Relativity: Alternate Realities

Before I start, I just want to say that I found this website that lets you experience the vast distances of outer space and it is honestly so fascinating. Check it out! http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

I live in a constant state of ‘existential crisis’. This is the fuel to my unending thirst to know more and not just about the ‘what’s of the world but more importantly, the ‘why’s. I have progressed from the tiniest of curiosities of an eager child but at this stage of life and probably for the rest of my life, I have been stuck and will be stuck at wondering about the ‘meaning of life’ and I’ll go on to ask my eternal ‘why’s which question even the best answers out there. Unlike some, I do have realistic expectations from the human made, ungodly (yet incredibly useful and fascinating) subject that is physics. So, by logical progression, we move on to my biggest logical question- The nature of reality itself.

A fairly well-treaded path, to find the nature of reality and to understand it to its depths (maybe even try to describe it if we really want to be super ambitious), we must start with defining ‘realities’ in the universe. What I mean by this is to identify absolute, universal truths i.e. facts that are indisputable regardless of the perspective they are being observed from. At first glance, this seems like a pretty easy task- the speed of sound is 330 ms-1, the earth revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit, a basketball is bigger than a tennis ball and my left pinky is about 3 cm long. Good observations, but if it was so easy then there wouldn’t be any fuss.

The problem with absolute truths is that the things we use to describe objects, be it speed or position, change with each perspective. What we see, we see from our own perspective which might be stationary, moving at a certain velocity or accelerating. This change in perception is called relativity- simply because our observations are relative to our perspective.

Imagine this- you’re a police detective and your partner just got murdered in a public place with a lot of suspects. You want to solve the case, an extremely difficult but relieving task. How do you go about it? You cut all ties to any of your preconceptions, not unlike a scientist, and you go and take the statements of everyone who was even remotely involved in his life and try piece together a narrative. You question this narrative until it holds true regardless of what you throw at it. You try to know what really happened. You try to find the absolute truth. This is a difficult task but sooner or later you have a rough idea of what might have happened. You are essentially using the scientific method and the concept of relativity to weed out the details which differ in each perspective and try to piece together the similarities in each account.

While we do eventually want to move on to the concepts of special and general relativity in this blog, without the basic foundation of what relativity is, it is going to be difficult to explain. Relativity is a way of thinking about things that help you to evaluate how universal a given truth actually is. Like in the example above, it is basically the compilation of two simple questions that may have mind boggling answers:

1. What changes do you observe in an object as you change your own perspective?

2. What remains constant in an object regardless of your state of motion?

Let’s start with the principle of relativity. This concept, unlike all the others associated with this branch of physics, can in fact be explained in a sentence. If you aren’t familiar with modern physics, that is extremely rare. The Principle of Relativity, at its base, says that motion is relative i.e. motion is always described with respect to some other object in space-time. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense and again, unlike most things in modern physics, you can and you do observe this everyday, say when you’re cycling to the neighborhood park or when your dad drops you to school at 7 am in the morning.

When you’re standing on a footpath next to a busy highway, cars swoosh by at speeds where you can only see a blur of color and a gush of cold air. When you’re in a car on the highway and a different car overtakes yours, it looks like the car is ‘walking’ past, while the streetlights and pedestrians in the background seem to swoosh by in, again, a blur. When you’re in one of those amusement park rides where the machine tosses you around in circles like how a cowboy twirls his rope before throwing it, the rider right in front of you seems to be absolutely stationary while all evidence apart from that seems to point to the contrary.

The reason for this confusing mess (that somehow doesn’t seem to worry adult minds, a shame for science, a blessing for mankind) is our own perspective. When we look at something while we are in motion (or the other body is, or both), our perspective changes. We use our senses to measure our ‘relative speed of approach/separation’ when we look at an object, if that is easier to understand.

When you’re in a car which is moving at 40 kilometers per hour towards the north, you are moving at 40 kmph relative to the ‘stationary’ objects around you i.e. the trees, the streetlamps etc. If another car is moving at 60 kmph beside your own car – to you it would seem like you are stationary and that car is moving at 20 kmph. The car is moving at 20 kmph relative to you. When you are moving in circles hanging from a series of suspiciously thin ropes, so is the person right in front of you and they move with the exact same velocity as you so the difference in the velocity is zero. The distance travelled every second towards/away from your respective initial positions remains zero because both you and the person in front of you move the same distance every second.

Like the examples above where speed is relative to your state of motion, certain systems look different too, relative to your perspective. Let’s first take the earth individually. You look at Earth from say the ISS, the voyager 1(the farthest manmade object from earth), or even the Moon or Mars, you will see that the earth rotates on an axis. Each day marks one rotation. This is a more universal truth than the others that follow.

