All chess games have three stages: the opening, the mid-game and the endgame. And a chess game is a reasonably good metaphor for life.
Category Archives: Philosophy
Philosophy is never too far from physics. It is in their overlap that I expect breakthroughs.
When Your Child is as Big as You
My mom used to say that when your child is as big as you, you have to treat them with respect. What she actually said was that you had to address them using a respectful form of “you,” which doesn’t make any sense in English, but may work in Hindi or French. It worked poetically well in Malayalam. I was reminded of this maternal pearl of wisdom recently when I was watching a movie with my son.
Contradictions
Life is full of contradictions.
I am attending a research retreat on mindfulness and contemplative practices at the beautiful Garrison Institute. I am learning a lot of interesting things, and meeting a lot of like-minded and excellent people – the kind of people with whom I could have deep conversation about the unreal nature of reality, unlike most people from other walks of life would politely and tactfully excuse themselves when I get a bit unreal.
Twilight Years
At some point in our life, we come to accept the fact we are closer to death than life. What lies ahead is definitely less significant than what is left behind. These are the twilight years, and I have come to accept them. With darkness descending over the horizons, and the long shadows of misspent years and evaded human conditions slithering all around me, I peer into the void, into an eternity of silence and dreamlessness. It is almost time.
Recap of Modern Physics
Since the post series on Particles and Interactions became a bit longer than I wanted, I thought I would break it up. Let’s start with a recap of modern physics that will you will need to understand the structure of matter.
Top Philosophy Blog – Again!
Unreal Blog recently got another award as one of the top 100 philosophy blogs.
The previous such award came a few years ago. Glad to feel appreciated for my efforts and to see that people are taking notice.
Interpretation of Special Relativity
When we looked at Quantum Mechanics, we talked about its various interpretations. The reason we have such interpretations, I said, is that QM deals with a reality that we have no access to, through our sensory and perceptual apparatuses. On the other hand, Special Relativity is about macro objects in motion, and we have no problem imagining such things. So why would we need to have an interpretation? The answer is a subtle one.
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Quantum Mechanics – Interpretations
Whenever we talk about Quantum Mechanics, one of the first questions would be, “What about the cat?” This question, really, is about the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. The standard interpretation, the so-called Copenhagen interpretation, leads to the famous Schrodinger’s cat.
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Quantum Field Theory
In this post on Quantum Mechanics (QM), we will go a bit beyond it and touch upon Quantum Field Theory – the way it is used in particle physics. In the last couple of posts, I outlined a philosophical introduction to QM, as well as its historical origin – how it came about as an ad-hoc explanation of the blackbody radiation, and a brilliant description of the photoelectric effect.
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Quantum Mechanics
Quantum Mechanics (QM) is the physics of small things. How do they behave and how do they interact with each other? Conspicuously absent from this framework of QM is why. Why small things do what they do is a question QM leaves alone. And, if you are to make any headway into this subject, your best bet is to curb your urge to ask why. Nature is what she is. Our job is to understand the rules by which she plays the game of reality, and do our best to make use of those rules to our advantage in experiments and technologies. Ours is not to reason why. Really.