Favorite Star Trek Episodes

As a big Star Trek fan (of The Original Series, not The Next Generation) since my childhood, I was pleasantly surprised to see that most episodes of The Original Series up on Youtube a couple of months back. Since then, I have seen most of them again on weekends. Here is my list of favorite episodes.

1. Space Seed (Sci-fi at it's best)

2. The City on the Edge of Forever (Most critically acclaimed)

3. Tomorrow is Yesterday (Sheer time travel fun)

4. Amok Time (Spock's "human" side)

5. The Trouble with Tribbles (Funniest)

6. The Enemy Within (Great concept of good and evil)

7. The Devil in the Dark (Moral tale)

8. Spectre of the Gun (Shades of Matrix philosophy)

9. The Corbomite Maneuver (Core Star Trek concept)

10. The Way to Eden (Hippies in the Star Trek universe)

Black Is Beautiful

I have been deeply interested in Astronomy since my early childhood. Those wonderful tales about distant stars, planets and galaxies, that my dad used to narrate to me at bed time every day, never ceased to amaze me. Such was my fascination with the subject, that I my first childhood ambition was to become an Astronaut one day.

Black Holes are one of the most intriguing astronomical entities. The very concept of a piece of matter, with infinite mass concentrated at an infinitesimally small area, powered by such gravity that even light cannot escape, presents the most unbelievable natural wonder. When you couple all this with the fact that Black Holes are also related to other fantastic phenomena like Worm Holes and Time Travel, make them an Astronomy Lover's delight.

When this beautiful piece of animation, explaining some complex theories related to Black Holes with great simplicity, was forwarded to me by a colleague of mine today, I was almost teleported back to my childhood days, when talk of a Black Hole used to fill my eyes with wonder.

Pluto-nic Love

The smallest and furthest planet in the Solar System has been making the headlines in the 3rd planet from the Sun recently. All News Channels are running specials, all Daily News papers doing special features on poor old Pluto. The relegation of Pluto from the status of a full fledged planet to that of the newly coined term ‘Dwarf Planet’, is probably the biggest galactic headline grabber since Schumacher-levy’s crash landing on Jupiter.

Watching some of the specials about Pluto’s plight on TV, makes you feel really sad for him. It appears people are sympathizing with Pluto just like most of the cricketing world (barring the Aussies) has been sympathizing with Inzamam-ul-haq lately. “This is unfair on Pluto”, said a school boy in a news programme, as if Pluto has been convicted of a crime unfairly. Other news channels have been endlessly debating the impact of Pluto’s relegation on Astrology. Perhaps, it is just us Indians (or should I say, Indian News Channels) who have a habit of making a mountain-out-of-a-molehill every now and then.

Let’s get the facts straight on this. Firstly, the fact that Pluto will no longer be regarded as a full-fledged planet in the solar system is indeed BIG NEWS. Simply because this changes something which every student across the world, has studied in his school text books for the last 70 odd years. Information like the solar system having 9 planets is as deeply ingrained in every person’s mind as the Earth revolving around the Sun. Asking people across the world to stop believing what they have been doing for all their lives is not a joke. As far as this aspect is concerned, the hype is genuine.

Coming to the scientific nitty-gritty’s of the matter, scientists say that Pluto has been relegated from the status of a Planet, since it does not satisfy one of the qualifying conditions, that of having an independent and non-overlapping orbit. Pluto’s orbit overlap’s with Neptune, and Pluto was ‘inside’ Neptune’s orbit for a period of 20 years recently. (This very fact raises 3 interesting sub-plots. One, for these 20 years, Neptune was technically the furthest planet from the sun. Two, the overlapping orbit’s of Pluto and Neptune create a possibility of a celestial collision, if both the planets happen to be at the intersection point of their orbits at the same time. Three, even if they do not collide, but come very near to each other, will Neptune, by virtue of it’s much larger size, pull Pluto out of it’s solar orbit, and make it a satellite of it’s own ?). Also, Pluto’s orbit is in a different plane than the orbits of the other 8 planets.

The scientific reason behind Pluto’s relegation reveals how childish all the worries about it’s impact on humans are. Pluto’s designation has been changed not because Pluto is now behaving in a different way than before, but because it does not comply to a definition. What’s in a Name? Yousuf Youhana has become Mohd. Yousuf. Does that make him a different batsman? NO.

Astrological calculations are based on the gravitational forces exerted by celestial objects on the Earth. Will the gravitational forces exerted by Pluto change as a result of it’s changed status? NO.

So, astrologers of this world can continue using their age old formulae for calculations. Any other impact Pluto might have on life on planet Earth will also be a function of it’s gravitational force. And hence, as long as Pluto continues to have the same mass, and rotate on the same orbit as it has been doing for ages, earthlings do not have any reason to worry.

All said and done, the demotion of Pluto has raised a very pertinent question. Whatever we believe today is the reflection of today’s scientific truth. Scientific truth might change tomorrow, and along with it, it might change some of our most long standing and cherished beliefs.

