Science As An Impetus For Change Towards A Better World

Science, being a body of knowledge that is based on empirical observation and logical deduction, has always prided itself as the light of reason which illuminates the darkness of ignorance shrouding the world. It is a catalyst of change and the impetus for technological advancement.

As the most important prerequisite for technological improvements, science undoubtedly has a far-reaching influence and plays an important role in society. Enhanced understanding of the various phenomena in nature has enabled us to create a multitude of devices and machines to improve our lives. Indeed, without science, technological marvels such as the now ubiquitous computers, mobile phones, air-conditioners and countless other devices which we have taken for granted would not have been possible, let alone construct skyscrapers and entire cities. Advances in medical science have also given us a plethora of medicine and vaccines in our battles against diseases and extending the average lifespan of humans. Yet in the same breath, science has also led to the invention of the machinery of modern warfare and weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. A scientifically-inspired technological society is thus not necessarily a better world.

Blindly supporting science without a moral compass would only lead to more problems. What is needed in the face of the mounting challenges in the 21st century is a science that is bold and creative, yet ethical, compassionate and inclusive. For too long we have narrowly focused on utilising science for the betterment of the human race alone, even to the extent of neglecting the environment we live in. We have exploited animals for research on human diseases, deforested vast swathes of land, polluted the environment and destroyed the natural habitats of countless creatures in our quest to gather ever more resources to feed our insatiable consumerism. Who are we to proclaim ourselves as masters of nature and that it is our right to exploit the environment and other sentient beings for our sole benefit? We have misused the name of science in our misguided pursuit of improving our quality of life. Such a cold and egocentric kind of science is untenable in the long run. It is time to rethink our place in the universe and treat all sentient beings as equals.

Nevertheless, in a world griped by numerous grave problems such as global warming, climate change, pandemics, wars, impending oil, food and water shortages, science remains our best hope of solving them. Green technology, a field which I am personally interested in, holds the promise of ameliorating environmental problems such as global warming and pollution. Clean, renewable alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power will not only help avert the impending energy crisis due to declining reserves of non-renewable fossil fuels, but also shift the balance of the control of energy resources away from the hands of a few countries to the rest of the world, paving the way towards a more level global playing field and peaceful world where wars would no longer have to be waged over oil.

More than merely being a driver of technological improvement, science is also a candle in the dark which shines the path towards a more enlightened future. Science serves as a bulwark against blind faith and dogmatic mysticism. Entrenched ways of thinking and an aversion to trying out new ideas are impediments to alleviating the problems we face. The essence of science lies in the openness to new ideas and willingness to modify or discard old theories and ways of thinking in favour of more productive ones which are consistent with empirical observation, coupled with a healthy dose of scepticism and relentless scrutiny. Adopting such an attitude in tackling the global problems looming before us would enable us to find efficacious solutions. To quote the late astronomer and populariser of science, Carl Sagan, “Science by itself cannot advocate courses of human action, but it can certainly illuminate the possible consequences of alternative courses of action.”

The onslaught of progress and wave of change is inevitable. Instead of trying to resist it, we should embrace science as an impetus for change. Science is like a double-edge sword; it has the potential to do much good and help us build a better world, but if misused, it can spawn more problems and lead to deleterious consequences. What is clear is that science alone will not be the answer to all our problems. Science has to be checked by ethics and an appropriate amount of regulation. Unbridled pursuit of science and technology is dangerous, but so too is an overdose of moralistic or religiously-guided regulation which would only stifle the progress of science as well as our chance of finding solutions to tackle the problems we all face.

Speculations on First Contact

After watching the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still", I could not help but keep revisiting the topic of alien encounters with the human race in the back of my mind. The topic of alien encounters is a very frequent one in science fiction and has been brought up countless times, both in novels and movies. However, I think novels tend to fare better than most Hollywood films in depicting the realism of possible alien encounters with mankind.

Most Hollywood films such as Starwars, Star Trek, Alien, Species and Predator tend to portray aliens as having humanoid bodies, having two arms, two legs, a head and body. The usual differences between humans aliens in such movies are the alien skin colour, number of limbs, eyes, etc. All these superficial differences reflect a lack of creativity. Even most other lifeforms on Earth such as insects and animals will look more different from humans than the aliens in the films. Or maybe the film producers want to cut costs by using human actors for the alien roles instead of creating robots or using computer animation.

