We get to make choices at almost each and every moment of
life. Some choices we make will have lasting impact throughout the journey of
our life. Some of the choices we get to choose and others, we have to and some
we don’t get to. But no matter what, once we make the choice of a particular
moment in life, we almost never get a chance to go back to the same point and
start again. Sometimes life throws a choice at you in a platter which we choose
to ignore. If only one can know the long term consequences of the choices made.
Feb 2035
With his confident ever smiling face, he decided it was the
day. Some kind of cosmic connection in that month he thought. He looked out of
the ‘window’ which had covered entire wall. The view did not greet him with
anything new this day. There are no trees or greens in his view. There are
separate dedicated places for that. His entire view was covered with
skyscrapers which were covered with high efficient solar panels. He went near
the ‘window’ of his flat in 158th floor. Now he could see the sky
filled with hundreds of floating spherical devices about twice the size of standard
football, which are communication devices, more like artificial satellites powered
by sunlight. Digital Communication has been most important aspect of the world
for years now and there cannot be any delay what so ever. Those devices are
carefully designed to handle communication efficiently with absolute zero loss.
They can broadcast signals, they can pinpoint a device and send signals
directly to the individual device by calculating fastest path which might
involve multiple hops between the devices or reflection over the skyscraper’s
surface, which itself is made of many such devices or a line of sight delivery.
And what kind of signals does these device carry that makes it so important? Almost
everything! Powered with 6th generation communication technology
with speeds up to 29 Giga bits per second, the network can be used for simple activities
like browsing and casting secure vote during elections. That kind of speed is
needed for the data it carries. One can make a call to another individual and
see three dimensional projection in the air of the other person while they
speak in real time and control the call by touching the projection. One can do
all these things with a wearable device on the wrist. The cellphone of yester
years have evolved into that wearable device which has the capability to
project three dimensional hologram. Of course it monitors an individual’s
health and can itself call emergency numbers if needed. It can do lot more!
With storage capacity of 6 Petabytes, it can hold entire memory of an
individual with access only to the owner of it. Every time the owner wears the
device and activates memory sync option, a tiny electrode placed under the
bottom of the device gets turned on and uses Electroencephalography to detect
signals from brain and will start sending its own messages to get the memory in
the brain and the device synced. To make sure the memory in the device is not
accessed by wrong person, unique customizable encryption is used. The device
throws a series of completely random questions towards the brain and expects
unique response for each of the questions. The questions can be as simple as
sending some random memories to the brain and ask “are these yours” or to ask
to name the secret crush of the owner and to send across his/her image or
memory involving him/her to the device. The brain can always choose to skip the
question if it does not want to answer. The device can tell about actions taken
by the owner in the past and ask for the direct consequences of that action.
The owner can set the complexity of encryption he/she wants. All these to make sure whatever is stored in
the device is accessed only by the rightful owner. And what if the device is
not satisfied with the answers? It won’t self-destruct in 10 seconds. It will
just shutdown. Today, he again accessed his memory and gave the order to ‘show’
it directly from his brain. The device threw a three dimensional projection in
air where he can see folder stacked by the years. He can now choose the exact
year, the date, the time and the memory and ask the device to project the entire
incident exactly the way it happened in his past. Now there is no question of
memory fading away! Every single detail is there in the device. And the
quality? One can view with 324 Megapixels of data with field of view of 90
degrees. In other words, real time quality. He now started browsing through the folders
and started playing his old memories one by one.
