Near death Experience

(I never thought that I would write something like this traumatizing experience I have been through.but anyways I'll share it for good.)

It was fine Monday morning, as usual I felt a bit lazy to get myself ready to go office. Even the alarm clock set at 7.00 AM couldn’t wake me up. The weather was just so pleasant that the only thing that came to my mind was just to sleep. But with the help of my caring mom ,  I somehow was able to get ready by 9.00 AM.

Normally I go to office by two ways. One is by the famous “shared auto wallas” of Hyderabad ,which is most widely used by the public for fast and short distance travel apart from buses and second option I have is by my friend Prasad bike . I don't own any vehicle so far for very obvious reasons being the heavy traffic of Hyderabad which I hate a lot.   Prasad and I normally come to office on his bike. We have been doing this for more than year or so as he lives not far away from my home.  I always felt comfortable with the control my friend has on his bike when we are traveling at higher speeds. But all this was not enough for what lies ahead for both of us.

As usual I called him up , when I was near his home. He came to pick me in five minutes. There are two ways of reaching our office. One by the main road which is faster and convenient but takes longer time because of traffic. The other one is a short cut which takes less time to reach but we will have to go through a series of lanes to reach our office. I  don't know why but I have asked Prasad particularly on this very day that we shall go today in alternate short-cut route. But my friend told me that we will take the main road. Our fates were already sealed for that day.

The route via main road requires us to make a crossing to the other lane as we are on the other side of the road. We were traveling in the wrong lane keeping ourselves to the edge of road and making sure everybody hears us coming, by making loud horn sounds. As we reached for  opening in divider that would let us join the correct lane, we stopped and were looking for the gap in traffic that was racing towards us. After waiting for some time, we felt there was a gap in the traffic that would allow us to cross, but the nearest vehicle was some 50 metres away which was more than enough to cross the road. Prasad slowly accelerated towards the crossing. I just happen to notice a sports-bike ( Yamaha Make) which was far away from the nearest vehicle we saw initially, but racing at higher speeds may be more 90 kms. I thought for a second that Prasad might have already noticed it as well as the biker might have noticed us crossing the road.

But our fate has totally altogether a different plan for us. None of us observed each other properly. The biker hoping that he could manage to surpass us was confidently racing towards us and Prasad did not see him altogether. I don't know what was going through the biker‘s mind. He never made an attempt to slow down the vehicle even after watching us. Two seconds before disaster , I knew we are about to collide, I shouted he’s coming very fast. Prasad immediately slowed down the vehicle just enough to shift the impact point from our legs towards front side of the bike. And then it happened. Ka-boom.

Image copyrights belongs to respective owner 

The impact has thrown all of us to the ground. We fell onto the left side of the our bike. I was in a state of shock for a brief moment. But immediately I realized that I was lying in the middle of the road. Fearing that some  vehicle would over run on us,I immediately got up onto my feet and saw the situation before me. I thought Prasad must have been severely injured but to my surprise, he was ok and was the first one to administer help to biker at the other end. As far as the biker is concerned , he was traveling along with his wife. After the impact ,the biker was ok but  the lady was hurled into the air and got badly injured. She has bruises all over her body. The horrible thing was she was crying in pain and was crying for help. I imagined the worst but that was not the case to some extent. She had a minor head injury and her nose was bleeding along with left leg was badly injured in this impact. Luckily good Samaritans from all around rushed in to help us.  

The aftermath followed with heavy traffic jam , arrival of ‘108’ ambulance , taking the lady to the hospital,police arrival along with relatives of bikers and colleagues of mine within minutes of accident. I actually fell onto the my left side after which I couldn't even hold my cellphone with my left hand and call for help as it was shaking but somehow I managed to call. There was heated arguments between both the parties for sometime. But my colleagues pacified the situation after which, both the parties dispersed from the scene of the accident. Thanks a lot to my colleagues for their care and support for us.

As far as our bike- the unicorn  is concerned, the front portion of it was completely destroyed,such was the speed at which the biker was traveling.  We all were lucky enough to survive a major accident. This was really a near death experience for me,If our bike was not slowed down , the impact point would have been our right legs which would have been crushed and four lives would have been at stake. I don't want to blame anyone but the only thing that hurts me the most is that  lady got badly injured because of all this.

All I can do at this point of time is to pray to god for her speedy recovery and hope she leads a normal life as used to be. I wish her all the healthy, wealthy and prosperous life ahead .I hope the biker learns a lesson from this incident as we did.

My dear readers ,my intention  of sharing this with you all is to warn you of the consequences of not following the traffic rules. So be careful while driving , don't drive very fast and stay safe.

Acoustic cover of Collide by Howie Day

After a long time, we made this video. Hope u like it .. 

 

The Story of our Universe Part 2:The Turning Point

 

(To continue reading Part 2 , please refer Part 1 : Asking Questions)

The Geo-centric model of Ptolemy gained wide popularity among astronomers around the world. Astronomers started making measurements or rather predictions of planetary motions based on observations. They have encountered certain problem with the motions of planets like Venus. Many Muslim Astronomers from 8^th  to 10^th Century  like Al-Khwarizmi extended their contributions by fine tuning the Geo-centric model, though it never solved the problem about planetary motions.