The probability of any alien lifeforms resembling anything close to humans is extremely low, far lower than the probability of anyone striking the lottery consecutively for his/her entire life! Anyone who has read and understand the theory of evolution should come to this conclusion. Life on Earth is the way we know it because of eons of accumulated chance mutations which were then sieved out by natural selection so that only those best suited for the particular environment in the particular locales on Earth will thrive. The complex interplay of numerous factors in the evolutionary history of Earth is certainly not something that will likely be repeated elsewhere in the universe. As such, there is no reason to believe that life on another planet would take exactly the same evolutionary path of Earth life, even if the conditions are the same. Famed scientists Carl Sagan, Paul Davies and Richard Dawkins, as well as numerous others have written books on this topic and it is worth reading them.

The main problem why most people think aliens will look like humans or some other Earth-like creature might be due to our current narrow definition of life. Our definition of life is only based on Earth life, and is certainly not representative of life throughout the cosmos. Why must life be restricted to solid forms? It is physically sensible for alien life to manifest in other physical states such as liquid and gas. Or alien life may be non-coporeal and take on exotic forms such as being composed of pure energy or electromagnetic fields. Science fiction novels such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, "Beyond Infinity" by Gregory Benford have postulated such possibilities. Another hot favourite is that many scientist think that water is necessary for life and thus they focus their search for alien life to worlds which contain water. Water is a good solvent for many inorganic substances and has high heat capacity which allows the stabilization of temperature within a relative small range, as well as other properties which make it suitable for Earth life. Water may be necessary for Earth life, but why must this criteria apply to aliens too? There are other solvents which can dissolve many substances as well. It is high time we re-look at our current definition of life and update it, before we miss recognizing alien life in future space exploration missions.

Another point to consider is that of collective consciousness. Aliens could also behave more like a hive than as separate individuals. As such, any attempt to communicate with them may prove even more difficult, due to the different ways of thinking. Imagine what would a person say to an ant or termite hive. I suppose the natural tendency for humans is to look for the leaders in the alien race, but a hive has no leaders; the queen ant or termite does not give instructions to the other ants, each individual ant merely carry out its own job. When each eat follows its own simple set of 'instinctive instructions', the self-organised collective behaviour of an entire ant colony can be markedly different from that of the individual ant itself. Clearly, a single ant or termite may not be as intelligent as a human (then again it depends on our definition of intelligence), but an entire ant or termite hive is far from stupid. Just look at the engineering marvels such as 5 meter tall termites hives which African mound termites are capable of building. Hives follow a bottoms-up approach, in contrast to our usual top-down approach.

As a class 0 civilization, chances are that a more advanced civilization will make contact with us rather than the other way round. Furthermore, we have only started exploring space in the last few decades, and the cosmos being such a unimaginably huge space, it will probably take us eons to find signs of alien life, if there is any. Given that the universe is around 17 billion years old, it is plausible that there are much older and advanced civilizations out there among the stars other than ours. And they would probably have reached class 3 or even 4 if they can reach us on Earth. From the history of mankind, every time a more advanced civilization makes contact with a less advanced one, it almost always resulted in a war of civilizations with the more advanced one triumphing. The same may or may not occur with our contact with extra-terrestrial intelligences. We do not know yet. Even if the aliens came here with no intention of harm, I think the result would still very much turn out to be a war, due to the territorial nature of humans, a behavioral relict of our evolutionary past. We would probably be the first to attack the aliens. This is where the film " The Day The Earth Stood Still" is probably right. Perhaps precisely because of this, the aliens have kept themselves invisible from us on purpose, assuming that they exist and are benevolent. This is just one of the many theories behind the Fermi Paradox.
(I will probably write an article on the Fermi Paradox in the future. I think I shall stop here for now, I could go on non-stop on the topic of aliens.)

Thoughts will soon be secrets no more

It was reported that researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have succeeded in processing and displaying images directly from the human brain. The team has only managed to reproduce only simple images from the brain but they believe that the technology could eventually be used to figure out dreams and other secrets inside people's minds. (http://www.physorg.com/news148193433.html)

It seems like we have opened yet another Pandora's Box. The potential of technology which allows others to read people’s minds is simply mind-boggling and its potential dangers are anyone's guess. It is only a matter of time when such mind-reading devices become as ubiquitous as mobile phones. There will undoubtedly be useful applications of such technology such as in solving crime cases and creating drawings and animations directly by visualizing them in the mind. However, in such a future, personal thoughts will no longer be private anymore as our very last sanctuary of privacy is encroached upon.

