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:

• Ganges at Hardinge Bridge. Draining a catchment of 1.09 million square kilometer, the river has a length of 2,200 km and a mean annual discharge of some 11,000 m^3/s. It is a wide meandering river with a mean bed slope of 5 cm drop in 1 km of river length, and a median bed-material grain size of 0.12 mm.
• Jamuna at Bahadurabad. Draining a catchment of 0.574 million square kilometer, the river has a length of 2,900 km and a mean annual discharge of some 20,000 m^3/s. It is a wide braided river with a mean bed slope of 7 cm drop in 1 km of river length, and a median bed-material grain size of 0.22 mm.
• Padma at Baruria. This station is located at about 120 km downstream of the Ganges-Jamuna confluence – with a mean annual discharge of some 28,000 m^3/s. It has a roughly straight course followed by a double-thread braided lower reach – with a mean bed slope of 5 cm drop in 1 km of river length, and a median bed-material grain size of 0.13 mm.
• Gorai at Kushtia. As a right bank distributary of the Ganges, it is located at about 16 km downstream of Hardinge Bridge. The mean annual discharge is some 1,400 m^3/s, representing 13% of the flow of Ganges. Its mean bed slope is 4 cm drop in 1 km of river length, and a median bed-material grain size of 0.15 mm.
• Dhaleswari at Jagir and Taraghat. This river is one of the major left bank distributaries of the Jamuna with a mean annual discharge of some 600 m^3/s, representing 4% of the flow of Jamuma. Its mean bed slope is 4.5 cm drop in 1 km of river length, and a median bed-material grain size of 0.16 mm.

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.

• In each measurement transect, a minimum of 9 sampling verticals are chosen – with the requirement that the distance between the verticals should not exceed 10% of the total discharge. This requirement means that more verticals are necessary in high-conveying channels than in shallow sections.
• At each vertical, current velocities are measured by lowering a non-directional propeller current meter from a motorized catamaran – at two depths (20% and 80% of depth) in deep channels, and at 60% of depth in shallow channels. The current meters are exposed for 100 s – and this time is used to average the meter rotations and calibrated velocity. Sextants are used both for positioning the vessel as well as to measure float positions to determine current direction. At one end of the sampling transect, water level (h) is measured daily.
• The suspended sediment samples are taken at each alternate vertical at the same depths as velocity. A Kelvin Hughes Binckley sampler (an instantaneous sampler) is used to collect 1 liter of sediment-laden water.
• The collected water samples are separated into silt-clay and sand fractions by passing them through an elutriator for 100 s. The suspended sediment concentrations are then determined by taking dry-weight of the collected samples.
• Total water (Q) and SSL are estimated for each measured transect by velocity-area method as recommended by ISO (1983). While Q is measured frequently, the measurements to estimate SSL are not conducted as frequent. This means some procedures are required to generate the missing data.
• These procedures comprised of two – the first is to develop Q-h rating curves from measurements. The curves are then used to estimate missing Q from the daily registration of h. Similar procedures are applied to develop Q-SSL rating curves – then apply them to estimate the missing SSL.

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.

• Total Annual Inflow into the System.
• Maximum: 1394 MTE enters into the GJRS through the Jamuna and Ganges rivers – of which 64% is silt-clay and the rest 36% is sand. Of this total, the SSL share of the Jamuna River (684 MTE representing 49% of the total) is slightly lower than the Ganges River (710 MTE).
• Mean: 1139 MTE enters into the GJRS through the Jamuna and Ganges rivers – of which 65% is silt-clay and the rest 35% is sand. Of this total, the SSL share of the Jamuna River (590 MTE representing 52% of the total) is slightly higher than the Ganges River (549 MTE).
• Minimum: 884 MTE enters into the GJRS through the Jamuna and Ganges rivers – of which 67% is silt-clay and the rest 33% is sand. Of this total, the SSL share of the Jamuna River (496 MTE representing 56% of the total) is higher than the Ganges River (388 MTE).
• Total Annual Outflow from the System.
• Maximum. SSL that leaves out of the GJRS – through Padma, Gorai and Dhaleswari rivers is 1215 MTE, representing 87% of the total entry. The Padma River – carrying most of the Ganges-Jamuna flows, transport 1131 MTE or 93% of total entry – the rest are 5% (58 MTE) by Gorai and 2% (27 MTE) by Dhaleswari.
• Mean: SSL that leaves out of the GJRS – through Padma, Gorai and Dhaleswari rivers is 952 MTE, representing 84% of the total entry. The Padma River – carrying most of the Ganges-Jamuna flows, transport 886 MTE or 93% of total entry – the rest are 5% (47 MTE) by Gorai and 2% (19 MTE) by Dhaleswari.
• Minimum. SSL that leaves out of the GJRS – through Padma, Gorai and Dhaleswari rivers is 689 MTE, representing 78% of the total entry. The Padma River – carrying most of the Ganges-Jamuna flows, transport 641 MTE or 93% of total entry – the rest are 5% (36 MTE) by Gorai and 2% (11 MTE) by Dhaleswari.
• Total Annual Floodplain Sequestering.
• Maximum: A balance of the inflow and outflow shows that 179 MTE or 13% of the total annual SSL entry is sequestered by the GJRS, filling its floodplains. In the balance of maximums, a certain degradation in sand is observed, thus skewing the maximum.
• Mean: A balance of the inflow and outflow shows that187 MTE or 16% of the total annual SSL entry is sequestered by the GJRS, filling its floodplains. Of this 95% is silt-clay.
• Minimum: A balance of the inflow and outflow shows that 195 MTE or 22 % of the total annual SSL entry is sequestered by the GJRS, filling its floodplains. Of this 77% is silt-clay.
• The above estimates show that some 13% to 22% of the total annual SSL entry into the system – is sequestered or remains within the system accounting for floodplain sedimentation. This appears rather low – if one compares the observations of Keown et al (1986). They observed that prior to 1963 (roughly coinciding with the beginning of installation of major engineering works on the Mississippi River basin) – the floodplain sequestering was as much as 52% of estimated sediment yield (423 MTE out of 817 MTE). It has been estimated that after 1963, the sequestering (613 MTE) has increased further to 75%. While such a high sequestering is primarily due to damming of the Mississippi River system – the engineering interventions on the GJRS and in the upstream catchment regions in Nepal, China and India are rather minimal or not-so-abundant. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why a trend in the 25-years is not obvious. But things are changing – the first change started with the installation of the Farakka Barrage on the Ganga River in 1975 – and other upstream works by riparian countries.

I like to stop at this – only to outline briefly that collecting data and managing the described efforts for a large alluvial river system such as the GJRS – is a challenging undertaking. But with the help from international partners, BWDB has maintained a laudably long record of sediment transport data – and the effort continues. However, many lapses and limitations do exist – in particular in the domain of quality assurance of the collected data. As identified during drawing up of the paper in 1998, they include:

1. lack of continuous reviews and adaptation of measuring transects and verticals, and methods to account for high mobility of banks and channel beds of the GJRS;
2. lack of adaptation of measuring schedules to the river hydrograph (for example, high flood stages when most of the transport takes place were often missed);
3. accounting for errors introduced by a non-integrating instantaneous SSL sampler;
4. accounting for errors introduced by treating silt-clay concentration as a uniformly distributed quantity over the transect – and using it as a bulk quantity to estimate SSL (it is known that silt-clay concentration is also a function of local flow velocity/capacity);
   
5. accounting for errors introduced by the rating-curve method to estimate the missing data (this method is a practical approach of convenience that lacks theoretical basis); and
6. accounting for errors introduced by the seasonality of river hydrograph (because for the same stage – a rising flood flow transports more sediments than the corresponding falling river flow).

Despite all these limitations – it can be argued that the estimates provide a defensible transport in orders of magnitude – albeit with some degrees of uncertainty.
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 awareness and appreciation 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. 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 and Japanese 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:

1. How ethical are the methods?
   
2. Are they transparent or wrapped under the clout of confidentiality or fine-prints to avoid responsibility?
   
3. How do the vendors ensure that an individual’s or a group’s interests, freedom and privacy are not compromised?
4. What are the safeguards that the collected information are not sold to or shared with third parties or used for malicious purposes?
   
5. How secure are the processes against hacking by other malicious AI?
6. What are the safeguards against AI algorithms making deadly mistakes or going rogue (due to inadvertent or deliberate actions of the programmer and/or their organization)?
7. Aren’t societies facing a scary situation – where a small group of AI programmers and their organizations have or would have the master capabilities to modulate and dictate everything affecting humanity?
8. What about the leadership roles of experts in various disciplines – scientific, technical, social relations, etc? Some of them reach the level of seeing things beyond political and sectarian boundaries – and have the intellectual caliber sweetened with morality, love and compassion (see Leadership and Management). They are often considered the soul of a nation. Shouldn’t they speak out? Or is it that their voices are pooh-poohed as a nuisance?
   
9. Where do the government entities stand? Does the existing regulatory framework adequate enough to answer the questions above? Entrusted with overseeing the state-of-affairs and protecting the interests of country and its citizens, doesn’t it have the responsibility to direct things in the right direction? Does the government’s responsibility amount to nothing more than issuing a nicely fabricated press release or a costly advertisement (thus supporting the advertisement and media empires)? By not engaging effectively, is the government playing the role of an accomplice, creating upslope events (see Upslope Events and Downslope Processes) that are likely to usher in unmanageable downslope processes or grim consequences – thus causing further instability to the already skewed social equilibrium – if not now, certainly in the future?
   