Now, let’s take the solar system. If you look at the system from the earth, at first you will see that the sun revolves around the earth every year. That is not as stupid as it might sound. It is a logical deduction from the information we have because in truth, *relative* to the earth, the sun actually does revolve around the earth. This is a fact that is essentially indisputable considering the fact that our perspective is from the earth. However, if we observe the movement of other celestial bodies from the earth we can determine a more universal truth that someone standing at the edge of the solar system might also agree to- that it is the earth that revolves around the sun every 365.25 days (the extra 6 hours each year is what adds up to a leap day every 4 years).

We learnt all of this in elementary school, at least till the part that the earth circles the sun. Something we now should consider is that the sun itself also is orbiting the supermassive black-hole, Sagittarius A*, which resides at the center of the milky way. Think about it for a second, and you start to wonder about how the earth then ‘actually’ moves. You wonder how you might perceive it if you were ‘stationary’ (you still won’t ever truly be stationary, the word has no meaning) or rather that you had a perspective that doesn’t move along with the solar system. By imagining this perspective, we are again moving to a more universal truth, which is that the Earth actually moves in a spiral, ever trying to catch up to the sun, which itself circles around the galactic center. We can go on like this forever, talking about how the milky way moves and further but this is enough to demonstrate how the motions of things differ and how exactly we can move towards truths that are essentially truer than others, by looking at the ever bigger picture.

How the Earth and Sun move

Unfortunately, the explanation above demonstrates the principle of relativity only in the tiniest but it will help build you build a mindset that will help you better understand it from here on out. We are at a position where we have understood the concept of relativity, which is why I am going to use that word when I want you to focus on a specific perspective. The principle of relativity basically asserts that yes, while some truths are more universal than others, it is wrong to say that the less universal truths are incorrect. In the case of the solar system, we are often dealing with incomplete truths, which are altered as we get more information, but there are some situations which are more ambiguous.

I take this example from Brain Greene’s The Elegant universe, as I do many other concepts introduced in this post, because I am unable to think of a better example. Take two cosmonauts, George and Gracie, untethered and floating in the darkness of outer space. It is important to consider that there are a limited number of celestial bodies in the background, which too are way too far away to compare positions to periodically from the naked eye. In short, it is impossible for our space walkers to determine if they are in motion or not just by looking at their surroundings as we often do when we are in a car on a smooth road travelling at a constant speed here on earth.

Let’s take George’s perspective. George sees that every second, Gracie seems to be a certain, definable distance closer to him than the second before. This distance is always the same for a given interval of time so we can conclude that their relative speed of approach is constant. Soon, he can see that Gracie’s space-suit reads NASA, not unlike his. As Gracie passes by him, she waves at him to which he responds with a similar wave. After Gracie passes by the point where the distance between the two cosmonauts would be at a minimum, George sees that Gracie seems to be farther away from him than she was the second before. Gracie keeps moving in the same direction as she was moving in the start of this thought experiment, which is now away from George unlike before.

Now let’s take Gracie’s perspective. Gracie sees that every second, George seems to be a certain, definable distance closer to her than the second before. This distance is always the same for a given interval of time so we can conclude that their relative speed of approach is constant. Soon, she can see that George’s space-suit reads NASA, not unlike hers. As George passes by her, she waves at him to which he responds with a similar wave. After George passes by the point where the distance between the two cosmonauts would be at a minimum, Gracie sees that George seems to be farther away from her than he was the second before. George keeps moving in the same direction as he was moving in the start of this thought experiment, which is now away from Gracie unlike before.

You might’ve noticed that I wrote the same thing twice and changed the names. I did that to demonstrate exactly how similar the two perspectives are, and without any real ‘stationary’ thing to compare our objects to, there is no perspective here that is more universal than the other. We see this phenomenon and our brain asks- but what is the truth? What it sometimes can’t digest is that both of these perspectives are as true as the other. They’re both true and neither of them are true all at the same time. The statements we can make with absolute certainty is that:

1. George is moving relative to Gracie

2. Gracie is moving relative to George

Finally, after trying everything, physicists had to deduce that motion itself is relative and we broke into a better understood yet more confusing world. In conclusion, the sun does move around the earth and the earth does move around the sun and these two things are indisputable facts when the perspectives are stated explicitly.

Physicists are Selfish

There’s a pattern I’ve noticed. If you look deep down into the personality of a truly motivated physicist, you’ll find a self-serving person. It doesn’t make sense at first- why do these selfish people pursue the ‘saint-like’ profession of a scientist? Why do these people then not go after money or fame but rather something that promises to change lives for the better? What we forget to consider though, is that these people aren’t just scientists, they’re physicists, and however advantageous physics might turn out to be for society, goodwill is not the reason people study physics.

