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| A huge fortune awaits the person who can show people how to completely control the rush of their thoughts....
It's been exactly one month, and though I *know* that thirty days as such are meaningless, today the thoughts are a torrent, rushing with cataract force through my mind. Worst of all are the thoughts of "Perhaps if I had..." and "perhaps if I hadn't..."
The human mind is the reason why we have philosophy, religion, the esoteric arts....we struggle to make sense of what we feel is beyond our scope to comprehend.
I suspect that more than space, the ocean, the universe or the sub-atomic fields...it is the human mind which will remain the final frontier, which humankind will never be able to analyze or understand fully.
I do want my mind to be like the lotus on the pond...even when moving because of the water currents, not losing its mooring, and looking calm and serene. Born in the filth and stagnation, it is yet so pristine and beautiful, and instead of looking at the mire in which it took birth, it looks up towards the sun, and draws its sustenance from above.
Enough lousy philosophy! Hoping to spend time with friends today.... | |
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| And finally, all the birds of Thattekad....and some of the scenes we saw. We were unable to sight the MALABAR TROGON, that we were very keen on (Adarsh: "I knew I should not have come with you for this sighting, given your luck with the SIT"), but we did see plenty of other birds, and got some photographs, and just saw some others.... Here's the SMALL BLUE KINGFISHER. Salim Ali calls this the COMMON BLUE; but alas, it is no longer so common as the white-throated kingfisher!  ( lots of pictures, of birds, mammals, people, scenery.... if you want to spend the time )Here, in conclusion, is the only wild mammal we saw at Thattekad...this MALABAR GIANT SQUIRREL, busy with breakfast!  Hope you liked your etrip to Thattekad....! | |
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| The most amazingly large trees that we saw in the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary in Thattekad were what were called, in Malayalam, the Chini tree. Here's one of the tallest that we saw. The size of this tree was so awesome...here it is, soaring into the air:  ( some more pics )Let me close with this lovely, but un-id, wildflower that we saw:  Plenty of other interesting flora met our eyes, but photography became impossible sometimes, with poor light and pouring rain! | |
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| Yesterday, I attended a talk by Michael Goldman at ESG. Goldman, a sociologist has been studying the growth of Bangalore. Even though I didn't completely understand his talk, there were some really interesting issues which he raised. He started his talk by talking about a conference at a 12 star hotel in Goa which he attended lat year. The conference which had the presence of bureaucrats from all over the country, was for discussing the problems of Indian Cities to make it "World Class". Goldman mentioned about a humble officer from Jaipur who started his presentation which went something like this.. Right from the Railway Station of Jaipur, he comes across a lot of open land; Some families live there, children play there and domestic animals graze.. but I think, we could make better use of that land to make Jaipur a world city. .. Wow.And the conference ended with a definite conclusion.. Indian cities have mega city problems and need world city solutions ! Goldman said that after listening to all of these, he kept wondering on how this massive culture change has occurred in this country. He then went to define the word "Commons". We always look at some aspect of the city as Commons... Roads are the commons, trees are the commons etc.. but the real fact is that the City itself is the commons. The govt has failed to recognize the commons. The prime goal of the World Bank and other banks is to create more customers by lending them money. Today their new customers are the BWSSB, BMRTC and other parastatal organizations. Goldman says that lending money to these parastatal organizations itself is a crime which don't have a democratic system in place. There have been so many blunders in Bangalore.. The NICE road especially when some more work on the existing road network and better rail system would have been sufficient. The BIAL has acquired 4000 Acres of land displacing people from 160 villages, it is a criminal act. Michael did raise some interesting points about farmers. While most of the farmers want to sell off their land and move to the urban cities, we also need to look at how their life has changed after that. The compensation that they get after sacrificing their land for developmental activities isn't enough to even invest anywhere. The land which has been sold off for a few thousands/lakhs is worth crores the very next day. Most of these villagers move to urban areas for better quality of life leaving behind the peaceful villages. Its all complicated. The Govt keeps telling us that they are setting up the infrastructure for the working community. This is nonsense when 60-70% of the GDP comes from the informal sectors and the people working in these informal sectors don't need Magic Boxes and Flyovers. They all live nearby. IT does create a lot of revenues but the value isn't coming into the city as most of the IT customers are from the US and European nations. A lot of it happens just via handshakes in the govt. And the solution he gives, Document.. Document and Document whatever you can :) | |
