Saturday, May 17, 2008

Physics has been my childhood fantasy, probably one of the few things that could capture my imagination.I spent numerous summer days dreaming of Harnessing the Unified field theory,Einstein's unrealized dream. I do not know why but of all the prevalent scientific challenges Unified field theory was probably something I could relate to. Probably only because the two forces yet to be unified - Gravitational and Electromagnetic were already introduced to me as a kid.

Today the childhood fantasy just remains a distant dream. Probably not even a dream now. I have happily reconciled to my fate and settled down as bright and capable resource in the service industry. No its not exactly that boring, I started my own company that provides CRM solutions to its customers. With a degree from IIT, owning a company thats doing decently well things seem to be looking up.If someone was to ask me, what exactly I did I would pull out an endless list of Jargons (CRM, strategy, BI, Information based strategy etc) that I have skillfully acquired in the last four years of my career. I will put forward neatly constructed sentences, skillfully using terms that are beyond listeners comprehension. The listener will have no choice but to acknowledge that I must be doing something substantial. If I really take a pause and ask myself the same question, I would say, I help some American companies implement a software which they think is good for their business.
And we are doing that real well, at least thats what our clients say - never mind that this "Doing Well" means killing our weekends so that they can enjoy theirs never mind that Christmas is a week long affair for you and Diwali a quick fun only after special permission from the clients.

Fine thats the way things are these days and I do not intend to be a revolutionary. I am OK with it as long as it does not cross limits. Probably by the time it crosses limits my definition of limits will have shrunk further to ensure 100 % client satisfaction. I was just feeling a little nostalgic about the childhood dream, about physics. How good would it have been if I was actually doing something substantial, something I could really be proud of, something like harnessing the unified field theory.

Actually it was raining outside and the lightning was pronounced enough to catch the attention of my eyes,which has stopped looking at useless things these days. It was lightning hard and was a bit frightening. Almost fell like a power show of the mighty electron. I could not help getting transported to the Old dream world of the Unified field theory.


Charge and mass are the root cause of Electromagnetic and Gravitational forces. If some one was to ask me if I understood them, I would have said - Yes Of course. I think I do understand Mass better than charge.


Mass, thats a simple concept. Everything material possesses it, thats why a thing appear heavy, thats why gravity pulls it down. If someone was to Mass, the first Idea that would come to my mind would be a Heavy Ball a kind of big ball that we can point out and say this thing has a lot of mass. If I think further I would think of a fat woman maybe or a weighing machine.Thats what mass is to me it is the reason why things are heavier, things are difficult to push. A body with more mass is "Massive" and the ones with less mass is not quite as massive.
Well Well, I know I not quite there, these are probably effects of mass and not mass actually. What is mass ? Where does it exactly exist in a massive body. May be its just a mental formulation to explain a few natural phenomenon.

Well will ahve to take a deeper look into it again.