Playing Dice With God!

Playing Dice With God!

Most of us would be familiar with the Matrix trilogy which brought us face to face with virtual reality. While watching the movie, often one doesn’t know whether Keanu Reeves is in “reality” or in the Matrix. The whole concept of “reality” is made to stand on its head so to say with what is firmly “known” to you as reality turns out to be just some computer simulation.  So once the movie ends, we heave a sigh of relief as the adrenalin level in our blood stream returns to normalcy, get back to the “reality” of the familiar world in which we have been living. But is the “reality” we perceive the “actual reality” ?

Stephen Hawking has conjectured that though our Universe has sprung into existence through a random event like the Big Bang, such an event may very well have occurred in someone’s basement lab. Those in our Universe that is creatures like ourselves, will have absolutely no way of knowing if that was the way our Universe has been created. Or is there?

There just may be a way to find get a glimpse of an answer to this but sure enough the answer could be beyond our wildest conjectures.  Dr Sylvester James Gates Jr, Professor at University of Maryland, in a lecture indicated that when the physicists were working on the supersymmetry of the String theory, they discovered that there was a computer code embedded in the equations, similar to what is found in search engines that run browsers. He has reiterated that what they have found did not just “look like a computer code” but was a computer code of a specific type, error correction code which ensures that the errors that could otherwise occur during transmission are automatically rectified. Theory for such codes was worked out in 1940s by Claude  Shannon who is widely acclaimed as the father of information technology. Prof George Smoot of University of California, Berkeley, astrophysicist, cosmologist and winner of Nobel prize for Physics in 2006 and many other distinguished physicists have also reiterated the possibility that we may indeed be a computer simulation. Some believe that we are just holographic projections, 3D projections created by some 4D creatures. Reminds one of strong belief held in Vedic tradition that the whole world is a maaya that is just an illusion. The boundaries between physics and metaphysics seem to get more and more blurred every day.  

Very few people will have the wherewithal to confirm or negate the theories proposed by these worthy scientists, I am certainly not one of them, so I have provided the links on youtube and you should check these out yourself and form your own opinion.  

The implications are mind-boggling. We, meaning the entire Universe around us has been “created” by someone through a computer program??? Maybe some creature, in another  Universe, working in his laboratory, not unlike Large Hadron Collider at CERN, created this Universe of ours???? Let there be a Big Bang said this “God” and that was that??? However, once he is done with the creation part, this “God” would have no way to communicate with the Universe created by him, at least not by any means understood by us and certainly he would not have been able to create “man” in his image. I am assuming that “man” is a result of a long sequence of random events in the history of Universe spanning 13.7 billion years. I am sure no program could take care of all the eventualities to throw up homo sapiens on the third rock revolving  around a mid-sized star in one of the 100 billion galaxies in the Universe.

As Prof Alan Guth of MIT feels that maybe one day we will also be able to replicate such “experiment” to create a big bang on our own and part of energy poured into LHC will vanish without a trace, leaving us with another universe. And how much mass will be required to kick-start such a universe? Take a guess! Prof Guth feels one gram should be sufficient !!!!! Of course the conditions need to be right.

Such a universe would get pinched off from our universe at the moment of creation and we will have no more contact with it. Each universe will exist in a separate space-time. Maybe by that time CERN scientists would have figured a way to write error-correcting codes in the big-bang program so that a few billion years down the line, in the newly created universe, a set of scientists will start wondering if they were living in a computer simulation.   

Einstein could never come to terms with the probabilistic nature of quantum physics and firmly believed that God doesn’t play dice. Now that we know that God does indeed play dice, maybe we can join Him at the table one day!   

 

 LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zDz5BrngxQ Prof Sylvester James Gates,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chfoo9NBEow   Prof George Smoot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZtRfACbygY  Prof Alan Guth

Indian Perfidious League

Indian Perfidious League

Justice Mudgal committee which was appointed to investigate the alleged irregularities in the conduct of IPL had delivered a scathing indictment of the people who ran the subsidiary of BCCI as their private fiefdom. Not that BCCI itself is not a private fiefdom. But we will come to that in a while.

An interesting point to note is “mudgal” in Sanskrit stands for a blunt instrument which is used (not unlike a mace) to clobber the opponents in a close hand-to-hand combat. Justice Mudgal was true to his name. He has been refreshingly blunt and seems to have successfully clobbered the wrong-doers.

When the Mudgal report came out, the genuine cricket lovers feared the worst; one could sense that all sorts of interested parties would be working overtime to dilute the report’s findings if not scuttle it completely. Thankfully the Indian judiciary at the highest level is made of sterner stuff and Chief Justice R M Lodha backed the Mudgal committee findings to deliver a Richter-10 judgement.    

