Realization of the Supreme Lord as a person
Dr Thoudam Damodara Singh (TD Singh)'s dialogue with Prof William D Phillips, Nobel Laureate
- Part 3 -

Radhamohan Das *

Sripada Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Maharaja ( Dr Thoudam Damodara Singh (TD Singh) ) :: Pix - Roshni Thokchom

WDP reacted that even if scientists don't have religious faith, they must have scientific faith. For that, Einstein was very clear about this. He said that we make the assumption that the universe is ordered as a matter of faith. We couldn't do science if we didn't believe that the universe had an order - we couldn't be scientists. On the other hand, we confirm that faith in science with the orderliness of the universe when we see that things consistently come out to the same.

He told his own experience while he visited some old temples and pyramids, and museums in Moscow and learned about some of the ancient people there. He learned as he was told that those ancient people did not have any confidence that the universe would continue to be the way it has always been. In other words, simply the fact that the sun had come up every morning in their experience, did not give them confidence that it was going to continue to do so. As a result, they had to continually perform religious acts in order to ensure that the sun would come up. Today, their scientific understanding of this is their understanding of the laws of nature. They know that the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning because they understood the nature of physical law and they believe in a law of consistency. It is also a religious principle. The religious principle is that God is faithful; God will continue to provide them in the way that He has provided for them in the past. That faithfulness, that unchangeability of God is a belief that is related to the scientific idea of the consistency of physical laws. Now, of course one can believe in the consistency of physical laws without believing in God, but as a religious person he believes in God's faithfulness, and as a scientific petson he believes in the consistency of physical law. He believes there is connection between the two (science and religion).

TDS commented that WDP's point on the personal connection or personal relationship with God seems very significant. This is emphasized in the Vedantic tradition called Bhakti. Bhakti means a loving devotional relationship with God and it is the highest attainment in realizing God - it is not only the end but it is also the means. Subsequently, if there is a personal relationship of this level then one will know about the meaning and purpose of life, why we are here, why God has created us and given us special blessings. He wants us to have a personal relationship.

WDP - did support the view and he thought that is exactly what God wants from us, he thought that God wants from us is to have a personal relationship with each other. That is why all are here. Maybe John put it better when he said, "As creatures of God our job is to have good relationship with other creatures of God, with each other." So, WDP fully agreed with TDS. He thought that the relationship God wants us to have with Him is a kind of model.

At that time, TDS asked whether WDP had experiences involving some kind of creativity, inspiration or divine guidance while he was growing up in life, in high school or college and as a scientist.

He told that he didn't have the creativity that someone like Charlie Townes had. To that extent, he don't think he has been very creative. But he worked really hard. In the case of Charlie's concepts, his getting a flash of insight that one could use stimulated emission to make a new source of radiation. He guesses he had never felt that kind of thing. His is that he worked really hard and tried to be open to what nature or God is telling us. He narrated a story.

Some people went to see the scientist, Joseph Henry. They wanted him to be the head of an institution. They went to see him while he was embarking on an experiment in his laboratory. The scientist gathered them together to perform an experiment and he (scientist) said, "What we are doing, when we are doing an experiment, is asking God questions, and now what we are going to do is we are going to pray that we will be able to understand the answer."

So, WDP thought that God has given him the great gift that a few times he has been able to see what God is trying to tell him. But, in the case of Charlie, God has given 'him an idea, an insight that allowed him to know what was the right way to go. For WDP, he got lots of different ideas. He tried each one of them, and sometimes they work out. That is the way it is. People have different styles. He thinks that God uses the people in different ways according to their abilities, maybe just according to different ways that God sees that it will be useful for them to explore the universe. It is all very different.

TDS was interested to know that Dr. Phillips was doing that because God wants him to do it in that way. He agreed and believed that exploring the universe is a holy calling for a scientist or a transcendentalist or for one creating art, music and literature. He cited an example that God has given him gifts so far beyond the gifts that most of the scientists were given, as a result Einstein saw such things that he can't imagine how he would have been to see. So, he thinks of himself as being much more of a workman in the kinds of things that he does than somebody like Einstein or Charles Townes. TDS said that creativity has some kind of connection with the mental state of the individual. When a person is in a happy state of mind, he is prepared to receive the gift of creativity from God. But if he becomes angry or upset, then creative or useful ideas won't come.

He quotes an important passage in the Bhagavad-gita:

"tesam satata yuktanam bhajatam priti-purvakam dadami buddhi-yogam tam yena mam upayanti te."

Meaning: "To the degree that one surrenders, the Lord gifts the knowledge so that one can have a personal devotional relationship with God." Thus the gifts from God come to different individuals in different degrees.

