ODE TO EINSTEIN

Life is full of incidents,and of co-incidents.In my previous blog-post,I'd written about the ambiguous reaction and an uncertain dualism that my conscience had thrown up to face my own self,when I had watched a TV reality show last week.That was an incident.The reason I mentioned co-incidents is that only 2 days later I was happily forced to think to depth for a long time about another dualism and uncertaintly which is universally well-known,the dualism and uncertainty principle of quantum physics.

[I must thank in this platform,with his permission,Dr.Rakesh Biswas,a distinguished physician,academician and a research-scientist in the field of internal medicine and community medicine.I've been fortunate enough to have him as a friend since my college days when we studied medicine in the same medical college.I've been all the more fortunate because this friendship has withstood the test of time after our respective graduations till today,and I have learnt a whole lot of things from him,ranging from medicine,philosophy of science(and the science of philosophy),anthropology,sociology,and about life in general,not to forget the fact that he has been a constant source of inspiration and tolerant encouragement behind my amateur effort to pen down the eccentric expressions of my own mind.]

To come to the co-incident point directly-Dr.Biswas had sent me an highly enlightening article recently,about Einstein and quantum physics.I enjoyed reading it all the more because physics has always been passionately close to my heart,the domains of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics fascinating me to the moment.It was through this article(which my dear friend had sent me out of his own interactions with HQR-Holistic Quantum Relativity-a brilliant concept of an internet group founded on holistic academics),that I came to learn for the first time,about the concept of Quantum Entanglement.
 

Quoting directly from the article in bits and parts,
"Quantum Entanglement is at the heart of understanding how significant events across the universe operate at the macro- and micro- level in split-second synchronised unison despite considerable distance between them."

…"Quantum Entanglement seems to throw out the whole notion of cause and effect, as we know it! It is possible for a particle to interact with another particle in such a way that the quantum states of the two particles form a single entangled state." 
 …"That was why Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen dreamed up the idea of what we now call "Quantum Entanglement" in 1935. It was to show that either quantum theory was incomplete, because it said there was no hidden information, or it was possible to instantly influence something at a distance." 
…"Quantum Entanglement does underline the fact that quantum particles really do only have a range of probabilities on the values of their properties rather than fixed values. And while it seems to contradict Einstein's theory of special relativity, which says nothing can travel faster than light, it's increasingly likely that entanglement challenges our ideas of what space and time really mean!"

 

Talking about Einstein and the duality of quantam physics,one needs to ponder upon the history of classical physics so that one can compare and comment upon the subtle nuances of both.The regularities observed in nature and the subsequent laws of classical physics seem to have strongly emerged in the last 300 years.And a continued success of these laws led Laplace to postulate the philosophy of scientific determinism,where he suggested that there would be a set of laws that would determine the evolution of the universe precisely,given its configuration at one time.

 I think Laplace 's determinism was incomplete in 2 ways. It did not say How the laws would be chosen,and it did not specify the initial configuration of the universe.These aspects were presumably left to God,who would choose how the universe began,but He would not intervene once it got started. Laplace's hopes in determinism cannot be possibly realised,now that we know that the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics implies that certain pairs of quantities,such as the velocity and position of a particle,cannot both be predicted with complete accuracy.

 

Quantum mechanics implies that certain particles do not have well-defined positions and velocities,but are represented by a wave. Quantum theories are deterministic in the sense that they give laws for evolution of the wave with time.In effect,we seem to have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principle. But a question still remains in my mind - How or Why were the laws and the initial state of the universe chosen? When one combines quantum mechanics with general relativity,there seems to be a possibility that space and time together might form a finite,four-dimensional space without boundaries or singularities.This idea seems to explain many observed features of the universe,such as its large-scale homogeneity,and also its smaller-scale departures from homogeneity e.g.galaxies and stars(perhaps even human beings?!)

 

But one thing I cannot understand-if the universe is so completely self-contained,that leaves serious implications for the role of God as a Creator.Einstein is once believed to have asked-"How much Choice did God have in constructing the universe?"

God does not seem to have any freedom at all to choose the initial conditions.(He,of course,seems to have the freedom to choose the laws that the universe obeys.) Speaking of the quantum 'wave',the element of unpredictability or randomness comes in only when one tries to interpret the wave in terms of positions and velocities. I do not intend to throw up a controversy here Maybe there are No particle positions and velocities,but only waves?(This question used to bug me when I was in my higher secondary years when I was gleefully exposed to the quantum world through the physics syllabus).Could it be just that we try to fit the waves to our preconceived ideas of positions and velocities?

 

When I think about a possible ontological origin of the theory of Quantum Entanglement,I cannot help but but ponder about the socio-political profile of Albert Einstein.Einstein's connection with the politics of the nuclear bomb is well-known-he signed the famous letter to Franklin Roosevelt that persuaded the USA to take the idea seriously,and he engaged in postwar efforts to prevent nuclear war.But he was a scientist who was dragged into politics. He had witnessed the massive genocide in the First World War as a professor in Berlin.He became involved in anti-war demonstrations.

His second great cause was Zionism.Although Jewish by descent,he rejected the biblical idea of God.A growing awareness of pre and peri-World War I anti-Semitism drew him closer to his own community and to Zionism. This hardly earned him friends amongst his own colleagues associated with research and advancement of physics.The alignment of Einstein with a possible theory of quantum entanglement in the mid 30s,which is a major shift,to say the least,from his General and particularly Special Theories of Relativity perhaps reflect the frustration the deep sadness and frustration of Einstein the man's social profile.But he had always been phlegmatic: when a book was published entitled-"100 Authors Against Einstein",he retorted back,"If I were wrong,then one author would have been enough!"

Throughout his life,Einstein's efforts towards peace perhaps achieved little to last long and certainly won him few friends.But his support for the Zionist cause offered him the Presidency of Israel in 1952,which he declined saying he thought he was too naive in politics.Once again quoting him – "Equations are more important to me because politics is for the present,but an equation is for eternity".

 

Up to now,scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe What the universe is,to ask Why.On the other hand,philosophers(the people who ask Why)have not been able to keep up with the advancement of scientific theories.In the 18th.century,philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge,including science,to be their field and discussed questions such as:Did the universe have a beginning? However,in the 19th..and 20th.centuries,science perhaps became too mathematical and technical for the philosophers.Wittgenstein,the famous philosopher,once said,"The role remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language." What a philosophical comedown,from Aristotle to Emmanuel Kant!
However,if man does discovers a grand unified theory which would explain everything around us right from the Big Bang,it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason.Because then,we would know The Mind of God.

  

{I apologise for my audacity to write about Physics here because I am not even an amateur physicist.I just find myself in a bewildering world.And we all want to make sense of what we see around us to ask-What is the nature of Nature(which spans the entire universe)?What is our role in it?Why is it the way it is?

I'm sure your mind asks these questions too.}