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| How To Watch Your Brother Die For Carl Morse When the call comes, be calm. Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly to California." try not to be shocked that he already looks like a cadaver. Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side, "I'm his brother." Try not to be shocked when the young man says, "I'm his lover. Thanks for coming." Listen to the doctor with a steel face on. Sign the necessary forms. Tell the doctor you will take care of everything. Wonder why doctors are so remote. Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into your brother's eyes as they stare into space. Wonder what they see there. Remember the time he was jealous and opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick. Forgive him out loud even if he can't understand you. Realize the scar will be all that's left of him. Over coffee in the hospital cafeteria say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking young man." Hear him say, "I never thought I was good enough looking to deserve your brother." Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say, "I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be the lover of another man." Hear him say, "Its just like a wife, only the commitment is deeper because the odds against you are so much greater." Say nothing, but take his hand like a brother's. Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might help him live longer. Explain what they are to the border guard. Fill with rage when he informs you, "You can't bring those across." Begin to grow loud. Feel the lover's hand on your arm restraining you. See in the guard's eye how much a man can hate another man. Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?" Hear him say, "You get used to it." Think of one of your children getting used to another man's hatred. Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her, "He hasn't much time. I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say, "How could anyone's commitment be deeper than a husband and a wife?" Hear her say, "Please. I don't want to know all the details." When he slips into an irrevocable coma, hold his lover in your arms while he sobs, no longer strong. Wonder how much longer you will be able to be strong. Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms whose arms are used to holding men. Offer God anything to bring your brother back. Know you have nothing God could possible want. Curse God, but do not abandon Him. Stare at the face of the funeral director when he tells you he will not embalm the body for fear of contamination. Let him see in your eyes how much a man can hate another man. Stand beside a casket covered in flowers, white flowers. Say, "thank you for coming," to each of seven hundred men who file past in tears, some of them holding hands. Know that your brother's life was not what you imagined. Overhear two mourners say, "I wonder who'll be next?" and "I don't care anymore, as long as it isn't you." Arrange to take an early flight home. His lover will drive you to the airport. When your flight is announced say, awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please let me know." Do not flinch when he says, "Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him after he told you. He did." Stop and let it soak in. Say, "He forgave me, or he knew himself?" "Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else to do. Hold him like a brother while he kisses you on the cheek. Think that you haven't been kissed by a man since your father died. Think, "This is no moment to be strong." Fly first class and drink Scotch. Stroke your split eyebrow with a finger and think of your brother alive. Smile at the memory and think how your children will feel in your arms warm and friendly and without challenge. Michael Lassell And ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) latelyontime's words below (in quotes) are my thoughts, too... "P.S. I know it is long and it probably hurts the scroll finger like bloody ho but I am not putting it behind a cut. Something this beautiful needs to remain so that everybody can read it at first glance." ********* Well...my brother died, too, a month ago...he wasn't gay, I don't have a wife, I *didn't* watch him die that day, so suddenly...but the raw pain of this poem....was reflected by my pain in asking him a few days prior to his death, "Shall I come and be with you for a few days?" and then, being practical, and not going, because he had no serious health problem that I could imagine he would leave us in a short time... There are times when grief is composed of large dollops of guilt. | |
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| I also realize I rarely do fashion posts....so here's the latest in monsoon headgear, as demonstrated by my daughter (it's just sheer coincidence that this top model is related to me by blood ties.)  This is, ladies and genmun, a very eco-friendly fashion statement...it uses up those plastic bags that would otherwise go and pollute the environment... The dowdy frump...is the one taking the photograph! | |