WDP while agreeing, he believes so strongly that relationship or the company of other people is so important, because it just seems that all good things that have happened to him have been a result of relationships.

TOP observed that openness or willingness has become much more visible after 9/11 to discuss particularly among the scientists who are becoming very open-minded today. Many scientists are now more interested in knowing why people are fighting each other in the name of religion and God.

While reacting WDP agreed that being open-minded is an important thing and the scientists try to be open to new ideas as part of their training. Openness is also extending the ideas of faith, to ideas of other non-scientific areas. Regarding his involvement in the Church and its contribution to his scientific ideas, WDP said it is indirectly helping him in making a good platform for having a happy life. He agreed to what Dr. TD Singh has said that if he has got a happy life then it is more likely that he is going to have more creative power than what would otherwise be the case. He said that Church aids to his personal well-being, and certainly it helps him to be a better person and he thinks a better person can be a better scientist the understanding he have about the way one ought to live - an understanding of what he believes God wants for them; this is something that carries over into the way he does his work, and he thinks it should be for every person of faith. Their faith, their religious moral principles, should be things that affect the way they do their work.

He said that we should love our neighbours, we should love our enemies, and we should be kind to everybody. He is grounded in his religious faith, his being part of the Church helps to guide him to do the right thing.

The idea of laser cooling:

Dr. TD Singh appreciated Dr. Phillip's qualities of humility and his dependence on God, and requested him to explain' a little bit in the area of the laser cooling of atoms. Prof William D Phillips has been a leading researcher in the field of laser cooling of atoms at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Maryland, and he was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser, in 1997.

So, Prof William D Phillips explained that the idea of laser cooling is that we have a gas of atoms or molecules. The air is one example; it is mostly molecules but there are some atoms. One of the characteristics of a gas is that the atoms and molecules that make up the gas are moving around very fast. What we do in laser cooling is to shine laser light onto a gas of atoms and we make the atoms slow down in their motion. Making them slow down is the same as making the gas colder. To have hot gas, it means that the atoms that make up that gas are moving faster than the same gas if it were cold. So slowing down the motions of the atoms in gas is the same as cooling. That is what they do in laser cooling. Now, how they do that? Well, they make the light push on the atoms. For a little more than a hundred years, people have known that light pushes on things and they suspected that it was true for even longer. For example, comet tails. Since the time of Kepler, at least people have known that the tails of comets always point away from the sun. One of the reasons for that is the sunlight pushes on the dust and gas that make up the comet, creating the tail so that it is always pointing away from the sun. There is also a solar wind that pushes, but the point is that light can push on things. So what they do is they arrange to have laser light push on atoms in such a way as to make them slow down. When they slow down, then the gas will be colder. That is, in a nutshell, how laser cooling works. They use the force that light can exert in atoms to push on them so as to make them slow down.

Applications:

They have been able to use laser-cooled atoms to ma'ke better clocks. This is one of the present applications. So today, the best clocks that people have are made with laser-cooled atoms, using the kind of techniques that they have developed in their laboratory - and that other people in other laboratorjes have developed. (They are not the only ones contributing with development of laser cooling, said by Prof William D Phillips, the Nobel laureate and pioneer of Laser Cooling of Atoms). By using these techniques people have been able to make the very best atomic clocks. What they mean by the 'second' is defined today by instruments that use laser-cooled atoms.

Time is a very important thing in this modern society. High-speed communications that are synchronous require a very precise timing.

Navigation using the Global Positioning System (GPS) requires very precise timing. They will be expecting all these things to be improved in the future by making better clocks, and in particular, clocks that use laser-cooled atoms. So, Prof William Phi1lips says there is an example that is already happening today. Standard laboratories in the U.S. and in the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere are all using laser cooling to make their time scales.

In Sri mad Bhagavatam (SB), which has been available in written form for more than 5000 years, there is a chapter (SB 3.11.4), entitled "Calculation of Time from the Atom." In it, it is explained that time is measured by the movement or vibration of the atoms. The similarity in concept is very striking. To this, Prof William Phillips was requested to explain how he measures time with laser­cooled atoms.

He said, that is exactly correct - it. is based on what some people might call the vibration of the atoms. Atoms have energy levels, that is, they exist in certain discreet energy states and they cannot exist in states in between diose energy states. One defines time according to the atomic vibrations, and he used the word "vibrations" loosely, of a cesium atom - vibrations of a particular kind.

Calculation of Time from the Atom:

sa kalah paramanur vai
yo bhunkte paramanutam
sa to 'visesa-bhug yas tu
sa kalah paramo mahan
(Srimad Bhagavatam 3.11.4)

See a Photo Gallery of "Remembering Sripada Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Maharaja" here

To be continued....