The Earth and all

...giving an extra shuffle to an already well-shuffled pack of cards. You know it will change your luck, but you don't whether for better or worse. - James Glieck in CHAOS: Making a New Science


Long long time before this time, there was an earth, a moon, a sun. And there were others who we don't bother about much. The earth used to be hot, very hot. Then it had something to do with the little molecule and all. But we will not bother about those either. The lead role of this story is being played by Earth. Sun is suspected to be the father of earth, I mean that's what we think happened, that Sun wanted to have 9 kids or something, and so it dropped 9 small pieces and they became his kids, who kept bothering him for a long time, going round and round him asking for money and all. Its a little strange, I mean, who wants kids like those, and who gets kids like this, by dropping parts of himself. But that is what we believe happened. (The exact number of kids are still not known, there are rumours sometimes that sun has other kids, which nobody is sure of as of now, but well, let's leave him alone, sun would be the last thing I would want to gossip about)

So the Earth, like i said before, was very hot. And sun, did not want his kids to be as hot-tempered as he was. (Its common with almost all parents that they don't want their kids to do things that they think they did wrong, but they all know nothing about James Glieck and Chaos and shuffled pack of cards and all). So basically sun wanted Earth to be a good boy, he took help of certain little molecules to do that. Those molecules didn't know what they were doing though.

Anyway, what happened, in all of this was that, Earth became all blue. all blue. And then suddenly strange things started happening. Earth started getting some fungal infections. It was green colour kind of thing. Very strange. So when these strange things started happening, Earth asked Sun for help. Sun was confused, he had sent the little molecules to cool earth down, but well, he didnt ever expect it turn out this way (I told you, shuffling a shuffled pack of cards...).

In the meantime, the green thing was spreading over earth's body which was not covered by water (How water came, is another story already told). Sun thought, probably, if he heated earth up, these fungii will go off. So he did, when he did, he ended up drying up more water, and all the fungii got even more place to spread. (Remember, shuffled pack of cards). So, what could he do. Sun was help-less. Infact, it was later learnt that these fungii used sun's light to cook food for themselves. Earth asked help from her brothers and sisters, they had no clue either.

To Sun's rescue came the STAR broadcaster (Ok, this is not the TV that you see, they have copied the name though, the purpose was similar, it was the source of entertainment(!) and mis-information for the stars), that there was one way. It showed the progress of technology in the galaxy. And it was great. Sun didn't like it earlier but a close friend told him about it and only then did he discover that this was a known problem. There were shampoos available which released agents all over the body. The agents then took care of themselves and slowly got rid of the fungii. Sun suggested Earth to use these. There were many brands available. All of them worked on a similar concept. The shampoo was applied, and it released very tiny agents on the body which grew and slowly took care of the fungal infection. The agents grew in different shapes and sizes. The shampoos looked like the shampoos, you'd bath your dog with, if you had a dog and did not have somebody else who'd give him a bath. The shampoos when rinsed, produced a great foam.

Earth used it many times, we have been able to figure out about two or three times. We have also, discovered the kind of agents produced. The initial few times, the agents did not work very good, the fungii had even started growing on and underwater. The shampoo companies released newere version of shampoo which possesed ability to develop agents who'd think they are very intelligent. They would not only get earth rid of the fungus, but also will kill other agents, thereby to an extent solving the problem of cleaning the agents after the fungus was taken care of. The shampoo company was making real big buck with this new technology.Even though nobody knew how well its going to work.

So Earth shifted to the new product. Rinsed the previous shampoo. The great foam was raised all over the earth, and then later, the new shampoo came. It took few minutes for the intended agents to 'evolve'. The agents which came before the next breed of agents, thought believed that they were THE agents. They liked to believe so. The shampoo company had claimed that they were going to be 'intelligent agents'. Earth had no way to know, how 'intelligent' the agents were. The evolving agents proved James Glieck's theory about shuffled cards. They did there job allright, for sometime. Earth was happy a lot of fungi was gone. She bought another bottle of the shampoo.

But the agents outdid themselves each time. They proved to be too intelligent and too diversely intelligent. They got rid of a lot of fungii, but then some of them started growing more fungii. Some of them started protecting fungii. But they were all ok, the agents that followed, started growing some other stuff. Initially, Earth ignored it. But it was too much to be ignored. The stuff was spreading faster than the fungii did. The salesstar who sold the shampoo said that the real agents haven't come yet, and Earth did not need to worry and MUST not rinse it, because the intended agents had not yet been developed.

It was very itchy all that stuff, they were growing. Earth shook hard sometimes, sometimes it shook even harder. But it did not seem to solve a lot of problems.