Already there are companies which sell commercial brain-computer interfaces (BCI) products such as headphones, based on electro-encephalogram (EEG) technology. Such devices allow the user to control the computer using their thoughts alone; they could control the cursor on the monitor screen, a computer game character or even a robot in the real world. Such technology will make it possible for people who have lost their limbs or wheelchair bound patients to be replaced with robotic prosthetic limbs which can be controlled by their mind. In fact, there have already been patients fitted with such BCI devices such as blind people who have partially regained their sight using electrodes implanted into their visual cortex and linked to an external camera. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-computer_interface) With the aid of BCI devices, doctors will be able to perform surgeries with better accuracy for longer hours with less physical fatigue from their hands, and astronauts can manipulate tools and conduct delicate experiments in space more efficiently using thought-controlled robotic arms instead of their bulky spacesuit gloves. BCI devices can also contribute a positive impact in the education arena and will enhance the learning experience for students. Uses of BCI in treatment of psychological disorders such as depression, phobias and attention-deficit disorder are also possible. Other applications include marketing uses, advertising, consumer electronics, and entertainment.

In the near future, it is highly possible that there will be groups, organizations or even governments willing to utilize such BCI devices to control others as well. Just as we can control computers and robots using our thoughts, the reverse could probably happen also. The prophetic vision of the future portrayed by the film The Matrix might not be too far-fetched after all. Initially there might be many people resisting the use of such devices for ethical or personal reasons, but the inadvertent tide of science and technology will nevertheless remain an unstoppable force. I foresee a future where even normal people would fit themselves with such BCI devices to enhance their physical and even mental abilities. This may sound repelling to some right now but it may be perfectly acceptable to people of the future. People of the past may never have thought that our generation would be so dependent on electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones, where people carry them along everywhere they go, so much so that some of these devices have become something of an extra limb or appendage to us. It is only a matter of time before mobile communications technology and even computers become available as chips which can be embedded in our brains. There will be no need to carry mobile phones or laptops then, and we will not even need to talk to communicate for our thoughts can be directly transmitted to each another. Perhaps, that is how we will achieve extra-sensory abilities such as telepathy in the future.

BCI technology, as with many other nascent technologies, is progressing at a rate too fast for comfort for many and has engendered numerous ethical issues and controversies. We live in an age of rapid technological advances and must to learn to live with the ever-changing technologies that arise continuously. Technology is a double-edged sword. Will we lose our sense of identity and become mindless cyborgs immersed in the virtual world controlled by others or computers or will we be able to utilize and maintain control over technology for the greater good of mankind in our quest to achieve utopia?

Artificial Gravity in Space?

Artificial gravity has been portrayed in many sci-fi movies and novels by the use of giant rotating cylinder-shaped spaceships to generate acceleration. According to Einstein, acceleration is equivalent to gravity. However, I have been wondering what happens when a person jumps in a rotating spaceship. Thus, I decided to do a little thought experiment.

Assume we have a giant cylinder-shaped spaceship that rotates at a constant angular velocity w. A person standing inside the spaceship will experience centripetal acceleration directed towards the axis of rotation (or the centre of the spaceship in that particular cross-sectional frame) and the resulting normal force acting on him/her will cause a sensation of gravity. However, if the person jumps in the direction towards the centre, he/she will lift off the surface with 2 velocities components- the tangential velocity and initial velocity towards the center. The resultant velocity can be calculated and he/she will 'fly' in a straight line towards the inner surface of the spaceship at an angle as seen in the video and end up landing at a different spot from where he/she lifted off. This is because once the person is off the surface, there is no longer any resultant force acting on him/her (neglect air resistance), unlike on Earth where gravity continues to act even when you are airborne.

(PS: Does anyone know how to upload flash animation files onto blogger? I had to convert the flash file to .avi format which is much larger in file size)

Applying the same reasoning, objects 'falling' in a rotating spaceship will not 'fall' in a straight vertical line but will end up hitting the ground at some horizontal distance away from the point at which is starts 'falling'. This apparent curved motion of objects is called Coriolis effect. In this respect, artificial gravity is different from real gravity and may lead to many problems living in space.