The relevance and importance of questions 3 to 5 are recognized by general public, but can best be discerned from The National Academies Press publication (NAP 18749). In this 2014 document, it detailed out: . . . cyberspace is vulnerable to a broad spectrum of hackers, criminals, terrorists, and state actors. Working in cyberspace, these malevolent actors may steal money, intellectual property, or classified information; snoop on private conversations; impersonate law-abiding parties for their own purposes; harass or bully innocent people anonymously; damage important data; destroy or disrupt the operation of physical machinery controlled by computers; or deny the availability of normally accessible services. . . . A NOVA documentary series Computer V. Crime throws some lights on various aspects related to these issues.
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). 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

• What is AI? Imagine a software (SW) that can work (or imagine it as a person as in robotics), and can be used as a tool – openly and/or surreptitiously on the platforms of cyberworld and machines – with no potential limits whatsoever on the arena of replicating the known. Even in the cases of some unknowns, its algorithms can tap on memories and library of information to figure out answers. The limits, not only refer to the scientific capabilities of AI itself – but also to the fact that societies have not imposed, and perhaps have no intention of imposing specific regulatory limits on AI (so far, not even in scenarios of harmful effects – both short and long term). As pointed out earlier, the only limit AI faces, is replicating the many functions of mind.
  
• AI is designed to perform the tasks of continuous machine learning – to refine approaches and methods mimicking the likeness of human intelligence – and adapt accordingly. In a nutshell, such a powerful SW is AI (~ 1955; American computer scientist, John McCarthy, 1927 – 2011; credited to be the pioneering father of AI). On one hand, it has the potential to take some human achievements to a fast lane, and do the unmanageable difficult tasks. On the other it can be used to cause harm. Both of which have been and are proliferating at an exponential rate. People are watching the development and performance of AIPPS with awe and optimism – but are fearful and wary of high risk that AI applications could tempt unscrupulous quarters to deliberately conduct unwholesome activities.
• AI – to be exact, the Intelligence of Machines – aims to design and program machines to mimic human intelligence – to perform (almost) like humans. In order to do so, AI initiatives must begin understanding the system of Biological Neural Network (BNN) – in humans and other creatures. These understandings lay the foundation on which to build the replicating efforts of AI – but it must also build into its algorithm the ever-expanding knowledge, theories, and principles – developed in various disciplines of science, technology, and social relations. Needless to say that the motivation behind such launching of AI initiatives comes from natural progression of human quests to improve upon the socioeconomics and quality of life and livelihoods (see more on The Wheel of Life).
  
• Human BNN is composed of neurons or nerve cells and inter-communicating signaling mechanisms – that work on the complex interactions with itself, and with the surroundings of Nature and Society – collecting and communicating information through the 5 body senses. Buddhism (6th century BCE) goes further than that by including mind as the 6th sense. This non-material sense is the forerunner of everything one does – with the boundless capacities to roam around in space and time – to collect information and modulate the cognitive processes together with the five material senses (the processes of the Five Aggregates; see The Power of Mind). Working on the paradigm of the laws of Transience and Dependent-origination or the cobweb of interdependence – the system-processes of the 6 senses (controllable by individuals who own them), lead to the development of intellect, smartness and cleverness – that direct one to the decision making initiatives or undertaking (see Leadership and Management).
  
• On top of that – the action-reaction-duo calibrates itself – with the individual’s and societal ethical/moral compass. Individually, each of these 6 senses lets the observer to develop a particular image of the observed. But if and when all the 6 senses are combined, the totality of the observed takes shape. For example, when one sees a lion one recognizes it as such – when one hears its thunderous voice one knows more of the creature – and so on. And when one uses the mind, he or she develops the wisdom of the rationality of its existence – its past, its evolution, its belonging to the Nature, etc.
• AI relies on modeling the BNN cognitive processes to develop Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Artificial neurons or computational nodes use mathematical models to process information collected through input nodes and deliver the processed/computed information through the output nodes. The system of nodes and flow-paths are adaptive – in that the system structure and flow-paths change direction depending on the nature of input. They form a complex loop of interacting activities of collecting information, processing them through cognitions, to intelligent decision making. The final phase creates new information/memories of inputs – so the system-loop goes on.
  
• This mechanism of adaptability responding to input signals or stimulus constitutes the programming intelligence. Some example applications of AI are: speech recognition, image analysis, adaptive control to create video games and robotics. By virtue of interdependence and interactions, the activities are far from deterministic – they are rather laden with uncertainties of stochastic processes (see Uncertainty and Risk and The World of Numbers and Chances).
• Here is a simple parallel. Closely similar to ANN but without the capabilities of adaptability – is the NETFLOW water modeling SW (Delft Hydraulics; the model developed in the 1980s, perhaps metamorphosed into something else now; had the opportunity of using it for a short time during my career). This model consists of nodes and channel networks – where a system of efficient and fast solution scheme was implemented staggeredly – with nodes solving the mass-balance equation, leaving the channel networks to solve the 1-D Saint-Venant momentum-balance equation.
  
• The logic implemented in AI, is powered by digital processing controlled by algorithms of adaptability. This is in contrast to some of our day-to-day computer uses – which are powered by the digital processing controlled by rigid algorithms. It is rigid, in a sense that programming logic is designed to work one way dictating the outputs in response to certain input signals, or an intended purpose. The comparison of the two approaches, leads one to infer that AI is close to replicating the processes of fluidity and multiplicity in Nature and Society (see The Fluidity of Nature; Duality and Multiplicity in Nature; Social Fluidity; and Duality and Multiplicity in a Society), and therefore is very powerful.
• How does AI-ANN accommodate the sense organs of BNN? In AI robotics all the 5 senses are developed and have straightforward applications – some at an advanced level than others. For AI programs that sense and collect consumer behaviors remotely, the inputs come through – micro-camera as the eye; microphone as the ear; keyboard or touch screen as the sense of touching. The smelling and tasting senses in remote AI operations, are perhaps not that much of an essence – as AI-focus is on information processing. However the remotely gathered three-pronged information can be labeled, or an attribution map can be chalked out – to designate them as of good or bad smells and tastes (figuratively speaking). Again, as pointed out earlier, many aspects of the 6th sense mind phenomenon are not programmable by AI, not yet.
  
• However at least a portion of it is done through psychological profiling of the consumer/user. Consumer research, social media data and data collected through other sources are used to determine what are in demand and what are not. The determined profiles form the basis for developing, or feeding into the stereo-type psychological notions of groups – ethnic, religious, age, gender, etc. Psychological profiles (there are serious ethical questions about this practice) are inadequate to cover the domain of mind entirely, which is too broad and complex – therefore perhaps many aspects of the mind phenomenon are left out of the equation. One such aspect – for better or worse – is that AIPPS can avoid many emotional ups and downs that define a living being.

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.

• Ethics and Morals. Ethics (antonyms: corruption, dishonesty, indecency) stand on cultural and moral attitudes of a society – and unlike laws, many of them are universal, rooted deep in human social and cultural evolution. Unless encoded into laws, they do not carry the legal authoritative weight of the government. They are rather used to regulate the conduct of members affiliated with professional societies. These societies enforce ethics through licensure agreement and by-laws. Ethics and morals (antonyms: wrongdoing, unfairness, impropriety) are generally reconcilable, but they are not same. While the former refers to the decent code of behavior of a group or society – the latter refers to an individual’s righteous code of conduct (such as those encoded in religious scriptures; e.g. Revisiting Jataka Morals - 1; Revisiting Jataka Morals - 2). All businesses and organizations have some form of transparent ethics code in their policy document – most of it is tuned to regulating the customer and staff behaviors – but, if any, they are very scanty on the behaviors of executives and business dealings. In the Duality and Multiplicity in a Society piece I have written on good and evil: . . . minimizing the duality gap on the ethics ground means that the evil at the trough needs to move up in an attempt to reach the level of good at the crest.
  
• Ethics on Social Media and Internet Search Engines. We have discussed them earlier in the contexts of asking questions. People hear outcries now and then (e.g. the portrayals in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma) about different social media platforms and search engines. Not only do these platforms harvest the user data, but also configure and influence/control consumer behavior. Apparently such practices are not preventable by existing privacy laws (which prohibit divulging of information – but not using them). Or by the general framework of ethics code that most organizations and businesses have in their policy documents. At least, three internet use/abuse issues catch people’s attention: (1) unethical and illegal – breaking into someone’s email account; (2) unethical and illegal – targeting a computer to control its functions by surreptitiously installing malware; and (3) unethical but legal – surveillance or monitoring of web-traffic by employers and governments. These three common practices as prevalent as they are – should not define a society (see Social Order). One knows too well how true these malicious practices are – not only what are highlighted, but also the fact that they and the different mass media outlets provide platforms – to the activities that propagate and nurture fake and unwholesome materials. They are constantly luring consumers to see things through their lenses. And many people are consuming them – some consciously, others are not aware that they are being influenced/manipulated. Such activities perhaps have roots in the tabloid newspapers – which have been in business for more than a century (first started in London in 1903).
  
• Carrying and publishing misinformation (misleading information) and disinformation (distorted, deceptive information), including other news forms such as rumours and propaganda - all termed loosely as the so-called fake news - have been in practice since long time – in tabloids, also to some extent in main media (electronic and printed). Now, AI has powered all such media outlets – more so, the social media – to deliberately skew information to their choice and liking. Tainting the news culture by promoting the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation – such deliberate practices basically shelved whatever honesty was there in the past. The trouble with such dishonest practices is that – it is becoming increasingly difficult to judge what are fake – and what are not.
• It is not entirely their fault however, the societal business models allow them to conduct as such, to attract marketing advertisement (even the malicious ones) dollar$ (thus the onus of responsibility for bad behavior falls partly on the shoulders of advertisers). These models take advantage of the common human tendency to remain busy – in socializing, entertainment or productive activities. Further, it is hard not to notice the prevalence of some alarming activities that are designed to target particular members of the society – to humiliate, dehumanize and morally degrade their spirit. Often wrapped as advertisements (texts and digitally adulterated) – the products find its way through different mass and social media platforms (including land phones that have been upgraded to digital communication). One such alarming and disturbing aspect is the growing practice of Personalized Advertising/Marketing. Based on tracking consumer/user behaviors, likes/dislikes, habits, personal and social situations – by one of the methods branded as cookies - the practice is basically dictatorial – programming the targeted consumer to see things through the advertiser’s lens.
  
