RAHUL SONI explores the endless traces of its presence and proliferation in the human experience of science and astrology.
Einstein- the man of the moment and his view on astrology
It is a time of great jubilation in our history; our leap is tremendous and should fill us with a sense of pride now that Einstein’s theory of “general relativity” has been vindicated with the discovery of gravitational waves which were elusive until Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project which underwent a long trial and series of upgrades to finally managed to furnish the evidence. Einstein, the hero of this moment wasn’t particularly bright at school, failed to get a teaching position at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich where his days a student weren’t that impressive either seemed a rather unlikely candidate to revolutionize the world of science. He not only carried Faraday’s mantle but became a giant on whose shoulders countless number of researchers have stood and have been able to illumine our understanding of the universe.
Einstein’s revered status in the world of science was exploited by some practitioners of astrology to further their agenda who began promulgating the notion that Einstein was not only a believer in astrology but was one of its advocates. Strong evidence against this notion can be found in his letter to Eugene Simon where he declares astrology to be nothing more than a pseudoscience.
Science in search for answers to the beginning of our universe
More than a decade ago Professor Hawking had delivered Albert Einstein Memorial Lecture for the Center for Philosophy and Foundation of Science in India where he took the opportunity to debunk astrology by pointedly stating: “The reason most scientists don’t believe in astrology is that it is not consistent with our theories which have tested by experiment.” While discussing “black holes” he had also admitted that some scientific theories were as good as astrology when it came to predicting the position and velocity of particles in space and time, and that Einstein was wrong on denying the existence of black holes.
Most scientists believed the universe to be infinite and ageless up until the middle of the 20th century; the scientific community swiftly repudiated its existing view and upheld Einstein’s theory of relativity which on its own is still inept in answering questions on the pivotal episode that precedes the Big Bang.
In the accepted format where galaxies are moving apart from one another, which means the universe is rather expanding and the acceleration is at full throttle, the discovery of black holes sounds like the very first sentence of George Orwell’s 1984 where all the clocks strike thirteen. One is forced to acknowledge the prescience in Orwell’s work in post-colonial subaltern studies as the case is with the contribution of Einstein’s equations in scientific pursuits.
LIGO and its ambitious tentacles in India
In a recent interview David Reitze, spokesman for LIGO said that there are plans to set-up a Gravitational wave detector in India; it’s surreal to picture this in a country that is yet to address basic issues of livelihood for most part of its population. India does need detectors but to keep a check on its polity and to raise the efficiency of its patrol on its North-west border. India happens to be a country inhabited by firm believers of astrology who chose the hour to mark its freedom on astrological calculations thanks to the arbitrary selection of its Independence day by Lord Mountbatten, and its leadership at the time were upset for not being able to choose a propitious time for its nation’s birth.
Black holes in India and the Vedas
Picture this if you will: Vishnu inside a black hole, a conjecture proposed by a blog which claims the Vedas possess all the details science is struggling to catch a glimpse of, is an adaptive, inclusive and rather flawed proposition in the eyes of science as no form could be contained according to the hypothesis proposed by scientists who incidentally have visited black holes in their mathematical vehicles. Incidentally a black hole visit precludes the possibility of return so you would be charged one way fare only, because you would need to travel not at but faster than the speed of light to escape the “event horizon” or the black sphere. But who needs to visit a black hole when you have it in abundance in a country like India where time passes slower for most Indians who don’t have a proper job to go to and seek employment in the unorganized sector which accounts for more than 90 percent of its population. Perhaps it’s simulation for these people who are destined to reach a black hole in their afterlife if an astrologer were to be believed in this matter.
What happens inside the core of a black hole is even more interesting and ironically throws sufficient light on the evils of the trickle-down theory of economics which pervades the zeitgeist and is embraced by most political leaders. The inner horizon or the central region of the black hole is believed contain nothing (just like the promise of benefit trickling down to those at the bottom in our world) except the space-time structure , where space and time fall inside it and are tossed around because it is space without substance, thereby causing this river of spacetime to race down like a waterfall, hits the rocks below but return upwards, meaning never reaching the promised destination.
Just as the black hole disrupts and contorts time and space, the black hole of the rich and powerful bends the rule of law, contorts justice and manipulates resources. The core of the black hole resembles the rich amongst the world population who happen to own 99 percent of the resources and happen to be 1 percent of the entire world population.
The poor and deprived of the world are sentenced eternally to the black hole of deprivation. Escaping this black hole of poverty and destitution sub-Saharan Africa and India which has a bigger black hole of malnutrition seems impossible without progress faster than the speed we are currently at.
Our government reports are like the black sphere which reflects nothing. The “singularity”, meaning the centre portion or the core of the black hole is not clearly understood at this point, however, it is proposed that all its mass is concentrated into a single point in space just like all the money in our country and in most parts of the world is collected in the vaults of the rich and powerful. The equation inside a black hole recommends zero to be the divisor but since the rich would fulfill that obligation on earth, we only wish the divisor status could be treated lower than zero.
What would rescue those sucked into the black hole of deprivation—Science or Astrology?
The consortiums of science and multinational corporations has forced the majority of this world down the event horizon, beyond the point of redemption and have left them no choice but look to religion and any promising prospect that would offer them that consequential ray of hope. To ridicule a believer in astrology is no difficult matter, who is already approaching asphyxiation at the hands of some corrupt astrologer who behaves like a black hole prefigured with a contraption designed to appropriate every penny of the gullible with his insatiable appetite for all things material, offering solutions that range from wearing gemstones to visiting far off pilgrim centers to appease rare deities you would have never heard of. The challenge worth pursuing is in the ability to curb the arrogance of one’s reasoning and recognizing the misfortune suffered by those with lesser cranial capacity. Those who pompously denigrate astrology should not forget that they have by association failed at eradicating poverty, disease and above all hunger despite all their inventions and intentions. I think a lot would be encapsulated in the capsule of destiny which at the moment is unreachable and unsolvable by science and its promulgators funded by Multinational corporations that behave no differently than the black hole and finally when the government and these business powers collide, the audible sound for those who bear the consequences of the tyranny is quite similar to the one we heard at LIGO whooops!
In closing both astrology and objective science do not have conclusive answers, both are blind beyond a point and offer at best a simulacrum of a black hole, hence both can be imagined as two black holes vehemently maintaining their position of importance, caught in each other’s force to form one huge black hole of despair in which we humans have no choice but to enter and experience our personal space and time being laid to waste.