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| I realized, recently, that I very rarely live in the past. The present is so exciting and interesting to me that I don't have the habit of harking back to the past (and even if I do, I don't use the rose-tinted spectacles that many people do. I can remember all the bad things of the past as well as the good ones...waiting several years for a hardly-working telephone, having a choice of 3 cars, Ambassador, Fiat, and Herald, and waiting several years for one of those as well...not just the fact that once upon a time petrol used to cost Rs. 2.50 per litre, and roads were not choked with traffic.) But I have been enjoying thinking over my childhood days in Calcutta Kolkata, dwelling on the brother who was part of them all. And I think I am going to do a lot of "memory" posts, so that my daughter has a sense of life "back then". For boys, in the Calcutta of the 60's, apart from cricket and football, which were both religions, there used to be various "seasons". Apart from the cricket season which was in winter, there were the kite season, the marbles (gOli) season, (winter), the gilli danda season, the kabaddi season...I never could figure out how the boys knew when one had gone and the other was happening...but so it was. ( about kite-flying in my childhood, and my brother's.... )PS: Ahmedabad still has an annual kite-flying competion, and I just love the Peanut strips where Charlie Brown faces the Kite-Eating Tree...here's a lovely picture of one such tree that I got off the net...the first time in a long while that I have posted a pic that's not mine! the kite collector, by Amit Kulkarni | |
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| A little more of googling for Microhyla sholigari (which deponti and adarshraju photographed at Thattekad recently) gave a lot of interesting info. I was amazed to know that this endemic south indian species of frog was very recently (in 2000) described from BR Hills, and so the name has Soliga in it. Love the name Sholigari :) One the links says, It is a terrestrial, leaf-litter species of hilly areas, associated with riparian vegetation (especially grassland) in moist evergreen tropical forest. It has also been recorded from lightly disturbed forest fringes. There is little information on its breeding biology, but it presumably breeds in water by larval development.Really interesting stuff. AND I get all excited when I read something like this which lists out all the new amphibian species. The latest one as of now is from India which was added 2 days back | |
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| Because of the rain and high humidity, the fungi and mushrooms were there in a bewildering variety; I am also including the skink and lizard photographs here. One of the most spectacular ones was this STINKHORN FUNGUS I certainly didn't go near it to smell it!  ( a few more pics here )But this is the much rarer FOREST CALOTES (Calotes rouxii)...thanks for the id, Karthik.... with the red head of the breeding season:  Here's amoghavarsha's photo of it Next post on Thattekkad...some of the trees.... | |
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| Q. If one has undergone a bereavement that still has that raw-wound quality, touch-and-I-wince, after nearly a month....what does one do that will provide a little comfort? A. One sees an excellent play and walks back in the pouring rain, clutching one's bag close under the umbrella, for fear of the MLC, and the notes for the play review, and eating a chocolate ice-cream cone. I walked in silence for the most part, letting the pouring rain give me some peace. As the dark clouds roiled overhead, I felt some of the dark clouds in my mind shifting...a little... amoghavarsha sent me lovely pictures of my parents when he visited Chennai last time; little did I know that I would require one of my brother, too....sobering realization, that I am the only one of my immediate family left alive. Am quite concerned about someone else far away, too...I never worry about money, but health is something that is just not under our control sometimes. To cheer myself up a little more: Here's another view of that beauty, the Scaly-Breasted Munia, it's got some food in its mouth this time!  Almost Cinderella time....going to use the Vonage phone now.... | |
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| While travelling in the Suvarna Bus (yeah,was lucky) this morning, I overheard two BMTC drivers talking to each other which reflected their proudness in working for BMTC. I felt so good as a passenger. Suvarna works a lot better for me.. I don;t need volvos for short distance commutes. In the evening, deponti and I went for the play The Final Rehearsal by Pawan Kumar at Rangashankara. This monologue is easily one of the best plays I have ever watched. Superb acting, amazing lighting and sounds and a wonderful stage and back-satge coordination. The play is happening even tomo and I strongly recommend it.We totally enjoyed the rains too on our way back home. | |
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| Here's a TORTOISE BEETLE, one of the beautiful creatures we beheld on our trip to Thattekad, Kerala, where adarshraju and I visited the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary.  I'll post later about the details of our journey, and the comfortable homestay we had; but this post is going to be about the various small creatures we saw in the Bird Sanctuary, and on the Periyar. I have already posted about the lizards, but here are some others: Here are all the signs at the entrance of theSalim Ali Bird Sanctuary:  We saw a wonderful variety of insects and butterflies.... ( it's a loooong post with many photos, so see at leisure and don't blame me if you waste your time )The most amazing sight, of course, was the sight of two frogs mating right next to this UN ID SNAKE (Olive Keelback, is Adarsh's tentative id):  Here's Adarsh's picture of it, on INW: http://www.indianaturewatch.net/displayimage.php?id=53607The post about the various creatures mating in the monsoon rain is here and the one about the Draco is here Next post, the birds....and then, possibly, the trees....and then the mammals....; | |