Prolonged exposure to weightlessness can cause health problems in astronauts such as loss of bone mass, muscle atrophy, dehydration, anemia and weakened immunity, among others. Such adverse effects can be countered by rigorous exercise or by inducing gravity. Currently, a significant amount of time on exercising by astronauts while on space missions. This is not very economical as it results in less time for conducting experiments. In the future when people live in space colonies, we cannot expect everyone to spend so much time exercising. Thus it is of utmost importance to find a way to create artificial gravity that is as close to the real thing as possible. Currently, the only way to create real gravity is to use mass. In order to create 1g, we will need the mass of the Earth, so clearly that is not a viable option for space missions. So for now, we will just have to stick to the idea of large rotating spaceships and put up with large Coriolis forces.

Do electrons really spin and do quarks really have colour?

Do electrons really spin and are quarks really coloured? Well, the answers to both are no. Why then do scientists come up with such terms? To deliberately obfuscate people? I do not think so. The limitations of human languages in describing the quantum world have made it difficult for us to assign appropriate words to describe properties of subatomic particles. As such, analogies such as spin and colour are used to create a more intuitive understanding of reality. What do scientists mean by the spin of electrons and colours of quarks then?

Before I explain electron spin, imagine a classical spinning top. If you look at the spinning top from the top or bottom, you will see that it is either spinning clockwise or anti-clockwise. If you view it from the side, you will not observe any spin. (Note: Spin is defined to be the rotation of an object about an axis which passes through it.) In order to understand the spin of an electron, we have to move away from the classical notion of spin. The electron is actually not a point-like particle but rather, it is a probability cloud. The spin of an electron is just a name used to describe one of its properties. This electron spin is a result of its intrinsic angular momentum. If you view the electron about any axis in 3-dimensional space, you will always observe either a clockwise or anti-clockwise spin, and the value of the spin is defined to be 1/2. It is difficult to imagine how this can happen, for the quantum world is totally different and exists on different scales from the macroscopic world on which we live in. It is only natural then that we will have trouble visualizing the world of the subatomic, just as a bacterium would have much difficulty in comprehending the human world.

Now let's move on to quarks. Quarks are the constituent particles of hadrons (a class of subatomic particles which interact via the strong force) and come in six different flavours called, 'up', 'down', 'top', 'bottom', 'strange' and 'charm'. These are not names of some newfangled ice-cream flavours but are merely names of different types of quarks. Apart from flavours, quarks also posses another property called colour and come in red, blue and green. A hadron is colour neutral as it consists of three quarks from each of the colours, just like mixing the three primary colours of light produces white light. In a meson, there are two quarks of similar colour but each being the matter and anti-matter counterpart of each other.

Quarks themselves are not coloured in the classical sense in which we see macroscopic objects in different colours. We can see and perceive colour from macroscopic objects because incident light or photons on the objects are absorbed by electrons in the atoms and then re-emitted or transmitted to our eyes. In the simplified model of an atom, bound electrons 'orbit' the nuclei in shells of fixed distances from the nuclei. (Note that electrons are actually probability clouds which flow around the nuclei of atoms and this flow is called a probability current.) Whenever a photon with the right amount of energy (corresponding to the gap between two energy levels of an atom) is incident on a bound electron, it will be absorbed by the electron and cause the latter to become ‘excited’ and jump to a higher orbit. The excited electron subsequently re-emits a photon as it falls back to a lower state. (Note that the excited electron may return to the ground in a single or multi-step process.) Since different atoms and molecules, and thus different objects, have different gaps in energy levels, they reflect different frequencies of visible light, resulting in our perception of colour. Anything smaller than an atom will not possess colour in the classical sense. Hence, it makes no sense to ask how quarks look like.

In trying to understand and describe the quantum world, we are inevitably bogged down by our limited sensory perceptions, preconceived notions of the world and semantic limitations. Nevertheless, we have come very far in building a scientific model of the world since the dawn of civilization. Will we ever be able to fully comprehend the world? Some say that it is impossible for mere human minds which are constrained by the limitations imposed by our physical senses to comprehend the universe. I personally think that Science alone will not be able to fully explain every aspect of reality. However, many people have been wrong countless times in predicting the limits of Science. Thus, only time will tell.

