 Titles of similar nature abound in many books, articles, websites and docuseries. Most of them basically outline and narrate things in similar contents and fashions. Let us try to avoid repeating that line of thinking in this piece. Instead, I will try to present aspects of this interesting topic in simple fundamental terms – philosophized at times, and enriched by the wealth of enlightened ancient wisdoms. In earlier articles, in Natural Order, Natural Equilibrium, The Fluidity of Nature, Social Order, Social Fluidity, The Sanctity of Nature’s Wonders, and others (see in Website Links and Profile) – aspects of the laws of Nature were featured.
Let me attempt to explain the laws differently – in terms of processes, and ultimate goals or objectives in two acronyms: SPIRIT – Something Perpetual Irreversible and Reversible, Interdependent and Transient; aiming to achieve STILL – Something Tranquil and Irreversible in Lucid Liberty. The pasted image is created to illustrate this approach. It is this quest of Nature aiming to establish – equilibrium from disequilibrium – order from disorder – balance from imbalance – symmetry and stability from asymmetry and instability – that drives everything in the universe. It is important to understand this quest from the viewpoints of both processes and objectives – otherwise there are real risks that one is likely to remain embroiled in attempts to understand the processes without ever comprehending what the real objectives are. Further, it is essential to connect Matter that we all see and readily perceive – with Immatter, with one of the most important elements being the phenomena of human mind (see The Power of Mind). This connection is emerging as the new frontier of our modern understanding - despite the fact that 6th century BCE enlightened ancient wisdom had clear directions of the role of mind in modulating the actions of Matter or material processes – with the vice versa role of matter. In this piece I have revisited this ancient wisdom for clarity of explanation and understanding. With this, here are some brief elaborations of the two acronyms I have suggested. . . . SPIRIT In short, these are the processes of Nature we all experience everyday – in our lifetime – in uncertain but coherent pursuits – the perpetual interactive but collaborative dynamics of the Systems of Fluid, Solid and Life (see Warming Climate and Entropy). Some of them we readily understand – in some cases, more than our ancestors did – simply because we are born in a different time. Our common intuitive knowledge has gone through reincarnation after reincarnation – enriching us in the kaleidoscope of time and space – in the evolving canvas of spacetime. The systems – creating boundary conditions upon one another – drive themselves in Collective Unison – in characteristic scales and intensity that define them – to smooth out inequalities – to even out asymmetries. The term collective unison or harmony is emphasized for a reason. It is because, by not understanding this Natural quest in true perspectives – the Western notion/tenet is formulated suggesting that inequality and asymmetry are the norm of things – as if they are rigid. Therefore, procedural rules of business were designed to account for this notion (it dominates the world thinking today by the dint of worldwide Western influence for over 5 centuries; the notion itself developed by the perpetual wars and conflicts in Europe; Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) once said . . . this way of life is incompatible with the much more natural law of love . . .). It essentially says that real substantive Truth does not matter – truth is what the powerful says it is. Accordingly, to perpetuate, even to accentuate this notion – to survive and dominate – the rules of business have yielded the practices of attrition, deception, destruction and elimination of the competition and opponent (it got its boost, with the Charles Darwin, 1809 – 1882 saying of ‘Survival of the Fittest’; although Darwin theorized and illustrated many other brilliant things that defined the evolving canvas of the life system – this saying was emphasized and popularized by the ruling seats of power to serve their interests; albeit, under the veils of all different sorts of polished information campaign. His saying . . . if the misery of the poor be caused not by the law of nature, but by our own institutions, great is our sin. . . is totally ignored). And, obviously the first rule of business to control and contain the opponent – is to impact what matters most to the competition – monetary and economic affairs – as they are the sources of wealth and power. The perpetuation and sustenance of these tasks – asks for backing them up by information campaign (to influence the lens of observer/reader/viewer – such that the consumer of the information will perceive things – consciously or unconsciously – in line with the intended propaganda/campaign purposes/policies) and fire power. In the backdrop of this arrogance of power (see some glimpses in Democracy and Larry the Cat) – lies the Nature’s true SPIRIT, which says to realize the fact that competition is healthy and beneficial – if things are conducted in just and righteous way respecting everyone’s interests. When elimination of competition (in particular, when the competition is assumed formidable) is promoted – it opens the door for pursuance of malicious unsustainable monopolistic practices. Thus, Nature’s SPIRIT quests – of collective unison, happiness and harmony – were shelved to collect dust (see glimpses of it in The Grammar of Industrialization) by actions conducted in line with the predominant view of things. It is not difficult to see that the practice was reinforced by 'Lord Shepherd-Docile Lambs' and humans as 'Sinner' psyche – that pervaded past human actions of power play in the West (and by its outreach to the rest of the world) – and continues to pervade actions in present times (see Something Different). Apart from this human-made insinuation, some breakdowns do occur for other reasons, during the processes of pursuit, like:
All these SPIRIT processes, in brief, happen in different Force Field domains (see The Quantum World, Force Fields in a Coastal System). Fundamental to this – is the ubiquitous Gravitational Force Field or GFF (see Einstein’s Unruly Hair) and the Electromagnetic Force Field or EMFF (for the sake of brevity, among others, only these two Force Fields are highlighted, others are active in their respective domains, see further in The Quantum World). The former defines all that we perceive as Nature. The latter governs things mostly in invisibility, but in the measurable domain of frequency, amplitude and phase. This field is responsible for transfer of energy – for example, in the two-way motions from IMMATTER to MATTER, and vice versa. The equivalence of the two – the matter-energy equivalence – has come to light in the early 20th century – by the works of a brilliant mind in modern time – Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955). In ancient times, the fundamentals of SPIRIT – was figured out by one person, the first of its kind in history – he was the Shakyamuni Gautama Buddha (624 – 544 BCE, The Tathagata; Let there be Light - and there was Light). While the Western portrayal of the nature of SPIRIT (in suggesting that attrition, deception and elimination of competition must be pursued to prevail) – arose from frustration and hopelessness (that nothing can be done to undo this portrayal – therefore, the weak must live with it – and the strong must fight to prevail) – the Buddha relied on Nature as it truly functions – to bring in the enlightened message of hope – with the clear-cut definition of the Way, he has enunciated. This way is not the way of mistrust, deception and animosity – not to eliminate the competition – not to let the weak become weaker – but to work in collective unison and harmony – just as the true nature of SPIRIT is. And that, if pursued through the right path of wholesomeness – humans, by themselves in freedom and wisdom, can overcome the difficulties and complete the whole processes of SPIRIT – to attain STILL. By the two Universal Laws the Buddha discovered – the Law of Impermanence (Anicca, symbolized as an Incomplete Circle; an indication of both incompleteness and of over-powering influences that leaves a residual; see the physics of it in Characterizing Wave Asymmetry) or Transience; and the Law of Dependent-Origination (Patticca Samupaddha) or Interdependence (symbolized as an Eternal Knot) – he laid the rational basis and foundation on which all of the described SPIRIT processes can be cast, interpreted and explained. These two laws were delivered and illustrated by the Buddha as Anattalakkhana Sutta, and Paticca-Samupadha-Vibhanga Sutta, respectively. The dynamic interlink between Transience and Interdependence - makes everything in the universe conditioned. This means again - that nothing exists without a cause, without causing an effect. The reality of impermanence, while obvious – must not lead to hopelessness and frustration – rather it should be understood that the Eternal Knot is not rigid – but transformative as in the fluidity of things that defines Nature – all heading to Complete the Circle without leaving a residual, to Untie the Knot. The reality of the two laws is so ubiquitous that the discovery has become common human knowledge now - although it is doubtful whether the deep meanings and implications of them really permeated into the human thought processes and societal interactions. The forward grinding of the Wheel of Time (see TIME) to infinity – the Arrow of Time (see Entropy and Everything Else) – in the entangled cause-effect, action-reaction duo, the Eternal Knot – all SPIRIT processes pertain to these two laws. Told or untold, indeed, all subsequent theories, laws and teachings had this foundational base. . . . MATTER and IMMATTER There is more than what we readily understand of the nature of the driving engine or motivator behind the processes of SPIRIT. This is the Universal Dynamics of Matter and Immatter – the Shin-Gi-Tai. As pointed out in previous paragraphs, while matter or material processes are rather obvious – one needs to have a clear grasp of what immatter is. The role of immatter in the cloaks of human mind in modulating material processes and vice-versa – is something of a mystery – although Buddhist thoughts (The Tathagata) had clear directions to this mystery. One of these directions says that in the presence of an agitated and unguarded mind – it is difficult to avoid the effects of subjectivity in views of things. The late 19th to the early 20th century birth of Quantum Mechanics (see The Quantum World) shed fresh light on the role of human mind – the observer-observed, the subject-object relationship. It says that one’s impression of the observed or the object – is a modulation of the observer’s state of mind. The observed, in turn modulates the impression of the observer. It lies in the same vein as the Eternal Knot of the action-reaction, cause-effect duo. A saying (see further in The Power of Mind) of Max KEL Planck (1858 – 1947) – the father of Quantum Mechanics – is remarkable on this, All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. This wisdom (see Something Different) has been with us since ancient times – only for reasons of ignorance or otherwise – we were not aware of, or really understood it. Also, we have not understood it in the past – because we were too much obsessed with matter – ignoring the wisdom of the importance of immatter as the motivator. Buddhism (The Tathagata) says that mind, the sixth sense, as the forerunner of everything one does – and by its very nature of instantaneous roaming in space and time – gives birth to consciousness in us together with the five body senses. The works of thought processes originating in the universe of mind – immediately indicate three important particulars:
Now, let us attempt to see what the Matter-Immatter Dynamics implies:
. . . STILL The SPIRIT quests that result in short-lived, quasi or transitory equilibrium of different sorts – happen all the time. This is Nature’s efforts of reversibility to achieve perfection from imperfection. Imagine the tiring pursuits of SPIRIT – from one sort of dynamic equilibrium to another – the circle is never completed, the eternal knot is never untied. If one knot is untied – another appears in a different configuration. The pursuits exhaust the actors – therefore, aspiring to reach peace and happiness in STILL is so universal. Understandably, the tenet of inequality and asymmetry as something rigid denying the Nature’s law of fluidity or dynamic equilibrium – is neither the norm nor justifiable. Therefore, the notion of working with Nature rather than against it – is gaining so much attention and popularity in recent times. It is healthy and wise. As shown in the image, the dynamic equilibrium is not the end – rather incremental and gradual accumulation of all such achievements head to STILL. The rationale for heading to STILL can simply be understood from the facts of one’s experience – that when one is happy, peaceful and harmonious – the efficacy of his or her works, performance and relationships – increases manifold. The same aspiration also happens in every system – we call it Nature. But, while SPIRIT must head to STILL – any gain by prolonging the scale of transience during the SPIRIT processes – must also be appreciated and valued. Is achieving STILL certain? Well, as everything else in Nature – that works in Matter-Immatter dynamics – there is no surety of things (see more in Uncertainty and Risk and The World of Numbers and Chances). One more reason for this lack of surety is – that some of Nature’s Actions are not predictable. These actions are characterized by high impact episodes – in Frontal Wave Force Field (as described in Force Fields in a Coastal System) mode. Such episodes jeopardize everything – painstakingly achieved incrementally and gradually. But, when accumulation of the achieved gains happens – if it happens (therefore something rare) – a Lucid Liberty – STILL is finally secured. The Incomplete Circle is finally completed – the Eternal Knot is finally untied – and the Full Moon begins to shine brilliantly bright. In Buddhism (The Tathagata; Let There be Light - and there was Light) – this STILL has a name – it is called NIRVANA. . . . The Koan of this piece: The moment one behaves in arrogance and disrespect – the moment one behaves with overzealousy and unnecessary adulation – Nature knows the person is a liar, vengeful and untrustworthy. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 14 August 2023
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 Among the many force fields (see The Quantum World and Entropy – and Everything Else for a general description) that govern and dominate what we do and live with – are the substantial effects of two – the ubiquitous Gravitational Force Field (GFF) and the Electromagnetic Force Field (EMFF). With the proliferation of electronic communication and our overwhelming dependence and works in cyberspace (see aspects of it in Artificial Intelligence – the Tool of No Limit) – the EMFF of the past centuries is getting transformed into something totally different. The result is that it is taking an unprecedented bite on everyone’s life and livelihood – the longterm impacts of which are neither addressed nor understood.
