Mayank Chhaya Daily

Humans as quantum particles forever in superposition until measured

Treating humans as quantum particles has been one of my longstanding favorite fantasies. I first began thinking about this in my late teens but did not quite develop it beyond just an idea. Decades later it still remains an idea with some flesh around it. I wrote a piece on November 25, 2016, which I am republishing it today. 

November 25, 2016

For as long as I remember I have considered humans as quantum particles in relation to the universe. Just consider this one fact. If the sun was hollow, it could fit 1.3 million earths inside. Now imagine an average human’s size in relation to earth within those 1.3 million earths inside the sun which is but a mediocre star as stars in our Milky Way galaxy go. You begin to get some measure of how minuscule an average human is. We are quantum particles in relation to our own galaxy, let alone our galactic neighborhood and eventually the entire universe.

Having established that scale, now on to a theory I have long nurtured. If humans are quantum particles, they ought to display quantum characteristics, a fundamental one of which is quantum superposition. We all live in the human version of quantum superposition. I define human superposition as living in all possible emotional or unemotional states at all times until such time as an external stimulation triggers a response. Then we assume a specific state the way quantum particles do.

When we are measured (interacted with) in a manner of speaking, we reveal a specifically identifiable state which collapses into superposition as soon as that act of measurement or interaction stops. Until such time as I am interacting with a particular individual I can never tell what state that person is in. That means the person is in all possible states, including dead, without my interacting (measuring) them. It is only when specific information related to that specific person is accessed by an act of measurement or interaction, do we get to access one particular state. The idea that from one’s extremely limited knowledge, the rest of the universe is a mere speculation can be an unsettling one.

In a strange way I am reminded of my theory when someone famous or accomplished passes away; someone whose existence I was not aware of to begin with. It is only because I came to measure or interact or to be revealed to of that person’s death, do I know that that person existed. I say famous or accomplished because those deaths are publicly reported. Millions of people die every year whose lives or deaths we are not aware of and hence their existence remains speculative for us for all practical purposes.

Coming back to my idea of human superposition, once you apply that theory to humans you can explain a lot of what goes on in the world. Some human particles jiggle much more than the others and therefore reveal their existence more assertively. Most lead an existence of low energy and therefore tend to fade away without making much impact beyond their immediate neighborhood.

There is some comfort—at least for me—in thinking of ourselves as quantum particles in relation to the universe. In some sense, the state of being human quantum particles liberates oneself from being tethered to value judgment. If I reveal something of my existence or a particular state, it is only because someone, somewhere measured it.

I must clarify I use measure not in a literal sense of measuring something the way physicists measure the quantum world but as an act of human interaction.

As useful ideas go, what I have just written about is rather useless in so much as it affects one’s daily life. On the other hand though, the moment you look at fellow human beings as fellow quantum particles forever in all possible states they can be until such time they are measured, life becomes easier.

Reflected glories

For a fleeting few seconds at the sunrise the windows of the building to the west of mine reflect the striking mauve glow on things on my coffee table. This picture was taken about ten minutes ago in the resplendent sunlight.

Speaking of light, it is not the purpose of the Sun to create light. Light is just an incidental product of all that goes on at its core where hydrogen is being converted into helium via nuclear fusion.

This constant conversion of hydrogen to helium under a temperature of 15 million Kelvins a pressure 200 billion times what there is on Earth's surface releases a great deal of energy, including light. This energy in the form of light bounces around the Sun's core for a very long time--likely between 10,000 years and 170,000 years. What I saw this morning or see any morning could have been generated any time during that time frame. Add to that eight minutes it takes to travel from its surface to us. The point is the Sun is not creating its light for you and I. It is a byproduct of its thermonuclear fusion.

You may find it weird but these are always the thoughts when I see the Sun every morning. A particular photon that hit my face was created at the very least 10,000 years before I was born. The least I could do is to acknowledge its harrowing journey from the Sun's core to me on any given morning. Not doing it makes me feels ingrate.

On a tangent Buddh's profound idea about Kshanika or momentariness, which holds that everything in the universe is from moment to moment to moment and what lies between those moments is emptiness, came to my mind while taking this picture. Photons are moments to moments to moments that to us seem seamlessly stitched. Think about that.