Complexity Theory

In my previous post, I mentioned about complexity theory. It is actually a branch of science which explores how simple instructions governing individual units of a system consisting of a large number of these units can give rise to complex behaviours without the need for a leader or intelligent being in control. Examples of complex systems include schools of fishes swimming in unison, flocks of birds flying in formation, the weather, formation of hurricanes, the human brain, the stock market, and even the behaviour of liquid water. Another thing about complex systems is that they possess properties that cannot be predicted from the individual properties of their constituent units, just like you cannot predict the properties of macroscopic water such its boiling point or density merely by studying the individual properties of the water molecules.

Check out the links below for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3410/03.html
http://complexity.orconhosting.net.nz/intro.html

Book Review: Climbing Mount Improbable - Richard Dawkins

Ever wondered how the theory of evolution could explain the existance of the dazzling array of complex biological creatures on Earth? If your anwer is yes, then you should read this book. Apart from explaining that, Richard Dawkins also tackled the favourite target of creationists - the eye.

Creationists believe that only an intelligent being could have created something as complex as the eye. The book goes to great length to explain how complex structures like eyes can be a product of the forces of mindless random mutations and natural selection, thereby removing the need for intelligent design. In fact, eyes evolved no less than 40 times independently and taking only around 500 thousand years in some cases, which is really just a 'blink of the eye' in terms of geological time. What most people fail to realize about the theory of evolution is that complex biological structures can be evolved through a series of gradual steps; they do not have to be evolved in a single huge step. Richard Dawkins used the analogy of climbing a mountain to explain this: when faced with an insurmountable clift, one can find another longer route which has gentler slopes and is easier to climb, just as evolution tends to seek these gentler slopes towards increasing complexity. Thus, seemingly impossible structures can arise in nature without the intervention of any intelligent being. Do read up on complexity theory if you wish to find out more about how complex systems can arise out of numerous simple interacting sub-units.

Even if you already believe in the theory of evolution, this book still has much to offer you. It provides deeper insights into how and why different creatures took on separate evolutionary paths and evolved different body structures to serve the same or different purposes. For instance, bats use echolocation for navigation whereas most other creatures rely on sight. It also explains why only some creatures evolved wings for flight but not others. It is actually due to the practicalities of the required wingspan, speed of flapping, stresses on the wing material, etc, that will be needed to lift the weight of the creature. Richard Dawkins also mentioned about the high level of complexity that exists in creatures with five-fold or higher symmetry such as the Radiolarian and starfish. There are plenty of other interesting stuff in the book, not to mention the numerous pictures in it.

Radiolarian Haeckel Polycyttaria (from Wikipedia)

Blog Action Day poem

Today is Blog Action Day. It is an event in which bloggers all over the world shall post something related to the environment on this day in a bid to raise awareness of environmental issues. To find out more about Blog Action Day, visit http://blogactionday.org/

For my little contribution to the cause of Blog Action Day, I have penned a poem and I hope you will like it.

The Flight of the Last Seabird

Autumn’s coming to an end
The leaves have begun to turn yellow
Before long the chilly Northern winds have come
Presaging the arrival of the impatient winter
But the winter has come too soon, too abrupt
Something has gone wrong with the weather

The time for the Migration has come again
Yet it seems only yesterday when the seagulls settled here
The hatchlings were still too young to fly
But the lake would freeze soon and only death awaits
Leaving the young and the old to their fate
The seagulls reluctantly took off to the skies
Embarking once more on a journey in search for food, warmth and breeding sites
Little did they know that it would be their last flight

The terrain has changed beyond recognition
The forests have disappeared and mountains denuded
Flying over the parched and desiccated land seemingly devoid of life
The sea came into sight much earlier than expected
The coasts and sandy beaches have all but gone
And the land mass shrunken at an incredible rate
Giving up the fight against the relentless encroaching sea

Fishes abound in the never-ending sea
It might have been a seabird’s paradise
But it was not to be
Water was everywhere but not a sip to be had

Having flown for months without rest
Yet not a piece of land in sight
Battling thirst, aching muscles and sudden violent storms
Only a handful of seagulls have survived
Even so the numbers are rapidly declining
Till there was only one last bird flying
Striving against all odds to keep the hopes of dry land alive
But her efforts proved futile
As she finally succumbed to fatigue and plunged into the abysmal sea

