Sometimes the best way to feel intelligent is to assume that the others don’t know what you know and to assume the position of teaching them. So what if nobody wants to learn from you. So I picked a few of the coolest sounding topics that I wasn’t too familiar with but knew just enough about to put into a blog and pretend that I actually knew them. Afterall, blogs are never about impressing the other, are they? :)
Placebo Effect of Management:
Placebo is usually a term used by Physicians in the medical world and is defined as the ‘medically ineffective treatment intended to deceive patients’. In plain English, this is usually what a family doctor does mostly to cure an over anxious patient by prescribing a simple paracetamol to make the patient believe he/she is cured. Or, what an astrologer does to your psyche by suggesting a ritual like visiting a temple in the wee hours of morning on cold winter days for some specific period of time (usually long enough for the problem to die it’s natural death) and make you believe in your head that the ritual actually helped solve the problem. Some of you would have understood Placebo by now, vaguely enough at least, to relate it with your corporate existence. “Didn’t my boss and the HR give me something actually worthless (Onsite opportunity, Promotion, ESOP) but left me feeling I was hugely benefitted, all these years?”.
If you relate to this pain and yet smile while reading this line, you have experienced the Placebo effect. After all, we feel good when belief replaces the fact to make us believe “I feel better. Therefore I am better”.
Searching the ‘Nothing’
The reason I find this topic more interesting is the fact, billions of dollars are spent by countries in the hope of finding the ‘Nothing’. Yes, mankind (I mean the types with little more grey matter on their head) is actually searching for the evidence of presence of this ‘Dark Matter’. This all important particle is presumed to add mass to everything in this universe and is believed to be responsible for all laws of physics to be true - much like the radio waves or the Wi-Fi, you can’t see them. You don’t ‘see’ the Wi-Fi connection but if you see this post on the internet, you can be sure it exists. The best part is, Scientists and Physicists are not even sure if the dark matter exists in the first place. No wonder they call it the ‘God particle’.
In simple English, every object in this universe has mass. Galaxies and Planets are objects too, so they too have mass. They spin on their axis to produce a centrifugal force but their respective gravitational forces give them the counterbalance force which keeps them in the universe. But wait. Physics requires each of these objects to be of a certain mass for the laws to be applicable. But their sizes don’t give them this critical mass and yet they don’t fly off the universe. So they apparently have some extra mass that we don’t see. And that is what they call the ‘Dark Matter’ which apparently constitutes 90% of objects mass. The dude who admitted that we don’t know the 90% and claimed that there might exist the dark matter and actually did a great job of branding this idea so well by calling it the God Particle got the Nobel Prize this year. Not sure if it’s for the discovery he is yet to make or for the brilliant branding to attract huge funding for the project.
As intriguing as this subject may be, I have this one big doubt. How do they know that they haven’t found it yet? After all, we know we can’t see it. But, that’s not why I decided not to write more on this subject. The search for this God particle or Dark Matter is apparently happening in labs built a mile under the earth. What on earth are they doing there? Aren’t they supposed to be searching in the space?
Quantum Physics taught us to express our Love
“If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” This Zen like thought/question is the basis for one of the key theories in Quantum Physics. (I’m hoping that this blog is beginning to sound intelligent enough to some of you by now, just for using quantum physics and Zen philosophy in the same sentence – for those of you who have braved this far). Superposition is that very theoretical theory proposed by Niels Bohr which talks about the existence of multiple truths (Multiple World theory) until we choose to check (measure) them. Who cares, right?. An Austrian scientist by name Schrodinger did. He actually proved this ‘bohring’ theory with an experiment that was made famous by Dr Sheldon Cooper from the television comedy, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (Those who watched this serial would admit that Sheldon taught us more physics than Dr Stephen Hawkins or Einstein did). Shrodinger’s Cat is a simple experiment where he puts a cat (I’m sure it was his neighbor’s) inside a box (not an out of the box idea for sure) along with an alarm that triggers cynic gas (poison). With the box closed, all possibilities are true. The cat is alive, the cat is dead and the cat is dead and alive – The multiple world. But a simple act of opening the box would reveal that singular truth – The truth is altered by measurement (act of checking). Apparently, poor guys didn’t have much to do those days. We don’t care if the cat was dead or alive or care to understand quantum physics but what this experiment ultimately did was to teach the most important lessons in our lives. The tree does make a sound when it falls down, it’s up to us to check and eliminate the other truth that it did not make the sound. Well, actually we don’t care about that too. What then do ordinary folks like you and me learn from quantum physics – If you love a girl but are hesitant to express your emotions, unsure if the truth would be a yes or a no, remember the ‘Schrodinger’s Cat. The truth would be known only when you open the box.