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| Been busy with a wedding of someone who is like family to me. The wedding was held in a resort fairly close to home. There was a lot of greenery around...and I was delighted to spot a pair of SCALY-BREASTED MUNIAS proceeding to make a nest in the foliage. Here's one of them, that I caught on my MLC (Mary's Lamb Camera): I didn't take this near the nest, though, for fear of disturbing the two pretty birds. I also saw what I *think* (and hope) was a sparrow's nest in one of the hedges....Hasiru (Greenery) is indeed Usiru (life) for these birds! | |
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| I had, some time ago, made this post about palindromes, and today, palindromes figured on another mailing list I moderate. And from Dr Beheruz Sethna , I got the info that my favourite "A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama" palindrome has been extended to 17,836 words! here it is If anyone is jobless enough to read through it, that is....! | |
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| For my previous post,somebody commented: Dude aren't you the one who protests widening roads and Metro and what not? Trying to bring stay from High Court on developmental activities? Why are you complaining now??? I think atleast 80% of Bangalore thinks this way. They think BBMP is doing the right thing for them. Have the flyovers ever solved our problems? The Richmond Circle flyover is a miss with the traffic signal on top of the flyover.. the Jayadeva, Silkboard Junction etc etc... none of them have solved the problem. It would be cool for 6 months from completely and then again we end up in the same old situation. What we as HasiruUsiru are saying is that everything that is planned needs to have a scientific approach. Roads can be widened *without cutting* down the trees and we have the plans ready for that. All of us have this notion that Bangalore Metro is going solve all our problems? No it wont with existing design. Bangalore metro has been designed keeping in mind MG Road and other business centres and the design is "S" shaped. How can such a design work for a radial city? There are enough cases to prove that! What we need there is good bus transport system catering to different sections of the society. My friend who lives on New Airport road was telling me that the traffic has certainly eased out but she says it will go back to that old situation in another 6 months as Bangalore keeps on adding 6 digit number of vehicles every month ! If you have seen the new Airport road design, do you think it is a good design? Think yourself.. there are pedestrians dying everyday on that road.. these are not the pedestrians who can afford Columbia Asia hospitals ! Read this news bit ... Road to international airport, or a veritable highway to hell? And don't you want the trees of Bangalore? Bangalore is a Garden city and we would just want it to remain that way.. No, we dont want a Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata here.. just Bangalore :) AND I have suggestion for you , Please stop reading "Times of India" ! | |
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| Going to Chowdaih Memorial Hall from South Bangalore is pretty crazy.. and going in the evenings is a terrible thing to do. The buses are super crowded, traffic jams and what not. I went to watch the play "The Wedding Album" written by Girish Karnad and directed by Lillete Dubey this evening. I have nothing to write about the play because I didn't like the play at all. Even though majority of the 800 odd strong audience enjoyed it, it bored me off totally with a pathetic ending. Feels terrible to have spent so much of time and money.. (the donor passes 300-500Rs only). The 90min play was supposed to start at 7.30pm but started only at 8pm. Plays at Chowdaih never start on time. 45 mins into the play,latecomers were still moving around finding their seats. I hate it when people keep moving around like this troubling the seated audience ;perhaps thats the best thing about Rangashankara where they dont allow people in once the play starts. The play thankfully ended at 10.30pm and was lucky enough to have a friend dropping me midway. But what does one do without a private transport arrangement? Buses hardly around post 10pm. By the time my friend dropped me, it was 11.30pm.. Shops all closed. But was fortunate enough to find a cab going towards my home. Long live the cabs.. they are my saviour post 10pm in this city. *sigh*.. I dont think I will ever go to Chowdaih to watch a play again. | |
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| When I had been on the "pEtEy,kerEy,kOtEy,thOta" heritage walk, I spotted these shirts near the Bangalore Fort... You may be a celebrity if you wear this shirt, but.....no autographs!  And in Bangalore, the Software City, it's appropriate to have a shirt that says...  Pity I didn't get actual people wearing these shirts! | |
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Heh. | |
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| Abbah, I finally remembered in time to post... Happy birthday to amoghavarsha. May he have Purity in his life always...and happiness and good health and prosperity and.....! When I say "Amoghavarsha",there is this one , this one , this one , and Amoghavarsha IV (AD 968 - 972)! I mean Amoghavarsha V , ruling from 1983 - present date...happy quarter century. And "amogha varsha" also means "excellent rains", so here's a photo of raindrops for the photographer...  It's fun posting birthday wishes, I wish I could remember birthdays in time... | |
