FROM THE WORLD OF RELIGION

Jainism is one of the very ancient religions of the human family. It is unique in having both mythical and historical founders. They are collectively referred to as thirthankaras. The 24th and last of these was Vardhamana Mahavira (6th century B.C.E.). The Jaina world celebrates today (25 April 2002) the memory of Mahavira. He is deserving of our homage because he was among those who inspired humanity to lofty ideals. The two most important elements of his preaching were peace and ahimsa.

Peace is not simply an interlude between wars, not the silence of guns and the furlough of soldiers. Rather, peace is harmony and understanding among nations, the striving of peoples to assist and enrich one another for the betterment of one and all.

The ethical tenets of Jainism are eminently conducive to that state. They include non-possession of excessive material goods and elimination of greed. It is extended it to international relations. It is an injunction against one nation or group of people taking over what belongs to another group or na-tion. This Jain principle is simple in its statement, but profound in its consequences for the avoidance of wars.

However, the elimination of economic factors is not enough for peace. Even if one were satisfied with what one has, and has no desire to take over what belongs to someone else, other factors lead to unpleasant confrontations. For example, one group might main-tain that a particular economic or political system is far better than another, or that one set of religious beliefs and values is the right one, and others are not.

Jain philosophers recognized this fundamental difficulty and came up with an insight that has far-reaching implications in epistemology, and could have enormous positive impact on humanity's quest for peace. The solution they offered was the famous asti-nasti-vada, by which a particular perception of truth is correct and yet is not so. What is meant by this paradoxical statement is that any contention of truth can only be from the point of view of a reference system. Whether you sympathize with the Israeli or the Palestinian cause, with the Irish Catholics or the Irish Protes-tants, with the Indian Hindu or the Pakistani Moslem position, will be largely conditioned by the group to which you belong and the particular experiences which cir-cumstances in life have put you through. The question then is not so much who is right and who is wrong, as the position from which you are look-ing at a given problem. The recognition of this could lead to some understanding and compromise in very difficult confrontations.

A natural extension is that there is not just one ultimate truth, but a great many. Or, to use the classical phrase, ekanta-vada, the thesis that there is but one unshaka-ble truth, is narrow and short-sighted. In fact, anekanta-vada (not-One doctrine) would be a better principle to hold. This is a key concept in Jain thought and is worth considering.

Then there is the prin-ciple of ahimsa: non-injury. It is a conscious refusal to cause harm to another human being under any circumstance. Jain thinkers extended this to all life forms: to animals and birds, even to in-sects. This led to vegetarianism as a life style in India. Practically all re-ligions speak of love and kindness, of duty and responsibility. But Jainism is unique in recognizing the value, indeed the sanctity of all life forms. "If anything is sacred," said Walt Whitman, "the human body is sa-cred." "If anything is sacred," said Mahavira, "life is sacred.". It is natural to care for one's family, then for one's community and nation. To care for all of humanity is the next higher stage. But to care for all life forms takes to an even higher level. For this vision alone Mahavira merits our reverence.

FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

If we see the surface of our hand through a glass that magnifies it several trillion times, we will observe countless atomic nuclei and electrons separated by vast emptiness, for each atom is like the sun with its solar system. The surface of the hand would be like millions of solar systems. So will the surface of a table be. Now if we press the hand on the table, with all the emptiness around, one surface should pass right through the other. This, of course, does not happen, or else who can stand on the floor or sit on a chair? The reason is that there is a basic rule stipulating how many electrons can be in an atomic system. An atom will not allow another atom with electrons to penetrate into its territory. This is a crude description of a very sophisticated principle first formulated in 1924 by Wolfgang Pauli (born: 25 April 1900).

Pauli was a towering figure in the world of physics from the 1920s to the late 1950s when he died. In intellectual brilliance, keenness of grasping a problem in physics, and sharpness of wit (sometimes acerbic) he had no equal in the world of physicists where, for the most part, only the brightest interact, often in merciless mutual criticism.

At 20, Pauli wrote a classic exposition of Einstein's Relativity. At 24, he incorporated the idea of the electron spin into the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, and propounded the famous principle bearing his name, which stipulates the permissible configurations of electrons within atoms. This is the microcosmic equivalent of one occupant per seat (on our scale), for certain types of particles (the so-called fermions). But it has enormous significance and implications for cosmic construction.

In the early thirties, when physicists were puzzled by the apparent violation of energy conservation in what is called beta-decay, Pauli offered a solution: There was probably an as yet undetected extremely minute neutral (no electric charge) particle accompanying the electrons ejected from nuclei in radioactivity. The Italian physicist Fermi, noticing that this was like a bambino of a neutron, dubbed it neutrino. Almost 25 years later, neutrinos were detected with elaborate experimental set-ups. They are known to emerge in the core of stars, and they play fundamental roles in astrophysical processes. They pervade the universe. Their existence was first detected in Pauli's mind! This could be regarded as revelation in the realm of science. Pauli made important contributions to such esoteric fields as quantum electrodynamics, renormalization, and parity non-conservation.

Pauli was a formidable theoretical physicist, but not as good an experimentalist. Things broke down more than once when he was in a lab. This led physicists to joke about the so-called Pauli effect: Mishaps are bound to happen in a lab into which Pauli set foot. He was not a great lecturer. He would mumble and write illegibly on the black board.

Pauli was dreaded by many physicists because he would see through errors all too quickly and was all too eager to point them out in public. Once he disposed of a physicist with the terse comment, "Your theory is not even wrong!" On another occasion, a good physicist confronted him and asked, "Professor Pauli, how come your scientific papers are so good, but as a person you are so terrible?" Pauli replied: "How come in your case, it is just the opposite?" Other such legends have grown around this first-rate Pauli who was regarded as an enfant terrible among physicists.

He was, in the phrase of Victor Weisskopf, the conscience of theoretical physics, because for him the logic and coherence of science were of primary importance.

V. V. Raman

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Published   2002.04.25