Profanity to Profundity

It is an attempt to capture in words my reaction to a result of science.  It has been an influence that made me think and feel the world at large very differently from what it was before this experience.  These experiences make anyone, in my opinion, a profound person! He or she is no longer profane.

All of us are taught in school about solar system.  Solar system helps us understand our environment and quite a few of the natural phenomena.  Let us take a quick tour of the Solar System.  It is made up of planets, asteroids, and a star called the Sun.  There are five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) among the eight that are visible to the naked eye.  Some of the interesting facts are that one can only see Mercury during sunrise or sunset and the planet Saturn has beautiful rings. 

As I reflect on the enormous space that these objects occupy and all other distant stars that are visible in the night sky, I wonder, like every curious child would, what keeps them from falling together or flying apart?  It was later in school and then college that the nuances of the organisation of planets around the Sun were explained.  It partially answered the question ‘why are things the way they are?’ 

Another question that crops up is ‘for how long can this go on?’ Will this Solar system with all its constituents, be there forever? I am curious to know, and am sure the reader is too.  There may be philosophical overtones for the reason why someone asks this question.  This in science is referred as stability of the system.  So, rephrasing the above question, we ask ‘is the solar system stable?’

Interestingly, the above question has occurred to many scientists at various times in history.  The French mathematician, Henri Poincare, answered this question in the affirmative in early 1900s.  The intuitive or instinctive answer, the “yes”, was confirmed mathematically and would not have been possible without the progress in 19^th century mathematics.  This was very satisfying physics-wise and mathematically. Personally, understanding the arguments to this effect was a great exhilarating experience.  It was a kind of bliss, indescribable happiness; it was the ’pleasure of finding things out’; it was sheer joy.

In another context, Subramanyam Chandrashekar, the Nobel laureate in Physics (1983), wrote about his experience to a friend thus: ‘In my entire scientific life, extending over forty-five years, the most shattering experience has been the realisation that [New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr's] exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity provides the *absolutely* exact representation of untold numbers of massive black holes that populate the universe.  

This "shuddering before the beautiful," this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathematics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound.”  I could not agree any less than Prof Chandra.

For the common man who had seen all the benefits from sciences this allows him a settled understanding of his environment and to feel safe physically and philosophically!