If the laws are habits, then habits can be changed

Can there be an Indian Science? Prof R.Y.Deshpande,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry December 12, 2003, 16:00 Hours, AG-69

ABSTRACT: World War II has brought about a civilisational change in every society. America as its leader governs our thoughts and commerce and even our entertainment and consumer habits. Today we are all engaged essentially in American science. Its distinctive feature is gigantism: Its establishments are large and the funds that flow into it are phenomenal. Such an organized research began with the Manhattan wartime project for atomic weapons development. Now we have big laboratories all over the world. Sizeable teams are seen busy in their researches as a collective enterprise. CERN is a good example where twenty European countries provide funds for the research programmes. Seven thousand scientists from all over the world benefit from the facility.

Big science came to India almost with the dawn of independence. Bhabha was the pioneering spirit behind it. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Atomic Energy and Space have their origin in the dynamism of that vision. In the backdrop of the colonial past this indeed was a breakthrough. But now another breakthrough must occur. We hardly have our own ideas of science, our own inquiries,-neither in fundamental matters, nor techno-industrial. We are mostly engaged in follow-up activities. This is not a very edifying situation and we must raise issues true to our own nature.

We must, for sure, acquire first the skills of the Western science,-mathematical, theoretical, experimental, technological. On this groundwork must begin our own work. It might be questioning the sacrosanctity of the very laws of nature. If the laws are habits, then habits can be changed. It is a question of questioning them in the deepest sense. Here might open out rewarding frontiers for doing truer science.

We should also examine the methodology of the current science. Not analysis and deduction, but synthesis could be explored. We must appreciate that water is not just a combination of oxygen and hydrogen. New properties arise at every stage of aggregation and the why should really engage us. Relationship between spatial arrangements and physical properties is another fundamental issue. Diamond and carbon are the same chemical element but in terms of properties they are two. New concepts of space and time might be needed to comprehend this. The problems that are baffling us today in quantum mechanics could be due to our inability to grasp the real nature of these concepts. Then, new observations demand mathematical tools matched well with them.

Here an Indian insight is expected to provide a deeper peep into things. Emergence of Indian science means the assertion of Indian spirit in search of the truth of the material world. If it can happen in science possibly it might also happen, in respective ways, in all the activities of our national life. Click here for Full Text1, Full Text2 www.tifr.res.in