Early 1990s
The kid was running. Why? That’s what kids do. And he was
not running on the road or playground or footpath. He was running on stone
slabs about a feet long which covered gutter to carry waste water. And why
would he do that? No reason. He was just having fun. And he was not alone. His
friend was also running. And our kid was following his friend. Only few feet
separated each other. The kid was blindly following his friend. Suddenly the
kid observed a change in the way his friend was running. The kid could not see
beyond his friend. The distance between the two was perfect to block the light
reflected from what lies beyond his friend by the opaque body of his running
friend. So the kid was seeing the slab
available for him to run between him and his friend. His friend changed his
stance a bit. Just when the kid was wondering what was happening with his friend,
his friend without slowing down a bit, pressing his left foot firmly on the
slab, jumped. Just when the kid was about to think his friend has gone crazy,
he saw what was waiting for him. By this time his brain had already decided to
let go of freeze and flight, and chose to fight. His pupils had already dilated
allowing maximum light into his retina from the single point allowing him to
concentrate on what lies straight ahead of him at the same time blurring his
peripheral vision completely. He would not even be able to recognize face or
the expression on it if he sees one at this point. Though he is tired from
running fast for past few seconds, sudden adrenaline rush gave him enough
energy to make the jump. He had already gathered enough horizontal velocity
needed for the jump by virtue of his fast running for past few seconds. Now he
had to use fresh adrenaline in his body to get vertical velocity and jump
across the missing slabs over the gutter!! The gap was 6 feet long which his friend
had already crossed the gap with his jump. Now it was his turn. Just before he
reached the start of the gap, he pressed the slab hard putting pressure on it,
and thanks to Newton’s third law of motion, the ground pushed him back with
equal force. This allowed him to create some vertical velocity. By pushing off the ground and allowing the ground reaction
force to become greater than that of the force his foot is putting on the
ground, he transferred some of his velocity in vertical direction. Now he has
attained both horizontal and vertical velocity. He threw himself as projectile
with that push on the ground. While being in midair, he could see his friend
continue running after making the jump successfully. With the hope of crossing
what seemed like a big gap, the boy made his giant leap.
Some time ago!
Quite far away, the pretty hot guy is still burning and is
about to run out of steam. Though relatively cooler than his cousins, he still
has a surface temperature of about 3600 K. Throughout his life, rotating at a
speed of around 5 km/s and moving around at a speed of around 30 km/s, he was
rapidly burning. Under constant pressure from his own gravity, he started his
life pushing gravity back by generating energy with fusion of hydrogen atom,
which he had in plenty, into Helium. That was way back when he was way younger
and hotter. This process of constant fight with gravity went on for few years.
Soon enough, he started realizing he is running out of Hydrogen element. But he
refused to give up and started fusing the elements further to garner more
energy producing newer and heavier elements which started sinking because of
the mass and at the same time increase his inner temperature. Before he
realized he started expanding because of more and more energy being produced by
the fusion of heavier elements. He thought this will go on forever and felt
proud of his own never give up spirit till he fused an Iron element. That day,
he realized with shock that he cannot fuse Iron any further no matter how much
he tried. All his pride came down crashing. The collapse was imminent! By this
time he had grown hundreds of times bigger. When most of the elements in his
core has turned Iron, the energy produced can no longer resist the pressure of
his gravity and the outer layer will start to collapse rapidly. It is only a
matter of time, before this collapse and existing energy in the core will cause
a supernova. In his last few moments, his journey of 10 million years flashed
in front of him. But he knows this is not the end. He himself was born with one
such Supernova. He is going to seed more stars out of him and he himself will
be a minute neutron star for a very long time. By spewing all the elements
inside him including carbon, he will also be responsible for the creation of
life itself. A moment after the collapse of the star, large quantities of neutrinos
started emerging out which was followed by a Supernova. All this happening just
around 500 light years away!
Winter 2005
When he entered the hall, he could see only one seat empty. He
quickly went ahead to occupy the last remaining seat. As soon as he sat down,
he turned back to see more people entering the hall. They will have to now
stand and listen. When he was about to consider himself kind of lucky to get to
sit, fragrance of the female perfume grabbed all his attention. He could already
feel couple of Flutes and Oboes playing somewhere. He turned towards his left
to find her sitting next to him. That added few Violins, both 1 and 2. Along
with it, some Violas too. She was looking on the other side talking to someone.