This piece is not about the impact of this kind – but the processes of river sediments sequestered by floodplains – and of sediments delivered into the coastal ocean. Of these two sedimentary functions of an alluvial river – the first represents floodplain sedimentation – while the second is responsible for building Coastal River Delta. The ocean delivery comes as an impact/effect on the ambient coastal ocean – the LDFF (Land Drainage Force Field) – described in the Force Fields in a Coastal System. In that piece the effects of LDFF have been identified in three different seasonal aspects: sediment delivery, and freshwater discharge to – and density-driven circulation in the river-mouth coastal ocean. As can be understood, the larger the river – the larger is its LDFF – going beyond the river mouth coastal ocean into the deep ocean. . . . What I am going to discuss in this article – are part of the works that were submitted for publication in 1998 to Sedimentology – the Journal of the IAS. The paper was titled: Suspended Sediment Transport through the Ganges-Brahmaputra Fluvial System: Implications for Floodplain Sedimentation and Sediment Delivery to the Ocean. Despite having great reviews from reviewers and the editor, I got busy and could not manage time to submit the updated revised manuscript for publication (I feel like I owe an apology to IAS for not managing time to submit the revision). Since then, I forgot about it and almost lost the manuscript. Luckily, I was able to trace back the manuscript and thought of presenting some important aspects of it in this piece. It is about the Ganges-Jamuna River System (GJRS) – how this top ranking large alluvial system functions – in terms of its role in sediment delivery into the coastal ocean – and how much sediments are lost into or are sequestered by the floodplain. Let us attempt to understand these processes in simple terms with the help of the shown image – illustrating the defined GJRS and sediment flows. Writing this piece is enriched by many of my works and publications prior to and after 1998 – and several of my WIDECANVAS articles. They include: Investigative Works and Papers: my 1992 USC Ph.D. Dissertation; the 1994 Asia Pacific Journal, Environmental Controls of Bangladesh River Systems; the 1996 Asia Pacific Journal, Environmental Functions of an Alluvial River; the 1995 Oxford & IBH, Adaptation and Equilibrium of Bangladesh Rivers; the 1995 IEB, Sediment Transport in Suspension; the 1997 Water Nepal, Characteristics and Mobility; the 1998 Taylor & Francis, Turbulent Flow Structure; and the 2017 Encyclopedia, Seabed Roughness of Coastal Waters. Some short articles include: the 2001 ASCE, Field Techniques; the 2002 ASCE, Alluvial Deltas; the 2004 ASCE, Settling Velocity of Natural Sediments; the 2001 ASCE, Suspended-Sediment Measurement; the 2001 ASCE, Suspended Particles Fraser River; and the 2008 ASCE, Fluid Mud. WIDECANVAS articles include: – Environmental Controls and Functions of a River; Common Sense Hydraulics; The Hydraulics of Sediment Transport; Resistance to Flow; Harbor Sedimentation; Force Fields in a Coastal System; Coastal River Delta; Managing Coastal Inlets; and Civil Engineering on our Seashore. . . . Ganges-Jamuna River System. Two large international rivers draining the slopes of the Himalayas and associated catchments – the Ganga – draining mostly the southern slope (in Bangladesh, the deltaic reach of the Ganga River is known by its British name the Ganges River), the Brahmaputra – draining mostly the northern and eastern slopes (the deltaic reach of the Brahmaputra River is known as the Jamuna River in Bangladesh) and a relatively small river, the Meghna – debouch into the northern Bay of Bengal as a combined force. In the water-flow and sediment transport processes of the three rivers – the contribution of the Meghna River is relatively minor (see my Water Nepal paper) – therefore not considered important for this study. The flow of the Ganges and Jamuna merge into one – as the Padma River at a confluence near Baruria. When the mighty Padma meets the smaller Meghna – the combined downstream flow is known as the Meghna River Estuary. Among many of world’s large rivers debouching into the ocean – the GJRS ranks first in terms of sediment delivery (JD Milliman and RH Meade 1983) and third in terms of water-flow (JM Coleman 1969). These characterizations immediately indicate the higher sediment/water ratio of the GJRS compared to others. Because of the high ratio of such a large system, there have been considerable interests among researchers and Government sponsored studies to explore sediment-water dynamics of GJRS. The most notable among the sponsored studies – under the auspices of Master Plan Organization (MPO) – were those conducted by the French Engineering Consortium, China-Bangladesh Joint Expert Team, the European Union River Survey Project, and the US Environmental GIS Project. This contribution is part of the last two efforts - where I worked. As presented in the shown image, the GJRS is defined by – the inflow boundaries at Bahadurabad in the Jamuna River and at Hardinge Bridge in the Ganges River. Draining the main combined flows – the outflow boundary is located at Baruria in the Padma River. Two distributaries – the Gorai (measuring station at Kushtia) and Dhaleswari (measuring station at Jagir and Taraghat) – take a small share out of the combined flow to drain individually to build floodplains and finally debouching into the ocean. Following the Environmental Controls and Characteristics and Mobility papers and referring to the measuring stations described above and in the image – a brief on the main fluvial characteristics of the GJRS reads as follows:
Floodplains. Before moving further, let me first present a brief on some floodplain basics – because knowing it is very important to understand the dynamics of large rivers in their sluggish lower deltaic reaches. To describe it, I will mostly depend on some summaries presented in FAO (1988) and Alam et al (1990). A floodplain is usually divided into different units by looking into its fluvial geomorphology and age. It has three distinct idealized geomorphic units – from nearest to the furthest distance off the river bank – are the natural levees, seasonally drained back-swamps, and marshes of poorly drained standing water bodies. Of these three, natural levees are a strip of land on both sides of a river – the width of which could be as wide as 4 times river size. The strip has a relatively higher elevation than other floodplain areas, experience higher flow velocities than the rest, and mostly consists of deposits of coarse sediments. They are utilized to locate engineered flood-control-and-mitigation dikes. Natural levees usually have discontinuities along their length – intersected by crevasse splays – the shallow channels that feed and empty the floodplains. The back-swamps are seasonally drained, experience less flow velocities and are characterized by deposits of fine sands and silts. The marshes face very negligible flow velocities and are characterized by paludal deposits of clay and peat. In terms of age, a floodplain is distinguished as active, young and old. An active floodplain is reworked seasonally by migrating rivers. They are comprised of braid-bars, meander scroll-bars, natural levees and crevasse splays. Inland from this, lies the broad young floodplain – a relatively inactive region shielded from the dynamic effects of erosion, scour or localized burial deposits. Compared to these two, the old floodplains are stable without any appreciable sediment deposit or erosion. However, this idealized characterization of floodplains are often broken by a river system such as the GJRS – where bank erosion protection measures are minimal or absent – with the system enjoying the freedom to move swiftly and dramatically during the flood stage. Further, as the name suggests a floodplain belongs to the river regime – built by the river on its banks to store and convey water when the river is on high seasonal flood stage. Its important functions include: the modulation and alleviation downstream flooding problems – and refurbishing the fertility of the floodplains. Indiscriminate installation of levees (see aspects of it in Flood Barrier Systems) separating the plains from the river have been reported to have adversely affected both the river (e.g. the Mississippi River in USA, the Yangtze River in China) and the associated floodplains. They come in the form of the pondage or sinking of floodplains, and raising the elevation of the embanked river bed. . . . Reviews of Transport Estimates – Prior Researches Before moving further, it is important to stress that all transports (presented in this piece) – relevant to floodplain sequestering and ocean delivery – represent suspended sediment load (SSL). SSL comprises of fine sediments that include both suspended bed-material load and wash load (see more on The Hydraulics of Sediment Transport). There have been two fundamentally different approaches of estimating SSL for large rivers. The first represents estimates based on looking at things at a high level, and the second is on analysis of actual observations. High Level Holistic Approach – was a hybrid method based on sediment yield estimates using data comprising of basin-wide information of topographical relief, hydro-meteorology, geology and vegetative covers – and on information derived from some secondary sources. Using the data of 280 large rivers, such researches have shown that SSL is a long-linear function of basin size and elevation (the works of Fournier 1960, JN Holeman 1968, JD Milliman and RH Meade 1983 and JD Milliman and PM Syvitski 1991). Using notations (million tons in US or short tons as MT, and million tonnes or metric tons as MTE) their estimates showed total annual SSL of GJRS varies from 1670 MT (or 1515 MTE) by Milliman and Meade to 2400 MT (or 2177 MTE) by Holeman. Approach Relying on Observed Database – used actual observations derived from secondary sources, which are most often sparsely covered in space and time. To cope with the missing data, researchers then used different analytic techniques to make a reasonable estimate. JM Coleman (1969) got his estimates by using sparsely covered EPWAPDA (East Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority) data (1958-1962). During this period an elutriation of 5 min was used (compared to the later lime of 100 s, used in our estimate). His estimates showed total annual SSL as 1087 MT or 986 MTE. The comparison of both the methods immediately shows that the High-Level approach grossly overestimated the transports. Elaborated as follows – the estimates presented in this piece are based on this second approach – but pursuing a systematic analysis of 25-years of data of Bangladesh Water Development Board, BWDB (reincarnation of erstwhile EPWAPDA) – and by looking into uncertainty of them. . . . FLOODPLAIN SEDIMENTATION AND OCEAN DELIVERY The presented works in this piece were conducted under the auspices of Bangladesh Environmental GIS Project and River Survey Project. In contrast to earlier efforts, this work presents estimates in terms of fractional distributions of sand, and silt-clay. Here are some gists of the methodology and findings. Methodology. The method that prevailed during drawing up of this paper – was systematized by the consultants of FAO (1966) and UNESCO (1974 and 1979) – with some refinements following the general guidelines of WMO. The following procedure has been in practice since 1965.
SSL System Balance – Sequestering and Ocean Delivery. The presented estimates made use of 25 years (1966 – 1991; with a 1-year gap in 1971) of data collected by BWDB. This length of time is considered adequate for meaningful statistical analyses.
Let me finish this piece with a sweet poem ‘Unbeaten by Rain’ by Miyazawa Kenji (1896 – 1933) – a Japanese poet, a novelist and a devout Buddhist. Revered and loved to the likeness of a national poem in Japan – it echoes the sound and rhythm of the Buddha (563 – 483 BCE) - The Tathagata's Karniya Metta Sutta (the 10-verse discourse on Loving Kindness). Unbeaten by rain Unbeaten by wind Unbowed by the snow and summer heat Strong in body Free from greed Without any anger . . . In the East, if there is a sick child Go there and take care of him In the West, if there is an exhausted mother Go there and relieve her of her burden In the South, if there is a man near death Go there and comfort him, tell him ‘Don’t be afraid’ In the North, if there is an argument and a legal dispute Go there and persuade them it’s not worth it In a drought, shed tears In a cold summer, carry on . . . . . Paying homage to those who worked for, and dedicated their lives for the right to use mother language in daily and state businesses in their native land – on this day of International Mother Language on 21st February (the day represents and commemorates Bangladesh language movement day) – this piece is a tribute in memoriam of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 – 2022) who passed away on 22 January 2022 at the age of 95. A veteran of the worldwide Vietnam War Resistance movement and a nominee of the Nobel Peace Prize, he left an enlightened legacy of compassionate accomplishments that transcended religious and sectarian boundaries across the globe. In the footsteps of the Buddha – and in the framework of Engaged Buddhism, he gave a forceful impetus to the practice of mindfulness (Samma Sati) meditation. It is hard not to love and cherish his words: the best gift one can give to oneself, to his or her loved ones, works, co-workers or to others is mindful ATTENTION. With this gift, the receiver blooms like a flower – like a Lotus. In another, he explained very lucidly the meaning of Emptiness – that when one sees a tree in meditation, he or she not only sees the tree itself – but every other interconnected factors contributing to the existence of the tree. This realization of the truth of Dependent-Origination makes one humble and respectful to others. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 21 February 2022  The theme of this short piece: The Sanctity of Nature’s Wonders – Violated more than Enough – No More – It’s Time for three Rs – Rewind, Reflect and Restore. It is a tribute to the wonders of Life System – a very colorful and fascinating world indeed. The appreciation of this wonderful world is made possible by the enlightening and dedicated works of Naturalists or Natural Scientists – and all the activists. Their investigative efforts on the Systems of Earth’s processes – and advocacy have garnered the growing global awareness of the value of interactive Systems of Fluid, Solid and Life (see Warming Climate and Entropy). We now know more of these systems – of their symbiotic relationships - the interdependence of things – allowing us to appreciate their belonging to our own well-being (see Enlightenment, Emptiness and Nirvana). We feel like saying with Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910): One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.
