Quest Infinitum

Sitting under a clear night sky, gazing at the stars, and pondering about the vastness of the universe, man must have started to get curious about nature. Centuries of postulations stumbling through myriad religious doctrines and controversial scientific breakthroughs, we are closer than ever to a complete scientific understanding of nature, or so do we believe. But with the advent of the promising string theory, this time the belief is least misplaced since it effectively marries the conflict between the General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and for the first time has enabled physicists to land on the much coveted grand unified theory. However, assuming string theory holds true, I can vouch that the quest for a deeper and more holistic understanding is only going to soar.

The single equation unifying the four forces of nature (Gravitation, Electro-magnetic, Strong force and weak force) is just the foundation over which our further understanding would be based. Moreover, the expectations from a theory that claims to be potent enough to explain all physical phenomena will be very high, and scientists are going to have a hard time getting in tune with the music of the ultra-microscopic strings, to understand and to speak its language. For instance, the universal principle of conservation of energy has helped us to decipher a lot of laws of nature and seems to hold true for all scales, from quarks to quasars. But, to explain why energy can neither be created nor be destroyed using the string theory would be one momentous task. Even difficult would be to explain phenomena like the quantum zeno effect where an unstable particle would never decay if continuously observed. This phenomenon might well be the best demonstration of the effect of mind on matter and inevitably forces us to pursue a deeper understanding of matter and energy. 

So, what is it that is making the otherwise unstable particle get so stable? Does our desire to look at it carry some force that completely turns around the particle’s fate? if our mere desire can establish this, can we look hard enough or long enough so as to bend the spoon or open the door with a mere desire to do so? Are we at the verge of discovering that there’s a 5^th fundamental force of nature (let’s call it the ‘mind force’) or does the mind force originate from some unknown combination of the strings? If the mind force does exist, what is the particle that carries it? (each of the 4 fundamental forces has a particle that carries it, like the electromagnetic force is carried by photons), Is that particle the soul? Is there a mathematical way to describe the ‘mind-force’?

These questions might sound too philosophical to be tackled as scientific, but history bears testimony to the fact that science grew on the will of few men to express such philosophical musings in mathematical terms. Centuries later you would find physicists and mathematicians coming up with mind blowing explanations of all these phenomena, but the quest would never be quenched, as Werner Heisenberg once quoted: "Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think" , the universe is like a labyrinth, the moment you dare to think you have figured it out, you find yourself lost. That bewilderment gives birth to new questions about the universe and the process goes on infinitely. Those infinite wonders are perhaps mere manifestations of the infinite energy the universe possesses since each thought needs energy to come into the mind, and probably that's why energy can neither be created nor destroyed because whatever you add to or take from infinity, it would never cease to carry its infinitude.