because they know they deserve it.

The Curie couple...

In conclusion, I respect the 'Pierre and Marie Curie' concept. This is the kind of love that blooms, flourishes, nurtures and withstands the tides of time. This is the kind of love story that should be inspiring the young ones and I speak not of their love for each other alone. I speak of their love for science, humanity and their countries.

So why the hurry? Why the need to tie that one girl/boy down the first chance you get? Why can't you wait for the right one to come? There are things you could be doing meanwhile. Like what, you're probably thinking. Ummm.... I don't know, something like focusing on figuring out your goals first, perhaps? Or finding out what makes you truly happy?

To end this post, let me finish off with the kind of people I do NOT respect:

1. The kind that want to mould their partners to match their needs.
2. The kind that do not show respect themselves.

I'd like to hear, what kind of people do you not respect?

Thank you for reading!

The End of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

That's a TV show. If you've never heard of it, then you sure are missing out on a LOT. A follow up to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, this is the kind of show for the people who have deep fascination for the cosmos but do not quite understand the complex physics behind the researches and discoveries that are made. People like me, for instance.

It's so sad that it has to come to an end so quickly. I have yet to watch the final episode but I know I'm going to be left wanting for more after it's done. Neil deGrasse Tyson did such a wonderful job conveying the messages about our magnificent universe to us in a way that we could all understand and appreciate it better. In one episode he is outlining every major event that has occurred since the Big Bang in the context of one Earth year. The next he is discussing how quickly we're depleting our resources and destroying the only home we have (as of now.) In other words; first he tells us how we came to be and then, gives us a gentle reminder that we're all going to die soon (my sister's brilliantly simple conclusion of that episode) if we keep this up... All relevant to us, all irrefutably important.

One of the many highlights of this show was the fact that the producers managed to keep it real and relatable to the ordinary Joe that had just happened to turn to the right channel on a weekend night. Neil manages to scale us down to almost nothingness when compared to the universe and yet, make us feel so special when he speaks of our race's greatest achievements. He also doesn't forget to tell us the stories behind the names that we only see in physics textbooks. With the stories attached to these names, we finally begin to see that Faraday wasn't just some lifeless guy that had nothing better to do than play with electric sparks. Or that Maxwell wasn't some math whiz that had numbers forming equations for him at the snap of his fingers. Or perhaps that Marie Curie must have been really unpopular as a kid to have been interested in radioactive whatnots (I swear, I've heard the likes of these presumptions about scientists all too often...)

They weren't gods, they weren't born with special abilities. They weren't even that smart in school. They were just some very ordinary people with extraordinary determination and even more unbelievably imaginative minds.

Let's step away from all the scientific mumbo-jumbo for a bit. Let's think about some things. How did people begin to make theories about things they weren't even sure was there? All those people that devoted their lives to something that only they could see while everyone called them the crazy loonies for having their head stuck up in the clouds, why didn't they just give up? Thomas Alva Edison failed 1000 times before the first light bulb came on. Some never even lived to see their dreams come true! (Da Vinci anyone?)

“Dream, Dream Dream
Dreams transform into thoughts 
And thoughts result in action.” 
― A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Back to the topic of this blog. Neil spoke of his experience meeting Carl Sagan for the first time when he was just 17 years old in one of the episodes. Carl was his inspiration. And now he's mine - to be a bigger person that I can ever dare imagine. Just imagine how many others must have been inspired  by this show as well. The fact that Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow is one of the co-creators of the show just makes it all a tad bit more intimate and touching. A torch lit by that great thinker has been passed on to yet another generation - isn't that the greatest legacy one can leave behind once they're gone?

I end this blog with a fruit for your thoughts, in hopes that I have changed the way you saw scientists if you've ever just heard the names and not their tales.

The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes. - Nikola Tesla, "Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)