Life and its silly joys

All my life I have looked for silly joys and found them. This morning was no exception. While on my daily walk, after I crossed a street on a somewhat blustery morning, I noticed a soda can on the other side. It was revving up courtesy of the breeze and soon enough it started rolling towards my side of the street.

Roads have minor inclines on either side so as to help rain water flow down towards the drains. What it meant was that the can had gather enough pace to go up that incline up to the middle of the road. Fortunately for it, there was enough propellent provided by the breeze. As soon as I noticed the can rolling up, I stopped to see how far it would manage. Going by the intensity of the breeze, it was clear that the can will cross the street rather easily. Then I started rooting for it as if it were an athlete. The only potential obstacle would have been a passing vehicle which may have crushed it. Being early morning there was no car on the road. 

In about 40 seconds or so the soda can rolled across the street and came to a stop on the curbside where I was standing. I actually smiled and applauded as if the can was sentient. Playing in my earphones was, by some coincidence, "Wahan kaun hai tera musafir jayega kahan" (वहाँ कौन है तेरा, मुसाफिर, जायेगा कहाँ ) from the movie 'Guide' (1965) written by Shailendra, sung and composed by Sachin Dev Burman. 

If the can were a traveler, it had found its destination.; not that it was looking for one. 

People tend not to look for silly joys in life. I do and would argue that they make life worth living. 

In this age of filming everything, I chose not to make a phone video. Call it my selfish little joy because there will never be another person who also watched it.

Hans Bethe and marveling at the Sun every morning

Hans Bethe (Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.)

I tend to say either "Hi" or "What's burning you up?" to the Sun on my morning walk. It is, of course, a rhetorical question. It is not an attempt to anthromorphize the Sun. That would be silly.

Speaking of what is burning up the Sun, Hans Bethe. The great German American physicist revealed how the Sun is like a giant nuclear reactor that produces light and heat directly responsible for life on Earth. Hence me and my morning walks and my rhetorical greetings to the Sun.

It was in 1938/39 that Bethe wrote two papers showing how stars use two kinds of nuclear reactions to power themselves up. One is where stars up to and including the size of the Sun squeeze four hydrogen nuclei together to form one helium nucleus. That produces energy. The other that is  is applicable to stars bigger than Sun where temperatures and pressures are more extreme. In those cases too hydrogen is transformed into helium "but this involves a more complex cycle of nuclear reactions in which carbon acts as a catalyst", as explained the description that accompanied Bethe's 1967 Nobel Prize.

It is because of these nuclear reactions that the Sun and other stars are able to shine for billions of years. It has been my decades-long observation that most humans do not reflect on deeper realities such as the fact that we and everything else in our solar system exists because of the Sun. And within the Sun everything emanates at such elemental levels before mind boggling processes over billions of years lead to a complex life form like us. It is depressing that so much is invested in creating often something so subpar as we find across the world among humans. 

It is such an astounding ability to focus one's mind on something so elemental as hydrogen and helium in the Sun the way Bethe did. Equally though the credit also goes to the British astronomer Arthur Eddington. As the Nobel Prize website explains, "Bethe’s breakthrough work stems from the British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington’s hypothesis in the 1920s that the intense temperatures and pressures within the Sun can force the nuclei of atoms to fuse and create heavier atoms, releasing a tremendous amount of energy in the process. Drawing upon his series of articles that provided a comprehensive account of the central components of atoms and the manner in which these atomic nuclei interact with each other, Bethe applied this knowledge to understanding the stars."

So next time you happen to catch a glimpse of the Sun, remember this. 

 

Of tired light and the universe

While reading up a bit in preparation for my interview later today with Ottawa University Professor Rajendra Gupta about the doubling of the age of the universe as part of his latest paper, I was yet again fascinated by the "tired light" hypothesis. Although the hypothesis was first proposed by the Swiss astronomer  Fritz Zwicky in 1929 and has over the decades met with great skepticism in the physics community, Prof. Gupta has revived it to explain some profound anomalies in the universe as detected by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

One of the anomalies is that the JWST discovered galaxies that were fully formed barely 300 million years after the universe itself was form 13.797 billion years. They seem as mature as billion-year-old galaxies. That blew physicists' minds because how could it be that a universe that young could produce galaxies that mature. Think a fully grown adult being born after just three months.