The air we breathe – the water we drink – the seasons bringing the right temperature and pressure, rain and sunshine – the beauty of Nature’s harmony that let us feel relaxed, happy and peaceful – the food we eat by harvesting plants and others belonging to the Life System – are all precious gifts of Nature - the Mottainai. There cannot be anything stupider and dumber than destroying what sustains us – what let us live and thrive. No actions whatever the arguments are in favor of such actions – can be justified. The awareness and appreciation of Nature's beauty let us think and sing like Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971): . . . and I think to myself what a wonderful world . . . We think of matters that define The Nature We Live in and The Society We Live in – presented in articles posted in some titles: Natural Order; Natural Equilibrium; Nature’s Action; The Fluidity of Nature; Duality and Multiplicity in Nature; The Wheel of Life; Social Order; Social Fluidity; Duality and Multiplicity in a Society. These matters are the multiplicity of plants and animals of the Life System that have evolved and are evolving along with us – in the kaleidoscope of Transience and Interdependence. This tribute is a belated commemoration of the Earth Day (April 22) and the World Wildlife Day (3 March). Among the Naturalists who have been and are at the forefront spearheading things – include the names of: David Attenborough (1926 - ), Jane Goodall (1934 - ), Sylvia Earle (1935 - ), and David Suzuki (1936 - ) of the English speaking world – and many more outstanding dedicated individuals of the non-English speaking worlds (of whom the English speaking world knows very little). Also important are the contributions of many others – who work behind the scenes to make things happen. It all began with the painstaking and meticulous works of Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) and his contemporaries – who opened a particular vista of the Life System that are not like us – but do complement our own livelihood. The contributions of these Natural Scientists stand upon the foundation of knowledge, insights and theories – developed and established in Matters and Energy – describing their transformation dynamics (in the gravitational, thermodynamic, mechanical, electromagnetic, electrochemical, and biochemical Force-Field Systems) – that encompass the nourishment and sustenance afforded by the Environment and Climate. As well important is the evolving canvas of enlightening forward-looking social attitude. Without such foundations and nourishments – things would not have progressed to the extent we see today. . . . Thanks to all these works and the beneficial elements of the Cyberworld (see Artificial Intelligence – the Tool of No Limit), the accumulated knowledge is now accessible – by and large – by peoples around the world. In Creativity and Due Diligence, we have discussed Beavers in intelligent action, building something extraordinary – the Beaver Dam in forest streams. It is an example of highly skilled craftsmanship – that challenges our own skills and diligence. We now know more how intelligent many wild life systems are - how they care for their offspring – how their social relationships and partnership faithfulness are. How they manage to move body limbs independent of each other, or shed and grow limbs when needed – or how they change colors instantly to camouflage with the surrounding. As we know more and more of their intelligence, we become respectful with the awareness of our own limitations. The spectacular metamorphoses of dragon flies, moths and butterflies from larvae to adulthood – is perhaps something indicative of one of the most intriguing puzzles (see more on Entropy and Everything Else). This puzzle is about the after-life reincarnation of humans into a new life. Is there a connection? The crossing of the transformative beings of dragon flies, moths and butterflies – from one body to another by shedding the old body to embark into a new one – perhaps tantamounts to something no less than a connection to the human puzzle. We are now aware of their rights – as much as ours – because without them our common well-being remains threatened. It is impossible not to feel shame of our past abhorrent attitudes toward them. One should look back to the wisdom of ancient thoughts and teachings - which says to be in the shoes of others – to invoke the virtues of compassion, fellow-feeling and respect for all lives. In the 130th verse of the DHAMMAPDA, Buddha - The Tathagata said: All tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill. Each passing day propels us to learn from them – so much so that biomimicry is now a thriving discipline in the growing frontiers of science and technology. The biomimicry discipline has also a historical root. The mimicry as a way of learning from the fast movements of different forms of the Life System – to develop defensive techniques in order to deter predators without use of any weapon – gave birth to Kung-fu Martial Arts in the Fabled Shaolin Buddhist Monastery in around 527 CE. Different life forms – like the big bird Crane, Dolphins, Mantis insect, Mantis shrimp and others – inspired developments of this technique – in Chan Meditation spirit of the synchronicity of mind and body. A very informative atlas: GAIA – An Atlas of Planet Management (Anchor Books 1984; N Myers, Ed) illustrated very thoroughly how humans mismanaged Earth’s resources – with total disregard to the welfare of other living beings and the environment – ushering in the adverse consequences and the aftermaths – we are all in now. GAIA refers to a self-sustaining-Earth theory proposed by JE Lovelock (1919 – 2022). I am always fascinated by some beautiful-sounding non-scientific names of some creatures – like Platypus, Hippopotamus, and Pangolin. The list can easily expand to many more in the worlds of – the birds, the water fowls, the wonderful aquatic lives – the butterflies. From the fastest Cheetah to the slowest Sloth – from the majestic Elephant and Giraffe – to the kingly roars of the Lions – they all fascinate us. And think about our closest cousins – all different varieties of monkey species – from the smallest Squirrel, Pygmy and Golden Lion Tamarin monkeys to the Snub-nose and Long-nose (Proboscis) monkeys – to the largest Mandrills and the Apes like Gorillas. One can go on and on highlighting such wonders . . . One bird captured human imagination more than any other – the myths and legends associated with this tall, large and elegant Crane are very fascinating. And, no other culture has devoted their attention to the beauty and the sound of this big bird – the Cranes – than the Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, Bhutanese (The Song of White Crane says how this tall bird shaped Bhutanese thinking . . . Let the right wing drift – And gold and feather fuse – Let the left wing drift – And silver and feather fuse – Let both the wings drift – And travel all over the world) and Tibetan arts and literature. The beautiful cracking loud sounds of flocking cranes – bring life and wake up the whole village and neighborhoods. It all happens when they land to take rest, to feed or to live there for a time – enough to breed and raise their young. The silence engulfs everything when they fly away all of a sudden. Again some beautiful-sounding names like Pantanal, Everglades, Patagonia and Altiplano define their habitats or resting places. . . . I want to reincarnate as a goose – so was the reply from one of my Dutch colleagues when we were in pep-talks during one of the project field trips in rural Bangladesh. This happened while discussing, why Einstein (1879 – 1955) wished to be reincarnated as a plumber. He continued, see how miserable we are, we cannot float, we cannot fly, we can only walk, but then become quickly exhausted. Indeed we are. Large birds like Geese (a flying pair; image credit anon) and Cranes, and many tiny migratory birds fly thousands of miles back and forth to accommodate the seasonal rise and fall of temperatures. We always hear how humans think of these wonderful creatures, but do not know how they think of themselves, or of us. Unfortunately Dr. Dolittle (The Story of Doctor Dolittle; Hugh Lofting 1920) does not exist in the real world to enlighten us. . . . Let us attempt to see things from their perspective through a nice little story – of a talk between a gosling (Chota) and mother goose (Hansh). Chota: “Ma ma, see how these Jantus are looking at us.” Hansh: “Ush! Chota, don’t say they are Jantu. They are Manushya. They get easily offended. They think they are superior and use the word to describe us.” Chota: “Superior! Are they really, ma?” Hansh: “Well, once upon a time, they were one of us, but then they started developing weapons, of all different kinds, from hard metallic ones to the tricky words. Now they are killing us and are constantly fighting among themselves, killing one another.” Chota: “That’s so horrible! Why would they kill us, we are no harm to them.” Hansh: “They see us as protein and meat and have developed the habit of eating a minimum of three large meals a day. Their appetite never stops. Sometimes, they kill us for fun.” Chota: “Killing someone for fun! How atrocious.” Hansh: “Perhaps they feel heroic and joyous for killing the defenseless ones.” Chota: “It is weird and cowardice, ma – killing the weak and defenseless ones.” Hansh: “Well said, Chota. Grandpa must have taught you wise things.” Chota: “I miss my grandpa. Ma, why must they fight among themselves? I am afraid, I do not understand.” Hansh: “Well, when they realized the power of their weapons, their desire to dominate unleashed. Terrible mistrusts began to develop among themselves. It’s a real pity. Don’t you think?” Chota: “How shameful. We must be careful of them. Ma, can they fly in air and float in water like us?” Hansh: “Those, poor things! Oh no. As they are developing more and more weapons, they are getting physically weaker, even dumber. When they walk, they become tired very soon. So, they developed autos.” Chota: “Why don’t we develop weapons and autos, ma?” Hansh: “Don’t even think of that. We are happy the way we are. And don’t forget, we have wings and as we fly over, we have a broad and distant eye-view of things. That changes our perspective of seeing things. By easily floating, swimming and diving in water we also see our friends living in water. Isn’t that great?” Chota: “Sure is ma.” As Chota and Ma swam to the other side of the lake, they saw many Manushya gathering in front of a big house. Chota asked, “Ma, why they are gathering there.” Hansh: “It’s a gathering of worshippers. They imagine that someone or some ones are in charge of things, of their fate. So they pray to please.” Chota: “Ma, do we have some ones like them?” Hansh: “No. It is part of Manushya imagination. It’s a pity that they even cannot agree who are those some ones. And fight on this issue.” Chota: “I feel very sorry for them.” Hansh: “Chota, you have grown up now. You have displayed your ability to fly long distances. It’s time we fly to the warmer climate, it is getting colder here. We will see the wonderful world when flying. Have a look how our friends are flapping wings and getting ready. We must join the flock. Are you ready?” Chota: “I am ma. I can’t wait to see for the first time the wonderful stories you and grandpa told me. Uh-hoo! I can walk, I can float, I can fly.” So, the mother goose and her grown-up gosling started the flight joining the flock, enjoying the view of the Earth down below. As they did, their canvas of thinking and doing things became wider, and they began to sing . . . what a wonderful world down below . . . . . . The Koan of this piece: Don’t waste Time and Energy to find Heaven somewhere up in the Sky. Heaven comes down to Earth Soon Enough – when Harmony Reigns in the Mutuality of Happiness. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 9 July 2021  . . . A problem can be solved only when we approach it thus. We cannot approach it anew if we are thinking in terms of certain patterns of thought, religious, political or otherwise. So we must be free of all these things, to be simple. That is why it is so important to be aware, to have the capacity to understand the process of our own thinking, to be cognizant of ourselves totally; from that there comes a simplicity . . . These are the lines of wisdom written by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 – 1986) in an essay on Simplicity in his book, The First and Last Freedom (HarperCollins 1975). The lines indicate something very important: that sticking to, or dependence on a priori notion or knowledge complicates a problem. It is like the aptly worded Zen Buddhist teaching: empty the mind to see things as they are. Or in Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011) words (his 1998 interview with the Businessweek): simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. Knowledge is important to the degree of making it part of one’s intuition or transformative experience – once done, its use must not cloud cognitive processes. To address a problem as is (the process is generally described in Buddhism as – seeing things through the Purities of Mind and View), the nature of it must be broken down into simple fundamental pieces. The understanding of fundamentals lets things unfold naturally as they are - somewhat like what is generally known as the Reductionist approach. One more reason for doing so is that the observer, the subject (the problem solver) must free himself or herself from affecting the observed, the object (things associated with the problem; see The Quantum World) or projecting his or her own personal pattern of thoughts upon the observed.
How are all these relevant for a system such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Can AI reach the high level of intelligence to break down its sphere of activities (that in many cases, represents the science of complex systems incorporating human, Natural and Social processes and issues) to simple terms – to not cloud its cognitive processes? Answers to these questions are important for one to clearly comprehend the potentials, limits and consequences of many AI-powered products and services (AIPPS). Before answering, let us examine the premise further from a different but practical angle. An individual using AI-powered appliances (e.g. some smart gadgets) – faces different dimensions of reality – some are outright good, others are questionable. These appliances are flooding the market – and we have no options other than to getting used to them. A smart phone, a search engine know what an individual’s behaviors are, and modulate the uses and activities accordingly (with the notion to help users!). To do that, AI on these devices must be monitoring user activities to fit them into patterns or define a new one – often with the purpose to profiling and casting them into known statistics (a priori knowledge) – Bayesian or otherwise (see The World of Numbers and Chances). Many of these practices are utterly annoying and even damaging, encroaching upon people’s privacy and what not. Although I have mentioned the two devices as an example – the practices and concerns are ubiquitous in many spheres of AIPPS. When one thinks about the growing amount of frustrations that are upon us – one cannot avoid asking:
An alarming aspect of it – that has been and is being fueled by cyberspace activities – is the proliferation of the process of Vigilantism (the acts of investigation, enforcement and punishment without legal authority) across the globe. It is not difficult to imagine – that the process of self-appointed-policing carrying the agenda of ulterior motives – is responsible for destroying many people’s lives and livelihoods with virtual impunity. One should not be surprised if it appears – that impersonation, extra-judicial surveillance, lynching and other heinous activities – in zeal and intensity shaming even the medieval and past historical atrocities – are in action targeting mostly the minority communities. One may cry for rule-of-law, democratic or otherwise – but no governing institution/authority appears powerful enough – or using the process for its own purposes – or is feeling the responsibility to stop the process. As an answer to the last question, it is important to realize that AI developers and industries – for that matter all businesses prefer to be self-regulated – it is the mantra in any society (the enormous boost to this mantra came in the 1980s during the rules of British PM MH Thatcher, 1925 – 2013; and American President RW Reagan, 1911 – 2004; the boost has raised the level of social inequity that has only mushroomed profusely in present times. Further, funding to research institutes and universities was given a different approach and focus; gov funding catering to neutral research was let to drain out by giving the system a boot. Instead funding from corporations and special interest groups was encouraged – thus introducing a biased system to augment the business-interests of private entities). But they also want to have some form of rules and regulatory framework – otherwise, it is difficult to do business in the chaotic world of an unruly jungle. While they want as such, industries and businesses are, as well, afraid of over-regulation – regulators overreaching their power and mandate (some manifest as the sources of bureaucratic corruption and hurdles), thus inhibiting the thrival, creativity and business innovations. But well-thought-out guidelines and directions are good for all businesses (as they hinder the growth and survival of unscrupulous businesses). {For clarity of understanding: a regulation represents a set of rules and guidelines that are formulated and exercised by a government oversight agency. They come in the form of codes and by-laws, and all participating entities for whom the regulations apply or intended, must abide by them}. There we are. While thinking of some questions we are forced to ask more questions – in particular, on ethics and security grounds. It is reasonable to say that at this time, AI world is rather unruly, focused mostly on money-making at the cost of everything else – with no clear and specific regulatory ethical directions to limit and control some AIPPS. Societal leadership is a failure in that respect – unable or unwilling to understand and deal with the harmful consequences. However, on the backdrop of these crucial aspects, there are also some AIPPS that are outright beneficial – such as: a smart faucet closing-off the valve if not in use for sometime, or a smoke alarm switching on the sprinkler to prevent fire hazard. People must appreciate many such available or potential good AIPPS, but must also be wary of bad ones. Perhaps the power of AI was first demonstrated in the chess championship between a computer and a chess grandmaster. This happened in 1996 and 1997 when the IBM computer Deep Blue was able to defeat the then chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov (1963 - ), first in one game – and then in the whole six-game match in 1997. Today, many game apps are on the market – where a ghost AI player can observe the human end-user’s playing strategy; learn from such moves and adapt to developing counter-strategy like a worthy opponent. Let us attempt to understand all these issues in simple terms. It is an attempt by a non-AI professional – but a keen observer – trying to delve into the basics and application issues of AI – let’s say – from a different perspective. As shown in the attached image, to make things simple – I have attempted to break down the AI system into three fundamental but interconnected phases or subsystems. Some of it represents what people aspires AI-system to be – rather than what it is at present. Missing from these phases are the roles of human mind. The roles cover such mental faculties as – curiosity, imagination, inspiration, creativity and sublime qualities (see The All-embracing Power of Sublimities). These attributes are as much a function of intelligence as of the mind (see The Power of Mind). The reality that some of the mental faculties may never be replicated by AI (even if it does replicate, it will be something else – not the mind as we know it), precluded the inclusion of mind phenomena in the image. In the Natural Equilibrium piece I have written: human mind is such that no two individuals act or react in the same way to identical stimulus. Even if the reactions can be cast into statistical patterns – some degree of uncertainties will always define them. This piece is laid out by first browsing through some of AI basics, then revisiting our common understanding of ethics, morals and laws. While elaborating those – I have also tried to spend sometime to discuss/explore some AI-powered applications in the applied physics of civil engineering. Drawing up this piece is made possible – by information gathered from different websource articles and essays, written by many authors – it is as much of a learning experience as of a presentation. . . . AI in a Nutshell
Ethics, Morals and Laws Ethical aspects of AI system are highlighted twice in the attached image. The prevailing level of ethics, morals and laws define the standard of a society one lives in (see Social Order) – and many of them are not yet the integral part of the present-day AI algorithms. But I have included them – to stress that they should be, or required to be built into the AI systems. Because by not doing so, the vendors, users and society at large are being lured to conduct activities that are not always compatible or in sync with ethics, morals and laws. There seems to be a lack of thorough and comprehensive evaluation of the magnitude and extent of risks associated with unethical behaviors and damaging impacts. This is especially relevant for many social media and internet search engines that are already occupying most of our times. Started in the nineties, the internet communication platforms totally revolutionized the way we communicate and do business. But the platform is also being abused, both by the owners and users (in the mass media such as TV and radio networks, only the owners or broadcasters can abuse the system). Many of the ethics and regulation questions discussed earlier also apply to the internet IP addresses. With this, let us browse through some known definitions of ethics, morals and laws.
