Bramhastra & Nuclear weapon: Drawing parallels

Note: This article is not an attempt by me to claim that bramhastra was a nuclear bomb; its an attempt to draw parallels between the two, based on a scientific explanation. 

Bramhastra, as per Hindu mythology was a lethal weapon capable of annihilating an entire town / large area in a town. Its said that bramhastra was a Nuclear bomb of the time. While one can neither prove it nor refute it, here is my attempt to explain the parallels between the two.

Astra means a weapon usually released by hand (an iron rod, an arrow released from a bow). Bramhastra, as per mythological references, was an astra capable of causing massive destruction. It was a feat achievable only by highly trained individuals capable of reaching high levels of meditation in a short time (by invocations of powerful chants). 

If Bramhastra was indeed a Nuclear bomb, the drawing of parallels between the two would be based on 3 facts:

1. Need of Massive energy:

To cause this massive explosion, a "massive amount of energy" was needed. Where did this energy come from? The astra itself was the source of this enormous energy. 

Every object has matter, and matter holds energy (governed by the equation: E = MC²). This energy content is more than you can imagine. A small object weighing 1 gm can be converted to ~25000 Megawatt-hours of energy (using the formula E = MC²   amounting to 1 gm X (300000 km/s)²]. This energy is massive enough to destroy 8 square blocks in Manhattan - but only if unleashed from the matter that is holding it. A nuclear bomb works on this same principle. When dropped on Hiroshima, only 0.9 kg of the total 64 kg of uranium of the nuclear bomb got converted into energy, instantaneously destroying more than 4 sq. miles of the city and 140,000 lives. Rest was blown away.)

There can be possibly no other source of energy than the astra's own matter.

2. Ability to convert matter to energy continuously:

Scientists have figured out ways to cause fission of atomic nucleus a long while ago (Nuclear fission). Lise Meitner (an Austrian physicist) and Otto Hahn (A German chemist) had figured out a way to split a Uranium atom by bombarding neutrons onto its nucleus, as early as in 1934 in Germany. Breaking the neutrons away from protons unleashes "massive" energy. The freed-up neutrons hit other nuclei at exorbitant speed thus releasing more energy and more neutrons to strike and split further nuclei. Once this chain reaction begins, it sustains itself and sets a stage for a massive explosion. And this all happens at lightning speed, literally. Uranium has an atomic mass number of 235 (count of neutrons + protons = 235). So its nucleus is bulky and wobbly and relatively easy to split. Its harder to break smaller nuclei. But theoretically, it should be possible to cause fission of *any* matter (substance).

Unleashing massive energy from the astra's mass was only possible by a self-sustained and continuous chain reaction. (unless you have any other convincing explanation). But what could have triggered the chain reaction?

3. Triggering the chain reaction:

In a nuclear (fission) bomb, an explosion of a smaller bomb sets off a (self-sustaining, unstoppable) chain reaction leading to the explosion of the core made or uranium.

But what could have triggered the fission in a bramhastra? As per our mythology , the bearer of the astra (an arrow ready to leave the bow) went into a deep state of meditation in a very short time, by chanting certain hymns (mantras or मन्त्र) at extraordinarily high speed and in a repeating manner, before releasing the arrow.

The only thing the recitation in a peculiar manner could have done is set the atoms in a of the astra vibrating, significantly enough to shake up the atoms and break their nuclei.

Seems a bit unconvincing for sure. But let's look at something else. The Gayatri mantra (गायत्री मंत्र - a sacred chant in Hindu religion) is said to have the ability to generate heat in reciter's body if chanted many times in a row in a repetitive pattern. The composition of the words in that mantra is such that, when the mantra is recited repeatedly, it sets off strong vibrations to create heat in your body. 

What really is heat? It's a manifestation of energy attained by virtue of the atoms *vibrating*. Heat is the extent of vibration of atoms. Larger the vibrations, greater the heat. Could those vibrations be caused by the sound waves from repetitive recitation of these hymns?

Mythological references suggest that bramhastra was activated by the powerful chanting of Gayatri mantra hundreds of thousands of times continuously in a rhythmic and repeated manner. Only a handful of human beings could perform such a feat. These seem to have leveraged their enormous untapped mind-power (which most of the normal human beings can't). Could it be that those highly trained souls were able to vibrate atoms so excessively to break them up and trigger the chain reaction? Cannot be proved but cannot be discarded either.