• A Note on Business Ethics. Societal business models seem to work on the paradigm that corporate industries and businesses (who are not accountable to people, but to themselves and the shareholders) are angels – requiring no regulation. The governing system of such a society, therefore shuns away from the responsibility of setting the limits to AI proliferation (even to prevent it from drifting toward the wrong direction). Therefore, the populace has no option other than to depend on the goodwill and grace of AI programmers, developers, executives and their business motives. But isn’t it utter naiveté to expect such behaviors from AI personnel (primary motivators for bad behavior of these individuals: the lure of promotion to higher hierarchy, and pay-raise) and entities – whose decision-making process – is overwhelmingly motivated or governed by what makes money (see Governance) rather than what are important and good for the society. Also, it is important to note that AIPPS depend on adapting to the existing models in science, technology and social interactions, and/or to the modeling of collected information. Therefore it is important for AI-system to shun away from selecting the biased and misleading sources – instead, AIPPS should be developed by selecting the neutral and defensible science – to remain unquestionably fair to all.
• LAWS. Let me begin by quoting Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804): In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. This saying, not only lays the fundamental difference between law and ethics – but also points to the fact that one should be mindful and heedful of one’s thought processes – because mind is the forerunner of everything one does (Gautama Buddha - The Tathagata; 563 – 483 BCE). Laws (antonyms: anarchy, disorganization, violation) are broadly drawn from societal ethics (but sometimes the two can be in conflict) to allow or prohibit certain behaviors (laws of most countries trace their roots to the British Common Laws, or to the Civil Laws of Napoleonic Code and German/Roman dominance). But laws differ widely among different jurisdictions (the more the discrepancies, the more the proliferation of lawyers), and even some are not up to date.
  
• Contrary to the values laid down in societal ethics, some laws of the land have elements of judicial travesty or covert avenues to protect special interest groups at the cost of denying the same legal rights to others (there are many examples of such practices; two important ones are: the interests of privileged corporate entities, the wealthy and elites enjoy promotion and protection in a capitalistic society; communism came with a slogan to protect the interest if low-incomes. Victor Hugo {1802 – 1885} in his famous novel ‘Les Misérables’ depicted to what extent the 19th century judicial system in Europe was brutal to the poor – the novel portrays the inhuman case of a five year prison time for stealing a loaf of bread for seven starving children). Laws are laid down by, and carry the authority of a governing body for compliance and enforcement, and punitive sanctions – differentiated in Civil, Criminal, Private and Public Law categories. Inking of some laws often lack thorough research and rigor – in particular with their interpretation and enforcement. Ambiguous or loop-holed texts in laws result in interpretive fights – leading to the vicious and unproductive cycles of law-suits and counter suits.
• It is interesting to note – how the question and relevance of morality, ethics and law differ among people depending on where they stand on the social stratum. For example, a lawyer, an official sitting on the justice bench or a member of law enforcement – see morality as irrelevant if it is not part of the enacted ethics, bylaws, regulations and laws. For truly religious people or those who emphasize on social morality – the question of moral values appears very important. They view moral values as the guiding principle defining societal well-being – and as the foundation on which enacted laws must be based.
  

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.

• Introduced in the 1980s, AutoCAD revolutionized the drawing practices of designing engineering elements. Its evolution walked through – from the platform of mainframe computers to the present-day platform of personal computers – with several variants interacting with other different but compatible SW. An AI app, cashing on the wealth of existing knowledge and experience – can take CAD designs further by learning from the user info and intention – and proactively guiding him or her through to overcome difficult problems.
  
• Sound engineering depends on the quality and quantity of data it uses. There have been enormous technological advances in measurements – in aspects of resolution, extent and duration. Some of these are already powered by AI, or can be enhanced further.
• Numerical water modeling (see Water Modeling) – catering to the hydraulic engineering tenet of CE – has come a long way from the dependence on mainframe computers to its present stage. Improvements have occurred in all aspects – from the processing power of computation to the integration of modules – through dynamic coupling. Pre- and post-processing, display, visualization and animation of inputs and outputs have reached a level – unimaginable just few years ago. Computational mesh both in space and time has seen flexibility – even adaptability in some cases (so model instability and crashes are things of the past). Cashing on the library of information and input that are on the internet (that can be subscribed and purchased) – AI can power modeling efforts substantially – from adapting to the specified data – to visualization, quality checks and validation of model results. Perhaps Cloud Computing Services are an answer – that facilitate pooling of resources assembled and managed by the Provider for the convenience and efficient performance of the User. The services are provided in three primary categories – the Platform, the Infrastructure and the Software – for computing, data storage, networking and others. They are mostly controlled and managed by the provider with some freedoms of management by the user. Privacy, ownership and security are some of the concerns – especially for the Public Cloud Services. Apart from that - some cases in point, the examples of real-time simulations: the hydrodynamics (one example, hydrodynamic model to build the Denmark-Sweden causeway, commissioned in 2000); the Wave Watch models; atmospheric circulation, and tsunami (see Tsunami and Tsunami Forces) and storm surge (see Storm Surge) modeling to forecast hazards (see Nature's Action). These are some of the advances that are destined to benefit further from AI power and progress.
  
• The same premises can be reasoned for structural and geotechnical engineering tenets of CE. Some existing analysis and design SWs in these two tenets have AI elements in them. It is only expected to advance further in time - digital twin models - the exact replica of the physical objects in the digital domain is one such example. The model not only enhances the planning and design process capabilities, earmark bottlenecks and problem areas in real-time - but also prompts and set directions to efficient and timely management of project components.  
  

Human entrepreneurial motivation comes from making money or profit. Without this, AI or any other human enterprise would not have seen the dawn of light (see more on Turning the Wheel of Progress). But then the virtually limitlessness of AI systems lets one to ponder over more questions. Two of them are: (1) why replicating or mimicking humans to replace some or all of its activities? (2) is human race in danger of loosing its cognitive capabilities so much so that its functions are going to be incapacitated? The answer to the first question lies in the nature of human quests – that have made us different and in control of other creatures – plants and animals. Human pursuits move on, because that is how we are (see more on Gift of Science & Technology; Natural Order; and Natural Equilibrium). But then, the ultimate aim of AI is to replace such human quests altogether – seeking for something that can even explore us, and for us. Is it something smart to do? What are the long-terms goals and consequences?
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.

1. AI has virtually no potential limits – either on its sprawling scientific capabilities or on navigating through regulation-free wide arena of various human activities. Only limit appears to be replicating all or some aspects of the mind phenomena.
2. AIPPS represent a natural progression of human quests to improve upon lives and livelihoods. Its huge potentials to transform human civilization are beyond doubt. But such potentials ask for shouldering the responsibilities by all, including the systems of funding and advertisements. These cash-injecting powerful systems dictate the path – for AI entities to follow.
3. The performance of AIPPS is as good as the models they implement – therefore it is important to select neutral ones that are not tainted with inclinations of any kind.
4. It is important for authorities to chart out thoughtful directions for AI entrepreneurships to follow. But directions should not come at the cost of choking entrepreneurial initiatives.
   
5. Also one has to realize the fact that a society cannot and should not rely on the goodwill of some programmers and their organizations for things to move in the right direction.
6. Before divulging AIPPS out into the market place – it is important that they are calibrated with the societal moral and ethical values – to adapt AIPPS to them. Otherwise bad socioeconomic entropy (see Entropy and Everything Else) will creep in – to spiral down what common humanity has achieved. Perhaps it is important to slow down somewhat by phasing out progresses – to have time to reflect and evaluate the impacts of AIPPS on the future of mankind.
   

I like to dedicate this piece to the worldwide victims – whose trusts have been broken by entities responsible for upholding and honoring them.

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

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

• Cosmic Explosion. This is when everything began in about 13.8 billion years ago that released huge amounts of UE energy – the magnitude of which is beyond the scale of human imagination. As we wanted to measure things for convenience and for re-orientation of our existence, we used the event as a benchmark to define the birth of cosmic time together with the definition of space. The event gave birth to cascade of DP activities in the universe of galaxies to which our Milky Way Galaxy and the Solar System belong. The catastrophic UE – like the Big Five defined all that happened on Earth over the long geologic period of some 450 Ma. We are still in DP that was initiated by the last UE, the K-Pg that rattled the Earth in about 66 Ma. Some climatic implications of it were discussed in the Warming Climate and Entropy. Minor explosions (let us say miracles) also occur constantly in Nature – such as the birth of time in the life of an individual, and the spectacular metamorphoses of some species – as a one-way process. These are some good examples discussed in Entropy and Everything Else.
  
• Order to Disorder. In Entropy and Everything Else, we have seen how the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics tells us about the arrow of time – that is synonymous with the phenomenon of Natural dynamics of the trend: order to disorder. It describes, in essence the UE → DP relation. Unless work is done or external energy is infused to recreate UE – that is how things are poised to move in DPs – to disorder. Natural Disorder – in quests for establishing equilibrium, pattern, symmetry and stability.
  