AI and Civil Engineering AI routines and algorithms that can think almost like a civil engineering (CE) professional, are in different stages of research and development. AIPPS in CE sectors have the potentials to enhance the capabilities of analysis and computation, streamlining performance, and helping with examining and screening the solutions of a particular problem. A repeat of cautions pointed out earlier, is warranted here: AIPPS are as good as (or as bad as) the resources they utilize, therefore there have to be some form of CE judgmental checks on the AIPPS performance. Let me attempt to briefly outline some AI applications in the broad arena of civil engineering – that are and will potentially enhance the capabilities of Turning the Wheel of Progress in the forward direction.
The other part of the answer can simply be thought as: humans have a natural affinity for automation (although AI is more than automation), thinking that some of our difficult (even undesirable) activities can be done by someone else. As deplorable as they are, during the colonial and medieval times, this gave birth to serfdom and slavery. During the beginning of industrialization, electrical-mechanical automated production lines, and streamlined distribution/marketing systems appeared. Therefore, it is safe to say that we like comfort and like to enjoy the fruit of hard labor done by someone or something else – AI provides that opportunity. But AI has also an obligation not to do things – at the cost of foregoing due diligence on consequences, and shunning away from responsibility. The answer to the second question is perhaps not yes. Well, not yet. Although the long-term consequences of dependence on AI may prompt one to say otherwise at sometime in the future. In addition, people questioned about the possibility of some future grim scenarios – e.g. whether or not meaningful human engagement in jobs and others can be jeopardized. No one wants to think of such a scary long-term harmful consequence now – but something that may haunt humanity in the future. Attempts to highlight and discuss various aspects of AI facts, concerns and recommendations – have made this piece a long one. These aspects are worth paying attention to – especially on the paradigm of dissecting them to simple terms. And most of the discussed ethical concerns – are similarly applicable to different seats of power – e.g. corporate empires and government entities (see Governance; Democracy and Larry the Cat). Perhaps some concluding remarks are helpful.
. . . The Koan of this piece: I listen I read I see I learn I talk I write I do I teach I lead I want to learn more I investigate I imagine I create. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 22 January 2021  Wave asymmetry or nonlinearity was the primary focus of three pieces posted earlier – Nonlinear Waves, Spectral Waves and Upslope Events and Downslope Processes. The latter and the piece on Symmetry, Stability and Harmony discussed different implications of asymmetry both in the dynamics of Natural processes and in Social Interactions. The asymmetric processes begin right after a wave is born – in the energy transformations of action-reaction-duo of different frequencies, phases and amplitudes – caused by those that impart energy to those that interact and dissipate it. In the end, a visible Natural wave is a showcase of imbalance or asymmetry built by multiple waves – sometimes portraying an incomplete circle or closure – at other times leaving an overflowing residual in the direction of dominant motion. An easily understandable schematic relation of the processes – related to the water motion dynamics illustrated in the Navier-Stokes Equation – is presented in my 2017 Springer Encyclopedia chapter.
Perhaps incoherence or absence of synchronicity among the parameters of a system – often visible in wide scatter or outlier – has a tone similar to that of asymmetry. Both asymmetry and incoherence define Nature and its dynamic processes – because they are the reflections of ever changing fluxes of action-reaction-duo. They are an indication of disorder in quests for establishing order or equilibrium (see Entropy and Everything Else; Warming Climate and Entropy and Upslope Events and Downslope Processes). Therefore, while addressing and characterizing the wave asymmetry – this piece will also have indications of the existence of incoherence within the wave system parameters. It primarily addresses the long and short wave asymmetries – highlighting some gists of what are commonly known, and of some that are not. The former is based on my dissertation and a manuscript I worked on. The latter on a method I have developed – and will be discussed for the example wave presented in earlier pieces (see Linear Waves and Nonlinear Waves). The purpose of the latter part, is to demonstrate the usefulness of Ursell Number (Fritz Joseph Ursell, 1923 – 2012) to characterize the degree of wave symmetry/asymmetry in quantitative numbers. The number (U = HL^2/d^3) integrates three easily determinable wave parameters – the height (H) and local length (L) of a wave at still water depth (d). They are based on some of my unpublished works – devoted in initiatives to search for better and simple analytical tools. As pointed out in earlier pieces, investigators credited to develop the foundational basics of nonlinear wave theories (see Ocean Waves; Transformation of Waves; Linear Waves; Nonlinear Waves; Spectral Waves; and Waves – Height, Period and Length) include: Stokes (British mathematician George Gabriel Stokes (1819 – 1903); Skjelbriea et al (1960); RG Dean (1965); Dalrymple (1974); and Chaplin (1980). . . . Before going into the topic, perhaps a few words on my advanced research on the phenomena of waves are useful. In my Ph. D. Dissertation (The University of South Carolina 1992) and in the 1990 and 1994 Elsevier publications, the measured and modeled nonlinearity of tidal wave and the associated consequences on sediment transport and sedimentation were discussed for the coastal ocean (see my 1991 ASCE Coastal and Ocean Management Symposium paper) off the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river mouth. The works were made possible – by the kind supports of NSF grants through Prof WS Moore and Prof SA Kuehl at the University of South Carolina. Other kind supports from committee members included: Prof B Kjerfve (coastal and estuarine hydrodynamics), Dr TW Kana (sediment and wave dynamics; the 1995 JCR publication). They are supplemented by unfailing additional kind supports of: WD Eysink and FG Koch of Delft Hydraulics (sediment transport and sedimentation), Prof A Nishat of BUET (Coastal Hydraulics and Bangladesh coast), and the Bangladesh Water Development Board. Capt Neinhuis, Romke van der Wal and Bart Peerbolte of Delft Hydraulics - the three unfailing friends who were the source of inspiration in the beginning of my career. An article posted later Coastal Ocean Currents off Rivermouths presents a synopsis of the 2nd Chapter of my Dissertation. A few words on a wave of unusual type – its scale covers the whole year of the annual hydrologic cycle. It is the seasonal river discharge, and is unusual because there is no reversal of flow – rather it has the wave-type: fall-rise-fall-rise water level stages. In the Bangladesh Reach of the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River, some 7 distinct stages can be identified from the flat low during the January-February dry period to the varying peaks in July-August wet season (my 1997 Water Nepal paper). As also discussed in the Environmental Controls and Functions of a River – observations in the Bangladesh Reach of the Ganges River (my 1995 IEB paper), indicated that the river flows can be characterized in terms of a Seasonality Index (this parameter defines the river regime and is very useful to distinguish the hydrologic characteristics of one river from another) – with a rather steeper slope during the rising phase than the falling period. The implication of such an asymmetry lies in the existence of the so-called hysteresis or incoherence in the relationship between river stage and discharge – and between the discharge and sediment transport. . . . The Long Wave This part is on long wave (L/d ≥ 20; see Ocean Waves) asymmetry and system incoherence – tidal motion in particular. It is based on portion of my dissertation works (Chapter 2 of Dissertation – Tidal Currents and residual flow field in the Coastal Ocean of Bangladesh) – that is in line with Prof Kjerfve’s expertise; an unpublished manuscript, my 1991 PIANC-COPEDEC III paper, and on some of my later works (e.g. in Lynn Canal, Alaska; in Prony Bay, Kwé Bay and Havannah Canal, New Caledonia; and in Chapaco Bay, Chile). I will broaden the tidal wave asymmetry by covering the processes that lead to it and how it is presented to visualize the nature of asymmetry – or sometimes as coherence/incoherence.
The Short Wave The ubiquitous ocean surface waves (short wave, L/d < 20) are irregular, random and spectromatic – continuously churned, modified and re-modified by speeding wind at the air-water interface – and by bathymetry/topography at the seabed-water interface when waves start feeling the bottom (see Ocean Waves and Transformation of Waves). We have seen that, for all practical purposes, waves can be treated as linear or symmetric when U ≤ 5.0. At higher U, wave nonlinearity or asymmetry becomes important – because it causes asymmetrical horizontal forces on structures (see Wave Loads on Piles 2008 and Wave Forces on Slender Structures) and seabed – and leaves residuals in the direction of dominant motion. The discussed visualization and plotting methods for long waves can also be used – albeit in a different way – to assess the short wave asymmetry, and the degree of coherence/incoherence with other factors of the wave developing and sustenance systems. Some examples are: (1) wave height and period time-series together with that of wind speed stick diagrams; (2) wave height and period time-series with tide, and with seabreeze/landbreeze; (3) scatter diagram of wave parameters with wind speed; (4) scatter diagram of wave height vs wave period (see The World of Numbers and Chances); and (5) spectral analyses to assess the wave energy spectrum in frequency and direction domains. The effects of the length of fetch (see Wave Hindcasting to find out the expected relationships) can be assessed on wave height and period. Now, let us move on to describing a method on how to simply quantify wave asymmetry in terms of U. This is done for the example 1 meter high 8 second wave discussed in the Linear Waves and Nonlinear Waves pieces. In this illustration, the wave is followed to assess and estimate its evolving wave kinematics, from d = 20 m (U ≈ 1.0) to d = 3 m (U ≈ 65.3). It is assumed that the wave is incident on shore parallel smooth bathymetry (head-on) – therefore is not subjected to other transformational effects – such as refraction and diffraction. Note that the example wave of this height breaks roughly at d = 1.3 m. The focus is on the behavior of wave peak or crest – of crest height (CH), peak surface horizontal velocity (PSHV) and peak surface horizontal acceleration (PSHA). The primary motivation for focusing on peaks – is to ascertain the effects of wave asymmetries on the maximum forward heading surface horizontal drag and inertial forces on structures. The asymmetry factors of crest height (F_ch), PSHV (F_cv) and PSHA (F_ca) – are all defined with reference to (or with respect to) the summation of the absolute values of their crest and trough peaks. With this definition, symmetry = 0.5, crest amplification is > 0.5, and trough flattening or damping < 0.5. To make the derived asymmetry relations readily applicable, the reference summation amplitudes are determined by Linear Wave Theory – while the crest amplifications and trough damping, are determined by Nonlinear Wave Theory. This approach allows one to estimate asymmetry parameters in terms of simple linear wave theory and U. A plot of the derived relations for crest amplification asymmetry factors is presented in the attached image. The curves show how asymmetry (in crest height, maximum forward heading surface velocity, and maximum forward heading surface acceleration) amplifies nonlinearly as U increases. To better understand it, let us compare some numbers:
. . . Pull toward or push out? Interestingly, such a trivial matter has significance in the distinction of traditional cultural differences of peoples. Push-pull is same as the action-reaction-duo of a balancing system – but emphasis on one or the other has a special meaning. One simple example is the operation of a wood-slicer. In the West the slicing is done by pushing out, while in Japan – it is the opposite. Similar difference exists in the hand-saw operation. A Japanese scholar explained the difference like this: traditional attitude of accomplishing things in Asia is by pulling one toward, indicating the spirit of inclusiveness of harmonious living. In the West the practice evolved from a different motivation. Such a difference in attitudes must have developed and took shape over thousands of years – in the evolution and maturing of social thought processes. Perhaps a koan like this fits the piece: Do not manage things to create the difference wider and skewed. Try an alternative approach. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 25 September 2020  In several pieces--Natural Order; Natural Equilibrium; Duality and Multiplicity in Nature; Social Order; and Duality and Multiplicity in a Society posted earlier – we have tried to see all that happen around us in Nature and Society in terms of the duo of: cause-effect, force-response, action-reaction, excitation-restoration in the reversible pattern of balancing acts – according to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. But, we have also seen in the Entropy and Everything Else that there are processes which are not reversible--in such cases, the one-way transference of energy takes place according to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Apart from this, when the triggers: cause, force, action or excitation happen in overwhelmingly intense episodes – resulting from transformation and high concentration of energy within a very short period of time or in short space – the nature of dynamic characterization can best be described in a different framework.