Some interesting timelines:

• Bramhastra references were found in Mahabharata (which is assumed to have happened over 4000-5000 year ago). Is there any evidence of a nuclear blast from that long ago? 
• The Mohenjo Daro civilization (assumed to have existed 4500 to 5000 years ago) has been found to be destroyed by a massive explosion that killed thousands of people. 
• Evidence of hundreds of bodies found lying dead suggests a massive explosion. 
• Evidence also suggests that the rock in the explosion area had vitrified and fused due to intense heat (the way as it did at the test site of Manhattan project in New Mexico where the US tested its nuclear bomb in 1944). 

Many questions remain unanswered or have unconvincing answers. But the parallel between the ancient bramhastra and modern nuclear weapon cannot be ignored.

Authored by: Mandar Garge (March 10, 2020)

E = MC2: PART 1: What should we understand from it ?

You will find lot of articles about this equation on the internet. This is my attempt to put in my own words, what I have understood out of this revolutionary phenomenon called E = MC²

E = MC²: The most famous equation from Albert Einstein as a part of his work on 'Theory of Relativity'. In this equation relating Mass and Energy, E stands for 'Energy ', M for 'Mass' and C for the 'Speed of light in vacuum'. One of the simplest and tersest equations ever formulated but in the world of Physics, it has unleashed an impact inversely proportional to its size. But what does it really mean?

Section A :

Lets look at each of these terms E, M and C:

What is 'mass' ? Every matter, object or a thing has mass. But what is 'Matter' ? - 'Matter' is anything that is made up of atoms and molecules (matter is not just the things we see. Air or oxygen or any other gas is also 'matter'). Anything - solid, gaseous or liquid - which takes up space and has volume is 'matter'. And 'Mass' is a measure of how much matter there is in that object/body/thing.

What is 'energy'? Some of the common forms of energy that we know are 'thermal' and 'light'. When you burn coal, you release enough 'thermal energy' to heat water or cook a meal. When steam is pressurized at high speed, it has enough 'kinetic energy' to rotate a turbine. Water stored in dams has enough 'potential' energy. In addition to this it gains enough 'kinetic energy' when it flows down from a significant height. This energy enables it to rotate turbines and produce electricity.

What is 'C (Speed of Light in vacuum)' ? - Light is an electromagnetic wave just like xrays or microwaves, or radiowaves that transmit data between wireless devices like cellphones or waves those that bring songs to our radios from far off radio stations. All these waves are part of something called 'electromagnetic spectrum' and *all* electromagnetic waves have the same certain 'speed of travel'. Remember that light takes about 8 minutes to reach from sun to the earth? 'Light' also is one type of electromagnetic radiation which can be seen in different colors unlike xrays or other radiowaves. The fact is that 'Light' (just like any other electromagnetic waves) travels at a speed of 3, 00,000 Kilometers/second (in vacuum) . So when we talk about speed of light in vacuum it is actually speed of any kind of electromagnetic radiation in vacuum.

How do they fit in the equation E = MC² ? The equation really means that 'matter contains energy' (even when the matter is not moving) . Before Einstein’s time, the assumption was that energy can be exhibited by a body only when it is moving or when it is emitting some form of radiation like heat or light. A body at rest is simply a piece of matter with zero energy. Einstein dared to change this thinking. He proposed that matter is a chunk of mass with dormant energy trapped inside it even when it is *not* moving. When the mass moves, it has kinetic energy in addition to this trapped energy. Fine - mass has energy. But how much energy ? The energy trapped in a matter (in which 'M' is the measure of the mass) is equal to: 'M' multiplied by C² ( square of the value of C).

Universe is made up of Active energy (kinetic energy, heat, light and other electromagnetic radiations) and Passive energy (which is in form of 'Mass' or 'Matter'). One meaning of the equation E = MC² is that Mass and Energy are inter-convertible. When Einstein proposed this idea the world was not really ready to digest it. How can something that can be visualized and weighed, be converted into energy which in its most forms is not visible to the naked eye? Inter-convertibility also meant that energy can be converted to mass. How was that possible? And what has 'speed of Light' got to do with Mass and Energy? E, M and C - all were well understood terms at the time when Einstein formulated this equation in 1905 as a part of his work on ‘Theory or Relativity’. Also, relating mass and energy was not a new thing when Einstein started working on his theory. But it took a genius like him to knit these terms together in a simple and exact equation.