• Natural Hazards. There are many Natural hazards one can think of, representing the UE: geo-hazard, water-hazard, pollution-hazard, climate-hazard, weather-hazard, bio-hazard (the presently occurring horrific COVID-19 is a prime example), etc. Let me attempt to highlight three that are within the scope of coastal events and processes. These three are the regular breaking of waves on our shore (see The Surf Zone), and the episodic breaking and runups of Storm Surge and Tsunami. They represent irreversible cases of UE built-ups on way to the shore – that collapse at a certain time giving birth to cascade of DP activities. The processes (the regular Surf Zone wave breaking is not hazardous per se, compared to the scales of other two) erode and re-orient shorelines, forcefully flood and cause damages and destructions of infrastructure, and cost people’s lives and way of living.
  

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.

• Disorder to Order. We have seen in the Entropy and Everything Else, how the definition of work came into meaning in the context of restoring order from the Natural trend (order → disorder). The work is done by infusing energy into the system. All scientific discoveries and technological inventions throughout the ages are examples of great works that turned disorder → order. Let us see two simple examples: the first one would be damming of a functioning river. This civil engineering intervention creates UE by turning the kinetic water flow energy into the potential energy of hydropower (e.g. Flood Barrier Systems). The work benefits water supply and irrigation but at the cost of inundation and population dislocation – and by imprinting a permanent dent on the socio-cultural landscape (see more in the Environmental Controls and Functions of a River). The second is the installation of the oil/gas rigs or import terminals (creation of UE) followed by the DP supply/distribution chain – the two terms are known respectively as upstream and downstream activities in oil and gas industries. Again, the creation of these UEs comes with a certain degree of Uncertainty and Risk – which means that in case of failure, DP activities are likely to usher in cascade of damages, destructions and loss of lives. Both the examples illustrate the creation of resources from the abundance of Nature – but at the cost of accompanying probable effects – with the additional risk of further devastation in case of failure.
  
• Closing and Isolating Systems. Another aspect of engineering & technology is to infuse energy by doing work to define the UE systems that are either closed (only energy is shared with the surrounding) or isolated (neither matter nor energy is shared with the surrounding). It is also possible to define semi-enclosed or semi-isolated systems that are built with some restrictions or filtrations of exchanges of matter and energy (see Entropy and Everything Else). Two simple examples of such systems in coastal engineering are: creation of harbors and marina by installing breakwaters; and management of inlet hydraulics through jetties and breakwaters (see Civil Engineering on our Seashore; Flood Barrier Systems; Managing Coastal Inlets).
  

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.

• Social Earthquakes. In many pieces posted earlier, I have highlighted the social earthquakes that rattled human history many times. From time immemorial, great philosophers and religious leaders tried to understand human behavior in social interactions, defined morals and ethics, and set standards. The purpose was to help people rise above selfishness in order to lead a peaceful harmonious cohabitation. They were our earliest creators of social UE by infusing positive energy into the society. Their compassionate works laid the foundation on which DPs developed in the right direction in tranquility to build civilizations around the world. But human history also saw the rise of conflicts and wars that rocked the moral foundation. These activities – human-made hazards – infused negative energy into the society, and twisted and redirected the UEs in the wrong direction. The aftermaths or DPs of these twisted UEs, were a showcase of horrific suffering, loss of lives and destruction. However, societies were also fortunate to see the rise of brave leaders from the ashes of such destructions – who dared to correct the twisted UEs by giving new meaning to them. Sound and honest entrepreneurial activities – businesses or otherwise are some of the examples of such UEs. Despite that, and as unfortunate as it is, twisted UEs continue to rise in different disguises and pretexts to mislead and harm people and society. In analogous with the definitions of several infrastructures such as civil, industrial and economic – there is also something called social infrastructure. The founding of this infrastructure on solid ground, and maintaining its sound health – are some of the most important social UE/DP activities. But most societies neither understand its importance nor care about it. Like every infrastructure – if there are weak spots in the foundations – those spots eventually pull the whole social structure down to damage or collapse.
  
• Internet Age & Information Pollution: There are many other aspects of social UEs and DPs one can think of. But one particular aspect that came to my mind is the huge impact the internet age has ushered in. Within a very short period of time, the UE created by internet has transformed all aspects of life and society in an unprecedented manner giving birth to myriad of DPs. This happened with infusion of positive science and technological energies – creating resources to benefit masses – how they do their business. But inadvertent or otherwise, the events and processes left doors open for ill-motivated and unsocial elements to creep in on people’s lives – by infusing negative energy into the system. Closely associated with this, is another important example of how this technology is being used or abused – it is the case of infestation or pollution of what are known as misinformation/disinformation/twisted information in DP flows and dispersion. They come from all directions – general people, technology vendors, service providers, media, advertisements and persons of authorities. The result is the creation of another human-made hazard (societies are yet to fathom the longterm harmful effects of this menace) – giving birth to utter confusions; so much so that nothing can be relied upon anymore – suspicions, mistrusts and deceptions took over the otherwise healthy social interactions.
  

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 Fluid System is the most dynamic of all the climate systems – it’s time-scales vary from short time scales of weather to the long climatic variation and trend. It is the most important measuring stick of climate – in its characterization and variation of temperature, pressure and composition (e.g. increasing proportion of greenhouse gases, GHG; methane; acidification of the warming ocean water; pollution of all sorts; etc.) – and in the quality and quantity of these parameters in supporting the Life System. Also important is the Ozone layer in the stratosphere – because it filters the Sun’s radiation to protect the Life System from harmful UV rays.
• The atmosphere, and the hydrosphere (covering some 71% of the Earth’s surface) continuously interact with each other at their interface – creating the hour-to-hour weather dynamics, the cloud formations, the precipitations, the storms, the ocean waves, etc. The precipitation dissolves atmospheric CO2 to bring it down to cause hydrosphere acidification. The huge density difference between the two – some 1000 kg/m3 of the hydrosphere compared to the 1.23 kg/m3 of the atmosphere – makes it imperative that the atmosphere reacts faster than the hydrosphere in continuously evolving micro and macro circulations - in response to the changes in temperature and pressure variations. To such stimulus of variations, weather instabilities do occur as an attempt to restore the dynamic balance.
• Of this trio of the Fluid System, the response time of cryosphere – as a frozen water mass in the forms of sea ice, glaciers and continental ice masses (cover some 10% of the Earth’s land surface) – is understandably slow but very important. The relation of the cryosphere with others in the Fluid System – can be best be discerned from the past glacial and interglacial periods. During these cycles, the corresponding regression and transgression of the shoreline occurred with lowering and rising of the sea level, respectively. Additionally, the snow mass Albedo affects the Sun-Earth energy balance system. The cryosphere is also a storehouse of information of the past climate change – and scientists have taken full advantage of this gift.

The Solid System

• The Solid System, the Earth’s crust or lithosphere – consists of the oceanic plates and the continental plates (cover some 29% of Earth’s surface). Although it is a single solid phase – the majority covered by the ocean – it represents a multiplicity of plate configurations and movements, topography, textural and mineralogical compositions. Apart from that, the continental plates accommodate the vegetative covers, land-water drainages to the ocean, and carry the burden of frozen ice of glaciers and ice masses. It is hard to imagine life without the interactive foundations created by solid and fluid systems – in germinating growths and in sustenance of everything life depends on. The influence of the continental plates on the climate, can better be appreciated from the following example: imagine the Himalayas is gone from the Earth’s surface – the weather and climate of Asia (and to some extent of the Earth) will be totally transformed – with the monsoon and the mighty Himalayan river systems gone – also gone will be the diverse flora and fauna that call this part of Asia home. Or, in the continuous and vigorous interactions between breaking waves and sand – between the Fluid and Solid systems as in The Surf Zone – defining a very dynamic habitat for the Life System in that zone. Therefore plate tectonics, and the past and present earthquakes play a very important role in climatic change – by reorientation and relocation, deformation, upheaval and subduction of the Earth’s crust - in the relative and evolving positions of continents vis-a-vis the change in the volume of oceans basins. And the role of Solid System in defining the micro-climates of dynamic interactions with the Fluid and Life systems.
• The second most important connection of this system to the climate is the surface and under-water volcanic activities. These activities not only lead to climate change in terms of spewing out gases and ashes – but also add to energy of the Earth. In particular, volcanic contributions to CO2 have been responsible for many paleo-climate changes. Scientists also say that the past volcanic activities were partly responsible for initiating geochemical processes giving birth to the Fluid and Life Systems that we have today.
• Also very important is the fossilized remnants of the past – among these some are convertible to energy. We all know these – the extensive extraction and utilization of fossil fuels of coal, oil and gas – have transformed human life on the planet in rapid industrialization. These energy sources – while led to the human prosperity, have added an adverse twist to the Earth’s Natural energy balance.

The Life System

• The evolution of the Fluid and Soild systems over millions of years created the environment on which life originated and flourished in multiplicity of plants and animals. Most of the diverse flora and fauna that we see now have evolved to their present states since the Holocene transgression that started in about 10,000 years ago. Over time, all of these species have adapted to living in a certain range of temperature, pressure and composition of the Fluid System – and together they define the biosphere. Some adapted to living in the hot and humid climate, some in cold climate, etc. The implications of adapting to and surviving within the climate range thresholds – mean that any imbalance in the parameters would affect the livelihood of many.
• The Life System depends on the average composition of the Earth’s atmosphere – 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.04% carbon dioxide, 0.40% water vapor, and others. Among these, all air-breathing animals live on oxyzen, the plants on the other hand, lives on carbon dioxide. Air-breathing Animals: user of oxygen by inhaling air, and the producer of carbon dioxide by exhaling. Plants: use sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce food through photosynthesis – generating oxygen in the process. Thus there is reciprocity between these two species – complementing each other. Most notable among the plant processes – is the enormous contribution by a tiny ocean life – the phytoplankton – a real life giver that contributed more than 50% of oxygen. The importance of the plant contributions can further be appreciated if one imagines the disappearance of the Amazon Rain Forest.
• But the most important adverse twist to the balance of the climate processes has been and is being made by one species of the animal class – the humans. Climate scientists could not find causes other than the extensive fossil fuel use (that started in the 1860s with rapid industrialization) – to the rise in atmospheric, land and oceanic temperatures, and GHG.