In this piece I like to introduce a concept – new in characterization and interpretation, and a very powerful one – to describe this framework. It refers to the scientific processes that happen in systems of Nature, Society, and Engineering and Technological applications. The concept relates to the two phases of the universal processes of a circle (or a sinusoidal wave, representing the work processes of upslope climb and the spontaneous processes of downslope descent; see Entropy and Everything Else) – the Upslope Events (UE) and Downslope Processes (DP), defined in the contexts of asymmetry, spectromatics and one-way processes. In addition, UE is a way of venturing into uncharted territories, to unknowns, therefore to uncertainty – while DP is manageable to modulate and control its processes to veer it toward the right direction. I will attempt to explain this concept in work/energy terms. I am with Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943) in saying that the principle of looking at things in terms of energy – explains or has the potential to explain everything – in the unification of the sciences of Nature, Society and in the applications of these understandings to Technological development and Engineering solutions. Energies propagate in waveforms, describable in intensity, amplitude, phase and frequency – from the visible physical-mechanical types to the visible/invisible spectra of electromagnetism (EM). The latter not only defines high speed energy propagation and information processes as waves – or equivalently as the wave-pattern of uncertain motions of particles or quanta (see The Quantum World and Einstein’s Unruly Hair), but also the behavior of mind in all sentient beings. The EM processes are responsible for the mind to act, in coordination with other sense organs – as a receptor, mentor/coordinator and projector in social interactions. Let us try to see these interesting energy behaviors in simple easily understandable terms. To illustrate the topic in a metaphorical sense of UE, I have selected a painting – The Great Wave (1829 – 1933; image courtesy: British Museum reprint) of famous Japanese painter, Hokusai (1760 – 1849). . . . What is the concept of UE and DP terms? Let me try to define them before entering into their elaborations. The key word defining the two terms is slope. The concept is powerful, because the identification of slope gradient – positive (more to come) phase or negative (dissipation is on the horizon) phase – lets one predict or expect what is likely to happen next – and in what directions things will go. Perhaps the simplest and the most straightforward way to understand them is to imagine a wave – all of us are so familiar with – like the attached Hokusai painting. The upslope rising limb of the wave, from trough to crest is an indication of energy transformation geared toward UE buildup until it reaches the pinnacle at the crest. Once at the crest, UE is best poised to trigger DP – representing the downslope falling limb of the wave from crest to trough. Triggers could also happen, for all different reasons during the different phases of the upslope climb. And DP happenings continue in downslope phases from the time of trigger to the trough when all energies are dissipated – giving birth to something else – something of a pattern of equilibrium and stability. Moving upslope and reaching its pinnacle means imparting energy or doing work against gravity – or in general terms against whatever pulls one down. Moving downslope implies release of the imparted/accumulated energy – and together with gravity – giving birth to myriad of processes. Upslope happenings are termed as Events – because they involve high infusion/accumulation of energy – that is released within a relatively short period of time or space. One important implication of UE is its intrinsic inclusion of some degree of Uncertainty and Risk – comprehensible in the perspectives of unknowns, when and how UE will unleash DP. DP is synonymous with consequences – the impacts of which depend on how one defines the threshold distinguishing a resource from hazard (see Environmental Controls and Functions of a River). With this understanding of the terms, and together with the definition of work – outlined in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in micro and macro interpretations – let us move further forward. The macro UE mostly occurring in the scale of extremes – impose new boundary conditions on a DP system – to dissipate the accumulated energy toward restoring equilibrium. DP takes a period of time – the length of which depends on the size of the system as well as on the strength of processes. The two are rather skewedly related – in a sense that UE is the driver/initiator, while DP handles all the consequences associated with the impact. On its own or without the infusion of external energy, UE → DP phase is clear and emphatic; while the materialization of the DP → UE phase depends on conditions and circumstances, and is not certain. Let me attempt to clarify the relation between the two through a simple example. An earthquake in the scale of extremes – is a UE, because it ushers in widespread infrastructural damage/destruction and losses of lives – and could trigger tsunami if the quake happens to originate in the ocean floor. The aftermaths that follow is the DP, the recovery/restoration processes. Thus UE → DP is clear. Let us attempt to look closely how an earthquake is triggered. Colliding Earth plates in horizontal and vertical directions build up stresses at the collision interfaces. This building up of stresses takes place in DP, giving the gradual birth to UE. At a certain point during the processes, an earthquake is triggered by a sudden rupture; thus DP → UE. Therefore, if one sees beyond each of these, the two can be characterized as UE ↔ DP. Another vivid example of DP → UE is the formation and explosion of volcanic activities. But one has to understand that a certain DP → UE is not the same or similar to a previous DP → UE – implying that they will not reach the same goal, or the same level in space and time – thus the definition of the Arrow of Time comes into existence. In this piece, I will try to explain the power of this concept to elaborate some happenings that occur around, and affect us. . . . Science of Nature
Science of Engineering & Technology The job of scientists, engineers and associates is to create resources from Nature’s abundance, and mitigate the consequences of hazards or aftermaths. Therefore, the role of technological developments of products, and engineering services and solutions is to reverse (disorder → order) the Natural processes by doing work. Without this gift, civilization as we know it would not have been possible. The works amount to turning DP → UE. But, as with all UE they are also accompanied by the creation of probabilities of Uncertainty and Risk. There are many examples of engineering & technology works that one can think of. Let me attempt to explain two.
Science of Social Interactions Before going into this discussion, I like to begin by revisiting the Leadership and Management piece posted earlier. Because the distinction between a leader and a manager can perhaps be better visualized in terms of UE/DP. A leader mostly generates or creates UE, while a manager mostly runs the DP. However by the nature of interactions, the relationship boundary or demarcation between them is rather thin. The reason is that managers help infusion of energy into the building up of UE, while leaders set the guidelines and monitors the direction and progress of DP.
The Koan of this piece: why look for tunnels when the canvas is so wide. I like to dedicate this piece to the victims of most tragic global event that happened in our lifetime – wishing all survivors a happy prosperous time in the future. The COVID-19 is a menace of deaths, of more deaths despite the enormous sacrifices of frontline workers – and in time to come, it is only about to unleash further suffering, untold miseries and hardships for many. It may sound cynical, but as always happened in history, there are many out there about to fish in troubled waters – in the process of shining their weapons to take advantage and pounce upon the vulnerables. Perhaps it will not be surprising if one witnesses such actions – because despite prosperity, and science and technological progresses, humans have advanced very little in the downslope processes of positive social interactions. Perhaps it is more than a wakeup call – that an invisible infectious smallest microbe which have no idea that it is killing people regardless of type – can cause such a pandemic and trouble – while mighty humans boast so vainly about conquering the space – about amassing sophisticated weapons of mass killing and destruction. Coming together is ever so important to ride over the surges of havocs – from biological virus to malicious computer virus to the infestation of misinformation/disinformation. If such Upslope Events do not make us humble – do not let us discard the path of mistrust and animosity – do not make us strong – then what will? Let me finish this piece by quoting the great Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai, whose famous wave painting image I have selected. He signed his paintings in old age as The Old Man Mad About Drawing. In his insatiable urge to create and paint, he wrote: If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter . . . at 73 I partly understood the structure of animals, birds, insects and fishes, and the life of grasses and plants . . . at 100, I shall be a marvelous artist, at 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before . . . The last wishes of Hokusai never came true – he died at the age of 89. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 6 April 2020  I like to devote this piece to a very important issue of our time – and perhaps it will continue to be so in the future. We all know it – there is hardly a single day passes that does not have some sort of news on the warming climate of our planet Earth – and all the consequences associated with it. Not to speak of colossal amount of scientific literature – sponsored by different international and national organizations, universities and research institutes, private entities, etc. One can literally get drowned by them – with very little clues on how to make sense – of the many details they present in totality. It is not only the literature, but also the complex nature of the issue – many interactive systems and processes are embroiled in it. Unless one has made himself or herself a profession of climate scientist – it is very unlikely that one can ever be able to spend time or effort – to be fully cognitive of many details. Yet the conclusions they present are corroborative and compelling founded on consensus. This piece is only an attempt to throw a little ray of light on the issue – but I will try to capture some of its essential elements – including examining them through a different angle.
Writing this piece relied on: Several WMO and UNEP researches under the umbrella of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change): 2019 – The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate; 2013 – IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of different Working Groups; Government of Canada: 2019 – Canada’s Changing Climate Report (CCCR); Harvard Business School: 2018 – Climate Change in 2018: Implications for Business; US Global Change Research Program (USGRP): 2017 – Climate Science Special Report; National Academies Press: 2013 – A Review of the Draft 2013 National Climate Assessment; US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP): 2008 – Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate; R Bradley 2015 – Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary, Elsevier; and a WIDECANVAS piece posted earlier: 2019 – Entropy and Everything Else. The importance of this issue deserves it to be looked into – from longterm sustainability perspectives. Therefore, it only makes sense that this piece must start by describing our deep understanding of the climate first – including the paleoclimate, because to understand the present – one needs to know how the climate of the Earth was in the very distant past. Next, laying down the synoptic facts of contemporaneous climate science observations, I will briefly outline the future projections and uncertainties. This will be followed by energy balance and Entropy associated with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. One outcome of the warming climate is the rising of sea level – the science and the consequences of it were discussed earlier in: Sea Level Rise – the Science, and Sea Level Rise – the Consequences and Adaptation. I will prevent myself from citing numbers – because they are rather fluid – constantly changing as new observations continue to pour in – or as prediction models and routines are getting more robust and sophisticated. Unlike many of our colleagues in the broad environmental science category, I will mainly focus on the physics of climate dynamics and warming. Our solar system as a member of the Milky Way galaxy system is subject to the effects of causes that happen beyond its boundary – like the Asteriod impacts that rattled the Earth in the past. Such episodes, especially the catastrophic impacts – by their very nature impose new conditions on the existing processes that take many years to adjust or balance out. Additionally, Earth's dynamic position in the solar system - the changes in its axial tilt and orbital trajectory - affect energy gain and climate. The climate system – comprising of 5 interactive subsystems evolves in a balancing process. The subsystems can be grouped into three: the Fluid System of atmosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere; and the Solid System of lithosphere; these two systems sustain the Life System – plants and animals known as the biosphere. The cryosphere, comprising of the frozen water lies at the boundary between the solid and fluid systems with glacial and interglacial periods that occurred all along the history of the Earth. Most of the information about these three systems is common knowledge now – but for the sake of completeness, let us have a brief look into the characteristics and the delicate dynamic balance of these interactive systems. The balance is delicate, because the thresholds are often very narrow – when it comes down to sustenance and survival of the entities using them. . . . The Fluid System
The Solid System
The Life System
The Paleoclimate Let us attempt to understand some key important paleoclimatic characteristics briefly.
The Climate of the Present Time Let us attempt to see this aspect of climate change very briefly – because news media, climate science research and other outlets are full of stories nearly everyday.
The Climate of the Future This is the most difficult and somewhat intriguing aspect of climate science. A high confidence in projecting the present to the future is not something easy to achieve. Let us attempt to see why so – by delving briefly into different aspects of this part of climate science.
The Sun-Earth System – Entropy and Energy Balance An application of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics would indicate that the Entropy of the Earth has been increasing since the birth of our solar system, and will continue to increase in time. This subtle but inevitable Natural process is destined to warm up the Earth and cause it to become unlivable at a certain time, but perhaps far – far in the distant future. Let us attempt to see how the warming of Earth’s climate is tied to the net gain of Entropy in simple terms – relying primarily on a piece posted earlier, Entropy – and Everything Else.
