What is Inertia? - "The tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force."
Did I take you back to your 7th grade physics class right after lunch in the first bench getting ready to sleep with you eyes wide open listening to newton's laws and seriously wondering what effect it is going to have in our life??? (Phew!!! that was the longest sentence I have written in a while....BTW that was basically my experience in school with my physics class)
Physics has been one of the most intriguing subjects that I have come across always challenging until I start wondering as to why I am doing it....The moment I start thinking about the purpose of doing it and don't get any answers...my interest for it takes a steep dive....But of late I have been trying to link up science and math with life and looks like I might make some sense of the physics and the math and chemistry (of course I dont have to work too hard on this....association between people and chemistry is not new in any sense ;-)) associated with our actual life.
When I was in 7th grade, my ambition was to win a Nobel Prize....it seemed very bleak at that point of time....and I was wondering how the hell I can dream about a nobel prize when I cant understand why I am doing the things that I am doing.
Few of my Questions were as follows:
1. Why should I go to school?
2. Why should I understand newton's laws?
3. Why is it important for me to have good handwriting?
4. Why should I live up to everybody's expectations?
5. Why should I be good at Math and Science although it is not really necessary to be good at Social studies?
6. Why should I be an engineer or a doctor? Why not an artist or maybe a singer or maybe a psychiatrist or maybe....a lot of other things?
I have been experiencing this thing called inertia right from my childhood days but could not call it that cos I just could not believe that such a boring concept in physics could actually be a very important factor in my life.
While these kind of repulsiveness that I had during my school days was one source of inertia....I am going to talk about the main source of inertia that I experienced in the past few years. This made me realize that it was inertia indeed.
My Ist experience with inertia was when I started doing meditation and yoga after getting up (Long long ago :)) before going to school...There is an aasana called "Shavasana" in which you lie down like a dead body for about 5 minutes and breathe slowly and it should be done at the end. I always used to enjoy this aasana as I can sleep for extra 5 minutes right under my mother's nose...without her shouting at me ;-). One fine day something happened and I was unable to get up. It seemed as though something was controlling me, I was trying really hard but could not get up. My hands and legs were going numb. My mom was asking me to finish up soon as it was getting late, I called her out aloud but nothing came out of the mouth. I just could not move. Then when my mom saw me lying there she pulled me up and scolded me for sleeping even while exercising....I did not know what to tell her. It was a very strange experience...An Experience when I got the closest to inertia. This has happened to me many times after the first time and almost become a routine but the first time it happened I really thought maybe my soul was not able to control the body.
This was Inertia revelation - I ("The tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest unless acted on by an outside force)
Now for Inertia revelation - II. We went to Tirupathi sometime before I came here for my Masters as per my mom's wishes and we had to walk up 7 mountains to go and get a Darshan of the Tirupathi Idol (My perception of God is completely different and hence I would like to maintain that everything kept in temples are symbols of God but not God themselves....I will talk more about that in a different post). I was walking with my cousin and we were walking really fast....way ahead of the rest of the family. And we kept on walking fast....never stopped and never looked back and hence never felt tired. Then another cousin of mine came hurrying up and stopped us and asked us "what is the necessity to walk so fast?" "why are you guys running as if there is a race?" and then we suddenly realized we were walking that way for no reason....If she hadn't stopped us we would have gone on forever...maybe even beyond Tirupathi...I don't know
What can I call this if not inertia....I had a similar experience today morning before going to office and then today afternoon I came across the word inertia when I was reading something at work and then it occurred to me.....Our Physical body like any other external body (material in nature) and it is only the soul that controls it and applies force on it to make it move in a certain direction....and that direction is dependent on what force is applied on the soul by the external forces which include positive and negative influences....thoughts, company etc....and those are influenced by other factors which finally ends up in that one thing from which everything emanates....There is no such thing as a human being in its entirety....there is no such thing as a soul in it entirety...everything starts from that thing and ends in the same thing and that this is called by believers as God and by others as humanism, nature etc.
So Human life is basically possible because of various types of inertia caused on the seed from which everything emanates. That is how souls emerge...that is how physical bodies emerge....and the permutation/combination of different types of inertia's at different stages of the seed gives us different kinds of human beings...that is none other than OURSELVES.
To Summarize:
CAUTION: Thinking too much about this might be injurious to your mental health ;-)...Be wise and consider it as one of my ramblings and one of those unedited, raw versions of my thought process.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Ever experienced Inertia?