Talking of inter-convertibility between mass and energy, one should try to understand this conversion with the same ease as the conversion between feet and meters, or between kilograms and pounds. It’s very easy to visualize a system which measures a distance with either ‘feet’ or ‘meters’. A Meter-long distance can be broken down into 100 equal units (centimeters) or 3.3 equal units (feet). 1 meter is approximately 3.3 feet. So 3.3 is a constant called the ‘conversion factor’. Applying the same logic to mass and energy conversion, C²> (a scalar constant) is the conversion factor between E and M. But unlike 'distance', E and M are still fundamentally different things, and far too distinct from each other to undergo any kind of conversion amongst themselves. But Einstein disagreed. He said that they are just two manifestations of the same phenomenon.

If we analyze this equation from a different angle, it suggests that the sum of all the mass and energy in the universe is *constant*. Or another way to put it is - out of the total energy contained in the universe, some is present in form of active energy and remaining is in form of mass or matter and that mass can change into energy and vice versa.

Section B :

Let’s go back to the first fact - Mass contains energy equal to M X C². How much energy is that really? Let’s consider an example. The most common unit to measure energy is 'Joule'. 1 Joule of energy is what is required to lift up a small fruit in your hand. So how much energy does 1 gram of mass (matter) have? 1 gram of matter at rest has following amount of energy as per the equation E = MC² (C is approximately equal to 3, 00,000 Kilometers/second. Remember, 1 Kilometer = 1000 meters)

Energy in 1 gram of mass = 0.001 Kg X 300000 Km/s X 300000 Km/s = 90000000000000 Joules (or 90 TeraJoules)

To get an idea of the magnitude of this energy, consider following two scenarios:

- 90 Tera Joules is equal to 25000 Megawatt-hrs. This means converting 1 gram of mass completely into energy would fulfill the power requirement of city of Pune (Population: around 37 lacs or 3.7 million) for an entire month, and that too without any load shedding :)

- 'Little Boy', the nuclear bomb dropped over Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of around 15 Kilo tons of TNT. That amounts to approximately 63 TeraJoules. The bomb contained 64 kilograms of uranium, of which only 0.6 grams were converted into energy. And how many people were killed? About 1.4 lac (or 140000).

That’s the sense of massiveness, magnificence, vastness that this equation has unleashed upon mankind. As of yet there is no means to extract 100 percent energy from mass. But mankind is hoping that it becomes a reality in future. The research is costly but it needs to be done, given that natural resources and fuels are fast depleting. It could one day open doors to cleaner energy. May be in future we could have a technology - where at one end of a fission reactor, you put in a raisin and on the other get energy enough to light up New York City (Population – around 20 million or 2 crores) for a day. You may say that this idea will forever stay as pure fiction, but so was the perception about cell phones in 80s when we used to watch Captain Clark of Star Trek series talking to his folks through a hand-held wireless device.

Part 2: Conversion of Mass to Energy / Energy to Mass

Authored by: Mandar Garge

E = MC2: PART 2: Converting Mass to Energy / Energy to Mass

Continued from Part 1 ....

It’s easy to get examples of mass being converted to energy. When you burn coal into ash, you are using up the binding force (which holds the ‘molecules’ of that substance together) to get energy. You are releasing the energy that is holding up atoms and molecules together. Molecules break down and atoms recombine to form new molecules of resulting byproducts. Weight of byproducts after burning process is lesser than that of original coal. This is nothing but mass converted to energy. The amount however is extremely minute with respect to original mass of coal. On the other hand when you trigger nuclear fission you are basically breaking down the atom (nucleus) of an element and converting some atomic (nuclear) mass into energy. The mass of the nucleus before fission is slightly more than the sum of the masses of the separated elements of the nucleus. The difference is what got converted to energy. In other words, this energy is dormantly trapped inside the nucleus, and as long as it stays trapped, it shows up as that 'differencial' mass.

Nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs work on this principal of 'nuclear fission'. However, for the same original mass, the percentage of mass converted to energy is much higher in case of nuclear fission than conventional ways like burning fuels. Hence fission process has much higher yields. The process of fusion is also associated with mass-to-energy conversion. When you fuse two atoms (protons) of hydrogen to form helium, the united protons together weigh less than the sum of individual protons. The difference is converted to energy. 'Hydrogen' (or thermo-nuclear) bomb works on the same principle and so does the Sun of our solar system.