The third one-way contribution is human made – with the net addition of energy and in changing the composition of the Fluid System - that enhanced the trapping of atmospheric radiation by high concentration of GHG. It is derived from fossil fuel use, that primarily started with the rapid industrialization. While this human innovative use was responsible for our prosperity and civilization – its adverse effects were either ignored or not considered significant, but the damaging consequences started to become clear during about the past ½ century. The adverse consequences are multiple in terms of intensity, frequency and instability – and it seems some of them are already beyond control. When people cry out by witnessing the changes that affect them – one cannot but realize the wisdom – of the necessity for finding ways to limit the human-made one-way contribution – together with suitable adaptation strategies to face the consequences. Despite these facts, one cannot afford not to notice the paleoclimatic cycles and trends in climate change. Is our present planetary warming has anything to do with the past trends and cycles of the Holocene? If the answer is yes, then it is reasonable to conclude that human-induced causes are an exacerbating factor – not the sole cause. This answer should not deter us to act, however. One important reason is that over thousands of year of evolution – and our way of livelihood, especially during the past few centuries – have made us very vulnerable to the exceedence of the narrow thresholds we got used to. . . . As we see suggestions in nearly every discussion, the action should be in terms of positive climate interventions – such as gradually but slowly phasing out massive dependence on fossil fuels, as well as limiting the industrial emissions. These are important concerted necessities, not trade-off choices. Three energy sources in harnessing of the Natural existence - that we know and are already in various phases of implementation all around the world are: (1) the solar power using photovoltaic panels, (2) the wind power, and (3) the hydropower (rivers and streams, tide and waves). They seem to be the only ones that do not add to the net one-way contribution to the Sun-Earth energy balance. They are also the ones - that just extract energy without really consuming any source materials. However attractive they are – the feasibility of such measures must examine local adverse impacts, if any. Deflecting Sun’s radiation away from the Earth – may appear as an interesting research topic – but it hardly qualifies as a practical and full-proof option that can encompass all. Finally, warming climate as a global problem – simply on the premise that interacting players – the Fluid, Solid and Life Systems do not know or care about the confines defined by the national boundaries and jurisdictions. But as with everything else that humans have eyes on – politics has its hand on twisting and convoluting the challenges of – global responsibilities, consequences and mitigation. Let us attempt to see some scenarios of interests and conflicts through a lighter vein: Melting Arctic Ice - Global warming is such a beautiful gift of Nature! It’s time to sharpen our skill to open the Northern Route, and exploit the treasure trove of minerals in the polar areas. Flooding Coastal lowlands – let’s get away from those filthy overcrowded areas – our mountains and midlands are sparsely populated and are ready for sale. Technology to Deflect the gift of Sun’s energy – The peoples of cold polar and sub-polar Scandinavia, Russia, Canada and northern USA: hold on, we are freezing down here and it’s very depressing; we need more sunshine. The Equatorial peoples: good idea, it’s very hot down here. The peoples of middle countries: hold on, what will happen to our beautiful seasons? . . . Let me finish this piece by quoting Einstein (1879 – 1955): the measure of intelligence is the ability to change. Indeed the modern human history is an evolving canvas of change and adaptation – but there is a price to pay when the past changes leading to the adverse consequences are not fully appreciated or ignored. And the cost of the price may be painful, even lethal – more for the vulnerables than others. That does not mean that all should not act collectively. Awareness must lead all changes to sorting out smart choices to cope with the global challenge – at the same time realizing that any mob mentality on such an important popular issue, first of its kind of humans’ own making – has the potential to mislead responses. The reality of interwoven dependence and complementarities of the Fluid, Solid and Life systems – must be the foundation on which longterm sustainable options should be built upon. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 15 December 2019  Einstein’s life was, in fact, to use his own words, ‘divided between politics and equations . . .’ His theories came under attack; an anti-Einstein organization was even set up. One man was convicted of inciting others to murder Einstein (and fined a mere six dollars). But Einstein was phlegmatic: when a book was published entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, he retorted, ‘If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!’ These were the lines written by Stephen Hawking (1942 – 2018) about Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) in his book, A Brief History of Time (Bentam Books 1995). But Einstein was not a politician per se – certainly not in the conventional understanding of partisan politics – he was rather a humanist with views and opinions that are matters of global concerns (such as, the 1955 Pugwash Russell-Einstein Manifesto; Bertrand Russell, 1872 - 1970).
Einstein summed up oppositions to him as: great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds . . . This observation perhaps accruing from his bitter experience, indicates one of the common human fallacies that affects many. This fallacy inflamed by arrogance, dislike, jealousy and vested interests – often spin the life and works of great people as if they are demons. The fallacies also manifest in opposite postures – like in the form of profuse worshipping – elevating a person into the image of a demi-god. When the fallacies turn into mob mentality – often inflamed by media – things start to cause great exaggerations, distortions and misrepresentations. For Einstein, he was showered with both – in the end the power of his brilliance and great contributions prevailed – inspiring all. Let us take the title of this piece as a metaphor for people – who aspire to be and are driven by incessant curiosity with matching endeavors to explore and understand the symphony of Nature – and finding working hypotheses and relations to explain them. In Einstein’s modest words: I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious. There it is – how he has viewed achievements – that is applicable not only to scientists but to all in similar pursuits. He was one of many stellar achievers in the history of mankind who were able to use and reinforce their strengths by overriding the weaknesses. Curiosity – is the mother of all innovations – of the necessary source of energy required for accomplishments – of all great ideas that moved humans forward. I have included an image of the Giant of giants – thanks to a photographer (credit: anon) who was able to capture a happy mood of Einstein – the image looking deep into us, as if saying: challenge me – see how curiosity and thought experiment work! Thought experiment – similar like the Buddhist (Gautama Buddha - The Tathagata, 624 – 544 BCE) Vipassana meditation (the method is also included in Zen practice) – is not something easy to do. Unlike many scientists who primarily start with experiment and mathematical elaborations to move forward – Einstein’s approach was rather to start with thinking about the problem in mind in the physics domain of arguments and counter-arguments, attempting to finding answers – and then moving on to mathematical elaborations. His capability of visualization on the plane of thoughts – of things as complex as astrophysics – is an incredible rarity. Scientists were provoked by Einstein – many are still exploring and working on proving or disproving his thoughts and theories. But sometimes scientists and the media covering them – are too quick to label someone as wrong or right. It happened with Newton’s (1642 – 1727) Universal Law of Gravitation (ULG) – some scientists rushing to say something like: bye bye Newton! Welcome Einstein! The fact is that Newton’s ULG still holds for everyday low speed motions on Earth. Needless to say of another reality – that without Newton, there would not have been any Einstein – that one scientist builds upon another, one idea leads to another . . . and so on. For Einstein, in whatever topic he devoted his mind on – often the most difficult ones – he seemed to have made a difference – was very courageous to shattering the barriers erected by established norms, ideas and doctrines. Let me try to explore some of his ground breaking theories in simple and easily understandable terms – but at the same time attempting to capture the essence of them. But to limit this piece to a reasonable length – I will mainly focus on Relativity – the Special Theory of Relativity (STR) and the General Theory of Relativity (GTR). The STR and GTR opened the vista of comprehending and measuring things in the high-speed domain of electromagnetism, but at the same time reconciling them with everyday Newtonian physics – and made Einstein very popular and an international celebrity icon. . . . ABSOLUTISM AND RELATIVISM. Before embarking on explaining relativity, it is important to delve briefly into the branch of philosophy: Axiology → Ethics → Absolutism and Relativism; because these philosophical fundamentals are crucial to understand relativity theories better. Absolutism – looks at things from a single perspective – advocating the existence of a single right answer for a certain issue – that claims to transcend geographical boundaries, culture and time. The idea has led to the justification for concentration of powers on single entities or systems such as monarchy and dictatorship. It has long been abandoned by evolving societies – giving birth to the necessity for rationalization, empiricism and multiplicity – by encouraging the exploration, interpretation and inclusion of ideas from different perspectives. And when different perspectives are given a role to play – there flowers various aspects of relativistic ideas – a remarkable one is the birth of the justifications of – and requirement for democratic values in governance. In the arena of ethics – relativism questioned the definitions of things such as: right/wrong; good/evil. At its core relativistic definitions embrace the justification that things are transient – therefore must be looked at from the perspectives of time-evolving cultural standpoints of diverse societies, located at different geographical boundaries. Therefore this notion does not yield a single answer to a certain issue, rather multiple ones. Multiplicity of answers has given birth to subjective arguments and counter-arguments. But relativism asks for respect and tolerance of diverse views resulting from disagreements. Despite disagreements – some core values, such as time-tested truths and realities supersede all boundaries and time, however. In science, the establishment of truths and realities – termed as laws of Nature – are accomplished through the rigors of theoretical and mathematical formulations, experimentation and empirical evidence. And once a certain law is established and accepted, it is ready for replication and implementation. Doesn’t it entail something interesting? It does – it leads us to the fact that some universally accepted truths, realities and scientific laws have an absolutist aura in a relativistic world – perhaps a sort of convergence of the two views! . . . Now let us return back to the core of this piece. We mostly measure things – their positions and motions with reference or relative to something – assumed stable and unchanging in its position. This is easy and convenient for all practical purposes. The idea of relativity resulting from differences in measurements from fixed and moving reference frames dates back to Galileo (1564 – 1642). By the time Einstein’s groundbreaking STR published at his 26 years of age (A Einstein 1905; On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies) – referring everything to a fixed position – known as the Datum became questionable. For Einstein such a reference – termed henceforth as the fixed frame of reference became inadequate – in particular to describe high speed motions, trajectories and positions of objects in the electromagnetic field (JC Maxwell, 1831 – 1879). Therefore STR proposed that motions and positions ought to be measured from the standpoint of reference frames that are neither fixed in space or nor in time. What led to the development of STR precisely? Some known fundamentals and assumptions that inspired the formulation of STR are:
Let us attempt to see briefly the essence, and some consequences of the STR – all of which were verified by multiple observations.
It is time now to describe why GTR was necessary, and let us attempt to have a glimpse of it in simple understandable terms. The first formulation of GTR was worked on by Einstein in 1914 (The Formal Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity) – with subsequent refinements, and the finalization published in 1916. In STR, the mobile spacetime is flat having no influence of gravity – therefore it is only usable in the space where the gravitational effect is very negligible. So some qualifications of the STR spacetime are necessary – and this necessity gave birth to defining gravity in a completely new way. Let us attempt to see them, but before moving further, it is important to examine ULG and its limitations: The ULG says that the gravitational attractive force between two matters is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The magnitude of this force depends on a constant – the Gravitation Constant (G = 6.67 x 10^-11 m^3/kgs^2; first determined in about a century later after Newton, by Henry Cavendish {1731 - 1810} in 1797-1798 experiments. Astonishingly his computation was within an accuracy of 1% of the present accepted value). In other words, matter and distance dictate gravitation how to exert a force – and that if one matter moves the other will feel the effect; and the force in turn controls acceleration of the matter. The ULG states why the gravitational acceleration on Earth’s surface is 9.81 m/s^2, and why it is 1/6th or about 16.6% of that on the Moon’s surface, and about 38.1% on the Mars surface. Or, why at Mount Everest (height ≈ 8850 m) it is 0.28% less, and at Mariana Trench (depth ≈ 10980 m) it is 0.35% more. There were no debates on that. But Einstein had difficulty in reconciling ULG with STR – in the plane of his thought experiments – because of the following reasons:
Einstein once said: look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. If one thinks about it – one gets amazed how true this is – time and again we realize this – from findings in ancient wisdoms to modern scientific queries. As more and more observations verify and validate STR and GTR, scientists now prefer to call them as SR and GR, by dropping out the Theory (T). Scientific queries continue beyond Einstein – to answer emerging questions – like the attempts to find a Unified Theory (String Theory, perhaps!) – and more, as the horizon of knowledge continues to shed more light – far into the spacetime and deep into the minuscule. Perhaps the National Academies Press publication (Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time, M Bartusiak, 2000; NAP 9821) and the NASA publication (Beyond Einstein: from the Big Bang to Black Holes, 2003) are two elegant examples. In the end it is all about energy – how its transferring process creates waves – and when the sources of waves are many – there develops multiplicity and uncertainty. In Buddhism, it is said that Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara – an embodiment of boundless Maitrey and Karuna to all sentient beings – became enlightened just by meditating and contemplating on ocean waves. Was it just a coincidence or rebirth/reincarnation that the year JC Maxwell (1831 – 1879) died, Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) was born in the same year? Or that Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) was born in the same year Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) died. Reincarnation is something we recognize – in transmigration or metamorphoses of knowledge, ideas and customs. Civilization as a human advancement is built upon such reincarnations – it only became more robust since the discovery of printing, documentation and digital processing. How about rebirth/reincarnation of sentient beings? Hinduism has a simple answer to that. It says in the Upanishads (collection of ancient Indian Vedic philosophical concepts) that soul or Atma as a permanent indestructible divine soul – transmigrates to a new body after death. Buddhism does not give such a straightforward answer – because the concept of soul must comply with the Buddhist Laws of Impermanence and Dependent-origination. It defines soul (or no soul in conventional understanding of the term) as something noble, termed as bodhi or bodhicitta – transient and transformative that develops over time depending on an individual’s experience of life processes. What Buddhist rebirth means then? In the 1996 Scientific Acceptability of Rebirth Dr G Dharmawardena – a well-known nuclear scientist himself – elucidated Buddhist definition of rebirth as: the re-embodiment of an immaterial part of a person after a short or a long interval after death, in a body, whence it proceeds to lead a new life in the body more or less unconscious of its past existences, but containing within itself the “essence” of the results of its past lives, which experience goes to make up its new character or personality. The immaterial part is what has been described by R Descartes (1596 – 1650) as ‘Res Cogitans’ or mind, as an entity separate from, but in mutual nourishment with ‘Res Extensa’ or matter. Buddhism says that rebirth of the transient soul (in a deeper view it is just an individual’s energy field; implying that an individual with high energy residual has the more potential to be reborn than a low one) governed by karmic seeds sprouts into a new life only when the conditions are right. The seed may sprout right after death if the conditions are right, may remain dormant waiting for the right time, or may not sprout at all if the seed loses its vitality over time or is destroyed in the meantime. This Buddhist explanation of rebirth has no contradiction with modern scientific principles. If real – the rebirth of Galileo into Newton, or of Maxwell into Einstein – perhaps sprouted because conditions were right during that time in Europe. Is Einstein going to be reborn in a newborn (but then Einstein wished to be reborn as a plumber!) – well, the conditions must have to be right for that to happen (or perhaps it happened already, only we do not know). I like to finish this piece with a story I heard during my childhood: Three blind men were asked to describe an elephant. The first in contact with the leg, described an elephant like a tree trunk. The second in contact with the ear described it like a palm-leaf fan. The third in contact with the tail described it like a rope. This story provides a simple insight – that Relativity – in plain terms refers to, or dependent on – an individual’s level, yardstick or perception of understanding things. But then such individual relativistic perceptions – perhaps tantamount to views of things no less than chaos. No wonder – works of religions, philosophies, and science – all strived for ages to defining an acceptable common reference frame of measurement or understanding – but then again they had difficulty in coming to a consensus or singularity. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 23 August 2019  Entropy is the most cumbersome term in science – leading to some confusing interpretations at times – but the law associated with this term is very important, and has attracted scientists and enthusiasts across disciplines – from basic and applied sciences to the aspects of social science. The term – coined by German physicist Rudolf Clausius (1822 – 1888) is enshrined in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. As with all accepted theories or laws of Nature, one law must agree with others to satisfy their compatibilities (compatibility theory) – which mean that the 2nd law must agree with the other laws of thermodynamics – the 0th, 1st, and the 3rd. Therefore this piece will briefly highlight the other three laws prior to embarking on explaining the 2nd law – to show its applications and implications in simple and easily understandable terms – at the same time weaving some traces of metaphysics into it. But before that, meanings of some terms must be delved into by revisiting Physics 101 – because these terms are crucial for understanding the laws.
