Asoke K. Laha
President & MD, Interra IT
The good news is that the US economy is picking up. Manufacturing and employment are looking good. That augurs well. I thought that I will deal with it in this column. But on hindsight, I have dropped the idea. The reason is simple. I thought that let the much-awaited growth impulses assume critical mass. Let me assure my readers that I am continuously tracking the developments there, not only on account of my being a US citizen, but also my business sphere – information technology – is very intimately entwined with positive developments there. I shall deal with how strong and sustainable that growth is in some other column.
Instead, I have decided to write on a subject that I have not dwelt on so far in this column. That is on a quixotic subject; hold your breath for a while please. It is unbecoming for a man dealing with and making living from frontier science to indulge in such disciplines characterized by many ifs and the basic premises are predilections and conjectures and not necessarily a scientific and rational approach. But there are so many disciplines in social sciences that are deeply entrenched in probabilities and hypothesis: for instance, economics. Unlike in Mathematics and physical sciences, where one plus one is two, economics theories do not predict an outcome to happen. What best you can infer is that certain things can happen or are more precisely likely to happen on account of x, y or z factors. It is not certain. Let me be more precise. If money supply is more, demand for money, measured in terms of prices of goods and services, should come down. But there are many cases when such things do not happen. They have invented a phraseology called ceteris paribus, a Latin import, which in the literary translation would mean “other things remaining the same”.
Then, what is the difference between economics and mystery. More charitable explanation is that economics is more scientific than mystery, which eludes a scientific and subtle explanation. By now, you might be thinking that I am unravelling some mysteries of the world and am poised to take you to a world away from the present one, where things of any proportion can happen. I am trying to focus on mysteries alright. But I am attempting to prove many of these mysteries could be resolved through.
Let me start with the most common thing that we experience in the day to day life- gravitational pull. It explains how a stone thrown up is coming down on its own or an apple falling down to earth when it gets detached from the twig. It was Sir Isaac Newton, who propounded a plausible explanation through his seminal work on the law of universal gravitation that explained mathematically gravitational pull of the earth. Later, the scientific explanation was modified by Einstein using his theory of relativity. A section of the scientific community believes that it is also not the last word on gravitational pull of the earth. That means more mysteries have to be unravelled. Similarly, there is also a mystery about moon’s gravitational pull – only some parts of the crust seem to have a magnetic field. But some scientists finally think they may have an explanation. After using a computer model to analyze the moon’s crust, researchers believe the magnetism may be a relic of a 120-mile-wide asteroid that collided with the moon’s southern pole about 4.5 billion years ago. Could we similarly also expect a different explanation about the Earth’s gravitational pull?
There are also several other mysteries that ask for credible explanation. The study of dark energy is currently engaging the interest of astrophysicists, which accounts for some 70 per cent of the universe. Roughly only 25 per cent of it is made up of an entirely separate material called dark matter. Completely invisible to telescopes and the human eye, it neither emits nor absorbs visible light (or any form of electromagnetic radiation), but its gravitational effect is evident in the motions of galaxy clusters and individual stars. I do not know what the latest research on these areas is, but feel convinced that we have to find out more to unravel the mysteries that surround such phenomena.
Let me turn to some mysteries of the physical sciences. The fossilized Irish giant discovered while during a mining operation is over 12 feet and two inches tall, girth of 6 foot 6 inches; length of arms 4 foot 6 inches. There are six toes on the right foot. The six fingers and toes remind us of the Biblical description of a giant that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes. Excavations in 1911 unearthed a gigantic human jaw believed to be that of a 12-foot giant. Does it mean that the presence of giants, often mentioned in our mythologies, is not a creation of fertile minds, but a historical reality.
What does mystery connote? It throws a challenge to the mankind to prove and explain how it happens. Unravelling of these mysteries does not take place in one stroke. It takes several centuries. Sometimes, theories propounded are disproved again and again. Some of the mysteries remain unexplained, some of them are dumped in the realm of metaphysics and yet others are referred as beyond the realm of explanation and human comprehension.
Let me become a bit philosophical. Do we want all the mysteries to be unravelled? Then, where is the excitement. We have to have certain things to remain in the womb of mystery. Such unexplained events and issues increase our curiosity to discover more. No one of us wants to remain in the land of lotus eaters, where everything is taken care of and people live in a state where they do not have any sorrows, hunger, pain and what have you. Is it a state of happiness? I think not. Happiness is a relative term and occurs against the vicissitudes of life. The quest to create comes only when we are beset with necessities and challenges.
Can there be a last word? Admittedly, information technology can facilitate unravelling of mysteries. I feel such scientific inquiries add to our knowledge and help us to know the power of the universe. As and when we unravel mysteries, new things arise in the horizon. Yet, we have immediate challenges that have a direct bearing on the humanity. We have to have more of Jack Andrakas who can invent newer things that can eliminate – if not reduce – the sufferings of the people. Let us script a new paradigm for information technology and give it a human face. Let it be for the people, by the people and of the people.
