WONDERING ABOUT THE WORLD

WONDERING ABOUT THE WORLD

I look at this earth, the whole universe and I wonder…

I look at the sky in a clear night filled with stars and I wonder as to what they are. Why do they twinkle? How vast is the universe? How did it come into existence?

I am casually told that the universe is expanding in all directions as 1500 billion years back there was a big bang

This staggers my imagination. Why was there a big bang? What exactly happened?

They say the universe started from a point of incredibly large density and miniscule volume. I wonder and wonder at that.

I wonder at the gravitational force that made all masses come together into a point due to the power of bodies , by virtue of just having mass, attracting each other.!

I wonder at the fact that stars are formed by the coming together of matter in countless regions and the clumps getting bigger and bigger and bigger – huge and with intense pressure at the centre, an incredibly large pressure that creates large degrees of heat.

And then the scientists tell me that hydrogen, the simplest element in the universe, becomes helium. This happens, they say, because the nucleus of the hydrogen atoms fuse in pairs and become helium and radiate heat and light.

I wonder at these nuclear fusion reactions.

I wonder at the fact that when hydrogen is used up, the star flares up momentarily and shrinks due to gravity and dies.

I wonder at the creation of black holes if the dying star is huge. I wonder at the sheer power of gravity to break down even matter and suck everything even light to itself and thus become a black hole.

I wonder at the huge motions of stars around a centre point and thus forming galaxies.

A star is huge. A galaxy has, they tell me, billions of stars and there are such billions of galaxies.

I wonder and it staggers my imagination- the incredible size of the universe.

I wonder at how we came to know all this. They tell me that it was detective work, that they studied the light from far away objects and its spectrum to guess.

I wonder at the incredible genius of the scientists who imagined, who thought, who looked at such an incredible complexity and made it simple, graspable, finite and wondrous.

I wonder at our own sun and the nice, regular motions of the earth and the planets around it.

I wonder at the fine, delicate balance of the earth’s systems – its rotation, revolution, atmosphere that is conducive to life.

I wonder at life itself!

When scientists tell me that life at the beginning, the most basic start of life, the formation of single celled life happened due to a chemical reaction and when I read that that chemical reaction was redone and life made in the lab, I wonder!

How is it that such a self sustaining thing comes to existence by a chemical reaction?

I wonder at the progression of life. How the cell evolved, randomly and accidentally, by creating systems of survival within itself over a period of millions and millions of years and filled this earth with millions of species all having created systems adapted to their background that is enough to survive.

I wonder at our earth- so beautiful, so conducive to life!

I wonder at the huge oceans, at the fact that continents drift, albeit very very slowly, and this formed the mountain ranges.

I wonder at the perfect systems of cycles that keep the earth and life in it going.

Above all I wonder about man- you and me.

This strange animal, the climax of evolution, thinks, integrates the material provided by our senses into concepts (words) and discovers principles and thus holds the whole world in the palm of his hand with his understanding! I wonder and wonder at this phenomenon, about myself, and I am liberated and a deep joy fills me – indescribable, infinite!

But I also wonder at the tortuous history of man, the blindness, the savagery, the utter wanton destruction and the use of force simultaneous with flowering, ascent, discovery, becoming powerful (the great work of the geniuses, down the ages)

I wonder at the present world too. I wonder at why such simple things are not understood, the wholesale mediocrity, the wholesale blindness…..

I wonder where it will all head. I wonder and live with this simple, elemental, joyous feeling of feeling this earth and the universe and I feel safe, secure, and always on a high, exultant, with a million things to know, to discover, to do

I also wonder at the fundamental elements of the physical world- movement of bodies, sound, light, heat, and electricity and magnetism.

I wonder when I am told that in space, bodies do not stop when once in motion and that this fact is universal and true for this whole universe. Bodies in motion stop on earth only because the contact roughness opposes the motion. The body is not really free. I wonder at the law of universal gravitation, the fact that every mass attracts every other mass. I wonder at its simplicity and the fact that it explains the very structure of the universe.

I wonder at sound. When I am told that it is caused by the vibrations back and forth of air (or any medium for that matter) of atoms and molecules I am wonder struck.

Everything is made of atoms or molecules and these are bonded to each other like springs and hence the vibrations happen. I wonder at such delicate waves that cause a sensation of sound to us. I wonder at the evolved structure of our ears that can interpret these purely physical waves and give us s a sensation of hearing.

I wonder at heat. Heat, they say is the movement of atoms and molecules in a body. More the movement, more the temperature. Again I wonder at our sensation of touch and the delicacy of the mechanism by which we feel heat.

I wonder and wonder at light! What is that thing that travels in straight lines, reflects, refracts, that is bends when going from one medium to another, interferes at minute scales…I wonder at the duality of light , that it is both a waver and particle. It really stops me, this thing, this deep mystery that scientists too are baffled at.

I wonder at electricity and magnetism. I wonder at the 2 types of charges and how unlike charges attract and like charges repel. I wonder at how currents are created chemically in a battery and how a current becomes a magnet and thus makes possible the manufacturing of motors. I wonder at the phenomenon of electric induction that says that if there is relative motion between a current and a magnet, current is induced in it.

I wonder at how acceleration of charges create an electromagnetic wave by creating mutual electric and magnetic disturbances. When I read that light is an electromagnetic wave I am struck with wonder. I suddenly look at the radio, tv and understand it and wonder at the ingenuity of those great inventors who gave us these gifts.

The most wondrous thing is the fact that everything is made of atoms, crores and crores of them in an inch of any material. I study the painstaking way, the careful experiments, by which the picture of the atomic structure came to light…and I wonder …

I look at all these things, I understand, but the wonder, the joy of knowing and feeling them does not cease…I feel blessed, like a god, to know so much and feel so much!