. . . SYSTEM. A system is a collection of objects (or could even be one object if one considers the molecular activities within that object) and the interactive processes within. It is selected, for the convenience of description and analysis – as an entity defined by its boundaries through which it interacts with the surroundings. The surroundings can be other systems, or generally the environment. The system and its surroundings are collectively referred to as the universe (we hear about this term often in astronomical contexts). Generally, a system – an open system interacts with its surroundings by freely or spontaneously exchanging (receiving and giving) matter and energy. A closed system exchanges only the energy with its surroundings. An isolated system, mostly manufactured – exchanges neither matter nor energy with its surroundings. One can define semi-enclosed, semi-isolated or other systems depending on the limit, restriction or filtration one applies on the exchange of energy, matter, or both. Also important is the state – it refers to the condition of a system in time – defined and measured in thermodynamics by temperature, pressure and density (mass and volume) – but generally refers to the condition of energy. . . . ENERGY, WORK AND HEAT. Energy is the ability of a system to do work. Work is done by transferring energy when a system is enacted by a force. Force refers to the application of external energy to cause accelerating motion on a system. The terms energy and work are equivalent, and both represent scalar quantities (magnitude only), while force is a vector term (with both magnitude and direction). There are different forms of energy: potential (stored energy in a system that has the potential to do work when released); kinetic (energy of a working system due to its motion); internal (total energy contained in a system; and any change of it, is the difference between heat or energy transferred into the system and work done by the system). Heat refers to the internal energy in a system that is transferable to its surroundings when a temperature gradient exists (e.g. one way spontaneously, from hot to cold). Enthalpy is defined as the system’s internal energy plus the energy imparted by works done on its volume by external pressures. Temperature is the measure of average internal energy in a system. In SI system, the unit of force is Newton (kg.m/s^2), and the unit of energy, heat and enthalpy is Joule (J = N.m = kg.m.m/s^2). The rate of doing work or transferring energy is power, given in Watt (W = J/s). Temperature is measured in the thermodynamic Kelvin (in honor of British physicist WT Kelvin, 1824 – 1907) scale with absolute zero defined at K = -273.16oC (C = Celsius, in honor of Swedish astronomer A Celsius, 1701 - 1744). At absolute zero, all activities stop from micro to the macro level, therefore at this stage they are all immeasurable. A few words on the processes involving the transfer of matter and energy. One of them is spontaneous – referring to the process that occurs on its own, without requiring an external energy input or work – this process is driven by downslope gradient. In the domain of physical processes, spontaneity is synonymous with the works of ubiquitous gravitational force – in the capacity of Natural downslope restoration and balancing acts. A work process takes place when an external force is applied to displace a system against an upslope gradient (e.g. against gravity). Thermal processes of heat exchange are four types – adiabatic (no transfer of heat across boundaries); isothermal (constant temperature); isobaric (constant pressure); and isochoric (constant volume). Equilibrium refers to the perfect balance of all processes in a system – at this state no spontaneous exchange of energy and matter takes place with the surrounding. Further, as we shall see – most of the processes in the systems of Nature (also in Social Systems) are Reversible. This process says that if some works are done to such a system (without reaching the breaking point of failure) – it will work out by itself (or when external energy is infused) – to revert back to its initial stage (albeit, may never recover fully in the contexts of space and time). In Engineering literature such systems are termed as an Elastic System. However repeated work attempts on such systems, affect it by pushing toward the stage of irreversibility – by a process known as Fatigue. There are some other systems of Nature that only works One-way – they are the ones recognized as Irreversible or Plastic processes. The 1st and the 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics explain how these two contrasting processes define things. . . . LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS. Thermodynamics is the study of the effects of work, heat and energy on a system in the domain of Thermodynamic Force Field (TDFF).
The 2nd law states that entropy of the universe does not change in a reversible process (ΔS = 0), but it always increases in an irreversible process (ΔS > 0). This means that in a reversible process there are continuous and spontaneous exchanges among the systems of the universe that aim to achieve equilibrium – therefore the net change in entropy is zero. It indicates that if the entropy of a system decreases (ΔS < 0), the entropy of the surroundings must increase (ΔS > 0) by the same amount – so that the total entropy of the universe remains unaffected. This is indeed the restatement of the 1st law. But the second part of the law – dealing with the irreversibility of processes is intriguing – in a sense that it adds a twisted but essential qualification to the 1st law. The twist is added in the form of turning a scalar entropy (like energy) into a vector quantity by assigning the sense of irreversible directionality. To understand the second part let us consider two simple examples:
. . . COASTAL SYSTEM AND HYDRODYNAMIC ENTROPY. What is hydrodynamic entropy exactly? It is the change in the state of hydrodynamic energy of a system during transformation. Hydrodynamic energies are: potential (proportional to the product of water mass, gravitation acceleration and height above a datum), flow-kinetic (proportional to the product of water mass, and velocity squared), and wave-kinetic (proportional to the product of water mass, gravitational acceleration and wave height squared). Let us assume, for the sake of convenience that hydrodynamics also include sediment transport dynamics of erodible beds – although this aspect can also be defined as a separate system of interest.
SOCIOECONOMIC ENTROPY. How do the socioeconomic entropy and 2nd law work? Let me briefly touch on this question. In several pieces on the pages of NATURE and SOCIAL INTERACTIONS, I have highlighted positive and negative social energies. Social energy indicates the accumulation or depletion of societal wealth – wealth in this case refers to the multitude of factors such as economy, social interactions, and favorable degrees of: cohesion/divisiveness, trust/mistrust, integrity/corruption, equality/inequality, peace/disturbance, etc. The nature of these factors is determined by good or bad governance. The change in the state of societal wealth is socioeconomic entropy. A positive energy is an indication of accumulating wealth, therefore represents good socioeconomic entropy. A bad socioeconomic entropy, on the other hand is a representation of depleting societal wealth. The underlying assumption in such characterizations of the society is that socioeconomy is a reversible process – but in a different interpretation of the term. The reversibility is ensured by the stream of works we put in to sustain socioeconomic progress and growth – and in turning negative into positive. But when a society becomes callous, incompetent and ill-motivated, the positive tends to veer toward the negative. The existence of positives and negatives suggest the reality, that there exist kinks in the character of societal wealth – the kinks are long and short, and high and low. The nature of kinks by itself is an indication of the soundness or weakness of societal wealth. It ended up being another long piece. I like to finish it with a quote from German Philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860): journalists are like dogs, whenever anything moves they begin to bark. It is like what the Buddha (624 – 544 BCE) - The Tathagata said: it is difficult not to express an opinion about others. And journalists have a loud mouthpiece through the media outlet they serve – therefore it is all the more tempting for them to bark. But as a true and responsible partner of democratic institutions, perhaps it makes sense that journalists and media – make accurate, measured and thoughtful barking for the sake of good socioeconomic entropy. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 18 May 2019  In this piece let us attempt to understand something that we hear now and then – but tend to think that those aspects are in the complicated domain of the frontier of science – that have no practical implications in our day-to-day living. This something is about the details at the minutest levels that define everything or has the great potential to do so – lives, Nature and the universe – and how they have evolved and continue to evolve – in the kaleidoscope of ever-changing canvas of cause-and-effect.
What is Quantum Mechanics? Let us have a brief before moving forward. In simple terms – it is the science of the physics of motions of the minuscules – of all matter and immatter at their fundamental building blocks of existence – the atomic and subatomic particles (e.g. electrons, protons, neutrons, etc). At this scale – the particle motions are governed by the Electromagnetic Force Field (discussed further later). The dual characterization of particles – either as a wave-or-a Quanta – defines the uncertain motion mechanics of them in this force field. Such uncertain motion mechanics of fundamentals – have implications or consequences in the behaviors of everything that surrounds us or what we do - with the mind (immatter) being the matrix of all matter (see MKE Planck saying on the perception of matter, The Power of Mind). The world of Quantum Mechanics (QM) saw the light of exposure during the late 19th and 20th centuries with the observations (published in 1901) of German physicist MKE Planck (1858 – 1947; considered the Father of QM). The seed that he sowed together with two other German physicists, ERJA Schrödinger (1887 – 1961) and WK Heisenberg (1901 – 1976) Uncertainty – continues to sprout in several colors with the practical technological applications that are going to revolutionize, among others, the information age – in the speed of the way we compute and communicate. The key to such progresses was made possible by the groundbreaking Special Theory of Relativity, Einstein (Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955) proposed in 1905 – that among others, established the space-time definition, mass-energy equivalence, and the universal speed limit. The pioneering works of these great investigators defined the beginning of modern science (20th century - ) – that came out of the shell of classical science (17th - 19th century). The classical science period is defined primarily by R Descartes (1596 – 1650) ‘Res Extensa’ or matter philosophy, and Isaac Newton’s mathematical elaborations. The technological upheaval afforded by the foundation they created – led rapid industrialization and defined the materialistic Western civilization – with its outreach to managing everything from economics to social development. The pioneering 20th century modern science based on Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Uncertainty, in essence, combines the ‘Res Extensa’ with ‘Res Cogitans’ or the mind of Descartes philosophy. Although the science of this modern era is widely accepted by scientific community – and its technological incorporation and development have been or are taking roots – the Western social management methods are far from accepting and linking the matter with the phenomenon of mind – which primarily defines the Eastern philosophy – with its root founded upon the sophistication of Buddhist thoughts. With this brief outline, let us move forward. . . . The key to the development of QM is a technique described and applied by Einstein as the thought experiment – and it has been applied by many investigators. To understand the root of this technique one has to go back in time to the development of Buddhist metaphysics about 2.5 millennia BP. The technique is similar to what the Buddha (Gautama Buddha, 624 – 544 BCE) - The Tathagata taught as the Vipassana meditation (further developed as the Chan meditation in China, and Zen meditation in Japan; see more in Meditation for True Happiness) – which entails meditative focusing on an object to have insightful understanding of the nature of causes for its existence. The practice of Vipassana meditation yields fruit only when one has mastered mindful meditation – the technique of controlling and steadfastly grounding the mind on the object. In addition to the intellectual query as such, the development of QM has become possible because of the phenomenal technological advances and instrumentation that have allowed scientists to look deep into objects from the minutest existence – to the remotest corner of Earth and the farthest corner of the universe. But as the QM advances suggest, the world of minuscules works in a strange and mysterious way in the electromagnetic (EM) field – and as we shall see, one such mystery is that the observer (in this case the instrument) influences the observed. Here again a parallelism emerges between Buddhism (Yogachara school, 4th to 7th century CE) and QM – Buddhism saying that one’s experience of the observed is influenced by the construct of his or her mindset. Perhaps human mind works in the same length and breadth as the EM field. Similar parallelism can also be found in some common societal beliefs such as: beauty is in the eyes of the beholder – or that there is no beauty without a beholder. Or simply that everything is dark to a blind – no sound to a deaf – no smell to an anosmiac, etc. As one goes through the developmental history of QM, one would soon realize that this vibrant field has gone through back and forth – with theoretical physicists presenting conflicting theories, or sometimes supporting one another. But as experimental physicists reveal new observations – the theoretical physicists rush to re-interpret or re-formulate their theories. In the end, such processes yielded new theories or ideas most agreed – thanks to the contributions of many dedicated and committed scientists. Although I am saying this in the context of QM, they are ubiquitous in every branch of science and technology – that ideas and theories remain fluid subject to interpretation and re-interpretation until proven to an acceptable level of certainty (or uncertainty). My profession as an applied physical scientist and civil engineer within the coastal waters does not come close to the Quantum world. Therefore, this piece is an attempt to delve into the general understanding of the Quantum world in simple terms – by a non-astrophysicist or non-microphysicist. It is based on several sources including: S Hawking (1942 – 2018; A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, 1995); AC Phillips (Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Wiley, 2002); R Horodecki and others (Quantum Entanglement, 2007); D Kurzyk (Introduction to Quantum Entanglement, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, 2012); and several articles published in Wikipedia. Our world – let us say a civil engineer’s world is satisfied with the powerful deterministic paradigm of Newtonian (Isaac Newton, 1642 – 1727) physics, or the so-called classical physics. This