Sometimes, Earth wondered about the purpose of its life, it wondered for how long will she keep going around the sun asking for stuff, and it wondered if that was the real purpose of its life. Or was it something else, was it some greater deed that was in store for here.
Some other times, she just itched herself. Sometimes, she got some small kids floating around to itch here or there. All they could really do was hit as hard as they could.

And the stuff continued to grow. The agents were underestimated, they became communicable and started troubling Earth's son and Marsi, Earth's favourite sibling. It led to differences between Earth and Marsi, Marsi complained to Sun. Sun was watching all this, and was helpless. The shampoo company said, don't rinse, wait, Marsi said, get rid of the thing, u've begun to look ugly, Moon (Earth's son) said nothing. Earth itched.

To be continued...Probably, Probably not.
(This time, the author claims lack of imagination is the reason for having no knowledge of the story beyond this point. Imagination claims, it has nothing to do with this disaster.)
(James Glieck has nothing to do with all of this, niether do his cards)

The little molecule-2

When I was younger, I hated stories which ended with "To be Continued" phrase.
Continued from The little molecule -1

A long time had passed. The molecule was crushed somewhere in a small corner of the huge house. He decided this was not what he wanted. But what could he do. It was not like older days when he could just fly out of anywhere. He had no space to move. he tried to talk, but he couldn't hear himself talking. all he heard was noise. lots of noise.
There began his journey which went on for long ages. He tried to keep track of time that passed. He couldn't. In that small corner, he had begun to fit well, so well that he believed, that was all where he could fit. Sometimes when noise was lower, he would talk to the other hydrogen molecule and with their leader oxygen. Sometimes he would hate them. Then he would miss the times when he could fly by where he wanted. Sometimes he would remember that the actual purpose of this all was giving someone life. He tried to ask oxygen who it was that he was helping. Oxygen always told him, it was for a much greater reason than he could ever think of. It was not that oxygen didn't want to tell him. Even he was always told just this much. Once when he was younger, he had tried to ask what this was all about. He found that he could not find anyone who knew anymore than he did. Slowly the questions died.
The molecule had been through much. He had gotten out of his house. That was the time the three of them talked. And then he had found himself back in some other house. The oxygen tried to explain to him what was happening, but he always used strange words ending with 'tion' which molecule could not make sense of and after sometime, he gave up.
The molecule started wondering if there could be someway, neway he could go back to be the way he was. Sometimes he thought that he would just quit and go away. He wanted to live for a real cause. The reason why he had decided to join the Oxygens, but he could not see what this was all about. There was no reason for him to stay there anymore. He wanted to be free.
Then one night, when everyone was sleeping he had tried to runaway. But he could not getway. He couldn't break the bond with the oxygen and the other hydrogen. He had been with them for so long and he felt he could not do anything alone either. He had probably also forgotten how to fly. But he forced his way out but he had to take the other hydrogen with him. Something must have helped him escape, but he didn't realize. He was just happy to be out. They went far away in the sky. Free at last, or were they?

The Oxygen molecule woke up to find himself together with so many other Oxygen molecules and one of them in his own room, and there were no hydrogens. The other oxygen molecule informed him that he was going to be with him for sometime. And they flew away too. Everyone was flying. Everybody was happy for sometime. Nobody knew how it had happened. Hydrogens thought they knew, but were not sure. Some claimed the knowledge of devine hand of God. Some others were not sure. And most others had no idea, and so believed in the devine theory. Those who weren't sure, thought that it was their hard work because of which this had happened. Some amongst them were not sure about this either. They took a safe stand and said, it was possible only because of their hardwork, but it would not have been possible without the devine help. At various points various some or the other of them changed their, what we would call, school of thought. Some created newere versions which meant nothing much more substantial, but they liked to be the molecules starting a new school of thought. And there were so many of them that almost always they found molecules which followed them.

So they were about floating in the air. Oxygens still had work to do. They were getting orders from different source, about which absolutely nobody among them knew. But they were not very sad and definitely were not missing the hydrogens and they didn't need to live in the clumsy houses anymore. For sometime atleast. But they met different molecules at different times. Some more hydrogens, there were others, carbons and others about which they had not heard before.

The little hydrogen molecule did not believe much in any of the theories that hydrogens were making about their freedom. And he felt lost. There were sometimes when he wanted to belong to some group, but he found it wierd to believe in something that everyone only belived in, without any knowledge of truth or false attached to it.

The little hydrogen had always been little. He never grew. None other hydrogens grew either, but most of them would change their behaviour at certain time and start talking in thick voices. They were called elders, little hydrogen was as old as some of the elders but he was little still. Sometimes he wanted to be one of the elders. Most other times he did not.

