Immortality and the Ancients

One of my friends asked me once this genuine question, ‘How old do you have to be so that people class you as ancient?’ I didn’t know, I thought maybe a hundred years old, five hundred years, a thousand years. I looked it up and there was no clear answer. It depended on the context and the relativity of the situation. The only thing that was certain was that it meant too old, and that I knew.

 

But the question made me wonder since ancient means too old, and we can use it to refer to a person, a culture or a civilisation that has been around for centuries, or left its remnants behind as a constant reminder of its existence, deeming it perpetual in its own eccentric timeless way, what can we class as immortal. The ancient Greeks and Romans left behind pillars, statues, amphitheatres and Colosseum. The ancient Egyptians left behind pyramids, temples and obelisks, even their dead they mummified so that they remain. Remaining was always what these great ancient nations wanted to do, and leaving a story to be told was what they tried to pass down. Chronicles were carved on temple walls, papyrus records were preserved in pottery jars and leather pouches.

To be remembered, the new pharaoh right after ascending the throne, would commission a statue, an obelisk, a new temple maybe and some even went as far as ordering the build of a pyramid. When they died the most beautiful works of art were put down with their mummies in royal temples, masks of gold and statues of marble and stone.  Tutankhamun, the child pharaoh, has been immortalised not by his great achievement as a great king, god and ruler, but through the 1922 discovery of his intact tomb and the artefacts found in it, including the incredibly beautiful golden mask.

Now he and others are remembered for something they have not done, but had it done for them. It is the artists, the engineers, the writers, the craftsmen that achieved these rulers’ immortality. A power they had to give to others, but lacked the ability to bless themselves with. A very scarce number of artists from these times are known, fewer even are remembered when referring to these civilizations. However ultimately it is the work of art that remains, holding in its curves and timeless eaves the memory of the ancient and the beauty of its immortal presence.

Why the ‘God Particle’ Matters!

For the last few days there has been a big buzz in the media about the discovery of the ever elusive and long sought after ‘God Particle’.  Not many of us know what the ‘God Particle’ is, what it does, or where  its importance comes from. As an enthusiast of the ‘God Particle’, I decided to explain what all this buzz is about in few simple words.

In the early twentieth century, scientists managed to explore the components of the atom. They were shocked to find that most of the atom is actually space. There was a nucleus and around it revolved electrons each in its own separate orbit, and they noticed that this was just like the sun and the planets. Later on they discovered that even galaxies have their own orbits. The question that imposed itself was ‘What is all this space for?’ Particle physicists were baffled by this question. They could not understand how on one had there was a vacuum inside the atom, and on the other hand this vacuum did not lead the atom to crunch upon itself.

Peter Higgs wrote his theory on the issue in 1964 explaining hypothetically how such a space comes to exist and the kind of particle that shapes its characteristics. The particle was named after him ‘Higgs boson’ and was nicknamed as the God Particle because of its mysteriousness and power. Since then scientists have been experimenting to find it and explore it. This proved very troublesome as it is very big and decays almost immediately after its existence, and only high energy particle accelerators can manage to record the process. With modern technology such particle accelerators were built which helped accelerate the research leading to the current discovery of the ‘God Particle’.

The discovery of the ‘God Particle’ is very important as this will open the door to exploring why beings and objects are shaped the way they are, and what gives objects their masses. It will be amazing to come to terms with all the space in the universe, inside and outside the earth, and understand the reason for its existence.