Though by 16^th Century, many astronomers doubted the Geo-centric model, but they failed to come up with alternative theory.  It was work of Tycho Brahe, a Danish nobleman (refer picture below) whose remarkable collection of data which was the most accurate data available till his time pertaining to motion of celestial objects which he obtained using his Instruments( refer picture below)  that led to the next break-through in our journey. 

  

   

 

Based on the data provided by the Tycho Brahe , Copernicus , a German Astronomer made his own calculation based on this data and came to startling conclusion that to describe the motion of planets , The sun must be at the centre and all other planets including the Earth must be rotating. Thus he developed the so called “The Helio-centric Theory”   i.e., with the sun at the centre, and all other planets revolving around the sun in perfect circles.

Helio Centric Theory

Copernicus

                                                                                            

It was a revolutionary idea that would have very serious implications on the world. Though Copernicus was very confident about his calculations, he only published his theory in his book  “On Revolutions of Celestial Spheres”   only at very later stage of his life. But when the world came to know about his theory, The Holy Church was against to this idea and so does the rest of the world.

To the astronomers around the world, this theory was a daring proposition and they set out to find out the truth. One of them was Keppler, a German astronomer further added to this theory that the planets revolve around the Sun not in Circular orbits but rather in Elliptical Orbits as shown below.

During the 16^th Century, the world was introduced to telescopes as toys that would magnify an object. But one astronomer had a different idea altogether, he developed a special telescope that could magnify an object 10 times. He was Galileo Galilee, a Italian Astronomer. He was first Human being to  gaze at the universe with his telescope. What a remarkable feeling Galileo must have felt by seeing the universe with a naked eye..

  Galileo made a detail record of what he has observed. His observations led him to conclude that Helio centric theory offers the best description of the world around. 

The first ever Telescope

The moon as seen through the telescope

Galileo supported the heliocentric theory with practical observations that could be seen with his telescope. But the Church readily did not accept this idea. The Church decided to prosecute Galileo for his support of heliocentric theory as it rejects the idea that the world was created as described by Geo-centric theory which was work of the God himself. Thus, officially the clash of ideology between Religion and Science has began. In this prosecution by the Church, Galileo was all-alone in this battle. He was at the mercy of the Church. He lost the battle against the Church and was house arrested for the rest of his life. This was done to him just for stating the fact which we regard very obvious in 21^st century. But it is just unimaginable to think the struggle he must have faced. As time passed on after his death, more and more evidence poured in about the Helio centric theory, thus causing the Church to accept the Helio centric theory as the Work of God himself and rejecting the idea of Geo-centric model of universe which lasted for about 1500 years unchallenged.

Prosecution  Session of Galileo by the Holy Church

Galileo in his last days

 Helio-centric theory explained the Sun was at the centre and the rest of planets revolved around the sun. But it was never able to explain what caused the planets to revolve? In our journey to understand the universe, it is time to meet one of the most brilliant mathematician ever lived on the surface of the Earth..

Sir Isaac Newton

Let us look at the Part 3 of our Journey to understand the Universe in the next post ..

The Story of Our Universe- Part 1

How did the Universe come into existence?

Why is the universe the way we see around us?

We all at one point or the other in our life must have asked ourselves the above questions about the universe.As an ardent follower of Science, I have always been deeply fascinated by the mysteries of the universe especially about its origins. I always used to wonder what could be the answer for the following above questions.  And thus, I began my quest to understand it. I immediately realized that there are only two possible routes to find a possible answer to these mysteries.

1.  The Path of Science
2.  The Path of Religion

I took both the paths to understand the universe. The Path of Religion only made me realize that for these questions, the obvious answer is God. Often described as The Supreme, The Invincible, The Creator, The Destroyer and many other names, we were made to believe right from our Childhood that there is someone out there in the skies who is watching us and will grant us anything we wish for, only if, we lead a life as described by Him and His Messengers and thus, according to our acts, we are ensured our berth in Heaven or Hell accordingly. I’m not here to argue about His Existence, that’s not the topic of this discussion, but if asked whether I believe in God, Yes is my answer and He created the Universe we see around.  But at the same time, I certainly believe the fact that the Universe was not created the way as often described in our Sacred Books of Religion. Every Sacred book has its own version of Creation, thus leading to chaos. For example, the Abrahamic religions like Islam, Christianity & Judaism agree that the Universe was created spontaneously in just Six days and God took rest on Seventh Day which is quite different version from what Hinduism and many other states. I certainly believe that God must have left it out for us to figure out ourselves about the origins and so He devoted most of His work making us understand the path that we all need to follow to reach Him, through His Messengers. After all what’s the point of spoon feeding everything?.

For most of us, we are not at all bothered as to how God might have created the universe as it is a past event and cannot affect our daily lives. We are more concerned about our present and future, striving harder to lead a happy and peaceful life.  But for some people understanding the origins of universe  became their entire life’s work for which they have earned respect of the whole mankind which will also be highlighted apart from their contribution in this topic.