"5000 years ago humans KNEW the earth was the center of the universe, 500 years ago humans KNEW the earth was flat, and 5 minutes ago you KNEW humans were alone on this planet, Imagine what you'll KNOW tomorrow" -Agent K to Agent J, MIB

Star Trek

If there is one thing every man (and woman) wants to know, it is his/her future. Through centuries, various concepts and logics have been evolved, which aim to somehow decipher what the future has in store. Palmistry, numerology, tarot cards and zillions of other such techniques. But scientists disregard them all. I too have been fascinated by all the various ways in which we try to know what the future holds, but have found no evidence, persuasive enough to make me believe any of these can actually predict the future with and degree of certainty. It was with this initial skepticism that I first treated astrology as well. But the intricate nature of the zillions of possible combinations of planets, and all the mathematical jugglery involved in making astrological predictions, forced me to probe deeper into the subject, in order to try to verify for myself, whether there is some scientific and factual basis behind this occult sphere of knowledge.

Astrology’s underlying principle is the fact that the various planets in the solar system, have an effect on human nature, behavior and health. This is something I do find believable, although not scientifically proven. It’s well known that the sun and moon exert considerable magnetic and gravitational forces on the earth. The moon causes tides and sun’s flares disturb satellites. The moon’s gravity is also said to cause variations in human behavior. The word “lunatic” has been derived from the word “luna” meaning “the moon”. It has been proved that many mentally unstable people go beserk on full moon nights. It is only logical then, that other planets in the solar system also exert some gravitational or magnetic forces (however miniscule in magnitude) on the earth. And some of these forces could also possibly influence human nature and health. Nothing has been proved till now, but all I say is that we should not disregard the possibility of something happening just coz it has not been proven with our exiting knowledge base.

Yet there are certain aspects of astrology I find difficult to digest. How can astrology predict things unrelated to human behavior, like accidents etc. Also, how can one derive information about one’s parents, wife and other relatives. I can’t see how the effect of planets on one person can cause all these things. Having said that, I do believe that there must be some explanation for these phenomena as well. An explanation which has not been found yet, but could be found in the future. My belief stems from the fact that several concepts and anecdotes present in ancient Indian scriptures, which were earlier regarded as fiction, have now been proven. Indian mythology says that each incarnation of the universe exists for 1 day in the life of Brahma i.e. 10 billion years. Scientists too have recently estimated the age of the universe as approximately 10 billion years. All of us know the story of how “Abhimanyu” heard the way to enter the “chakravyuh” while he was in his mother’s womb. Recent research shows that children do remember certain things from even before their birth, in their subconscious mind. But they are unable to comprehend those thoughts as they are in very abstract form.

I am not saying that astrology CAN indeed predict the future, or that everything is predecided by destiny, and that we humans cannot control our own. I just believe that we should not treat the great art of astrology (I prefer to call it “art”, rather than “science”, as science demands proof for everything) with contempt, but should instead try to unravel the esoteric intricacies of the same. Maybe, some day we will discover something that will change our world.... quite literally....

Finally, the search for the scientific foundations of astrology has some parallels with the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, about which Carl Sagan once famously said, “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.

Universal Truths....

Astronomy is a topic I have always been deeply interested in.. I often ponder over the intricacies of the universe.. And discuss it will anyone who is interested.. Two things that hav always fascinated me are, time and space..

The hugeness of space and time scales of the universe is mind boggling in itself.. The universe has been around for more than 10 billion years.. Most of us cannot even comprehend the enormity of this figure.. To think that the entire human civilization has only been around for 5000 years..

Many stars visible from earth are thousands of light years away.. It means what they appear to us today, is what they where thousands of years back.. So, in fact, we are actually able to look back in time.. Who says that time machine is yet to be invented..

Consider the opposite scenario.. Suppose a guy is sitting with a very powerful telescope in a planet 2 million light years away.. He would be able to see the light reflected from the earth 2 million years back.. i.e. he would see dinosaurs roaming about all over the place..

A topic as fascinating as astronomy, is relativity.. The wrapping of time and space.. Although I could understand the logic behind the mathematical derivations which indicate the shrinking of time and length as speed of a body approaches the speed of light (studied in college), I have never quite been able to grasp how and why does it actually happen.. How can scientists like Stephen Hawking and co. think and derive theories in areas which most others can't even comprehend properly.. The more I delve into it, the more intrigued I get..

When I think about all these things, I realize how insignificant we are in the larger scheme of things.. The minutest malfunction in the inter-galactic machinery can completely obliterate our very existence.. And there is no way we can do anything about it... We are all puppets in the hands of greater forces.. Maybe, it is from here that the concepts of God and Destiny hav emerged...

Any discussion on such a topic cannot conclude without a mention of extra-terrestrial beings.. I'll just quote a dialogue from the novel Contact, by Carl Sagan.. A child asked the leading lady about what she thought of extra-terrestrials.. She replied, "There are more stars in this galaxy than there is sand on all beaches of earth.. And there are more galaxies in the universe than there is sand on this earth.. So, if it's only us, then it seems like an awful waste of space".....