Posted by
priti
at
8:17 PM
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10 comments:
Your post is an 'Newtonian interpretation of advaita school of hindu philosophy' - Corollary to advaita vedanta. In my opinion, matter is like the primary data and numerous transformations are possible. But again, the kind of analysis and context of the relevant science decides the transformation and hence comes the flavor. Though data can be transformed in to numerous forms, the variance and the inherent characteristics of the data does not change just because of the transformations and hence the transformations are just data itself but in different form. So that is advaita vedanta (We learned in same school - உங்களுக்கு மட்டும் தான் குழப்ப தெரியுமா?).
Just kidding, it was a nice post indeed. But stop thinking at least for a while; i mean stop thinking toooooo much, three much ellam. Its good for ur mental health.
who was pinning you down?
a gud one priti.. u r turning into a pro..
I recognize this post as a clever interpretation of ‘(Unending Process of) Creation of (in) the Universe’ and ‘Advaita Vedanta’ through the laws of Physics.
Such a great thinker you are.
“Cogito, ergo sum” – Rene Descartes.
here, Feynman talks about intertia; about his father told about him. at around 3/4th of this part of the interview.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk8TVopOBGE&feature=related
I think your equation is "artistic". Correct only if you get at least a few scientists to agree about the SOUL variable :) A nice post.
we all experience inertia...but we dont accept....
ur questions of childhood are even relevant now to every child born here..in india...stereotype childhoods....i think every society has a model of success based on education and wealth...if ur education helps in acquiring wealth then u r successful...if ur a doc or engr u make money...so one has to do well in science and maths....it is continuing .... now one has to be IT engr
Hmm for me too it tuk years to unstan inertia.. in two marks questions, i got 2marks by writing this, and got the feel only after 2to 3 years.. Its tough to stop thinking like this, once u have started enjoying it.
And this savasana, this feel.. my goodness i too have related things like this.. i feel so happy to see a girl, this way!!!
And i hope, u too have crossed a very tough phase of your life recently...
--TO kuzhandhai
kadasila, ellam onnudhangra thathuvam advaithathula nalla solapatruku.. namma munorgalum ipdidhan thought processla maati, kadasila Godngra mudivuku vandhirkanga.. its hard to stop thinking like this, and its just the time that can make a change.. change here is, the topic on which the mind can continue thinking can change, but the process is never ending. Meditation can give the freedom for some duration, then finally death.. (k, i'll stop here, ennala mudijalavuku naanum kulapiten)
Interesting post. Let me try my take on this topic. My response is in two parts. First, it is interesting to think of the experience of inertia. To make matters simple, let us define inertia as being in the steady state. Why do people stay in the steady state? Think of an alternative scenario where people enjoy doing what they are doing for years without any significant change. The most common reason suggested is bounded rationality. There are limits to cognitive processing abilities for each individual and once they find their comfort zone the incentive to move out should be substantially large to offset the cost of switching. Do we need an external force to move out of inertia? That is a difficult question to answer. If external forces were always required, several psychological constructs are under threat. For instance, motivation, which is an inner force, can lead a person out of inertia. Having said that, this is a topic which requires further thinking and debate.
Now to the second part of this comment, related to your earlier question of "why" certain things happen. "Why" is a double edged sword. It can either propel you forward by breaking new boundaries or force you to regress backward into a tempest of thoughts. While your explanation is inertia, I think the forces at work in this part of the blog is related to isomorphism and not really inertia. Why should I go to school? Because every other person in the same group within your social circle is going to school! ....Why should I be good in math and science? Because your neighbor is good in Math and Science and plans to do Engineering? Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces a person to imitate other units within its social circle. Note that such behavior need not necessarily come just from within your circle, but it can propagate across networks of social circles. Sometimes we can have coercive isomorphism. For instance the lack of jobs and hence financial instability in performing arts coerces a person within the given social circle to choose say engineering. Isomorphism can also be mimetic. For instance parents want their kids to be engineers, because all other kids within their circle are also engineers and hence mimicking is the acceptable social norm. A third kid of isomorphism is normative by nature. The inherent competitive nature of mankind forces us to beat goals and standards. Hence going to medical school inherently tells us that we are above a particular threshold.
Therefore the "Why's" are not necessarily due to inertia but probably more on account of isomorphism! Once again a very interesting blog indeed.
Thanks everyone for visiting my space and for all the comments....more interpretations more fun and more thinking :)
Just stepped on to your space...
Cool buddy :-). Loved this post.
With Love,
Arun.
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