Newton, I and Bangalore Traffic

If jokes on Bangalore traffic were to be sequentially arranged, they could touch the moon and come back.

People graduate from frustration to acceptance, almost like it is an organ inside their body.

I have moved a step further.

First, I was philosophical that there are powers beyond me that control the universe, and Bangalore traffic.

Then the James Webb Telescope hit me, physics-cally.

The famed telescope replacing Hubble travelled 1.6 million kms distance from earth over a six-month journey and was on schedule with its complex deployment sequence.

My journey to office over a 11.5 kms distance has even Google Maps’ hard-tested algorithms apologizing for their ‘estimated’ time of arrival.

And the quest began.

Defying Newton

Imagine Newton sitting under the apple tree and is hit by an apple.

My personal view, it was perhaps not the first apple that made him discover the theory of gravity. There must have been few hitting him over a period of time, and he would theorise the time it took for apples from the tree to land on him having a consistency. Hence, he may have come to understand the concept of ETA.

Now, if Newton were my co-worker and we carpooled to office, he would have got a different scare if not discovery. For the same distance to office, along the same road there are multiple ETAs.

It is like he is sitting under the tree, and he looks up to find the apples falling but each landing on him at different time intervals. First one took 3 seconds, next one was 10 seconds, third in 2 seconds and another in 20, for the same distance.

His school of predictable, deterministic law-abiding universe would have got crushed.

Bangalore traffic would have exposed him to time-warping possibilities, than the simpler precincts of Cambridge University.

Einstein must be thanking his stars that Newton and I did not discuss relativity in the car.

If you did not understand Entropy

In case you were as puzzled as I was or have put it in your list of indifferent or, ignore items, a simple search shall tell you that entropy is the state of disorder of any system.

That description is as simple as oatmeal for breakfast. If you are not writing a research paper and your life depended on it, trying to get closer to the theory is like grasping the movie Interstellar in your first watch.

Since disorder and Bangalore traffic were twins separated at birth and forever trying to unite, I ventured to understand.

Some Google searches later, I understood when ice melts into water, entropy increases. Water molecules in the ice-state are more closely bonded and have lower entropy.

Sitting in my car with bumper-to-bumper traffic and no room to move, I could apply the concept.

I was happy to conclude that I am in state of lower entropy, or less disorder than my cousin driving his car around San Francisco.

As I was wondering why people make so much noise about chaotic traffic in Bangalore, I saw an auto-rickshaw trying to come in opposite direction in the same lane.

There were also motorcyclists with their heads at 47 degrees to vertical axis, with a phone between their ear and raised shoulder navigating with precision thru the micro-pores between bumpers.

I am still trying to understand entropy.

Uncertainty principle

While returning from office, my wife would give a call asking me for ETA.

Given the variability, I would give her a wide range to work with.

Since the probability of me getting a hot dinner depended on it, I looked for answers to reduce this uncertainty.

Theoretical physicists have awed me forever. By natural admission, they write the theories on how the universe works, debate and discuss in closed rooms, while somebody else gets wet in the rain, breaks few bones, gets fire burns from an experiment, or ends up meeting God while testing.

Werner Heisenberg, a 1932 Nobel Prize winning physicist offered to help.

As per him, I could only accurately tell my wife my location when I am stuck, or the speed of my car if I am moving.

Anything beyond that is higher uncertainty, and subject to estimation errors.

That explained to me life is more probabilistic, than exact. 

This wisdom is deprived to people who regularly work from home or live in cities with easier traffic. 

Now I am more at peace with ETA, and the semi-hot dinner.

What curious nerve does traffic, or blockers in day-to-day life tickle in you 😊

 

Explore more:

Webb Space Telescope GSFC/NASA

Entropy: The Invisible Force That Brings Disorder to the Universe | HowStuffWorks

What Is the Uncertainty Principle? Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle Definition | Caltech Science Exchange