Dr. Gupta's paper speaks of tired light in an expanding universe. Tired light essentially means that the red shift attributed to the expansion of the universe is because light losing energy as it navigates massive cosmic distances replete with gas, energy and dust. So literally, light gets tired. That fascinating idea promoted these verses just now. 

इतनी दूर बसतीं हैं बस्तियाँ सृष्टि में
के रौशनी चलते चलते थक जाती है

हम तक पहुँच तो जाती है लेकिन
ग़ुस्से में लाल सी पक जाती है

--मयंक छाया

If you were Ficus religiosa, I would be a Tinospora cordifolia garland around you

On my walk this morning I was playing songs from 'Sujata', 1959, by Sachin Dev Burman and Majrooh Sultanpuri. As I came upon 'Sun mere bandhu re' and, particularly, the antara "होता तू पीपल मैं होती" I was instantly reminded of "जो मैं होती राजा, बेला चमेलिया" from 'Kala Pani', 1958 with the same composer-lyricist duo.

These are some observations about two particular antaras and how Hindi cinema lyricists of yore so evocatively wove in nature generally and images floral and arboreal into songs. These are the two antaras that I am talking about from 'Sujata' and 'Kala Pani'.

होता तू पीपल मैं होती

अमरलता तेरी

तेरे गले माला बन के

पड़ी मुस्काती

***

जो मैं होती राजा

बेला चमेलिया

लिपट रहती राजा

तोरे बँगले पर

--मजरूह सुल्तानपुरी

In both Majrooh has used the similes of climbing vines -- Amarlata or Tinospora cordifolia and Chameli (Jasmine) or Oleaceae-- to represent female love. In the Sujata song, the poet speaks of how she wishes she were Amarlata and her beau a Peepal tree or Ficus religiosa and how she would wrap around his neck as a garland. In the Kala Pani song, the same great Majrooh has the woman pining to be Jasmine climbing around her lover's bungalow. 

Both the imageries are wonderfully fragrant and achingly intimate without being suggestive and yet so erotic. I am sure poets the world over have drawn from Nature but I am not sure there is any parallel elsewhere outside India where song writers have so effortlessly incorporated such imageries so routinely as Hindi cinema lyricists. 

 

Frenzied poeting at the crack of dawn

Waking up at random times at night with fully formed verses is quite routine for me for as long as I remember. Usually such awakenings lead to either one full ghazal or a couple of random misras (verses). Last night turned out to be unprecedented in its frenzied poeting. (Poeting is not a word but I coined it some years ago.)

Five verses were born between 2.29 a.m. and 3.13 a.m. I can be so precise in my times because I recorded them on my phone. Those who may find it hard to believe this may request me for evidence. If I am in the mood, I might present it. If not, I might tell you to bugger off.

Four of the five verses have no particular relation to one another. The fifth one is a somewhat more imaginative version of the fourth.

I call these verses expressionist poetry as a takeoff on expressionist painting. Here are the quintuplet.

2.29 a.m.

टूटे सितारों से हुआ जहाँ रेज़ा रेज़ा
चलो वह आसमान रफ़ू किया जाए

***

2.55 a.m. 

मैं शून्य हूँ
कितना भी गुणा करो
शून्य ही रहूँगा

***

2.58 a.m.

भ्रमांड क्या है
शून्य में
प्रकाश का
अपार तरंग

***

3.11 a.m. 

चलो तुम्हारी ख़ुशबू को चारसू करें
तुम्हारी परछाइयों में अपनी जुस्तजू करें

***

3.13 a.m.

चलो तुम्हारी चन्दन सी ख़ुशबू को चारसू करें
तुम्हारी काली नाग से परछाई में अपने वजूद की जुस्तजू करें

--मयंक छाया

Here is to Shireesh Kanekar

Circa 1985-86 in Bombay (Photo by Palashranjan Bhaumick)

Me: “Hey Shireesh, are you dead yet?”

Shireesh, “I don’t think so but soon. And you?”

Me: “I don’t think so either but soon.”

Shireesh beat me to it today in Mumbai.