The more I try to know about the universe, the more mysterious it becomes. It is perhaps the most complex thing the humankind has ever came across. In this 21^st century we may be nearing to answer few of  the most complex questions by using the Six billion dollars worth “The Large Hadron Collider” facility to  unlock the mysteries of atoms which are conducted at the CERN, Switzerland.This may ultimately help us solve some mysteries  and pave way for some more deep mysteries of the universe ,after all  the universe will never stop to challenge us until we reach the final truth.

The Entire picture of our Universe

 The above picture is a computer simulated model of our complete universe. This was only possible today  because of the latest Super Computers that can do calculations at staggering speeds of more than One PFLOPS/Sec  ( 10 ¹⁵  Operations per second). Each Bright spot in the picture represents billions and billions of galaxies. And each galaxy is collection of billions of stars. Out of these Stars, one star i.e., The Sun is about which our Planet Earth rotates. Isn’t it mind boggling to realize this fact? It just makes feel how tiny we are before it.

In this series, I would like to make an attempt to present  the views of scientific community from the past to present about the origins of our universe in a simple lucid explanation, not involving any complex mathematics that even a glimpse of it will scare you and this, mind you is my interpretation of what I have learned through watching a number of documentaries on this topic.In this journey of our understanding , we can also notice one remarkable thing about science is that a theory proposed by someone is not accepted until and unless it is proved by means of verifiable and repeatable physical parameters which can be conducted by anyone who has understanding of it. It is remarkable to see how science proposes a theory and shatters it by a new theory and mind you this is a iterative process which continues until to that point where we are only left with nothing but  the absolute truth.

I only intend to write this so as to make myself organize the data that i have learned and also have a better understanding about the origins of the universe.The copyrights of all the images used in this post belong to their respective owners .

Part 1:  Asking Questions

In the beginning, say some thousands of years ago, our understanding was very limited. As our mind evolved with passage of time, it became curious to know the things around it, because understanding of surroundings led ultimately to its survival itself. At the same time, it made an attempt to make sense of the mysteries that it happen to encounter. One of such things is the Universe. And it made sense by the idea that the Universe and the Life was created by an Invisible and Invincible force of the universe. The God.

This was the way our ancestors depicted the Universe as the creation of God which is very widely accepted idea today. But the important question is not whether God created everything or not, But  how God created this Universe. The only way to do was by asking questions and making careful observations of things around them. And thus mankind set himself on a journey to unlock the mysteries of the Universe, since God did not gave a clear picture of how he created the Universe even if he did, it was often different versions to different people.

Frightening the Moon to save Sun God!!

             

Our attempt to understand the universe dates back to some 5000 years ago by Babylonian Astronomers who perceived the Earth was flat which was floating in ocean. The first noticeable observation of our Universe on the Earth was that of solar Eclipse, where the moon comes in between the path of Sun God- The giver of light, thus causing darkness in a bright daylight. Our ancestors spread across the Earth had their own perceptions of this event. One among them was, to save The Sun God as he has been swallowed by moon , they were suppose to frighten the moon with their weapons and remarkably this worked , and frightened  moon escapes the spot immediately to avoid the anger of the Sun devotees as depicted in the above picture. Though this interpretation of Solar Eclipse seems to be funny, but it’s quite remarkable that even more than 2500 years ago, our ancestors made very careful observations of the things around them and  made an attempt to understand these mysteries in their own way.

Aristotle

 The first person to make an attempt to understand the universe was Aristotle, who lived around some 2300 years ago in Greece. Until then all his precursors with naked eye were able to make out that the Earth which was spherical in shape and was surrounded by some five Planets which they named them after their Gods.  Later on Aristotle made some remarkable conclusions based on his observations, one of which was that the Solar Eclipse is caused by moon coming in between the path of Sun rays and further he concluded that the Sun was the Centre of Universe.      

                

Ptolemy

            

Earth Centered Model of Universe

It was work of a Greek astronomer, Ptolemy in 1^st Century AD that put forth this idea of Earth Centered Model of Universe which is also known as Geo-centric model of universe, in which earth was centre and all other planets were revolving around the Earth in perfect circular orbits. Though there were certain problems associated with this model, but it was widely accepted as the Standard description of Universe which explained many phenomenons observed at that time like day and night etc (depicted in the above diagram). The Holy Church immediately accepted this idea as it left room for heaven and hell beyond the Stars and preached this as the work of God himself.

This model of universe was left unchallenged for about 1500 years, but the curiosity to understand the mysteries of universe never died. The thing that needs to be highlighted here is that these people made foundation for their successors to understand the Universe using careful observations. It took the following brilliant people Copernicus, Keppler and  Galileo along with countless people to overthrow the existing idea of Geo-centric model of our Universe.

Copernicus

 

Keppler

 

Galileo

Let us look at the Part 2 of our Journey to understand the Universe in the next post " The Turning point"