So go ahead, open all the unopened boxes that you have been hesitant to look into. Who knows you might just find the ‘Dark Matter’ that could make you feel better with a Placebo Effect.
Placebo Effect of Management:
Placebo is usually a term used by Physicians in the medical world and is defined as the ‘medically ineffective treatment intended to deceive patients’. In plain English, this is usually what a family doctor does mostly to cure an over anxious patient by prescribing a simple paracetamol to make the patient believe he/she is cured. Or, what an astrologer does to your psyche by suggesting a ritual like visiting a temple in the wee hours of morning on cold winter days for some specific period of time (usually long enough for the problem to die it’s natural death) and make you believe in your head that the ritual actually helped solve the problem. Some of you would have understood Placebo by now, vaguely enough at least, to relate it with your corporate existence. “Didn’t my boss and the HR give me something actually worthless (Onsite opportunity, Promotion, ESOP) but left me feeling I was hugely benefitted, all these years?”.
If you relate to this pain and yet smile while reading this line, you have experienced the Placebo effect. After all, we feel good when belief replaces the fact to make us believe “I feel better. Therefore I am better”.
Searching the ‘Nothing’
The reason I find this topic more interesting is the fact, billions of dollars are spent by countries in the hope of finding the ‘Nothing’. Yes, mankind (I mean the types with little more grey matter on their head) is actually searching for the evidence of presence of this ‘Dark Matter’. This all important particle is presumed to add mass to everything in this universe and is believed to be responsible for all laws of physics to be true - much like the radio waves or the Wi-Fi, you can’t see them. You don’t ‘see’ the Wi-Fi connection but if you see this post on the internet, you can be sure it exists. The best part is, Scientists and Physicists are not even sure if the dark matter exists in the first place. No wonder they call it the ‘God particle’.
In simple English, every object in this universe has mass. Galaxies and Planets are objects too, so they too have mass. They spin on their axis to produce a centrifugal force but their respective gravitational forces give them the counterbalance force which keeps them in the universe. But wait. Physics requires each of these objects to be of a certain mass for the laws to be applicable. But their sizes don’t give them this critical mass and yet they don’t fly off the universe. So they apparently have some extra mass that we don’t see. And that is what they call the ‘Dark Matter’ which apparently constitutes 90% of objects mass. The dude who admitted that we don’t know the 90% and claimed that there might exist the dark matter and actually did a great job of branding this idea so well by calling it the God Particle got the Nobel Prize this year. Not sure if it’s for the discovery he is yet to make or for the brilliant branding to attract huge funding for the project.
As intriguing as this subject may be, I have this one big doubt. How do they know that they haven’t found it yet? After all, we know we can’t see it. But, that’s not why I decided not to write more on this subject. The search for this God particle or Dark Matter is apparently happening in labs built a mile under the earth. What on earth are they doing there? Aren’t they supposed to be searching in the space?
Quantum Physics taught us to express our Love
“If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” This Zen like thought/question is the basis for one of the key theories in Quantum Physics. (I’m hoping that this blog is beginning to sound intelligent enough to some of you by now, just for using quantum physics and Zen philosophy in the same sentence – for those of you who have braved this far). Superposition is that very theoretical theory proposed by Niels Bohr which talks about the existence of multiple truths (Multiple World theory) until we choose to check (measure) them. Who cares, right?. An Austrian scientist by name Schrodinger did. He actually proved this ‘bohring’ theory with an experiment that was made famous by Dr Sheldon Cooper from the television comedy, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (Those who watched this serial would admit that Sheldon taught us more physics than Dr Stephen Hawkins or Einstein did). Shrodinger’s Cat is a simple experiment where he puts a cat (I’m sure it was his neighbor’s) inside a box (not an out of the box idea for sure) along with an alarm that triggers cynic gas (poison). With the box closed, all possibilities are true. The cat is alive, the cat is dead and the cat is dead and alive – The multiple world. But a simple act of opening the box would reveal that singular truth – The truth is altered by measurement (act of checking). Apparently, poor guys didn’t have much to do those days. We don’t care if the cat was dead or alive or care to understand quantum physics but what this experiment ultimately did was to teach the most important lessons in our lives. The tree does make a sound when it falls down, it’s up to us to check and eliminate the other truth that it did not make the sound. Well, actually we don’t care about that too. What then do ordinary folks like you and me learn from quantum physics – If you love a girl but are hesitant to express your emotions, unsure if the truth would be a yes or a no, remember the ‘Schrodinger’s Cat. The truth would be known only when you open the box.
So go ahead, open all the unopened boxes that you have been hesitant to look into. Who knows you might just find the ‘Dark Matter’ that could make you feel better with a Placebo Effect.
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