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| I conducted my first two "celebrity" interviews....first, Lillette Dubey and then, yesterday evening, Girish Karnad . Both of them are very articulate people, and having organized my questions well, I got quite a lot of info about them, for two articles....one, I thought would be a kind of "reminder" post for Metblogs, as I had put in an announcement of Karnad's new play, "The Wedding Album" (ha, that's not on the Net yet; when I googled the words, this is all I got!), which is being staged in Bangalore today and tomorrow. But then, I decided that the article merited an appearance in a more "serious" forum, and today, Citizen Matters is running it as a curtain raiser, and I have provided a link to it on Metblogs, here It contains the link to the Citizen Matters article, too...only, for some reason, CM has used the word "screening" and not "staging" for a play! I'll be going to see the play tomorrow....and I think I am going to enjoy it! A more broad-based (don't ask, "which broad?") article, dealing with their thoughts on Bangalore and theatre in Bangalore, is in the process of being written...and will appear in Citizen Matters, too. " http://www.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/269-wedding-album" | |
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| Malabar Wedding
Malabar Wedding, debut film by directors Rajesh and Faisal, was surprisingly refreshing, especially since I watched this movie with minimal expectations. It is a comedy. Perhaps not the sort of one which we would watch ten times and would still want to watch again; But surely something that is neatly made, which makes us feel "good".
The story is made around this game (?) called sora which is nothing but fully organized and planned practical jokes played during a wedding day (I was not aware of such practices until I watched this movie). A group of youngsters lead by Manu (Indrajith) are the people behind sora in the village. Occasionally, sora reaches the narrow border between harmless jokes and serious abuses that can potentially break the marriage itself, and Manu himself turns out to be a victim on his wedding day when his friends make him drink alcohol without his knowledge, send dirty clothes to the bride's house as her attire for the wedding day, and do a few similar sort of things. A few other minor mishaps happen without their involvement too. However, the sora team just wants some fun, and they are there as good friends to solve any problems during the day. The film shows these entire incidents in a humorous way.
I liked the performances, and moreover, the interesting (and a little unconventional) way the directors have presented this film. There are a few sub-story-threads running in the film (like the love affair of the cook played by Anoop), which are equally interesting. There are no villains in the film - I was guessing that one of the heroine's (played by the beautiful Gopika) relatives would turn out to be a villain in the climax, following the line of most of the movies of recent times, but that was not the case. The climax was still a bit disappointing, as the directors brought a "twist" in the end, which didn't go well with the rest of the story. | |
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| I was at the Ooru-Neeru walk on sunday around the Hesaraghatta reservoir as part of the Bangalore City Project that was initiated by the Max Mueller Bhavan. The Hesaraghatta reservoir located to the west of Bangalore at a distance of 24 km. This reservoir was one of the first city water supply schemes located outside of a city. But now it has been given up as a reliable source by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) since it no longer reliably fills up. "Looking at the history of the reservoir and the water supply scheme for the city will give us some insights as to how water requirements to a city are catered to and how projects become irrelevant and have to be abandoned or are given up in the chase for water. With climate change staring at us, the Hesaraghatta story has many lessons for urban India", explained Vishwanath who led the walk. ( Brief History ) Soladevanahalli
Our first stop was Soladevanahalli which is a very beautiful village. This Chamaraja Water Works, Estd: 1896 building is a heritage building with large frames of Mysore Maharajah at the doorstep. At Soladevanahalli, the water from the Hesarghatta was pumped into Bangalore City. We were lucky to have the then engineer, Mr Tippeswamy who started his career at this station and knew everything in and out. He explained how Bangalore was the first city in India to get both pumped water and electricity and all of it was done through this station. The Hesaraghatta lake had a capacity of 997cmt with a total storage capacity of 1.1tmc. He explained that the project was executed in 3 phases. The first two phases dealt with providing drinking water to Bangalore with 2 pipelines and the 3rd pipeline was for the industries and a little amount of it went to some villages around too.Water reached Soladevanahalli in its filtered form. They used steam engines with 25 cycle pumps for power generation. We looked around the station to see those old machines. A chart showing the water level of the Hesaraghatta reservoir till 2000 is also displayed. The highest water was collected in 1981... How I wish I was around those days.. All of it still exists even today and one should really appreciate the engineering of those days. Turubanahalli
