It is natural to try and unravel a mystery, when that urge takes control of the mind. It is like what antigens do. They fight till the invader is vanquished. So, what is Imaginch’s problem now? If you ask him, brace yourself, he will give you a PowerPoint presentation. His style of doing things is to impress himself as well as the hapless audience with little more fanfare. His mission in life is to learn something and hammer with it, on unwilling heads.
Imaginch’s family members and very close friends have learnt their lessons and started to travel on bypass routes. Instead of switching off his thinking machine, this only helped to stir up more storms in his mind. Spurned, he looked at many options and ideas to fuel these storms. He willingly stayed the course to precipitate matters.
He had no dearth for inspiration - Scientists, shooting particles, on round trips in a special tunnel at unimaginable speeds to find out what happens after their head-on collisions; astro-dive into stars and nebulae; going to great depths, in hostile regions, to capture a single elusive particle. When these real scientists, living in the real world, are trying to sneak into the atoms and universe, what can an armchair researcher like him do?
He did not pose this question to anybody and so could easily decide to answer it with a "why not?" Furthermore, in his opinion no one has an exclusive right to inquire and enrich our understanding of matter or any other matter. Also, there is no bar in pursuing knowledge on subjects other than atoms and the universe. His “other than” pursuit required no grants or a chair in an academic institution. His research needed no cutting-edge tools or technology. These justifications seeded Imaginch’s current brainstorm and got it upgraded to severe cyclonic status!
Years ago, his teachers have impressed upon him that the only way to improve the legibility of his handwriting is to keep practicing with a pencil on paper. Known for his tenacity, he still kept following his teachers’ advice. He armed himself with pencils, erasers, sharpeners and of course ruled A4 sheets thinking, “Who knows, at least the handwriting might become better, at the end?”
He discarded the scientific quests so as not to interfere with their progress- made or being made. Time and again, he had failed to understand the possibility that multiple dimensions exist in the Universe. To make the matter worse, the existence of a multiverse doing the rounds did not help any! He chose not to get deeply involved in these potential quagmires. His reason was simple – more dimensions cause more confusion.
Chronic vertigo prevented him from even climbing a ladder; leave alone the trek into deep space! One thing that still troubled him the most was Einstein’s "magic" - curving of space-time. On a practical level, he did not feel the effect of heavy mass bending space-time, when fully loaded cargo trucks rushed by kicking up only a cloud of airborne dust.
The combination of this confusing "magic" coupled with his failure to comprehend the “trick “started to agitate his brain cells with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Not out of the urge to help him, but due to the painful fact that they will be blamed for not comprehending Einstein! When they could not do mind-bending, how would they grasp space-time curving?! Unmindful of his brain cell’s reluctance, he decided to take a tentative step, in his spare time of almost 18 hours in a day - give or take a few minutes.
Letting things go by or not getting ridiculed are not in his DNA. Taking a philosophical outlook, he pacified his misgivings - his attempts would definitely help others to keep their eyes open. Armed with this determination and writing materials, he sat down to contemplate on the proposal: Lifetime -Space-Time. By a master stroke he avoided adding any new dimension (what is fear of dimension called? Can anybody clarify?). He did not forget to invoke and obtain a tacit permission from Einstein to travel in the relativistic train, which he vaguely remembered to have heard about it.
Riding piggyback, he expected the fallout to be of lesser ridicule – at least Einstein had acceptance. He became so obsessed; a collection of neurons and mathematical equations started a St. Vitus’s dance in his mind. Unfortunately, he could not capture these dance moves on paper and his agitated mind added some more neurons and equations to test his perseverance.
Everyone experiences feelings such as sympathetic, apathetic and neutral but with differing perceptions. Maybe by oversight, Einstein might have slipped down here. Precisely that is why Imaginch wanted to delve into it! Right or wrong, he believed - so far no one has produced a scientific work on these perspectives. He decided an ideal concept for his path breaking work would be to combine the states of minds’ interactions with space-time. After all, the states of mind are also part of this universe- including Einstein’s! If anyone points out, it is all relative - he was ready with the reckoner. Einstein who had already travelled that path using "relativity"!
Imaginch n laid the foundation, on which to build upon his work, starting with a theory and explanation of it from a hypothetical perspective (too early to go personal here). He titled the proposed research paper “Lifetime-Space-Time” and liked the nice ring it had.
Still not out of the woods, doubts arose in his mind like dry leaves taking flight in gusts of wind. Imaginch worried about the ridicule he would have to face. Which Scientist's ideas and concepts have not been ridiculed prematurely, in the past? This thought had the calming effect and decided to bide his time to take them head-on at an opportune moment.
He decided to look for convincing arguments to build the structure of his soon to-become-famous theory. To prove his theory or to disagree with it is somebody else’s headache. This reasoning helped to weaken his inner resistance and to obey his will. Now, he had the example for active perception and passive perceptions. This combined force propelled him onward. This threatened to overrun and smother the remnant resistances- in -hiding and catalysed the mind’s survival instinct, to capitulate and surrender – the neutral perception.
These real-life experiences invigorated and electrified his body and mind. At this stage, what any other scientist would have done – solitary walks in the park? He decided to give it a try hoping a long walk would flood his mind with inspiration to further embellish the discovered “raw diamond” – to help it to sparkle!
On and off, a stray thought also entered his thinking. His brown matter, becoming tired of getting flexed, squeezed and battered, decided to go on the offensive. It triggered the biological clock to go to deep sleep-exactly when he had a fleeting glimpse of a brilliant idea. However he toiled, he could not ignite a spark or a fire to enlighten him.
At times, he slipped into a semi-sleep state, voluntarily. Perplexed family members chose not to disturb him, fearing the nuisance value. Imaginch realised what was happening and decided to use this ruse to gather family-talks, which always ended up blaming him for this or that, whether relevant or irrelevant to the subject matter discussed.
Unwittingly, they have given him an insight – emotional stress. This stress was as important as gravitational stress on the fabric of space-time. Stretching the parallel, he could visualise the effect of emotional stress on “Lifetime”!
Statements and arguments flowed. He put them on paper, carefully clothed in confusing sentences. If a theory could be understood by a casual reading, then it is not worth the paper it is written or printed on. What dismayed and gladdened him, at the same time, was the sight of a growing stack of papers. He was confident that from a bigger stack of draft papers, he would be able to dig out his gem - like a diamond inside a diamond! He took careful measures to safeguard the stack under a heavy paper weight and still refraining from switching on the ceiling fan!
When will he finish the final draft?