In a way, this opening greeting on my last phone call to Shireesh on July 12 sums up our relentlessly freewheeling friendship of close to 40 years. We spoke quite regularly and almost every conversation would start with what to a third person might sound like a random, disjointed memory without any context. However, for the two of us it was like picking up threads frayed over nearly four decades and weaving them back into charming nostalgia.

I am bursting with memories of our enduring friendship. There are too many to talk about here. Quite remarkably, more than 90 percent of them are uproariously hilarious and quintessentially of the Shireesh-Mayank dynamic. Let me just reminisce about two, both dating back to 1985-86 period.

Shireesh’s many friends and readers would know that he was a passionate admirer of Dilip Kumar’s. This little vignette is about the three of us. It was sometime in 1985 that I was conducting a phone interview with Dilip Kumar from our office on Nagindas Master Road in Fountain, Bombay. Since we had no air-conditioning, the window overlooking the road was open. Just as I was about to conclude my conversation, I saw Shireesh on the road on his way to the office.

I told Dilip Kumar, who knew Shireesh as an unbridled admirer, to hold on while I told Shireesh who was on the phone with me. I shouted from the window. Shireesh stopped in his tracks, literally in the middle of the road, struck a perfect Dilip Kumar pose and said, “Kaun kambakht hai jo bardash karne ke liye peeta hai….” It was the iconic line from the thespian’s masterful 1955 film ‘Devdas’.

I told Dilip Kumar what Shireesh did, and he guffawed and said, “Un ko kahiyega yun sadak ke beech khada rehna kafi khatarnak hair phir kyun na who mere liye ho. (Tell him it is hazaradous to stand in the middle of the road even if it is for me.)”

***

Both Shireesh and I had the reputation of being uninhibited and spontaneous. This bit is an instance of that and one of my all-time favorite memories.

Four years before John Keating (a superb Robin Williams) stood on top of his desk in ‘Dead Poets Society’ (1989) to tell his students not to conform and develop a different vantage point on life, there were us, Shireesh Kanekar and I.

On a whim one afternoon in 1985 I told Shireesh, “Why don’t we stand on this desk just for the heck of it?” Shireesh agreed instantly. I, of course, had a history of standing on my desk and chair for no identifiable reason well before this picture was taken by dear friend and terrific photographer Palashranjan Bhaumick.

To balance the sheer oddity of two adults (Shireesh was 42 and I was 24) standing on their desk in their office in the middle of a busy day at work, we had decided that we would make our pose look as purposeful as possible. From what I remember of the conversation prior to this particular shot we decided that while we would make it look as if standing on one’s desk was all in a day’s work for us, we would not make it look as if we were mocking the world. I think the picture does a fairly effective job of capturing that sentiment, thanks to Palash’s outstanding framing. The idea was not to say, “Look we are so cool that we stand on our desk” because we were, in fact, that cool.

There were others in the office of the Gujarat Samachar newspaper on Nagindas Master Road in Fort area of Bombay but I suppose they were used to our ways. We had set up a specialized English news service called Syndicated Press for the newspaper group with the eventual aim of starting a full-fledged wire service but that never happened. In retrospect, one could say that an aspiring wire service where the staffers stood on their desk rather than work at it did not have much future. It folded up in less than two years despite the fact that we had enlisted about 20 leading newspapers as our subscribers. Most of them just would not pay on time, if they paid at all.

If memory serves me right, just as we finished taking the picture and were about to dismount, the owner and editor of the newspaper, Shreyans Shah entered. Accustomed as he was to our quirks, he still looked rather stunned. So much so that he did not say a word then or ever after that.

***

On Shireesh’s passing, I feel cocooned in his warm memories, emerging from which what I most remember are a million laughs and guffaws and smiles.

Your eyes. What else is there in the world?

I am not an expert at pickup lines but "I love your eyes" is now such a trite pickup line or a conversation starter.

As a single man, who has permanently renounced romance, my interest in lovely romantic lines is entirely poetic. Speaking of poetic, Hindi cinema songs. If a Hindi cinema song gives me a couple of memorable lines, even one memorable line, I am happy. Those who know Hindi cinema songs would know that lyricists have produced some of the world's greatest romantic constructs. For instance, this morning while on my walk I was listening to songs from the 1969 movie 'Chirag' written by Majrooh Sultanpuri and composed by Madan Mohan. 