Our next stop was Turubanahalli where we saw the remnants of the brick aqueduct. "Built of stone, brick and lime the 'channel' as it is called by locals is a marvelous structure and displays a technology dating back to the Romans. The aqueduct was the most well known form of transporting water and remnants of Roman aqueducts are still found in France and Spain.", explained Vishwanath. Mr Tippeswamy told us that this aqueduct was used until 60s after which they laid a pipleline. The aqueduct was for the valley, also where the overflow of water was handled. I wish I had a camera to document all these stuff. The Hesaraghatta Reservoir
Or last stop was the Hesaraghatta reservoir itself which is totally dried up. One feels so sad to know that we dont have this water resource anymore. Its just an empty space now. We were greeted by a kannada folk song group Bhoomi Taayi Balaga (Friends of Mother Nature) who sang a few songs for the group. The lyrics of the songs were really beautiful. They started with a song which paid tribute to our forefathers to building the tanks and planting the trees for the future generation. Their second song was on Bangalore telling us how we are losing our tanks/lakes, vegetation etc. All of us thoroughly enjoyed it. I bought a book which has all their songs, so probably I will put it up here next time. We saw the volute siphon designed to take away the waters when the reservoir was full. The sound it made was like a man screaming according to the locals and could be heard for a few kilometers.A few locals joined in explained us how they celebrated with the coracle ride when the reservoir was full. We then walked over the bund to see the remains and there was a small temple named Durgamba Temple which was quite crowded. Mahesh Bhat, a very well know photographer who now resides at Hesaraghatta explained us how he along with a couple of locals are trying to get the reservoir functioning.He said that the Govt isn't showing any interest and isn't helping them too. So these guys have done a lot of feasibility studies and have tried to clear up the channels through which the rain water came in. Managing the catchment area still needs a lot of funds, he said. Our land usage patterns changed so much over the last few days. Hesaraghatta is just one example. When the reservoir dried up, the Govt apparently put up a lot of borewells in the reservoir area which has deeply affected the ground water table. These are our amazing water heritage structures fit to be preserved and displayed. AND all of it was rainwater.It reveals the skills of our water engineers in being able to design and build beautiful systems. They now lie derelict. We need to revive and proudly display them for our future generations. | |
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| I finished reading this book by John Gribbin last Sunday. This is part historical: outlining lives of the various scientists and their experiments which led to the development of theories explaining the nature of atom, electron, wave nature of electron, quantum nature of electron, dual nature of electron and some other not-understood natures of electrons :P. It is also part physics: explaining some of this phenomenon with simple maths. Experiments and theories are presented chronologically and are interesting to read. Not much of philosophy is dragged in which is better because you can make your own interpretations and not be "guided" :) Though I can't say my understanding of the world was revolutionized by this book and though I can't even say I understood everything in this book (and I of course can't say I have any understanding of this world), what I can say is, I got some "high" moments while reading this. "High" moments when for some time you get totally immersed in the thoughts and possible implications of the ideas presented in this book. (Needless to say you quickly recover back to the fact that you have to go to office the next day and you better sleep soon :P) Some of those high moments were when the book deals with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and tells us that it is not a problem with our experimental apparatus that we cannot determine things precisely. It is the fundamental nature of the universe as we know it that you only observe what you want to observe and you are very much a part of all your observations!! Also, I would definitely recommend that any one interested in understanding these issues read double slit experiment and Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. These were not only couple of "high" moments for me, they summarize the most important issues involved. The "many world interpretation" of quantum physics, although far from convincing is an amazing thought to entertain. At some places you momentarily feel, it is a mysterious and magical universe :) My understanding of electron spin, fermion, boson and many other physics concepts didn't improve because of this book. I still don't even have a feel for how a particle can exist with zero mass and still be a "particle". I don't know what you mean when you say, "time has no meaning for a photon because it is traveling at the speed of light". But, I am glad I read the book because now I kind of know what the fuss is all about. Now I am reading "Phantoms in the brain" by V.S. Ramachandran.. Another book which has made a great beginning and promises to be very interesting. | |
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