Copyright © Ong Wei Guang

The poem illustrates a possible scenario of Earth in the future plagued by global climate changes, unpredictable violent storms, widespread desertification and most prominently rising sea levels which inundate vast swathes of land. The plight of the seagulls trying in vain to find suitable land to rest during their migration highlights the possibility of mass extinction of numerous species of plants and animals, due to the destruction of natural habitats caused by rising sea levels. All these could happen if global warming is left unchecked as man continues exploiting the natural resources of Earth and pumping ever-increasing copious amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without restrain.

As the concentration of greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere, more sunlight is trapped and reflected back to the Earth’s surface, raising global temperatures and melting glaciers and polar ice caps. As more ice melts, less sunlight is reflected back into space and this result in a positive feedback cycle, accelerating global warming. While some scientist have dismissed global warming as alarmist and believe that the Earth will be able to cope with the influx of greenhouse gases caused by the activities of man, there have been increasing evidence in recent years of the manifestations of the dire consequences of global warming all over the world. The Gaia hypothesis proposes that the Earth’s biosphere is a complex non-linear dynamic system and as such, rising global temperatures could reach a certain critical tipping point after which run-away sudden cataclysmic climate changes ensue, as in the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. But of course, do watch the show with a pinch of skepticism as Hollywood movies tend to exaggerate things.

Magic VS Technology

I just watched ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix’ today and can't help seeing the obvious parallels between magic and technology. Harry Potter's world portrays an alternate reality. In his world, newspapers (The Daily Prophet) could display movie clips and photographs show moving pictures instead of static ones. Mails and envelopes could fly to their recipients and even talk and disintegrate automatically after delivering their messages. These ideas may not be as far-fetched as they seem. There is already much research done on thin, flexible active matrix displays for several years by companies such as Siemens, Philips and Plastic Logic. These displays are as thin and as flexible as paper and can display moving images and store thousands of pages of text. Some of these displays are already in the prototype stage and we can expect to see them in the market in a few years time. As for flying and talking mails, I do not think that will be necessary, for we already have e-mails which are faster and allow us to add file attachments such as voice or movie clips.

In the realm of transportation, Harry Potter’s world depicts wizards and witches riding on flying broomsticks and using port-keys, which transports people to another place in a somewhat fashion to teleportation. Well, we may not have flying broomsticks but we do have flying cars. Yes, you did not read wrongly. There is a company called Moller International that produces personal commuter Skycars which as the name suggests, take you to the sky. The Skycar is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicle and does not need a runway. In the recent ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ movie, the Silver Surfer rides on a flying ‘surf board’, but the difference is that the ‘surf board’ is supposed to be a piece of advanced alien technology and not magic. As for teleportation of human beings, such technology may not exist now but that does not preclude such a possibility in the future. Scientists have already succeeded in teleporting a single photon via a process called quantum entanglement. But to teleport a macroscopic object like a human which consists of trillions of atoms is far beyond our technological abilities currently. In the process of teleportation, the object to be teleported is to be split into the individual constituent atoms and sub-atomic particle and then the quantum states of all these particles are recorded and the information transmitted to the designated teleporter to be reconstructed. So effectively, the teleported object is destroyed and then reconstructed. In Harry Potter’s world, doors could lead you to another place or rooms that are much larger than they look from the outside. To achieve something like this, we will have to enter other dimensions. String theory states that there are 10 dimensions, 6 of them being spatial dimensions and the remaining 4 are time dimensions. In M-theory, there are 11 dimensions. We are unable to see the other dimensions because we exist in three dimensions and it is difficult for us to visualize a higher dimensional reality. By moving in another dimension, we will appear to disappear and enter another place. We do not yet know how to move in these other dimensions or whether it is possible to do so in the first place, so extra-dimensional travel will remain a fantasy for now.

The ability to move objects without physical contact is also a prominent aspect in Harry Potter’s world. In fact it is possible to do so, using a method called acoustic levitation. However, scientists have only been able to lift very light loads using acoustic levitation till now. Perhaps in time we will find some ways of moving larger and heavier objects without physical contact. A professor called John Hutchinson has reportedly claimed to have devised a way of doing so by tapping into vacuum energy. However, there have been much doubt and controversy over his claims.