But it’s hard to imagine processes where pure energy gets converted into mass or matter. What is Matter? Matter in its simplest form means - protons, neutrons (and electrons because they also have mass, although minuscule). Protons and neutrons form the nucleus and electrons are moving around the nucleus. These three act as building blocks in making up atoms, which in turn make up molecules that make up different elements and compounds. If you pull out a proton (or a neutron or an electron) from a nitrogen atom and replace it with a proton (or a neutron or an electron) from an oxygen atom or any other element’s atom - Nitrogen would still remain Nitrogen. Hence matter boils down to protons, neutrons and electrons.

When the big bang happened approximately 13.7 billion years ago, all you had was energy (thermal and electromagnetic. Remember, light is electromagnetic radiation). That energy spread over and in bits and pieces, started getting converted into 'Matter' or 'Mass'. First Hydrogen was formed since it is the easiest one to be created when it comes to creating matter from scratch. Why easiest? Construct a nucleus with only one proton and you have Hydrogen atom. (That’s also the reason why Hydrogen is most abundant in universe). Then gradually other elements were created and chunks of these elements started grouping together to form different compounds and celestial bodies mainly stars and planets. So there you go - energy got converted to matter.

But where did that initial energy that triggered the big bang come from? The accepted answer is 'God'. But assuming that God also is made up of matter, how did he get created? I don’t know :)

I don’t think human quest would reach that far. But the Particle Accelerator experiment at CERN, is attempting to get closer to the time just after the big-bang. It aims to create a miniature big bang which will lead to creation of 'matter’ from scratch. But wait a minute. How would you create the big-bang without having enough energy to cause that big bang in first place ? Of course, you can’t create energy but can covert it from some matter, cant you? The CERN equipment will try to do exactly that. It will try to energize protons (which is matter in its simplest form) to travel at speeds close to that of light. These protons would then have enourmously high amount of energy. These high energy protons would be banged into each other to create a mini big-bang. So here, matter (protons) is being converted into energy (big bang) and that energy is expected to be converted back into new matter (or ‘mass’).

But one important thing is that big-bang will produce two types of matter - 'normal' matter as well as 'anti-matter'. Normal matter is positively charged. Antimatter as a matter of fact, is still ‘matter’ and has the same 'mass' as its corresponding matter, but has 'negative' electric charge. Yes, it is matter with mass that has ‘negative electric charge’. (Note - its ‘negatively charged’ and not 'negative' mass, which supposedly does exists. But its a totally different theory and no need to worry about it here). How can that be? Does mass have a charge? Yes. It does and we don’t usually have to worry about it, because the positive charge of the mass will be detectable only if there is a negatively charged mass in its vicinity and we don’t have any negatively charged matter around us. An electron (with negative charge of 1 electron-volt) will not let us know that it has a negative ‘electric’ charge unless we let a positive charge venture into its vicinity. And what happens when positive and negative ‘electric’ charges combine? ‘Nothing’ - may be a spark. The charges neutralize.

So what would happen when matter and anti-matter come together? No, not ‘nothing’ this time. Remember, we are dealing with masses (positive scalar quantities) with 'opposite' charges. The charges will neutralize but mass quantities will add up and annihilate to create ‘Pure Energy’. Union of matter and anti-matter will create energy with 100 percent efficiency (meaning 100 percent of matter gets converted to energy)

Thinking of the reverse process, we know that matter got created during big-bang 13.7 billion years ago. But does it also mean that equivalent amount of anti-matter was also got created under the rules of E=MC²?. That’s what scientists at CERN are assuming. A section of the scientific community has always believed that antimatter was also created with matter when big-bang happed. They conclude that anti-matter is somewhere out there far away in the universe, dormant like a sleeping dog but when you get closer to it, it would growl and pounce on you to cause total annihilation and creation of 'pure' energy. The other section of scientists disapprove this theory (of equivalent amount of anti-matter being present somewhere in the universe)

So you get the idea - how mass and energy are inter-convertible and how they are two different forms of the same thing? Einstein proposed this theory in 1905, but rest of the world took decades to grasp this revolutionary concept.

If you come so far, I believe you will be interested in knowing more about what has ‘Speed of Light’ got to do with this Energy and Mass conversion? If you are, please visit the following link:

Part 3: How is 'Speed of light' involved in the conversion ?

Authored by: Mandar Garge