The Paleoclimate
Let us attempt to understand some key important paleoclimatic characteristics briefly.

• The first remarkable thing to notice in the paleoclimatic temperature data (the image credit, Bradley 2015; reconstructed Earth’s temperature for the past 500 million years, referring to the 1900-1990 average; 500 million years represent only 11% of the 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s history) is that – there have been a continuous downward trend since the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. The trend is marked by many ups and downs of different time-scales – indicating how Nature worked in its recovery processes of dynamic balance – after the catastrophic Asteriod impact that occurred about 66 million years ago at the beginning of the present Cenozoic Era.
• The downward trend of recovery continued to the last Ice Age or the Pleistocene Epoch (from 2.6 million years to about 12,000 years). The minimum cold peak occurred about 18,000 years ago when the Earth’s average temperature reached a whopping - 6oC, lowering the sea level to about 100 m below the present – this is the time of maximum regression of the shoreline (shoreline was at the seaward limit of the present continental shelf).
• From that period forward – temperature continued to rise. From about 10,000 years ago, the temperature seems to have stabilized to the present state until about the beginning of the present rapid industrialization. True to the nature of dynamic balance – the stabilized temperature was a showcase of ups and down about a mean trend.
• One intriguing fact about the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is that – at some time during the Cenozoic Era, the CO2 level was same, if not higher than what we have now. The global atmospheric CO2 has now reached a level of 400 ppm (parts per million) – a level that also occurred about 3 million years BP when both the global average temperature and sea level were comparable to the present time. How could that occur without anthropogenic contributions? Scientists point fingers to one particular cause, the volcanic eruptions that spew out CO2 - for greenhouse trapping of Earth's radiation - for the abundance of early species of Life System during those times.

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.

1. Global mean surface temperature of the land, ocean and air has been on the rise since the mid 19th century. The trend is alarmingly higher during the past 3 decades than the earlier decades. The current peak (refer to the image at the right hand) rise in temperature is startlingly unusual – but real.
2. This temperature increase is highly correlated with increased level of GHG, together with the rise in atmospheric vapor content or specific humidity.
3. In line with the above, also well documented are the melting of glaciers, diminishing of snow cover extents, shrinking of sea ice, change in ocean circulation, ocean acidification and rising of sea level. With the rising sea, increased frequencies of tidal flooding of coastal low lands are being observed worldwide.
4. Also in line with the warming climate – are the behaviors of different extreme events – tropical storms/hurricanes/cyclones, heavy rainfalls and flooding, heat waves and forest fires – all are showing increasing trends in frequency and intensity.

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 piece on The World of Numbers and Chances tells about the difficulty associated with handling huge amounts of stochastic data and making probabilistic sense of them – despite continual progress in sophistication. Their analyses and statistical generalization invariably contain certain uncertainties. Projecting such numbers into the future – either in ways of simple extrapolation, or by fitting suitable probability distributions to them – is subject to further uncertainties.
• With such uncertainties associated with data and future projection, it becomes difficult for decision makers to undertake risks. We have seen different aspects of it in the Uncertainty and Risk piece.
• Perhaps the most effective way is to model the climate change – but it also comes with certain uncertainties. This is because as we have seen earlier, several interactive processes of different scales and intensity are interlinked. The result is that many assumptions are needed to develop a numerical model. In the Water Modeling piece posted earlier we have seen some 8 limitations and constraints associated with it. The level of modeling uncertainty or confidence depends on: (1) representitiveness of the applied model to the actual field conditions, (2) empiricism embedded in modeling code, (3) discretization processes of the continuum, (4) iterations associated with the convergence to solutions, (5) rounding-off of numbers to certain digits, (6) level of input data accuracy, (7) level of scientific capability or competence of the modeler, and (8) possible errors in modeling code. With so many constraints, even the simulations of different existing global-scale phenomena become error-prone. If the simulations of existing conditions are so uncertain, it is only likely that simulations of future scenarios are no better – perhaps even worse. An example of it can be seen in the differences of the predicted future sea level rise (see the image posted in the Sea Level Rise – the 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.

• As a one-way process and in analogous with a hot rod becoming colder by warming up the surrounding – the Earth as a colder planet is becoming warmer by receiving part of the solar radiation. In the Sun-Earth system, the colder Earth cannot give the heat it receives back to the Sun (although it does radiate back some to the surrounding) with the result that the Entropy of our Earth is continuously increasing in the arrow of time. With the decreasing Albedo, and the trapping of atmospheric radiation by high loading of GHG - the gain in Entropy is only likely to increase further. Some of the gained Entropies get stored in different forms – one such familiar major process is the fossilized energy – like oil, gas and coal deposits.
• In another example of irreversible processes, an ice cream melts by gaining heat from the surrounding – which means, a system of higher order becomes disordered (a mess of melted nuisance) by gaining heat. Therefore disorderliness is an indication of randomness and high Entropy. In context of the Sun-Earth system, the Earth as a cold system (like the ice cream) is not only getting hot by gaining Entropy from the Sun, but the 2nd law says it is also getting continuously disordered. In terms of climate, disorderliness means that – increased Entropy is bound to usher in instabilities in the dynamics of warming process. Perhaps increasing occurrences of extreme events indicate a good example.
  
• The first intervention on the Sun-Earth thermodynamic process – started during the dawn of fossil fuel use in the 1860s in Europe and North America. This intervention in adding to the enhancement of Entropy – began showing noticeable consequences about 100 years later – exacerbated further by the rapid and extensive industrialization that started in the 1950s. The consequences in the form of warming of the global climate, rising sea and weather instabilities – continue to be measured by all organizations and entities around the world. Therefore, it is the new reality and an undeniable fact.

Apart from the reversibility in the dynamic balance of ups and downs throughout the history of the Earth, we have seen three basic one-way contributions to the Earth’s energy balance. Two of them are Natural – and have been occurring since the birth of our solar system. The first is the net gain of Entropy that will continue to affect the Earth in subtlety for all time to come (including the new reality of the decreasing effects of Albedo). The second is the energy released by volcanoes in raising temperature as well as in changing the composition of the Fluid System. These two – made the Earth livable in broader contexts, and are beyond human control.

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 energy balance. 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, 563 – 483 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:

1. The Galileo-Newton fixed frame of reference – says to view and measure positions and speed from a reference location that does not change its position in space. This view often termed as an absolutist view – proved to be a hindrance to explain the high-speed phenomena in the electromagnetic (EM) field. Thus the force mechanics laws in our day-to-day life are not reconcilable with those in the EM field. An example of the fixed frame of reference is the geocentric World Geodetic System 1984, or WGS84 ellipsoid that has its origin at the center of the mass of Earth. Satellite based Global Positioning System (GPS) is based on this WGS84.
2. To the Galileo-Newton concept of force mechanics time is absolute. It does not change whether measured from a fixed or a moving frame of reference.
3. The fundamental laws of Nature are same independent of the observer – whether far in the universe or on the ground – or whether far in time or at present – or whether on a fixed frame or on a moving frame of reference.
4. The mass (m) of an object remains unchanged during motion. The force exerted by an object is directly proportional to its mass – which means a heavier object accelerating at the same rate as a lighter object, will exert more force – or equivalently will have more energy to do work. This is well-established in force mechanics – including in Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation. To be in perspective, here are the masses of some major celestial bodies in our Milky Way Galaxy: Sun (1.989x10^30 kg), Earth (~ 0.33 millionth of the mass of Sun), Moon (~ 27.07 millionth of the mass of Sun), and Black Hole Sgr A* (~ 4 million times the mass of Sun). The masses immediately indicate the comparative gravitational pull power of these bodies.
5. Maxwell – synthesizing the observations of other prominent scientists – developed equations saying that the waves radiated in the EM field have a constant celerity or speed – which turns out to be the same as speed of light (c = 671 million miles per hour or ~300 million meters per second) in empty space. A light particle – photon – speeding at this rate has practically no mass.
6. By the time Einstein was formulating STR, it became known – that the widely believed fictitious medium known as – aether – covering the entire universe, did not exist (Michelson-Morley experiment 1887). So the question: to what reference EM celerity was based on.

Among these six, 1, 2 and 4 were redefined and formulated differently in the STR. The observation described in the 6th led Einstein to define the – the spacetime lattice. The STR is based on using the fundamentals described in 3 and 5 – and to establish the reality of these two, Einstein used the Lorentz (Dutch physicist, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, 1853 – 1928) transformation to define space and time in a moving reference frame.
Let us attempt to see briefly the essence, and some consequences of the STR – all of which were verified by multiple observations.