But once again, the little molecule was worried about what he could or would do. He was serving some purpose till sometime back. He remembered the series of events that had happened. They did not seem so tough a journey as it had then. He didn't remember the long periods of silences that he had as they were. He only remembered that they were their. He remembered some conversations but. And he remembered sometimes when he had had real fun. He remembered some mistakes that he did and somethings which he would make right, if he was to go back in time. But if, someone asked him if he wanted to go back. He'd say no. It was over. It was long back. He then believed in the thoughts of that oxygens believed in too. But he did not believe it now. He still wanted to do something, something good, only that he did not know what it was.

Time passed, lots of time. And then one day, he found himself trapped among thousands of other hydrogen atoms. They said, they were going to do great things. They said, its no use to live your life and have not done anything for anyone else. They sounded like oxygens, but they were more determined. Much more. So much that he thought that he wanted to join them. And they read his thought. They were fast, very fast. they were not elders, but they wanted to be elders, very fast. They read his thought and told him that all his life he had wanted to do something. And this was his big chance. This was the thing, he probably was made for. This was the one thing that was the reason, he was looking for, all his life. What were they going to do, he asked them.

They said, just wait and watch. Actually most of them did not know what it was themselves. They said just wait and watch because others had told them to just wait and watch. But they said it confidently, just like it had been told to them and the little molecule, in all his confusion, somehow believed them. And went with them.

They went on for a long time. They sang songs of praise for themselves and their cause. Nobody asked what the cause was. Those who did ask, did recieve replies. Just wait and watch. That's what everyone said. They mentioned sun sometimes. Sometimes someone said something like energy. But mostly everyone said just wait and watch. The little molecule found himself going towards the earth once again. Just wait and watch, they said. Some asked him too, about what this was all about. He said, just wait and watch, not as confidently as he had been told, but enough to convince the molecule that asked that he should just wait and watch and tell everyone who asks him to just wait and watch.

Somebody said something about sacrificing for a great cause. The little molecule did not know what sacrificing meant, ofcourse he had no chance of knowing what the great cause was. But since everyone around him was so convinced, he felt good about what he was going to do. And then it happened. Very suddenly. It became very hot and boom, there was a large noise. The little molecule didn't know what had happened. The little molecule did not know where he was. Something had happened. They had said, it was for good. The little molecule hoped so. He didn't know and it didn't matter. Sacrifice, yes it was. He did not know what it meant. Something good must have happened. It didn't matter. Things don't matter at all after a certain instant.

Not to be continued.

The little molecule -1

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.
(Ref: wikipedia, what else)

Once upon a time there was a molecule. People say it was hydrogen. Some may say Helium, nobody actually knows. But all believe that it was there and most believe it was Hydrogen. It was not alone ofcourse, it was with lots of others. The molecule used to fly about in the open spaces and just fly. One day while the molecule was flying, it was somewhere over the earth when Oxygens cam along. They said that the molecule was selfish to be roaming around about so freely when there was so much of trouble in the world. They said that they were life givers and that the Hydrogens can help in giving life too. The molecule said, that it was happy the way he is. Oxygens went away calling him selfish and other names.

Some weeks later (Here, it would be good to point out that the weeks that we are talking about are not the weeks as they are now, no they do not represent the time taken by sun to go around the earth 7 times. However, the details of the time-system will be too tedious for reader to understand and me to explain), so I was saying that some weeks later while the molecule was flying over a similar area, he suddenly thought that may be there was some truth in what the oxygen was saying. For a moment, he felt ashamed of being so selfish. He then started looking for oxygen and when he found some oxygens around, he asked if he still could be of some help. He was told that since he had been so late, he would have to get another friend of his, ofcourse another hydrogen friend, and the oxygens will send one of their molecules to show them the way.

It finally happened. Millions of hydrogens had this change of mind, but they were still confused about what they are supposed to do. They formed groups with oxygens. And floated in sky till one day they started turning dark brown, and then one day, without warning, oxygens told the hydrogens that they were going to turn into liquid. Before our little molecule could ask what liquid meant, he knew what it was. There were thousands of huge houses, and in each of those, there were millions and more than that molecules of oxygen and hydrogen. And all these houses were falling down. Down and down on earth.

The little molecule, was crushed in a corner of this house. If Einstien knew about this molecule, he would say that it was condensed. But it was not so simple as Einstien thought it to be. The molecule, little molecule which was flying and flying all in the open space was suddenly put into these houses. It was sad. a very sad state. It was the liquid state

But it was for good. The molecule was not being selfish now. He had no choice now anyway.

To be continued