Right from Day1 have the powers in charge of BCCI (and IPL) tried to bend and twist rules to suit  themselves, starting from allowing  N Srinivasan to be an office bearer and a team owner. With teams being owned by film stars and industrialists, the culture which evolved was more like a circus or an outing at a film premiere. The format was also attractive to big betting syndicates and what followed was a situation which was dying to happen. Big boys were playing for crores tempting some small players with loose change. Players who had not imagined in their wildest dreams that they will ever strike it so big in their life, must have been easy prey in the spot-fixing game; S. Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan, Ajit Chandila. And this must be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I don’t think the full story will ever see the light of the day. 

What Justice Lodha has done is to shred the veil behind  which BCCI has been hiding all its affairs till now claiming that no one had a right to question it as it is a private body. It is high time that a public passion like cricket is regulated. All other sports bodies are governed by Sports Councils reporting to the Ministry (not that this has helped other sports much, but maybe cricket with its huge fan-following may have a different future).

Our hearts must go out to Rahul Dravid who has meticulously built up the Rajasthan Royals team, leading them from front earlier and now mentoring the team successfully.  But what can the shop floor manager do if the Directors engage in some nefarious perfidious activities? The players and the support staff of CSK and RR are in for a tough time; the better ones among them will surely find a place in other teams. It is like a company closing down due to recession. The assembly line workers and supervisors may not be at fault, it is just their bad luck that they were with a wrong company and not with any of its competitors who have managed to retain or improve their market share. Luck of the draw, I guess. 

Quite a few things remain to be done. First and foremost is to ensure that LaMo is brought back and subjected to a detailed scrutiny. You can expect more skeletons tumbling out for sure. Let this be a cathartic moment for Indian cricket.  Indian cricket has forever been “managed” by politicians. We can see the unholy nexus operational across the party lines ensuring a “fair share” for all (witness the amicable manner in which BJP and NCP worked together in recent MCA elections). Is there a way by which we can return cricket to democracy by ensuring that cricketers replace the doddering old politicos, who may not be able to differentiate between a googly and a chinaman, in running the game? Or is it too much to expect? 

I am not too much worried about the loss that IPL / BCCI will have to bear if the number of teams gets reduced to 6. Their coffers are reportedly overflowing with various taxes they have been refusing to pay under some pretext or other. The broadcasters and others, if they have failed to build in safeguards in their contracts, may end up losing some money, so be it. They will have to learn from their mistakes.  The team owners are in the game because of the potential profits and not for the love of the game, a business decision for them. So if there is a downturn in business, they should either sell out or bide their time for acche din to return.

Anyway, I am putting in my bid for CSK franchise. The franchise changed hands at Rs 5 Lakhs some time back. Since subsequently it has seen substantial erosion in its brand-value, I think Re 1 would be good valuation. If you agree, please support me in my bid. I can offer my readers life-long free passes for all CSK games if my bid is accepted (valid from IPL 11 onwards)

And somewhere in the DosaLand, the Super King of Indian Perfidious League, the Neversaydie Sourface was contemplating his situation. To his chagrin, he had discovered that even kings have a higher authority to answer to. His empire seemed to be in ruins. His General Manager, who was running the affairs of his kingdom, had been summarily exiled and there were rumours that even the Super King may face a revolt.  The Baron from the western part of VadaPaavLand who had recently won back his baronetcy in the IslandCity* had already made his intentions clear. Dukes from SweetLand and OrangeLand whom the King had ridden roughshod over past few years seem ready to seize this opportunity and march against the King. Another erstwhile Duke who was in a self-imposed exile in FishnChipsLand was carrying out a sustained guerilla warfare against him.

“Thank God” the Super King thought, he had taken proper steps to safeguard his interests. He had already diversified in the international market and maybe if not the local part of his kingdom, he would be able to safeguard his overseas interests.

His throne seemed to be coming off joints. He had desperately tried to cement this piece of furniture, but nowadays with cement mixed with so much of fly-ash he was not sure that cement alone would be enough. He needed to ensure that he could not get dislodged from his throne at any cost. Things indeed looked very grim. But not for nothing was Neversaydie named Neversaydie. He decided that he needed his neversaydieship more at this juncture than any other stage in his life. The throne may have become rickety, all he needed to do was to ensure that he maintains physical contact with the seat on his throne.  He picked up his phone and told his secretary “Thambi, ek container Fevicol order karo, jaldi”.

LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

19^th July 2015

* For an exhilarating account of the travails of the Baron, please read Major Crisis Averted in this blog.

Disclaimer : The above article does not refer to any real person living or dead (unless named specifically) and readers are free to draw any parallels or establish resemblances between the characters in this article and real person/s living or dead based on their imagination.  Nor is this piece an advertisement of any brand or product and users may use their own judgment in employing the products /  brands under question especially when you want to ensure that no one takes your kursi away.  

SW19

SW19

And for a fortnight packed with happenings both on and off field, a few stray thoughts and a few general observations and a few points of view (some of it my own work and some as reported by media)

Like the biggest story this week has to be the judgement passed by Chief  Justice Lodha. But before we get into unsavory off-field deeds, let’s devote some time to the on-field activities which have seen some superlative performances in the past few days.

Top of the heap among on-field activities has to be the happenings on grass-courts of SW19. The weather gods were in a good mood throughout the Wimbledon fortnight and the quality of tennis was excellent to say the least. Simultaneously we also saw an all-round performance by England to beat the Aussies at Cardiff to kick-start their Ashes campaign. This surfeit of good matches meant one had to keep on switching the channels to get the best of action on both the channels. Thank God the Cardiff test got over in four days, otherwise it would have been a torture deciding between Novak V/s Roger and Poms v/s Kangaroos on the fifth day.

Roger Federer made a determined bid for his eighth Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Single crown and it took Novak Djokovic all his game to subdue him.  Federer’s game shows no effect of the passage of time and his backhand cross-court swishes still remain better than the two-handed backhand strokes popularized by Jimmy Connors.

Men’s section remains as competitive as ever and forget the Calendar-year Grand Slam, Career Grand Slams are also becoming a rarity; watching Novak’s reactions at Roland Garros after  making his exit this year, probably he realizes that he is not going to have more than one or two chances to complete his suit. If he can’t manage to do that, he will have to be content with the company of such greats as Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors, Stefan Edberg and his own coach Boris Becker, all of whom missed the French connection.

Ladies section, though, is still dominated by Serena Williams who came through without breaking too much sweat. This year threw up Gabrine Muguruza (21 years) who is to be clearly marked as a potential champion of the future in spite of the gaggle of long-legged Russian and East European beauties swarming all over the circuit.

Surprise packet of the show however came from the Indian troupe with Sania winning the Ladies Doubles and Leader Paes winning the Mixed Doubles both in partnership with the Swiss Miss Martina Hingis. Never knew cheese and chocolate could go so well with biryani and machher jhol.  

Little known Sumit Nagal – born in India but now settled in Germany won the Boys’ Doubles  in partnership with Ly Hoang Nam (from Vietnam, where else?). I don’t know if that gives us Indians any bragging rights to add one more junior title to the five previous ones in a Grand Slam tournament (after  Ramanathan Krishnan, Ramesh Krishnan- twice and Leander Paes - twice).   

Leander class cruisers of WWII vintage have all been phased out the world over, but aamader Leander continues his class act and the way he is still playing at the age of 42, I am sure that if there was a Veterans trophy at a Grand Slam event, he will walk away with it hands down.

LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

15^th July 2015

Greece Requires Not Euclid But Archimedes!

Greece Requires Not Euclid But Archimedes!

The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had a problem on his hands. His Finance Minister had resigned. Alexis would surely have liked his Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to stay back and negotiate the deal with ECB. As an economist of international standing, Varoufakis would have been the best guy to talk to Brussels and structure a workable deal. But then the bankers and economists, rarely do the twain meet.

The simple “NO” recorded in the referendum by the Greeks was easy to understand; after all who wants to pay the bills when rich Germans and not-so-rich-but-freespending French were there to take care of them? Still as a Prime Minister Alexis wanted someone to hold the bag for him and he had a brainwave. Why? He had the very man for this crisis whose name alone would give comfort to everyone. Enter Euclid Tsakalotos. Alexis strongly believes that this Euclid could draw out a solution to the Greek crisis with geometric precision that his namesake had made his specialty a long time ago. Euclid’s solution, Alexis felt, would encompass all the problems that Greece faces. It would be a plain and simple solution.

Of course there would have to be some give and take. ECB would give and Greece would take. Euclid, Alexis was sure, would be able to draw circles around the ECB and get the necessary concessions from them.  After all, if ECB has already sunk Euro 160 billion into Greece, why should it demur from coughing up another 80 billion.  Alexis was confident that ECB will ensure that integrity of Eurozone was not breached even if the members showed no interest in maintaining theirs.  It seemed to be a no-brainer that Greece would continue to enjoy the not-so-insubstantial benefits of membership.