• Suppose a spaceship moves away at the speed of light relative to Earth. According to the Galileo relativity of velocity addition, the Earth observer would measure the spaceship speed as twice the speed of light. This is not possible – because nothing can have speed higher than that of light. Therefore, Einstein had to abandon the Galileo relativity of velocity addition. However, as we shall see if the relative speed of the reference frames is very low compared to the speed of light, Galileo relativity will hold.
• Using the speed of light and the relative speeds of measuring reference frames, Einstein used the Lorentz relativistic factor in STR. This factor determines the entanglement of space and time – defined as spacetime lattice covering the whole universe, the change in the mass of speeding objects and the mass-energy equivalence.
• A simple example of the entanglement of space and time is useful. Suppose a spaceship is moving at 0.75*c relative to Earth, the relativistic factor for this speeding object is 0.66 {note that the typical spaceship launch speed is about 7,778 m/s or 2.6x10^-5*c, or 23 Mach}. This means, if the astronaut’s clock ticks 1 second, the observer on Earth will measure it as 1.52 seconds. This increase in time for the slow moving observer relative to the fast moving observer is known as the time dilation. It is amazing to note how human mind (perhaps of many sentient beings) works and perceives – in the same vein as the EM relativistic principle of time dilation (see TIME posted earlier on this page; in the poem I have written: . . . Time is the making of mind – In the relativity of our consciousness and judgment – Short to the fast and restless – Long to the slow and steady . . .). The lattice nature of spacetime means that space must contract by the same amount. In this case, the space contraction factor is equal to 0.66, which means 1 km measured in the spaceship will be measured as 0.66 km on Earth. Satellite based GPS navigation system accounts for this relativity of spacetime to aid in positioning. The spacetime mobility shattered the absolutist view of measuring things and time, and established that – indeed the imaginary substance aether is not required as a medium.
• Addition of velocities must also be defined. Suppose an object is moving at Mach 1 (speed of sound, 344 m/s) ground speed, and the measuring frame is moving at 10,000th of the speed of light – then according to STR, the velocity addition factor is 1. This means, Galileo law of velocity addition is applicable if the reference frame speed much lower than the speed of light. This example shows that the Galileo-Newton everyday physics is reconcilable with motions in the EM field. Until the STR proposition, this reconciliation was thought impossible.
• According to the relativistic factor, the mass of a speeding object must also increase. Suppose a 1000 kg object (measured on the ground) is speeding at 1/10th the speed of light, its added mass will be about 5 kg, with the total mass being 1005 kg.
• Now let us attempt to see how Einstein came up with the most popular equation of the STR, the mass-energy equivalence equation, E = mc^2. If the speed of the moving object is much less than the speed of light, the relativistic factor can be expressed as an addition series – yielding the added mass as the kinetic energy divided by the speed of light squared – voila, this algebraic manipulation brought to light the most famous simple equation of all time. Here again, the correspondence of this mass-energy equivalence equation can be found with the low-speed motions of Newtonian physics – in the fluid flow equation of Daniel Bernoulli (1700 – 1782). The Bernoulli equation shows fluid kinetic energy (dynamic pressure due to convective acceleration) as the product of fluid mass and velocity squared. The mass-energy equivalence equation representing dynamic pressure field, laid the foundation for Einstein’s gravitational wave formulation. But as we shall see, it came nearly a decade later in 1914.

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:

1. The ULG suggests that forces exerted by masses – no matter how far they are – are instantaneous. According to STR, this is impossible – because nothing can exceed the speed of light. Therefore instantaneity does not exist.
2. The second, ULG has no time term in it. But according to STR, anything that propagates through space must be entangled with time – in the spacetime lattice.
3. The ULG prediction of planet Mercury orbit differs from actual observations. Why was that and how to explain?
4. That light traveling close to heavy masses shifts toward its red spectrum (405 – 480 THz) – the lowest frequency of the visible light spectrum. How to explain it?

The GTR approach of Einstein was to qualify and redefine Newton’s ULG gravitational constant – such that it is not a constant anymore. Einstein gravity is defined as the product of G, a constant depending on the speed of light, and a matter-energy momentum tensor. The last item adds an essential dynamic property to G – the result is the Einstein gravity – this gravity field is nothing but the dynamic spacetime lattice. Some implications of GTR in a nutshell:

• The most remarkable one is the warping of spacetime lattice – creating the gravitational field. In the areas where gravitation is weak, the spacetime is flat and reduces to ULG. However close to the massive masses such as a star (like our Sun), the spacetime lattice sinks or warps – yielding to the attractive force of that mass. Scientists are fond of describing it as the ball held on a carpet – the weight of the ball sinking down the carpet around it. The GTR prediction that even light must feel the effect of the gravitational field – was confirmed by a measuring expedition led by AS Eddington (1882 – 1944). This expedition observed starlight deflection during the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919. One can visualize the gravitational spacetime as a 4-dimenstional network covering the entire universe with several sunken nodes at the locations of the heavy masses.
• If we consider our solar system, for example – this means that the planetary trajectories around the Sun trace the gravitational spacetime curvature created by the Sun – the curvature itself ensures accelerating and decelerating motions of planets (relatively speaking) along their orbits.
• The giant of all the heavy masses in our galaxy – Black Hole Sgr A* (~ 4 million times the mass of Sun) is so massive – that it warps the gravitation field to a supergravity hole from where hardly anything escapes. The boundary around the black hole – beyond which events are no longer traceable by an observer, is known as the Event Horizon.
• The dynamic spacetime gravitational lattice responds to the relative motions of the masses, creating gravitational waves that propagate through it – similar like the waves in the ocean. The presence of gravitational waves was confirmed – by the 2016 observation of Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).
• The modified version of Einstein Field Equations describing the GTR spacetime – has a Cosmological Constant – with Einstein convinced that the universe must be in dynamic equilibrium – neither expanding nor contracting. But in 1922 – Russian scientist and mathematician Alexander Friedmann (1888 – 1925) proved that the universe must be in expanding mode – thus invalidating the necessity of the Cosmological Constant. The Friedmann elaboration was soon followed by the evidence observed by Swedish astronomer Knut Lundmark (1889 – 1958). Further mathematical argument in favor of the expanding universe came in 1927 from Belgian scientist Georges Lemaitre (1894 – 1966). The great impetus to the theory of expanding universe came from the empirical evidences observed by American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889 – 1953). The growing mathematical arguments supported by observations led Einstein to regret the inclusion of the Cosmological Constant in his equations. The fact that the universe is expanding implies that it must have a beginning. This led Stephan Hawking (1942 – 2018) and Roger Penrose (1931 -) to develop the rationale for the existence of a singular event – at which the birth of the universe as we know it began. This event – the Big Bang – has been estimated to have occurred 13.8 billion years ago – defining a timeline for the beginning of space and time – the spacetime. Interestingly, the rationale for a singular event like this (the birth of the universe, Samsara) existed in ancient thoughts – in Buddhism and Hinduism. The event was symbolized as a single syllable sacred sound “OM”. Such an event must have occurred in the quantum field (see The Quantum World) – thus relating the theories of STR and GTR to the processes of Quantum Mechanics.

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 0th Law is the law of thermal equilibrium. It says that if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then the two are in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law is not universal because it fails when applied to social and international relations – for example, if two individuals A and B are friends with a third individual C, then A and B are not necessarily friends with each other.
  
• The 1st Law is the most widely known law – and it is intuitively very clear. In thermodynamic literature, it is worded as: the change in internal energy of a system is equal to the heat added to the system minus the work done by the system. The most familiar form of this law is the conservation of energy – that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it can only change from one form to another. This law is universal representing reversibility of processes, and has given birth to several familiar names such as: carbon cycle, hydrologic cycle, life cycle, etc.
  
• The 3rd Law is the law of absolute minimum thermal energy – the entropy of a system approaches zero as the temperature approaches absolute zero.
  

ENTROPY AND THE 2ND LAW. Having clarified all the terms, it is time now to understand entropy and the 2nd law. Entropy is the change in the state of energy (ΔS) of a system during transformation. In thermodynamics, this change in the state of energy (from initial to the final, or from one level to the next) divided by the temperature (in Kelvin scale) at which change occurs, is the measure of entropy (J/K). Before going further, let us attempt to see some major states of energy transformation – some in the arena of coastal processes. What are these? Some familiar examples are:

• the birth of a plant or life; at this state, time starts for that particular plant or life
  
• the demise of a plant or life
  
• the spectacular metamorphoses of dragon flies, moths and butterflies from larvae to adulthood
  
• the frictional dissipation of mechanical and physical energies into heat
• the breaking of a wave
• the breaking of long waves – tsunamis and storm surges on way to forceful flooding

Each of these examples represents an irreversible process. However, if one looks closely within all these major transformations, one would find many micro- or small-scale transformations, which are not necessarily irreversible. I will attempt to explain why so.

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:

1. A system spontaneously radiating out heat in time to become colder – like a hot rod kept in the open. In this case, the entropy of the surrounding is increased by receiving heat from the rod. It is an irreversible process because heat cannot flow spontaneously from a cold system to a hotter one. It indicates something very interesting – and it is the arrow of time. Let us examine it further. Our Sun is a very hot object – and the Earth as a colder planet, receives part of that radiating heat from the Sun. The colder Earth cannot give the heat (although it does radiate back some to the colder atmosphere) it receives back to the Sun. The result is that the entropy of our Earth is continuously increasing over time. What happens to all the increased entropies? Well, many of Earth’s processes are reversible – therefore the gained entropies get recycled in different forms – one such familiar major process is fossilization of energy over time – like oil, gas and coal deposits.         
   
2. In another example: an ice cream melts by gaining heat from the surrounding. This is again an irreversible process. But let us explain it in terms of order and disorder. The ice cream – a system of higher order becomes disordered (a mess of melted nuisance) by gaining heat. Therefore disorderliness is an indication of randomness and high entropy. It is somewhat like Murphy’s (EA Murphy Jr. 1918 – 1990) law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Now, if we go back to our example of the Sun-Earth universe, the Earth as a cold system (like the ice cream) is not only getting enriched by gaining entropy from the Sun, but the 2nd law says it is also getting continuously disordered. Let us examine the aspects of disorderliness further:

• What does it mean that the Earth is getting disordered in time? The answer to this question lies in defining Earth. As already pointed out earlier, many of Earth’s processes are reversible – and the Earth that we know today and many of its processes are manufactured – therefore some disorderliness is restored back or is given a different dimension by doing work – additionally some are getting recycled in different forms. But imagine a piece of Earth that is well-built and ordered – if we leave that place without touching it further – it will deteriorate and disappear to nothingness – the 2nd law in action – and we call it Nature or the law of Nature. However, there is an element of subjectivity there – because what humans consider as deterioration to nothingness – is the gain for other lives.        
• What do the examples of irreversibility imply? If we examine closely, the examples say that to stop irreversibility, work has to be done. The hot rod or the cold ice cream can be isolated, for example, by a manufactured device (e.g. a thermos for the hot rod, and a freezer for the ice cream). In both the cases, work is done through the manufacturing process, to stop the irreversibility of process. But what about the Sun-Earth system? Well, its scale is so overwhelmingly huge that – it forms Nature, thus defining the arrow of time and disorderliness.           