Her white dress perfectly matched with her curlyish jet black hairs about a
foot and half long which were held together by a black color band. Some Cellos
and Double Basses joined the bandwagon. Then he could see her turning towards
him slowly, and it was time for some Trumpets, Horns and Trombones to join
while she was turning her head. Also there was a Tuba this time. Like the swing of slow moving trebuchet,
in slow motion, swung her hairs to the other side of her shoulder when she
turned towards him. “Brothers in the blind, please add Timpani, Drums and
Tambourine” ordered his mind. Her entire face turned had towards him by now and
all he could see were her beautiful eyes, unnaturally made extra black!! There
is a billion dollar industry to help girls look more attractive. With his brain
being too numb to give any new orders, he let his eyes keep looking at the
beautiful black eyes while a full set early romantic orchestra being played
somewhere which only he could hear. With the minute changes he observed in her
eyes, he felt she is about to blush before she started looking towards her
notebook and write something. Who was she! If he were to have the amazing vocals,
would have started singing as well. Might have even went on a knee. He felt
like the music will last forever. Only thing which could have stopped was the
loud shrieking noise of the mike. That brought him back to the present. He
thought now it’s time for some phantom theory! er ah Quantum theory!
After the session was over, everyone got up. Fresh smile
flashed on his face after the new revelation. Height also matches!!
“What time is it” she asked.
13.7 billion years! Yes. Big bang happened 13.7 billion
years ago. That’s when Time started. Before that nothing was supposed to have
existed including the Time itself. The clock started ticking at the moment of
big bang and has been ever since running. We humans use a 24 hour clock for our
convenience based on the rotation of the earth on its own axis which never
actually is 24 hours. Our earth sometimes rotates faster and sometimes slower!
Thankfully there is uniform sunlight around tropic of cancer throughout the
year avoiding another confusion of daylight savings. For now, the sun had
created shadows whose sizes were roughly about 1/3rd of the original
objects. Based on which he deduced it was around high noon. Then had a look at
the bulky watch he was wearing and said
“11:15”
Particles are particles. They hop from place to place with a
particular probability. Probability that a particle which is at some place,
will be at some different place later is given by a very simple rule, uses a
quantity called ‘Action’, which depends on the Mass of the particle, the Time
and the Distance and may be some external factors. Quite a few factors had to
be in place for him to be at the ‘right’ place at the ‘right’ time.
Much against the basic laws of physics, his heart was slowly
moving from the state of high entropy to the state of low entropy. Movement
from high to low never seems to be good, or is it?
The long day which never seemed to get over to him, was
finally over. He was gazing at the night sky which hardly had any clouds.
Normally he would be thrilled to identify the stars or constellation. But this
time, all his eyes saw were some white specks in the dark sky. Gazing at the
sky was always fun he thought. But that day, it was different. He was kind of
looking at nothing. Confused with the events that happened earlier in the day,
he continued to look at that dark night sky. Perhaps he waiting for some kind
of signal, some indication from the heavens. And it was about to arrive. From
the edge of the sky, he was able to see a small bright object move. A shooting
star! Perhaps that was the sign. He recalled reading somewhere about wishes
coming true if is made on seeing a shooting star. With or without his
knowledge, he folded his hands and brought it to praying position. Magically he
was also on his knees. Something told
his heart that the wish will be in effect at the moment the star disappears. So
he had to time the wish perfectly. His fingers from both hands had crossed and
held each other tightly by now. He could still see the bright object moving and
could feel his heartbeat increasing each moment. By this time, the star had
crossed half way across the sky. He is now holding his breath and waiting for
the right moment. For the maximum effect, he had decided to close his eyes
while making the wish. His eye lids were already prepared and waiting for the
go ahead signal from the brain and his heart was prepared to throw a picture at
the eyes as soon they close. While he was still watching the sky, the bright
object slowly traversed entire length of the visible sky and disappeared at the
end of the horizon. His tightly closed his eyes in despair and muttered in
frustration releasing the breath he had been holding for past few seconds in
one go “International Space Station!!!” He did not realize that as soon as he
closed his eyes, an object appeared in the middle of the night sky and started
to move at high speed. While the speed of the object increased, its brightness
also increased and it also left a bright visible tail along the path it traced.
Within couple of seconds, the shooting star got burnt completely and both the
object and its tail disappeared from the sky. Perhaps someone else’s eyes were
open when his were closed. And then he opened his eyes found the night sky
exactly the way it was before he closed his eyes. Almost! But when he observed
more, a hunter caught his attention amongst cluster of stars in the dark sky.
And there was visibly more activity in the reddish star near hunter’s right
shoulder compared to rest of the stars in that cluster. As though something is
about to happen. He continued to stare at the particular star and wondered what
is so unusual about that particular star.
To Be Continued........... Part 2