So why are physicists selfish? The answer is quite the pinnacle of Irony. The reason people take the most scientific, logic governed path in life they could possibly choose, is to answer the most basic, somewhat illogical, humongous, and unfortunately probably unanswerable philosophical questions that have troubled the human mind for eons. What is the nature of reality? Where did we come from and where are we going as a species? Where did the universe originate from? Why do humans and life in general exist if there is really no need for us? What is consciousness? Can everything be predicted if we calculate with infinite accuracy? If everything can be calculated, then do we even have free will? Are there only three dimensions? If there are more, then why don’t we experience every dimension as clearly as we do the first three? Why do we experience time as a temporal dimension instead of a spatial one we can walk through? Can we travel through time? Why is there even a limit to speed and why is light the fastest thing ever? I’m pretty sure I can list three pages of such questions, and that is just off the top of the head of a 16-year-old boy who hasn’t even started studying physics formally yet.

Humans are interesting creatures. We are curious and we really, really want answers to these questions. We want something quantifiable and definite and we want zero loose ends. We want a theory of everything. The problem is this: a Theory of Everything sounds too simple to be true. Even if there is one collective, ‘simple’ answer that can answer all of the questions above, we aren’t even close to discovering it. The question again arises. Why do people study Physics if they know that they’re never going to get answers to the questions that keep them up at night?

This is my answer:

Because there is no better alternative. The only other route is thinking about it all day, only to end up with no answers. Yes, being in a constant state of existential crisis is an option for some, but to me, that seems like being in denial of a big cloud of frightening uncertainty looming about your head. When there is a crisis, you try to solve it. You leave every other whim and worry in the world and you focus on trying to unravel that one crisis into smaller pieces and you solve it one by one. For people who are familiar with the scientific method, this is reductionism and it is the bedrock of physics. So, when someone asks me why I wonder about things that ‘don’t even have an answer’, I will become the most philosophical person and I will say-

Because if I don’t, it is all just a waste isn’t it? Even though many of us realize that we aren’t going to get any answers in our lifetimes, we are still willing to dedicate our lives to this pilgrimage where we are periodically greeted by failure and all we do is persevere. Because if we don’t, because if we don’t even try, then it is all just a waste, isn’t it?

La La Land: A Critical Appreciation.

There are many kinds of movies, obviously, but many can be broadly categorized into movies you want to watch at home snuggled up in a blanket and movies you would want to see on the big screen with another 100 people, even if that means that you have to road trip to a nearby town. Contrary to what most romantic films are, La La Land falls in the second category. I have developed a history with this movie in the past 2 years that it has been since it released but it is admittedly something I’m extremely partial towards. I have always been interested in films but watching La La Land rekindled my interests, something that was slowly fading away at the time. While I always liked being critical of things and discussing with people, until I saw La La Land, I was only familiar with mainstream content, something so bland that usually, there just wasn’t really that much to talk about. I obviously liked the movie but I realized that maybe I like it too much and before being sure about it, I should educate myself further. 2 years later, I have watched it 8 times (full disclosure, all those 8 times were during the first 9 months of 2017) and I have youtubed the hell out of filmmaking techniques.

The story is extremely predictable. Girl meets guy, they meet a couple more times *by accident*, they dance in front of the beautiful LA skyline at dawn on one of the most nostalgic, classic, guy-and-girl-pretending-they-don’t-like-each-other type songs and then they start dating. But what people don’t understand is that to make a movie feel fresh, the story doesn’t always need to be but the take on that story does. Damien Chazelle, the director, isn’t trying to show us something new, in fact, he is showing us whiplash all over again with a few details changed. While Whiplash talks about the individualistic struggle that one goes through when they strive for greatness, the character conveniently breaking off his relationship in the first half of the film, La La Land explores what would happen if you try to juggle these two amazing things, how you have to let go of things and how at the end of the day, a sad ending is alright sometimes because life isn’t perfect. It is alright because you chose that and goddamn it is worth it.

What La La Land is best at is calling out the romantic in you and when that side of you is fully invested in the movie, it bashes that romantic with a sledgehammer and teaches you the beautiful compromise that life is. It does this by these beautiful, often painful and gut-wrenching close-up moments that sync your emotions with those of the character on screen. These moments linger on for just enough time so that your subconscious can register the micro expressions well enough for you to understand and feel what the character feels, but it doesn’t seem detached. While the most obvious of these moments is the bittersweet smile that Seb and Mia share after the whirlwind of emotions that the epilogue scene has left, the disappointment, awkwardness and the ‘what am I supposed to do?’ expression in Mia’s face during her audition scene when the casting director orders their lunch is something unique that comes to mind. The scene when the two characters go to watch ‘rebel without a cause’ and hold hands and *almost* kiss is something that sounds so trivial as I write it but the sequence itself, with the slow creeping of the hands towards each other and the glances, was the first hook that makes you desperate that all of this works out.