The arrow of time in one direction and the inescapable growing disorderliness or higher entropy (another easily understandable term for this one-way Natural process is aging or burning out of all entities in time) in irreversible processes needs a close interpretive look. Because if one tries to explain things of a Natural system, let us say, in short time-scales – these two realities defined by the 2nd of law of thermodynamics may not have straightforward fit – rather one will be inclined to note that Natural irreversibility is not what it seems.  Let us attempt to understand this assertion:

• Time: Scientists say that time (let us say absolute time) started with the Big Bang – some 13.8 billion years ago. The theory says that this episode gave birth to the ever expanding universe – thus the arrow of time – with our solar system coming into existence some 9.3 billion years after that.  But human perception of time is not always one way – it is rather relative or subjective. Let us examine it in the light of a piece on TIME posted on this page at an earlier occasion. If one looks into a long period of time – it certainly looks like a straightforward-heading arrow – but if broken down into small pieces, one may see kinks in the arrow of time. These kinks are due to the dynamic equilibrium or reversibility of processes within the irreversible arrow of time. Some simple examples are: years pass by – but within each year the Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun repeats, giving rise to seasons. And within each day, the Earth spins on its own axis, giving birth to the repetitions of day-light and dark-night. Or the repetitions of glacial-interglacial periods that occurred over geologic time in the history of Earth.    
  
• Disorderliness: Similarly, the definitions of order and disorder can also be interpreted in terms of relativity or subjectivity. Within the process of order to disorder – one can find several episodes of attempts to restore order – from asymmetry to the symmetry of dynamic equilibrium. It is just the characteristic signature of The Fluidity of Nature. Here again, the disorderliness fate of an irreversible process is interrupted by some reversibility attempts.   
• Life: Let us examine the arrow of time and disorderliness in the context of life. The wheel of life revolves around: birth-growth-decay-demise and birth again. The 1st law of thermodynamics in action – that energy flows from one state and form to another transforming the phase of life in the process. If one looks at a particular life, from end to end, the arrow of time and disorderliness are clear. But birth to growth of positive phase is not same as the negative phase of decay and demise. And interventions in terms of therapeutic doses of medicinal treatments (manufactured) add kinks to the life-process.
• The General Theory of Relativity GTR: GTR and its subsequent modification of the governing field equations to accommodate the observations of the expanding universe – leading to the birth of Big Bang Theory (see more in Einstein’s Unruly Hair) – indicate something interesting in the light of 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The expanding universe after the Bang as a one-way process satisfies this law. But a universe consisting of a system and its surrounding - more appropriately the Multiverse (following the term coined by W James in 1895) - must head toward attaining dynamic equilibrium – because they are always complementary. The existence of the universe consisting of multiple systems of galaxies governed by the forces of gravitational field waves – implies that the expanding universe after the Bang represents, in all likelihood, a particular state – rather than the ultimate reality. It further implies that Einstein’s Cosmological Constant – may not be a mistake, after all – it just applies to the universe that is destined to attain dynamic equilibrium (within its multiverse setting) at some time – perhaps far, far, far into the future.   
  
• Macro vs. Micro Outlooks: The discussions on the interpretation of time-arrow and disorderliness lead us to discern that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is the reality of macro or large scale irreversible Natural processes in time and space (relatively speaking). But within that, small-scale or micro processes are present that attempt to the reversibility of processes to attain dynamic equilibrium. In the discussed examples of time-arrow and disorderliness, each small-scale process rarely completes the cycle of reversibility – rather each represents a quasi-cyclic process – thus leaving a residual in the direction of time and disorderliness. Thus a residual entropy comes into existence. And the description of multiple residuals in statistical terms yields another dimension to the definition of entropy – the statistical definition. This is similar to the thermodynamic definition: the change in macro-state entropy is equal to the product of a constant (Boltzmann constant {≈ 1.38x10^-23 J/K}; Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, 1844 – 1906) and the sum of many statistical ensembles of micro-state entropies. 
• Uniqueness of the Hydrologic Cycle: Another interesting example is the well-known hydrologic cycle – that represents an overall reversible balance of riverflow draining into the ocean, and precipitation. But the two modes of balancing acts are fundamentally different – both in space and time. On an annual basis, each of these two modes has separate irreversible characteristics – with the riverflow as a hydrologic wave of one-way flow to the ocean – and the precipitation as a one-way loss of atmospheric moisture.
  
• Let us examine the arguments further by considering a practical example – the coastal erosion in Kerala India, shown in the image (credit: anon). The rate of erosion by whatever Natural causes, may not be there in subsequent years in the same scale – it could be more, may not be there at all, or the coast may build-up. In fact, such quasi-cyclic Natural processes occur in most coastal beaches each year. But over long-term, a trend would appear – for example, continued beach erosion caused by longshore sand transports that occur along many littoral shores around the world. Thus, trend is another interpretation of the arrow of time. 

Let me very brief on the rest of this piece. Depending on what one focuses, the definition of entropy can be stretched and distinguished in terms of major processes responsible for energy flux and transformation. The key to such definitions is to identify a system and its major processes including characterization of them in terms of reversibility, irreversibility or quasi-reversibility (same as quasi-cyclic). And in literature, many different types of entropy were defined and proposed by investigators. For example, S Hawking (1942 – 2018) defined Black Hole Entropy pertaining to the event horizons of the super-gravity mass. Following this argument, the entropy in thermodynamics processes of heat flow can be termed as thermodynamic entropy. One can also define mind-and-matter entropy, biotic entropy, abiotic entropy, etc. In this piece, I like to introduce and define hydrodynamic entropy and socioeconomic entropy. Let me first start with defining hydrodynamic entropy – because that is where my interest lies. In fact, during the developing stage, French physicist NLS Carnot (1796 – 1832; considered the father of thermodynamics) used the downslope water flow analogy (the steeper the downslope energy gradient, the more the power) to understand and define the 2nd law. 
 
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.    

• To describe the coastal systems let me refer back to Civil Engineering on our Seashore on the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY page. The first or the overall coastal system comprises the coastal zone – the area from the oceanward limit of continental shelf break to the landward topographical limit. One can define many sub-systems within this zone depending on the interest of analysis. For example, a harbor is a system with a narrow open inlet and a wide basin inside. It is an open hydrodynamic system – it exchanges matter (both water and sediments) and energies imparted by wave, tide, wind and other episodic events – but the processes are not entirely reversible, because of the presence of asymmetries and residuals.     
  
• The hydrodynamic entropy of a coastal system has heat generation content in it – that occurs through the processes of hydrodynamic energy dissipation as frictional losses at the bottom boundary. This loss represents irreversibility (MKE Planck, 1858 – 1947) – because heat is no longer available to do work within the system. However, in hydrodynamic entropy, frictional loss manifests itself in erosion and transport of bed-materials of an alluvial bed. The friction loss itself says that coastal systems are quasi-reversible.
  
• Thus, the quasi-reversibility in the coastal hydrodynamic entropies is ensured by at least two processes. The first is the asymmetry processes that yield residuals (thus the residual entropy) in the direction of the dominant component. The second is the transformation of alluvial bottom bed through erosion, deposition and sediment transport.
• But, as pointed out earlier at least two coastal processes are irreversible. First is the breaking of a wave – the broken wave cannot be reproduced back into the original wave, but it increases the energy of coastal waters at the beach by raising water levels and giving birth to other processes. Similar is the case of tsunamis and storm surges – both while broken at the coast gives birth to rapid flooding – more vigorous and forceful in tsunamis than storm surges.         

​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 (563 – 483 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.

This is the world of Quantum Mechanics (QM) that 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 Uncertainty (1901 – 1976) – 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, 563 – 483 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.
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 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

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. What a piece of wisdom from the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus (535 – 475 BCE) on the facts of Nature, life and society - the reality of impermanence (Gautama Buddha - The Tathagata, 563 – 483 BCE) that defines the ever changing fluxes of mind and matter and all things that surround us (impermanence does not connote, for example, that a relationship is not supposed to last, but that the nature of relationship does not remain the same over time). Apart from some obvious reasons – humans had been attracted to rivers since time immemorial, feeling and witnessing their vibrating energy and transformative changes – rich with the messages of the realities of life. This piece is not about this reality – but the reality of a different sort – the macro-scale processes that define a river. And understanding these processes equip us to better manage a river.

These are the aspects we all know about yet do not pay adequate attention to – we tend to think of those aspects so guaranteed that we often fail to take proper account of them while planning catchment and river-bank developments, flow-interventions, or while dumping materials of all sorts into them. These are the basin-wide factors that control the birth and flow of a river defining its characteristics, and the functions it shoulders on its journey. The factors and functions are unique to each river – and define the characteristic regime of a river system. A river is better understood as a system comprising of the tributaries that contribute to its load; the distributaries that carry part of the load; the floodplains that alleviate its burden by functioning as a storage basin, and slowly releasing the flood water; and the delta it builds as it debouches into open water.