There is an enduring gem from that movie that goes, तेरी आँखों के सिवा दुनिया में रख्खा क्या है (Your eyes. What else is there in the world?") Now that is one heck of a romantic line unlike "I love your eyes." In that song Majrooh Sultanpuri produces a couple of lovely imageries. 

पलकों की गलियों में

चेहरे बहारों के हँसते हुए

है मेरे ख्वाबों के क्या क्या

नगर इनमें बसते हुए

My translation is serviceable because it does not do justice to the original thought.

In the fold of your eyelashes

Spring blossoms and smiles

So many varied places of my dreams 

Flourish in them

Admittedly, a bit overwrought but that's the point of the expression of this particular kind of romance. Sultanpuri, a preeminent lyricist and poet, then wraps up the thought with these lines.

येह उठे सुबह चले

येह झुके शाम ढले

मेरा जीना, मेरा मरना

इन्हीं पलकों के तले

As they rise, dawn rises

As they lower, dusk falls

My life and death

Are under those lashes

For me the most memorable lines here are the opening one-- तेरी आँखों के सिवा दुनिया में रख्खा क्या है (Your eyes. What else is there in the world?") and है मेरे ख्वाबों के क्या क्या नगर इनमें बसते हुए (So many varied places of my dreams flourish in them). If if in three and a half minute song a lyricist can produce a couple of memorable lines, it is a great ratio.

Sultanpuri and most of his contemporary lyricists/poets routinely produced enduring lines effortlessly like an assembly line. I have said this many times before and do not mind saying it again. Hindi cinema songs and the astonishing range of human emotions and situations/conditions they capture have no peers in the world. 

 

 

Some observations about Djokovic versus Alcaraz

Carlos Alcaraz with the Wimbledon cup (Photo: www.wimbledon.com)

I do not say this with the advantage of hindsight. I was saying it throughout Sunday's grinding five-setter at Wimbledon, pitching an icon in the making against an icon crumbling. Despite some characteristically brilliant tennis, Novak Djokovic appeared to be fighting himself throughout the nearly five hours of the clash of wills.

There were several moments when Djokovic looked defeated on his face if not in his game. Sometimes it appeared as if while his arms and legs were playing some exceptional tennis purely from muscle memory, his mind seemed to have stepped back. 

The 20-year-old Carlos Alcaraz had all the nervy energy and swag of a 20-year-old despite being efficiently slaughtered in the first set by a tennis great 16 years his senior. Even in the second set things seemed to be going well for Djokovic. He was up 3-0 and it appeared that he might wrap it all up in a clean three-set win. However, Alcaraz surprised and frustrated him by winning the second set 7-6.  His backhand that won the set was pure tennis artistry. 

The third set was what turned out to be the longest game in the history of the game with 13 deuces. The draining 32-point, 25-minute back and forth in that set could have been a final by itself. That too Alcaraz won 6-1, figures which do not do justice to Djokovic's sheer staying power. It might be useful to bear in mind that Alcaraz was serving at 130 mph plus with forehands at 100 mph. 

Ideally, I should not have been invested in either of them from an emotional or a sentimental standpoint. One is a Serbian and the other Spaniard. I am an Indian American in Naperville. Geographical affinities had no role to play. The only affinity that I always exercise is who is playing better--Djokovic or Alcaraz. That said, I was rooting for Djokovic even though Alcaraz was clearly outperforming him. For reasons, which I cannot explain because they are not clear to me I very much wanted Djokovic to win just for the sake of it. While his loss here would not in any way diminish the greatness that he has already attained in the sport, a win here would have enlarged his halo. 

It is undeniable that we witnessed the rise of a possible new superstar in Alcaraz but greatness, unlike stardom, is about the ability to sustain excellence over a long period of time. By that measure, the true comparison between Alcaraz and Djokovic would be when the former turns 36 and has a matching or a better record to show for himself. For now, Alcaraz is on a trajectory towards likely greatness. 

After seven titles, five of which in a row, at Center Court Djokovic does not have anything left to prove. Yesterday's match was merely to play atop that glorious legacy but unfortunately his mind did not seem to be where his arms and legs were. It is possible that we witnessed the rise of a new superstar in Alcaraz's spectacular victory but, like I said, greatness, unlike stardom, is about the ability to sustain excellence over a long period of time.