The awkward expression surprise and dare I say ‘disgust’ on Emma stone’s face as Seb’s concert basically pops out into a freak show of primary colours capture her disappointment in him and his passion. The moment takes us back to that Seb’s passionate speech about jazz at the lighthouse café- “It’s conflict and it is compromise, and it’s just… it’s new every time. It’s brand new every night. It’s very, very exciting!”. It takes us back to how Seb pushed Mia to write her own play and then when we come back to reality, it is a sucker punch in the gut because all of that passion has basically slowly wilted and died, all because Seb wanted to be enough for Mia. What we get is a cycle where they have to choose between their love or their passion but finally, with the argument scene, we realize that they just can’t compromise on their passion, most people can’t. Seb tried to prioritize his love and what happened? He became somebody that Mia didn’t even like.

The cinematography glues the film together. As I’ve said before, La La Land isn’t really about the story and it isn’t something you can explain but it’s about the details that trick your brain believing certain things. The cinematographer, Linus Sandgren, worked with Damien Chazelle to understand the story in a way that he could make his cinematography fine-tuned- even if we didn’t understand what was happening, we felt emotional by the end because our mind picked up on the little details. The flashy colours separated us from the movie and the characters. The colours made everything feel fake and separated and like a scam (an analogy of Hollywood, something the movie tributes and criticizes) but the transition of these colours merging into more pastel but simpler, genuine colours as we go through resembles how the movie’s overall tone transitions. That is what art is- while movies like this one deserve an actively watching audience, art is supposed to ‘catch’ you even if you’re only passively watching a movie, something La La Land does almost effortlessly.

When I watched this movie for the first time in the theatre, I didn’t feel like this movie was anything special until it all shattered. I was watching this beautiful movie and while I was enjoying the amazing, visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing songs and dances and I liked every little thing, I have got to admit that I wasn’t particularly attached to the characters, and unusually so. I get attached and invested easily even in some not-so-good Netflix movies but La La Land failed to do that mostly, maybe because we don’t know as much about the characters as much as we’d like to. But really, I was attached to the characters, something I first noticed when I realized that they didn’t end up together and I pieced together that I felt so sad because I was actually pretty attached to the characters without actively noticing it.

Speaking of everything shattering, I want to dedicate a section of this review to the 7-minute epilogue scene. The audience stumbles across to this scene as a group of soldiers wounded at war, only this time the writers, including our favourite Damien Chazelle, take the role of the allies and we are the Nazis. Picture me this- you’re sitting on a recliner in the winters in a theatre and you’ve been watching a movie about two simple yet complex people falling in love and getting involved in each other’s passion and in a matter of 3 minutes, the happy couple who just made up from a fight has been attacked by a ‘5 years later’ which has essentially been out of nowhere and it has ripped away all of your fantasies. While the first scene after that blow was kind of fulfilling, Mia essentially becoming the famous actress going to buy coffee as was shown in the first half of the film, the rest feels like a balloon deflating slowly but painfully. Now you’re at a stage where you don’t know what to feel. You’re trying to be okay- your brain is like ‘well at least they both got to become successful in following their passions’ and ‘that guy is so ugly compared to Gosling. Mia, sis, you could do better.’ and ‘oh their daughter is cute’ and ‘couldn’t Seb just go to Paris with Mia? That makes no sense.’ and ‘this is all so stupid’ and ‘I want to cry’ and ‘NOOOOOOO’. Finally, the two characters stumble on to each other for the very last time- a final showdown if you will.

What you get in this epilogue is so inexplicably beautiful than you can’t even review it other than say that it was gorgeous. The cinematography was more pronounced but it didn’t feel over-saturated. Yes, it was basically a series of homages and the cinematography was used as a tool to depict that but to me, it was so much more and the cinematography played a much bigger, much more inexplicable role than just making it pretty. The scene was a ‘what if’, something that the audience would think about anyway but the fact that even after the beauty of this scene and the seemingly suspicious lack of loose ends, we realize after the smile the characters share that the scene was flawed and toxic. Sebastian didn’t get to open his own jazz club and he had to uproot his entire life for Mia and that’s not how life works and that’s not ideal or beautiful even if it was made to look like it was. The scene was beautiful surely and it filled a void in the audience’s hearts but really, this scene and Mia and Sebastian’s satisfactory, content smile even though that’s not how things panned out basically sums up what the film was trying to say. Life is a complicated story and you don’t get to ride happily into the sunset, at least not in the traditional sense. Life forces you to prioritize and ‘living happily ever after’ doesn’t mean you get everything but it does mean that you get what you sought after the most. While some might disagree, that is a happy ending.