​But while one talks about the basin-wide factors – encompassing the catchment area from the headwaters to the base level at lake or sea – a river has also distinctive reach-wise factors of geology, geography, hydrology and hydraulics. People often see a river analogous to life – birth and infancy at the source, energetic youth at the steep terrain, broad and mature adult at the flat landscape, and demise at the base level. And since the geologic past, the river has been giving away the resources (hazardous when angry – flooding its basin) it carries – to quench thirst, to help cultivate lands, to build navigational trade networks, townships, cities and civilizations. No wonder – philosophy, poetry, fictions and religions are full of inspiring materials on river – with some attributing divinity to it.          

With these paragraphs of introduction let me move on to the core materials of this piece. For simplicity and importance, I will primarily focus on alluvial rivers (a river that constantly changes and defines its own deformable granular bed and planform depending on the volume of water it carries and the magnitude and type of sediments it transports). The discussed aspects are based on my short river experience and three of my published papers:

• On the Environmental Controls of Bangladesh Rivers {Asia Pacific Journal on Environment and Development, 1994, 1(1), 81-98p; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312980885};
  
• On the Adaptation and Equilibrium of Bangladesh Rivers {Oxford and IBH Publishing, 1995, 277-291pp};
  
• Environmental Functions of an Alluvial River {Asia Pacific Journal on Environment and Development, 1996, 3(1), 39-53p}; and
  
• The characteristics and mobility of some major rivers in Bangladesh, 1997. Water Nepal, 5(1), 109-127.
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309201572
  

These works were performed while I was the Co-team Leader of a Bangladesh Flood Action Plan project. I have included an image of the Ganga River shot from the Mahatma Gandhi Setu near Patna during my recent travel there. It represents the November 2018 falling river stage.

What are the environmental controls of a river – that define its unique characteristics (for example, those responsible for distinguishing the Mississippi River from the Ganges-Brahmaputra system)? A river is the dynamic response of the earth’s surface to the draining of accumulated water mass. The accumulated water mass contributed by precipitation, snow and glacier melt is collected by numerous streams and gullies – all feeding to the development of a river. Rivers are also a showcase of annual hydrologic wave – the seasonal river discharge; but without the usual reversal of flow – rather with the wave-type fall-rise-fall-rise water level stages. As observed in the Bangladesh Reach of the Ganges River (my 1995 IEB paper), 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) – indicating 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 dynamic behavior of a river represents an interactive process-response system driven by universal physical laws - but the actions and reactions take place within the boundary conditions or environmental controls where it belongs. What are these? The list is simple – (1) climate, (2) catchment basin size, (3) basin relief or slope, (4) type and extent of basin Natural vegetation, (5) basin lithology defining the soil material characteristics, (6) anthropogenic factors, (7) frequency and magnitude of episodic events, (8) base level or sea level changes, and (9) earth’s rotation. The last factor – the effect of earth’s rotation is important for large rivers.

While the list is simple, the controlling influences are not – because each of these factors has different variability and time-scales of change – the characteristic signature depending on the geographical location where the river belongs. And any change of these factors invokes a response from the river – the response depending on the magnitude, intensity and frequency of changes or modifications.

What are the responses? An alluvial river response to the above driving conditions can be thought of as comprising two categories. The first is the Fluvial Loading – water discharge, sediment transport, and sediment caliber (the sizes and types of sediments a river transports). The second is the Fluvial Geomorphology – width, depth, slope, and planform (such as meandering or braiding type). Both of these two categories are conditioned by environmental controls – with the fluvial loading acting as the imposed processes on the fluvial geomorphology. Together they represent an interactive process-response system that aims to attain dynamic equilibrium in time.
Discussing all the factors can be very elaborate, let me focus on two important ones:

• Climate affecting precipitation frequency, intensity and seasonality has been considered as a stationary phenomenon on an engineering time-scale (order of 100 years) – but that is not the case anymore with global warming, and with the atmospheric response characterized by erratic circulation and storm activities. The implication is that a river is being imposed a different type of loads – discharge peaks and durations are enhancing, the asymmetric seasonality (river flow asymmetry – rising river stage is usually steeper than the falling river stage) of flows are becoming more asymmetric, etc. The immediate response of the river is to flood its banks and the plains (that once considered vulnerable to only very rare extreme events) affecting the people’s living in those areas. The long-term consequences can be more uncertain affecting the river’s response time-scale and regime.
  
• The base level of a river is the mean water level of the open water where it debouches. Rivers discharging into coastal waters are being imposed a different base level because of sea level rise. A heightened sea level means that a river is likely to be more sluggish in its lower reaches; its delta depo-center may shift with more flooding and landward intrusion of tide and salinity. In addition, enhanced wave and storm activities are likely to act as a catalyst to change the delta morphology and landscape.
  

An alluvial river is a living entity in a sense that any action (Natural or anthropogenic) on its regime is bound to invite responses from the river. A small river is susceptible to minor stimulus while a large river can absorb them without being affected. A major stimulus affects the both. With this understanding let me shift to the second aspect of this piece – the functions of an alluvial river.

At the outset it is important to make a distinction between resource and hazard. This distinction depends on defining a threshold for a particular phenomenon. The simplest of this is the flood level that one hears most often. The defined threshold helps planners and engineers to classify a river stage, whether or not it is at danger level or at tolerable level. When the threshold is exceeded, the water as a resource becomes hazardous. Another simple example is the much talked about proliferation of carp fish in the Mississippi River. It was a resource in small numbers, but as this invasive species overwhelmed others, the same fish has become hazardous.   

The functions can be thought of as comprising four important broad groups: (1) biotic, (2) abiotic, (3) functional use, and (4) consumptive or diverted use. The biotic function is the sustenance of flora and fauna that thrive in a river basin. The most important biotic function is the fresh and brackish-water fish resources a river produces and sustains. Any change in the discharge volume, water temperature, salinity regime affects this important resource – most humans rely on for nutrition. A measure of the biotic function often relies on the level of dissolved oxygen (DO) and biological oxygen demand (BOD). Here again a threshold needs to be defined for a particular species – a higher BOD than the available DO can turn the same water from a resource to a hazardous one. In addition to dissolved pollutants that affect water oxygen level, floating non bio-degradable debris limits the recreational functions of a river.

The abiotic functions can be elaborated as: (a) drainage of surface run-off, (b) drainage of subsurface flows, (c) sustaining geomorphologic equilibrium, (d) land building in the deltaic reaches, and (e) preventing salt-water intrusion in estuaries. Functional use accounts for navigation, open-water fisheries and fish migration, and recreation. The biotic, abiotic and the functional use are essential river functions – let us say duties, a river is tasked to do. The extent of these tasks defines a river. Any unthoughtful development or intervention that does not give importance to its functions can jeopardize the long-term health and equilibrium processes of a river and its riparian areas.

Consumptive or diverted use – on the other hand accounts for net loss of river-water. They include: (1) domestic/municipal, (2) agricultural, (3) industrial – hydropower and cooling, (4) culture-fisheries, and (5) inter-basin water transfer. How much water a river afford to lose without compromising its essential functions? The question does not have easy answers – and definitely arises again and again when dams and inter-basin water transfer are planned. There exist many conflicts on the equitable sharing of waters by co-riparian states and countries. But when such plans are implemented, the old river ceases to exist – and its regime and basin characteristics are changed for ever. Most rivers around the world have lost their past regimes or characteristics because of extensive damming, dikes and urban developments.       
Let me now attempt to elaborate the functions of a river – but for the sake of brevity focusing only on two of them:

• The first is sustaining geomorphologic equilibrium. An alluvial river as a living entity responds to what happens on its catchment, what happens on its banks, etc. It maintains equilibrium over a long period of time in accordance with natural variation of different factors and controls. Let me give two simple examples on how that equilibrium can be compromised. If a river’s catchment is deforested extensively, it will be subjected to very high sediment load – the immediate response of the river would be very erratic – with development of new shoals, islets or heavy erosions/scours. Similar but an opposite effect could happen when a river is dammed thus cutting off its sediment supply. The result is that the delta-building function of a river is seriously impacted. A river may take long time to adapt and re-establish its equilibrium, or not at all – thus ushering in the death of the original river.
  
• The above two anthropogenic interventions also seriously impact another function of the river – that is the balancing of salt-water intrusion in estuaries. Estuarial salt-brackish waters support a thriving habitat – if the water flow is reduced by damming, excessive consumptive use or inter-basin diversion, the reduced flow will lose its capacity to push back the intrusion of saline sea water – the result is that agriculture, groundwater and fisheries become greatly impacted.    
  

The importance of resources a river carries – the water and sediment loads – becomes strikingly clear only when they are severely depleted or gone. At other times we tend to take them guaranteed. On every occasion a major intervention is proposed – some usual debate and question surface – sometimes in a very antagonistic fashion between the proponent and the opponent. Because the riparian stake holders are many – from the lush diverse habitats of flora and fauna – to the people, their businesses and livelihood – all become casualties in one way or another when a river loses its vitality to adapt to new circumstances. An equitable trade-off is often not easy to find without impacting one or the other – the goal then is to search for ways to minimize impacts.

It further entails that – water and sediment management of a river – should be based on a holistic view of the entire system of river network by encompassing all the forces and processes – beginning right in the upper catchments – to the lower floodplain – down to the delta. There are many instances that suggest that traditional methods of farming, land-use and water use – were effective and respectful to the sustenance of Nature – and the habitat of multiple flora and fauna it accommodates. Therefore, it is only prudent that – conceiving and planning a development project must pay diligent heed to all different interdependent environmental aspects. A solution must strive to accommodate traditional practices into the modern engineering methods – to minimize unwanted and adverse effects and impacts on the system and on stake-holders – both in time and space.

Like the energy of a river, let the vitality of life flow into the New Year and to all years to come. 

.  .  .  .  .

- by Dr. Dilip K. Barua, 26 December 2018