SCIENCE - TWO SHORT TO ROPE THE UNIVERSE

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SCIENCE - "TWO" SHORT TO ROPE THE UNIVERSE

Damodara lila special

By Chaitanya Charan Das RNS

 

One of the important legends associated with Diwali is Damodara lila, a

pastime in which mother Yashoda tried to tie Krishna with a rope. The rope

turned out to be two fingers short. So she tied more rope, but, no matter

how many ropes she tied together, the combined rope remained two fingers

short.

 

This pastime signifies that no matter how much we try, we will always fall

short in our attempts to understand God with our intelligence. Modern

science is finding the same about the universe too, which, the Vedic

literatures state, is a product of God's superintelligence. Centuries of

cosmological research has increased scientific information, but not

scientific understanding, because of "two" unexpected trends:

1. The more scientists know, the more they realize how little they know

-

Science "conquered" space - and realized how little it knew about space. To

the uninformed, space missions proved human greatness. To the well-informed,

they showed human smallness. Space research reveals that there are more

stars in the universe than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of

earth, and our sun is just one of these cosmic grains. No wonder former

President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kenneth

R Boulding admitted, "Cosmologyi is likely to be very insecure because it

studies a very large universe with a small and biased sample."

2. The more scientists know, the more they realize what they previously

"knew" was wrong -

Newton' laws were considered bedrock truths of physics till they were found

inapplicable in the microscopic and the macroscopic realms. Quantum physics

was developed to explain the atomic world, and relativistic physics for the

cosmic. But then both of them turned out to be violently contradictory. As

both have to coexist at the origin of the universe - when both the

microscopic and the macroscopic were one, science had the formidable

challenge of devising with a Theory of Everything (ToE) to unify these

irreconcilable pillars of science. Lets review the history of the

development of the ToE:

1. Initial vain roar: Physicist Leon Lederman, "we hope to explain the

entire universe in a single, simple formula that you can wear on your

T-shirt."

2. Subsequent exasperated grunt: Astrophysicist Steven Weinberg, "As we

make progress understanding the expanding universe, the problem itself

expands, so that the solution always seems to recede from us,"

3. Final concealed whimper: Theoretical physicist John Wheeler, "Never

run after a bus or woman or cosmological theory, because there'll always be

another one in a few minutes."

 

Going back to the pastime, the rope Mother Yashoda was trying to tie around

Krishna was only two fingers short. But the rope of ToE that science has

been trying to tie around the universe is not only short, but also broken,

as Stephen Hawking confessed, "The theories (in physics) we have so far are

both inconsistent and incomplete."

 

Mother Yashoda did eventually succeed in tying Krishna - but only after when

Krishna, by His own grace, let Himself be bound. Similarly science can

understand the universe, especially our place and purpose within it - but

only when it harmonizes with superintelligence by researching and applying

the verifiable spiritual science delineated in the Bhagavad-gita, thus

paving the way for spiritual revelation.

 

That's not as unscientific as it may sound. A scientist no lesser than

founder of quantum physics Noble Laureate Max Planck stated, "For religion,

God is at the beginning; for science, God is at the end." And science has

started reaching that end by its discovery of "fine tuning" of the universe

- micro-precise adjustment of the values and inter-relationships of at least

80 parameters essential for life. Obviously fine-tuning needs a fine tuner.

Of course, diehard devotees of atheism have proposed chance and multiple

universe theories, but these are all intrinsically unproven and unprovable.

They fit better the realm of science-fiction than science.

 

When scientists accept the verdict of their own evidence, they will remove

the obstacle in a long-overdue spiritual leap of science. Lest they hesitate

or falter in this bold step, renowned physicist Micheal Faraday's reminder

can urge them on, "We ought to value the privilege of knowing God's truth

far beyond anything we can have in this world."

 

 

 

 

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