Metamorphosis is another thing which caught my eye while watching the Harry Potter movie. In the movie Sirius Black could transform into a dog and back into the human form. This reminded me of ‘Transformers’, which I watched recently too. The idea of machines that could transform might not seem too far-fetched but living organisms that could transform into other things stretch the mind. I have been thinking how this may be done in a scientific way but have not been able to think of any satisfactory idea. A cluster of nanorobots could do the job by reconfiguring themselves into any desired structure but it will be impossible for a living organism to do that as all the cells have to be reorganized.

There are many other things in the movie which I might have left out in my discussion but my main point here is that fantasy serves as a source of inspiration for invention and technological progress. The renowned science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke stated in his 3rd law that ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. Indeed our current technology might seem like magic to cavemen and perhaps in time the magic depicted in Harry Potter’s world will become something common in our everyday life.

The Return of the Poet

I was flipping through one of my files today when I chanced upon a poem which I wrote for a class assignment in sec 4.

Title: The Beginnings of Life
Date composed: 29/07/2003

Created from nothing,
Yet it contained everything.
One big bang started it all,
Quarks, atoms and all.

The superforce split into four forces,
And photons became free.
Matter triumphed over antimatter,
Baryonic life became possible.

Stars formed and illuminated the Stygian void,
Along with them came galaxies and planets.
Life there was,
At least on one planet - Earth

Evolution occured,
And gave rise to intelligence.
Why are we here?
Are we alone?
Questions left unanwered.

Copyright © Ong Wei Guang (Note: Please seek my permission before replicating any part of my poems elsewhere)

Reading the poem refuelled my interest in writing poems after 4 years and I suddenly got an impulse and inspiration to write another one today.

Title: Time
Date composed: 31/05/2007

It can flow quickly like a river,
But it can also inch like a glacier.
Our percpetion of time is relative,
For that is part of our reality.

Intricately entwined with space,
Relativity comes into play.
The faster you move through space,
The slower it will be for time's pace.

Just as flowers bloom but do not unbloom,
Water spills but do not unspill,
Glass shatters but do not unshatter,
The arrow of time will always fly in one direction.
Such is the irreversible nature of time.

Stretching into infinity,
Every moment etched in eternity.
Cherish it we must,
For every second passed,
Will forever be the past.

Copyright © Ong Wei Guang

Both poems are about science, space and the way we percieve reality. Though I am not an arts student, I also enjoy reading and writing poems, for poetry is a tool which helps me to express my thoughts. Hope you like my poems and I hope you will also be able to again deeper insights about the world we live in after reading them. Feel free to give me feedback about my poems.

GM Food

Scenario 1
1．As one of the country’s decision makers, would you advocate the use of GM crops? Why or why not?

The use of genetically modified (GM) crops meant that we have already taken the first step down the slippery slope of genetic engineering and there is no turning back Scientists claim that using GM crops can boost yields, reduce use of pesticide, create more nutritious food and a multitude of other benefits. In light of the ever-growing global population, GM crops are poised to bring about the second agricultural revolution to meet the burgeoning food demands of the future. However, GM crops are relatively new inventions, and thus their effects on human health and the environment are not yet fully known. Advocating the use of GM crops without any restriction may engender undesirable consequences. Thus, if I am one of my country Singapore’s decision makers, I would advocate the use of GM crop, but there will be a system of strict regulations in place to minimize the detrimental consequences of using GM crops.

Scenario 2
2． Would you buy products that contain GM foods for consumption by your family? Why or why not?

I will buy products that contain GM food for consumption by my family as these foods have undergone rigorous checks and tests by the Arigfood Agency of Singapore. If we look at the food that we consume, we will realize that most of them contain GM food. This means that we have already been consuming GM food for quite some time, but there have been no reports about anyone suffering from health-related problem due to the consumption of such food. Nevertheless, we must not be too quick to dismiss all the concerns about the adverse effects on health due to long-term consumption of GM food. Studies have shown that animals fed with GM food suffered adverse health effects and this is prove that GM food is not totally safe. However, before we ban GM food, we should step back and take a look at the effect of a non-GM food diet. Studies have also shown that eating too much of something will cause harmful effects on our health. Thus, we should keep an open mind about GM food.