"Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinised what has happened and in a way how it has happened, but it has shut its
eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it is there to express. There is no fundamental significance in things if you
miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a huge surface crust
of manageable and utilisable appearance. It is the magic of the Magician
you are trying to analyze but only when you enter into the consciousness
of the Magician himself can you begin to experience the true
organisation, significance and circles of the Lila."
-- An excerpt from The Valley of the False Glimmer by Sri Aurobindo.
In their search to explain the mechanics of creation, the world's
leading theoretical physicists have determined that there are four
fields of force in the universe. Scientists have been able to reduce and
classify these fields in categories according to the strength of the
force that they carry, and the particles with which they interact. The
first of these categories is the Gravitational Force. It is the weakest
of the four forces and has two special properties; it is able to act
over large distances and is always an attractive force. The
gravitational force is present in large bodies such as the Sun, Moon and
Planets. The second category is the Electromagnetic Force which operates
over short distances and interacts with electrically charged particles.
While it is much stronger than the gravitational force, this force
operates on the very small scale of atoms and molecules which possess
two kinds of electrical charges, positive and negative, that tend to
attract or repel one another. The third category called the Weak Nuclear
Force, is responsible for radioactivity and is found in many nuclear
decay processes that involve neutrinos. In 1979, scientists were able to
develop a theory which successfully unified the weak nuclear force with
the electromagnetic force as they had earlier been able to unify the
forces of electricity and magnetism. It is now called the Electro-weak
force. The fourth category, called the Strong Nuclear Force, binds
particles together into combinations. Matter is mostly made up of
protons and neutrons which in turn are made up of quarks. The strong
nuclear force holds the quarks together in the proton and neutron and
hold protons and neutrons together in the nucleus of an atom.
While these four forces account for the theoretical dynamics of matter
they do not appear to interact with each other in a manner sufficient to
suggest a single unified field theory which could explain the natural
ordering of the universe. This problem has forced scientists to continue
their search for an as yet unidentified 5th field in nature which they
hope will provide the basis for this long sought unification. Their
search for this mysterious 5th field has led them to speculate about a
sub-quantum reality described by the ancient sages as the Luminiferous
Ether. It was believed to be an invisible medium that would fill all
space and convey extremely subtle effects over large distances. To the
world of science, this metaphysical possibility was not considered
viable because physicists were not convinced that etheric forces played
any significant role in physical interactions. But, upon closer
investigation, they have come to believe that the Etheric may hold the
key to the elusive 5th field. Leading theoreticians now conclude that
this invisible sub-quantum field, capable of being the ground state of
the universe, would be free of matter as well as the effects of
gravitation. Since it resembles empty space, they appropriately named it
the Quantum Vacuum. However, following more recent discoveries, they
were forced to revise their notion of an etheric void in favor of new
theories which suggest that the Quantum Vacuum is a highly charged
cosmic medium; an energy-filled plenum whose subtle order measurably
influences the space-time motion of the material universe. Scientists
now agree that it was the Quantum Vacuum which gave birth to the
observable universe. And they also believe that the 5th field which they
are seeking is the interactive face of that plenum. A number of
physicists now suspect that the dynamics of that interactive face hold
the key to joining the fields of gravitation, electromagnetism, and the
strong and weak nuclear forces in a Grand Unified Field Formula.
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