January 23FROM THE WORLD OF RELIGION
Confucius (K'ung Tzu: 6th century BCE), as per tradition, was born in the
country of Lu. After traveling widely he returned to his native place where
he became a very respected teacher. When his country got into a war and was
defeated, Confucius followed the ruler the Duke Zhao who had to flee. He
also spent some years as an itinerant philosopher, taking his disciples
along with him. He traveled widely, he never held a high position, and he
prized good conduct above money or things. He died at the age of 72.
He sought unity behind diversity, preached dispassionate inquiry, virtue and
wisdom. Like other great teachers, Confucius began with a few disciples, but
during his lifetime he gathered thousands under his philosophical fold.
Tseng Tzu, a great humanist, has left for us some of the teachings of the
Master. Confucius recommended careful investigation of things, furtherance
of knowledge, regulation of the family, and striving for peace among
nations. As with Jesus and Shakespeare, the words of Confucius touched the
hearts and minds of millions living beyond his place and time.
Confucianism is primarily concerned with ethics. The moral law should be the
basis of behavior. It has the same inexorable power as physical law is to
nature. Confucius said: "The moral law is a law from whose operation we
cannot escape for one instant in the course of our existence. A law from
which we may escape is not a moral law." The key-term Li in Confucian
thought refers to a system governed by ethical principles.
In the re-writing of ancient wisdom many things change. So too it has been
with Confucius. Neo-Confucian versions of his writings have parallels with
Western metaphysics. They talk about dispassionate inquiry which does not
seem to have been there in earlier Confucian writings. Neo-Confucianism
shows a sensitivity to the wonders of the world. The sun and the stars as
well as the trees and the mountains move one to philosophical reflection, if
not to scientific analysis. Confucius is reported to have said: "Nature is
vast, deep, high, intelligent, infinite, and eternal. The heaven appearing
before us is only this bright, shining mass. But in its immeasurable extent,
the sun, the moon, the stars and constellations are suspended, and all
things are embraced under it. The earth, appearing before us, is but a
handful of soil. But in its breadth and depth, it sustains mighty mountains
without feeling their weight. Rivers and seas dash against it without
causing it to leak. The mountain appearing before us is only a mass of rock.
But in all the vastness of its size, grass and vegetation grow upon it,
birds and beasts dwell on it, and treasures of precious minerals are found
in it. The water appearing before us is but a spoonful of liquid. But in all
its unfathomable depths the largest crustaceans, dragons, fish, and turtles
are produced in them, and all useful products around them.
Meaningful reflections rather than logical explanations: this is what
distinguishes philosophy from science. Explanation without reflection would
be meaningless. Reflection without explanation would be fruitless. Hence the
importance of both philosophy and science in the human quest.
During the ups and downs of dynastic upheavals, Confucianism was eclipsed
now and then. Competing world views encroached upon his teachings sometimes.
In the long run, like sturdy grass on plush lawn, Confucianism survived.
Hundreds of commentators, lay and learned, have written on what the Master
taught. Confucian philosophy is entirely human, never dabble in murky
metaphysics. It expresses in simple terms some basic truths. Eventually,
Confucius suffered the fate of other thinkers who spoke insightfully on Man:
He was deified by the devout, even came to be worshipped in temples.
FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
Matter, we all know, is made up of molecules, and molecules are made up of
atoms. Atoms are made up of a central core and orbiting electrons.
The central core of atoms is called the nucleus. The atomic nucleus is known
to consist of positively charged entities called protons, and neutral ones
called neutrons.
Careful experiments show that these constituents of the nucleus (generally
called nucleons) are tightly bound together. What this means is that they
cannot be easily separated from one another. They are, as it were, tightly
glued together. Physicists describe this by saying that they are bound
together by a very strong mutual force or interaction. The existence for
such a string nuclear force was discovered in the 1930s.
This was a significant discovery. Up until then physicists had known of only
two other universal forces: gravitation and electromagnetism, and there were
clues of a third one called the weak force
In the conceptual framework of quantum mechanics (quantum field theory, to
be more exact), the interaction between electric charges involves the
exchange of electro-magnetic energy bundles: these are the so-called
photons. We say that photons are the field particles of the electromagnetic
field.
Now it occurred to a young theoretical physicist of the time that the strong
interaction must also involve a similar exchange of particles between the
nucleons. The name of this young physicist was Hideki Yukawa (born: 23
January 1907).
Yukawa (as per a Japanese convention Yukawa's name is from his mother's
family) set out to explore the nature of such an exchange particle. He
probed into this on the basis of all the known properties of the strong
force, such as had been unraveled by experimental physicists. He could
roughly estimate, for example, what should be the basses of such particles,
what kind of electric charges they would carry, what spin property they
should have, etc. Since they estimated mass was somewhat between the mass of
the electron and that of the proton, these Yukawa-particles (as they were
once referred to) came to be called mesons.
Such particles were experimentally discovered in cosmic rays in 1936, so
there was great excitement. However, those particles had properties which
are quite different from what Yukawa's theory had predicted. Eventually it
was realized that the Yukawa particles, now called pions (or pi mesons)
quickly become (decay into) another type of particles (called muons) which
is what one actually observed in cosmic rays.
In the current framework of physics, there are four fundamental interactions
at our level: the gravitational, the electromagnetic, the weak, and the
strong: each characterized by its one field particles. The field particle of
the nuclear strong force, namely the pion of Yukawa, is itself made up of a
quark and an anti-quark.
Yukawa received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1949 for this work which is
at the basis of the quantum field theory for the strong interaction. He was
the second Asian physicist to receive this honor; C. V. Raman was the first
(1930).
Yukawa founded a prestigious international journal in Japan, called Progress
of Theoretical Physics. He also became the first director of the Research
Institute for Fundamental Physics in Kyoto.
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