reality has led PS Laplace (1749 – 1827) to declare that determinism is sound and solid, and is the only method needed to solve any of world’s problems including social relations [Further reinforced by the convictions of later scientists: AA Michaelson (1852 – 1931; it would consist of adding a few decimal places to results already obtained), and WT Kelvin (1824 – 1907; everything was perfect in the landscape of physics except for two dark clouds)]. Despite declaration from such a renowned French scientist, frontiers of science did not stop questioning conventional wisdom – while at the same time looking for breakthroughs. . . . One such breakthrough was the Heisenberg paradigm of uncertainty. In a civil engineer’s world, many of our modern works are inspired by uncertainty (see the pieces: Uncertainty and Risk, and The World of Numbers and Chances on the Science & Technology page of WIDECANVAS) – a tool required and is helpful to avoid the risk of failure of engineering projects – by evaluating uncertainties of loads, strengths and the environment. The physics close to the Einstein’s famous mass-energy equivalence equation {e = m*c^2; e = energy, m = mass, c = speed of light ≈ 671 million miles per hour} is the equivalent of our use of the kinetic energy equation {ke = ½*m*V^2; ke = kinetic energy, m = mass, V = average speed of flow} of Daniel Bernoulli (1700 – 1782). Both the equations are based on the acceleration of particles caused by the non-linearity of trajectories in a frictionless motion. I do not know whether Einstein was inspired by Bernoulli, but the two equations are damn similar, in different contexts though – Bernoulli, in the application of Newtonian physics of fluid flow – and Einstein in the field of EM – governed by Maxwell law (Scottish scientist, JC Maxwell, 1831 – 1879). Perhaps this is another indication of the unification and universality of the laws of physics – for that matter, of any law of Nature no matter where one’s position is in space – whether in micro or macro world. The Correspondence Principle (that says QM theory reduces to classical-physics for large quantum numbers) proposed by Danish physicist NHD Bohr (1885 – 1962) in 1920, is one such example. Let us move on to the core content of this piece – before it becomes too lengthy. We have seen in several pieces of the WIDECANVAS that transfer of energy occurs through the distortion of a medium in a wave form – or simply that the energy propagates as a wave. Planck’s observations have revealed that electromagnetic radiation or energy transfer works as the motion of a photon – a particle-like quanta. This was further confirmed by American physicist AH Compton (1892 – 1962) and French physicist LD Broglie (1892 – 1987) in 1923. Their compelling observations contradict the common understanding that energy is transported in a wave-form – describable in frequency, amplitude and phase – and that the wave-processes transferring energy occur without any real movement of particles. The two different views of the same phenomenon pose a riddle. Scientists realized that one of the options to solve the riddle, was to revisit the two-slit experiment first used by British scientist T Young (1773 – 1829) in 1801. Application of methods similar to this, opened the vista to solve the riddle – and the findings have indicated the wave-particle duality of the same phenomenon – in other words, saying that the energy transfer in the EM domain can be viewed as the processes of a wave – but this is no different than the actual movement of particles or quanta. To demonstrate this, I have included an image from Phillips (2002) showing the wave-quanta duality. . . . What kind of magnitude are we talking about in the EM field? To be in perspective – it should be understood that wave lengths and energies in the EM field are exceptionally small beyond the scale of ordinary comprehension. For example, the visible light frequency range is about 430 - 750 THz (1 THz =10^12 Hz; 1 Hz = 1 cycle/second) with the wave length ranging between 400 and 700 nm (1 nm = 10^-9 m). The energy of an electromagnetic wave is given in electronvolt or eV (1 eV = 0.16 x 10^-18 J), and the energy of visible light is about 1 eV. A Joule (J) is the unit of energy in the SI system, and it is the energy transferred when a force of 1 newton (force required to accelerate 1 kg of mass at the rate of 1 m/s^2) moves an object by 1 m in the direction of motion. These extremely small orders of magnitude indicate something very interesting about the wave-quanta duality. Let us attempt to understand it. Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence equation and the orders of magnitude, immediately indicate that the mass of a photon or quanta must be extremely small – perhaps so incomprehensibly light that energy propels the photon to behave like a wave but in an uncertain way. Perhaps the wave-like oscillating behavior is the result of push-pull effect on the photon during its trajectory – similar like the balancing act of disturbing and restoring forces acting on an elastic system. In such a balancing act it is always possible to have the fluctuating dominance of one over the other at any certain time, resulting in uncertainty. Indeed, this is what NHD Bohr theorized as the Complementarity Principle in 1927 – that particle and wave behaviors complement each other – indicating the duality of the same phenomenon. . . . The uncertainty caused by such processes led Heisenberg to formulate his famous uncertainty principle in 1926. In the exact formulation, it says that the product of the standard deviations of particle position and momentum must scale with Planck’s constant (radiation energy is the product of frequency and a constant, Planck’s constant = 6.626 x 10^-34 J s), which means that positioning and momentum cannot have equal level of accuracy simultaneously. Let us attempt to understand it further through the simplified wording of Stephen Hawking: if one repeats measurements of the same system many times, and if they are grouped into A and B, some may fall into group A, while some others in B. Statistical analyses would allow to predict these grouping in probabilities, but it is impossible to predict the trajectory of individual measurements whether they would veer toward A or B. In other words, the scattering in the images can be predicted in generalized statistical terms – that would yield the wave pattern, but the individual positioning is unpredictable. This is indeed what the Born Rule (M Born, 1882 – 1970, German physicist and mathematician) says, that the description given by the wave function is probabilistic. The confirmation of wave-like behavior immediately suggests that the radiation must follow the wave transformation processes of classical physics – refraction, diffraction and superposition. The QM principles were summarized by Bohr and Heisenberg for ordinary comprehension, what is known as the Copenhagen Interpretation. It upholds: the wave-quanta duality; the influence of and the interaction with the laboratory observation on the behavior of minuscules; the probabilistic behavior of the wave function; and the correspondence principle. . . . Well so far so good. But there appeared a problem – observations have indicated that when particles or photons are generated, if one measures the state of photon (let us say A) as 1 – the behavior of another photon (say B) immediately responds to a state as 0. In other words, no matter how far the particles are apart – the response of B is immediate but opposite to the state of A. This has raised a serious question because the simultaneity of states must happen by the radiated wave traveling faster than the speed of light – thus denying the theory of relativity (that limits the speed of EM radiation to that of light). The inconsistency is addressed in a paper published in 1935 by Einstein, B Podolsky (1896 – 1966) and N Rosen (1909 – 1995); and is known as the EPR paradox. The paradox indicated the most intriguing and mysterious world of QM – at the cost of denying the completeness of the QM theory. Shortly afterwards, Schrödinger addressed the same problem in a paper published in 1935 – coining the phenomenon as Quantum Entanglement (QE). But the paradoxical problem did not disappear – how best to explain it? It was the Irish physicist, JS Bell (1928 – 1990) who came up with measurements and formulations in 1964, to say that one of the assumptions of the idea of paradox must be false – or that the two assumptions - one of reality (that microscopic objects have real properties) and the other of locality (that simultaneous measurements at distant locations cannot influence each other) cannot be true at the same. His mathematical argument is known as Bell’s Inequality. The Heisenberg principle, Born rule and Bell’s inequality – all confirm the stochastic or probabilistic nature of QM – and perhaps by the argument of correspondence extends to all Natural phenomena. What is the implication of QE? Well the implication is huge – starting from telepathy and teleportation to quantum encryption and computing. Although not yet proven scientifically, the phenomenon of telepathy seems to exist and people experience it sometime (see the Power of Mind piece on the SOCIAL INTERACTION page). Again not proven scientifically, but teleportation is the subject of some science fiction movies such as STAR TREK and STAR WARS. Many religious scriptures talk about gods and goddesses shuttling between heaven and earth instantly. Popular beliefs say that the Buddha used to display that ability – such as the story of appearing out of nowhere between a rogue son (Angulimala was aiming at killing his mother to get her finger as a payment (dakshina) to his guru’s wish) and his mother – to save them both. But most importantly very active research and technological development in Qubit computation and encryption are progressing fast. A simple explanation of this area of work is like this: qubit is a method of using 0, 1 and the combinations of both for fast computing and storage; and entanglement ensures their instant appearance somewhere else – at a long distance such as in space. But the probabilistic processes of QM would allow encryption to ensure secured flow of information. More in the National Academies Publication NAP 25196. . . . A piece on the Quantum World remains incomplete without providing a glimpse on the Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and Hawking Radiation, HR (1974, Stephen Hawking). Before saying more about them, let us attempt to understand what a Force or Energy Field means. A force field refers to a certain dominant parameter within a system which interacts with others – or influences them or is influenced by them. Perhaps an easily understandable simplest example from a Coastal Civil Engineer’s perspective – is a Coastal System (see Civil Engineering on our Seashore) where a wave force field interacts with that of a current. The force field theory was first introduced by Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867) in 1845. Apart from the Thermodynamic Force Field (TDFF), and the Bio-electricity Force Field (BEFF), some examples of force fields that are characterized by invisible (but measurable) forces are – the Magnetic Force Field, the Electric Force Field, the Electromagnetic Force Field, EMFF and the Gravitational Force Field, GFF (Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein; see Einstein’s Unruly Hair). Among these, EMFF and GFF are grouped together in the Classical Field (CF) Theory envelope. The QFT term (Quantum Electrodynamics, to be exact) is credited to have been first introduced by PAM Dirac (1902 – 1984) in 1927 – with further refinement at later times by other investigators. A Quantum Field, QF is defined as – and encompasses the force elements of CF, Special Relativity (see Einstein’s Unruly Hair) and QM (e.g. wave-particle Duality, Uncertainty and Entanglement). With this knowledge, now let us attempt to understand HR. We have seen in the Einstein’s Unruly Hair how Black Holes warp spacetime creating the Event Horizons around them. Not proven yet, Hawking Radiation or Black Hole Thermal Radiation is defined as the radiation in QF – outward from the Black Holes within the periphery of the horizon (see also Hawking’s Black Hole Entropy in Entropy and Everything Else). One important implication of HR is that overtime (far far in the future) Black Holes are predicted to lose their masses or energy (immense gravitational pull) through such processes of radiation or evaporation. . . . The principles of QM and QE drive us back again to some ancient metaphysics. One of the profound realities describing the law of Paticca Samupadha or Dependent Origination taught by the Buddha (The Tathagata) says that there cannot be independent state of existence – in other words, all states are interdependent – just as the principle QE says. The lack of independence leads to another important conclusion of the Dependent Origination – and it is the reality of Sunyata or emptiness of substance in any conceivable state of existence. It says that one cannot separate things in space or time to claim that they definitely exist independent of one another. This and other Buddhist metaphysics including the duality principle of Nagarjuna (150 – 250 CE) are some of the reasons why QM and Buddhism have become an active area of research. One particular area of focus is the Avatamsaka Sutra (or the Flower Garland Sutra). The sutra directs one to the Four Faces of the Dharmakaya or the Universal Law: the duality of all existence; the mutuality or entanglement of the two; and the complementarity or collaborativeness of all such dual entities. Thus one’s realization is materialized by multidimensional interactions – therefore is Sunya or empty of essence by itself. The sphere of Natural philosophy or science began splitting from philosophy in the 19th century – with further splits occurring across disciplines as the horizon of knowledge continues to expand. In the end they must coalesce however – not in amalgamation of disciplines – but in yielding something unified – as a theory or law that could explain everything. Different correspondence theories have already been proposed or are emerging in different fields – someday a super-correspondence theory is likely to appear. Ultimately, it is all about energies – how they flow from one state to another – and how they transform things in the process. Some of it are common knowledge already – but still there remain more questions to be answered. I am tempted to finish this piece by delving into the epistemic definition of knowledge – that developed in many early philosophies and religions around the world. Dharmakirti (600 – 660 CE) – a Buddhist monk and scholar at Nalanda University (world’s 2nd earliest university; 5th – 12th century CE), while expounding upon the Buddha’s teaching – has explained that knowledge is complete only when our queries are satisfied – through the systematic processes that have three elements: it starts with curiosity and concept (anumana) – then to analytical and intellectual reasoning to understand it (pratyaksa) – and must end with valid proofs (pramana) or verifications of the concept. Such processes give a Natural philosopher or scientist the strength to defend his or her findings – the most famous example is the quiet but defiant mumbling of Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642): and yet it moves. It is popularly believed that this has happened – while Galileo was pressured and harassed by Papal Theocracy to denounce the Copernican (Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473 – 1543) theory that says: Earth is not stationary and is not at the center of the universe. . . . . . - by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 14 March 2019 |
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