R.N. 70269/98 Postal Registration No.: DL-SW-1/4082/15-17 ISSN : 0972-169X Date of posting: 26-27 of advance month Date of publication: 24 of advance month March 2017 Vol. 19 No. 6 Rs. 5.00 Big Bang from Nothing Editorial: This far and 35 no further I suppose Big Bang from Nothing 34 Cancer and Traditional 30 Medicine 28 Nobel Talks at Science Congress Highlight New Developments Of Scientists and Units 26 Pelvic inflammatory disease – 24 All you want to know about Recent developments 21 in science and technology 36 Editorial This far and no further I suppose Dr. R. Gopichandran One of the most often repeated barriers responsible for low science and some leading popular magazines serve this purpose. Will it visibility in news media is the reticence of scientists. Equally therefore be right to ask if these can be significantly scaled-up important is the claim to knowledge (or the lack of it) about poor further; networked and assisted with articulation that may attract preference given by news media to science. I am inclined to say, both common citizen’s attention in much greater numbers than now? statements are probably unsubstantiated. These are at best some This question about numbers becomes important because we ask broad-brush comments and should be tackled with concerted efforts about the number of people who actually take up science as career to not retard transitions to better engagement amongst the two. I paths or even acknowledge the value of knowledge benefits derived suppose, it is important to engage with scientists to communicate; through S&T efforts. Many scientists from our labs gain significant not so much about the results of their investigations but about the national/international recognition for their excellence. It will be wise process of understanding and practising principles of science. The to therefore stop all cacophony about the two claims I started with latter is the core element of scientific temper common citizens have and get down to business. The agenda will be to upscale spread, depth to be inspired with. My case is for effective science popularisation. and visibility of science and technology related development and Microbiologists could be a case in point. For instance, they may leadership in our country through a concerted effort. Can we create/ be willing to help understand prey-predator relations, responses by strengthen knowledge networks amongst research and development cells to stimuli and adaptations by populations to propagate despite institutions to communicate with greater frequency and clarity about odds. These are essential elements of systems understanding that progress, strengths and successes? Is it possible to invite media-savvy can stimulate interest in the applications of scientific thinking and science communicators to articulate in a manner that will attract can be with equal emphasis across disciplines. This is quite different media to publish ever more? This coming together is quite important from asking them about the contribution their work has made to in today’s context, especially when missions of the government focus monetary benefits for the society; or if their work has fetched any on S&T-led development. international recognition. In defence of scientists, I will say; they are Climate change impacts management, waste-to-energy, justified in their reticence; because their insights and contributions conservation and enhancement of natural resources with implications to the landscape of knowledge are undermined, when we do not for sustainable development, eco-system services, water, sanitation acknowledge the nuances of such knowledge-centred gains. Their and health correlates, drudgery reduction and resource-efficient contributions may in fact create newer cascades of knowledge or even production and consumption are some of the easier entry S&T strengthen some incrementally. The news media too should not be interfaces that have to be given their due attention through well blamed for its unresponsiveness. Why can’t good work be articulated informed community action. It is time we take up the task of reaching in a manner that will elicit a keen response from them for ready and the unreached and creating robust knowledge-centred enabling large scale publication? It is equally important to upfront state the circumstances, guided by empirical evidences about the preparedness limits and limitations of emerging knowledge and the consequences of players to comprehend and communicate. This far and no further of applications of such knowledge; especially to gain the confidence on the dilemmas please. We will have to come together to assist of the discerning common citizen reader. the development agenda of our country through value added S&T Two important considerations guide me on the submission I communication. Scientists/technologists, news media and citizens make, in the context of the all that I have said above. We cannot have equally important roles in this context. deny the fact that there is significant volume of information in the public domain on progress in S&T in our country. Many newspapers Email: [email protected] n Editor : R Gopichandran Vigyan Prasar is not responsible for the statements/opinions expressed and photographs used by the authors in their articles/write-ups published in Associate editor : Rintu Nath “Dream 2047” Production : Manish Mohan Gore and Pradeep Kumar Articles, excerpts from articles published in “Dream 2047” may be freely Expert member : Biman Basu reproduced with due acknowledgement/credit, provided periodicals in Address for Vigyan Prasar, C-24, which they are reproduced are distributed free. correspondence : Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi-110 016 Published and Printed by Manish Mohan Gore on behalf of Vigyan Prasar, Tel : 011-26967532; Fax : 0120-2404437 C-24, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110 016 and Printed at Aravali e-mail : [email protected] Printers & Publishers Pvt. Ltd., W-30, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II, website : http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in New Delhi-110 020 Phone: 011-26388830-32. 35 Dream 2047, March 2017, Vol. 19 No. 6 Big Bang from Nothing There was absolutely nothing at the bodies is liberated rather than expended, Govind Bhattacharjee i.e., they lose energy. They start with zero beginning of time and space; it was a E-mail: [email protected] complete void. Human imagination falters gravitational energy, and end up with at the thought of such a void. Out of this negative energy. This is what is meant by Bang was filled with radiation which was so unthinkable, all-pervading void arose a stir, a saying that the energy of the gravitational hot that matter could then exist only in a random quantum fluctuation, and time and field is negative. Any object, say a planet or dense state of ‘plasma’ consisting of protons space and all the matter and energy that is a star, contain an infinite number of small and electrons at extremely high temperature. our universe − this unfathomably beautiful masses put together, and thus has a definite However, plasma is opaque to radiation, and ocean of existence − sprang into being. It amount of negative gravitational energy. In even if it was possible to look as far back into was a creation ex-nihilo − out of nothing. contrast, the mass-related energy of the body the past towards the Big Bang, the surface This tiny fluctuation of the vacuum would is always positive, being equal to the product of the 300,000-year-old universe would ultimately turn into the Big Bang, creating of its mass and the square of the velocity of permanently block our sight and we would the universe of countless galaxies and stars, light (= mc2). not be able to ‘see’ anything earlier than that, and in course of time, creatures capable of What Tryon showed was that if the star since we can see only with the help of light. wondering at the mystery of their origin. is squeezed into a singularity, a point where Therefore, the 300,000-year-old universe It is indeed strange and bizarre that the quantities that are used to measure its is the earliest frame of reference for any nothingness would have such a wondrous gravitational field tend to become infinite, its measurement to be made. creative potential latent in it. The idea negative gravitational energy will continue At 300,000 years, the temperature of that a void could convert itself into such to increase and then, at the singularity, its the incredibly hot Big-Bang universe had a remarkable plenum of existence was first positive mass energy will exactly cancel the dropped to only 3000 kelvins1 when electrons suggested by Edward Tryon, an American negative gravitational energy. Thus, the started combining with protons forming scientist in the journal Nature in 1973. It negative energy of the universe can be shown neutral atoms, mostly of hydrogen, and has long been known that every physical to cancel all the positive energy leading to the universe started becoming transparent phenomenon in this universe is guided by a vacuum state equivalent to zero energy. to radiation. From then on, atoms would a set of conservation laws in which some This means it would take no energy to create start absorbing and re-emitting the photons particular physical quantities like electric the universe. And thus the laws of physics that would be scattered by other particles charge or total energy or total momentum are perfectly consistent with the creation of matter, making the universe transparent remain unchanged; we say these quantities of a universe ex-nihilo, out of a void, and to light. As the expansion continued are ‘conserved’. Tryon in his paper ‘Is the the universe could emerge out of the void unabated, cooling the universe, the colour of Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?’ pointed without violating the law of conservation radiation changed gradually − from yellow out that the sum of all the conserved charges of energy, a sacrosanct principle of physics.