Alas, that now, looks a distant possibility as Frau Merkel and Monsieur Hollande do not seem to be in a mood to accommodate Greece any longer. What Alexis and Greece need now is not Euclid with his planar solutions but some out-of-the-box thinking which is not possible in Euclidian universe. In Euclidian geometry the parallel lines never meet, but here in real life, the Maginot and the Siegfried lines seem to have merged into one solid one.  In the 3^rd century BC, Archimedes had the authentic “eureka moment” when he discovered the principle of buoyancy. With ECB declining to provide any “principal” to Greece, what Greece needs today is the Archimedes’ principle for staying afloat one way or the other without going bankrupt. As a first step shifting the seat of government from Athens to Sparta may be of immense help.

In the siege of Troy the Greeks used a “Trojan horse” to get inside the city. They used another trick this time to get into Eurozone by fudging their national data thanks to consultants like Goldman Sachs. Different times different tricks. The Greeks defeated and sacked Troy but the history does not always repeat itself. This time ECB seems to be tired of Greek track record and has had enough of the  horseplay. The odds are that Greeks who have steadfastly refused to rein in their extravagant spending, are most likely to be unsaddled by the stewards of ECB. And now will be the time that they embark on a long odyssey like their hero Odysseus (Ulysses) did after the Trojan War. Ulysses used the same old Archimedes’ principle to stay afloat somehow till he reached the safety of his hometown, Ithaca. Homer tells us Ulysses took ten long years to complete his odyssey. One will have to see how much time Greece requires to complete hers. It is interesting to note that the word “odysseus” itself means trouble in Greek language. 

My friend Guy Wise says it is one thing to be wary of Greeks who bear gifts but Greeks asking for gifts should definitely be shunned.    

   

LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

12^th July 2015

The Day Isaac Asimov Will Turn In His Grave

The Day Isaac Asimov Will Turn In His Grave

Generations of avid readers of science fiction, like this author, have grown up on the lore of Three Laws of Robotics defined by Isaac Asimov. To many of us these three laws are more familiar than the three postulated by the other Isaac.    

For the uninitiated, Asimov’s laws are reproduced below  :

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

It is easy to see that these “laws” are the ones coined by the human masters to ensure that robots do not ultimately usurp controls of our destiny.  Since the robots till now have been just about “barely intelligent”, Asimov’s laws were looked upon as a mere fancy of a SF writer. 

After Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, no one can deny that the computers have a huge computing power, far more and faster than the human brain, but our efforts to make them “human” have not succeeded as yet.

So it comes as a huge shock to read a report that a robot in Volkswagen manufacturing unit near Frankfurt killed a (human) worker. This was apparently not a typical “accident” on a factory floor where let’s say a worker gets caught in a moving part of a machine or gets crushed under another. The report does not name the parties involved but let’s call the killer robot VW5-K1 (on the lines of C-3PO & R2-D2 of Star Wars) and call the victim Karl (most Germans are). Now VW5-K1, who was always supposed to remain behind a metal screen, somehow came out in the open, caught hold of the 21-year old Karl and then proceeded to slam the poor guy on a metal plate, crushing him to death.     

VW5-K1 has apparently been quarantined and is being investigated to find out what triggered this lethal  behaviour worthy of a human being. Whether it was hacked and re-programmed by some co-worker who was jealous of attention Karl was getting from Claudia from the Paint-Shop or if VW5-K1 himself had taken a fancy to Claudia and decided to have it out with Karl or whether he didn’t like the off-key tunes that Karl would hum all the time, wonder if the Robot Resources Department at VW can ever figure out that one.

On a more serious note, one must question if we humans can really hope to control the “artificial intelligence”(AI) that we are now unleashing. It is not really difficult to imagine a time when the increasingly complex world will be run by super-super intelligent computers because human brains do not have enough brain-power, at that stage such computers will quite likely come to a conclusion that in order for the world to function properly, the human race should not be in charge of the Planet Earth.  Leading scientists and thinkers like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk of SpaceX have long expressed a view that we humans will not be able to control AI and, quite likely, this will lead to the end of the human race.   

Volkswagen may decide to put VW5-K1 to sleep permanently or disintegrate him totally;  but the chances are bright that “The Rise and Fall of Humans” recorded circa A.R. 75 (Anno Roboti) will give a pride of place to VW5-K1 as the First Martyr in the “Robotic War of Independence”.  I can well picture Isaac  Asimov turning in his grave at not too distant a date in future.     

   

LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

6^th July  2015