Science, Religion and Technology

Science, religion and technology  have different objectives as,

Science - understanding the nature (or universe)
Religion-  understanding nature and teach human the good and bad
Technology - make human's life easy

Their is no doubt that religions' all time mission on teaching human the good and bad is successful though many wars (in medieval ages and after in Europe, Crusades etc.  ) and some terrorist activities (at present) have direct relationships with religions. But religion was a crucial factor in civilization. One might argue that UN's "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/) can replace religion. But we've become civilized enough to prepare that 'universal whatever' as a result of religion. When talking about 'good and bad' ,all regions are similar. But the interesting part is religion's other objective 'understanding the nature' which overlaps with science.

Let's consider some concepts in religion

After life : All major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) possess some sort of an after life. In Hinduism and Buddhism one can be born again as human or animal. There is also a little difference between two regions. But for this discussion we ignore that. In other two regions human will be born in heaven or hell (different words may used )

Neither proven nor disproved scientifically

God/s : All 3 other religions except Buddhism teach that universe is created, maintained by God. In Hinduism, it is quiet different from other two. However the important thing is,

Neither existence nor non-existence of God is scientifically proven.

Even Einstein had talked many times about God. (God doesn't play dice). In his 'The Grand Design', Hawkings has some other thoughts. There are many famous questions of God. "What is god ?" , "Where does he stay ?" etc.

In addition to after life and god, there are many other concepts as well. But the important thing to notice is incapability of science to prove or disprove the concepts in religion. Does it imply that human still need religion ?

Current trend seem to be the technology which doesn't have problems with religion. Technology is to make our life easier and it doesn't need to find answers to unnecessary (?) questions. It only concerns "How to get a thing done ?" (programming, networking etc.) But there will be a day that technology needs go deeper in understanding  nature. We'll be able to find the answers of religion that day.

Acknowledgement for image source : www.transalchemy.com

Using pattern recognition techniques for controlling dengue epidemic in Sri Lanka

Dengue epidemic has become a threat to Sri Lanka with a fast spread all over the country. The National Dengue Prevention Unit of the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka has reported 30,607 cases of dengue and 221 deaths during January-September, 2010 . Situation is same for many other countries as well.  The only way to get rid of this danger is the extinction of the cause-mosquitoes.

The lot of money which is spent for the prevention of this epidemic, can be optimized and maximum results can be gain if the pattern of the dengue vector-Aedes aegypti spread can be properly identified. Countries such as Singapore, USA and Cuba has used GIS (Geo Information Systems),statistical analysis and sensor network technologies to overcome this issue.

Currently, the foliole community (www.foliole.net) works on a pattern recognition technique based on fuzzy neural networks and k-means clustering. The neuro fuzzy system is used to estimate the influence of prominent factors affecting the spread of dengue vector, Aedes aegypti - precipitation, temperature, humidity and urbanization. Other socio-economic facts such as education of the people and poverty can also be considered. Meanwhile training data is prepared using k-means clustering for reported dengue cases.

Read the full article here : http://foliole.net/dengueprevention

Is Paul the wave function ?

       Wave function is known as the mathematical model that used to calculate the probabilities of an observable. As an example wave function of an electron, Ψ(x,y,z) provides us the probabilities of finding it at the position x,y,z (actually modulus of squared wave function gives the probability) after the observation.

       The phrase "after the observation" is very important in quantum mechanics. As an instance lets take the Schrödinger's cat. There is a cat inside a covered box and a gun is pointed to the cat. Triggering the gun is depended on a random event. Mechanism is gun will be triggered if a particular radiation happens within the period of the test. Hence there is a non-zero probability for both emission and non-emission. According to quantum mechanics, system is under quantum superposition until the observation is made. That is triggering and not-triggering at the same time which leads to the conclusion that cat is both dead and alive until it is observed.

      When the observation is made, we can only see only one state, dead or alive. This is known as 'wave function collapsing'. From the superposition, it comes to a single state at the observation.

      Lets go to the Paul's case. Lets assume the Germany vs Spain match is isolated so that quantum decoherance (avoidance of quantum superposition due to interaction/entanglement with environment) is avoided and no one observes the match. So match is in the superposition state of both teams are qualified for finals. Then we call our friend Paul, and give him the flags. He selects Spain and becomes a traitor.

      Now, what happens ? we don't know the results of the match. But with the record of the Paul, we decide, chance of poor Germans to be in finals is 10% and 90% for spain. Isn't this the wave function ?

      Then we go to Durban and open the gates of the ground to collapse the wave function. What we see is the verification of Paul's wave function...

     

Research paper based on ninithi published

           Research paper based on the visualization part of ninithi was published at the "4th asia international conference on mathematical modelling and simulation" (AMS2010), Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Paper was titled as "3D modelling of carbon allotropes used in nanotechnology".

          Research paper is available on IEEE Xplore

          DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/AMS.2010.97

          If you want more details about the paper please drop me an email to chanaka@ninithi.lk

Abstract :-
         Graphene, Carbon nanoribbons, Carbon nanotubes and Fullerene (Buckyball) are allotropes of carbon which are widely used in Nanotechnology research due to their remarkable properties. Electrical and mechanical properties of those allotropes vary with their molecular geometry. Theoretically, an infinite number of such geometries do exist and it is impossible to physically prepare samples of all of them in the real world. This paper is based on modeling the atomic structures of those carbon allotropes with all the molecular geometries in 3D space, given variable user inputs to select the geometry, and customizing the view varying the angle and colours. Equations to derive the coordinates of the atoms, algorithms to derive the orientation of the bonds of the molecular structures and the manner in which the algorithms are implemented using java3D are described in this paper. Successful results were obtained after the implementation of the algorithms which are illustrated with few screenshots at the end.

ninithi released

         ninithi which is a free and opensource modelling software, can be used to visualize and analyze carbon allotropes used in nanotechnology. You can generate 3-D visualization of Carbon nanotubes, Fullerenes, Graphene and Carbon nanoribbons and analyze the band structures of nanotubes and graphene.

         For more information visit www.ninithi.lk and download the software free.

Facebook expands universe ?

What is universe ? Wikipedia says "The Universe comprises everything we perceive to exist physically, the entirety of space and time, and all forms of matter and energy"

     There is an interesting word in this definition, "perceive" that is defined as "perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information". Perception is a subjective term. It is not the same way that I perceive and you perceive. Then we all should have an our own universe.

     Let's define my universe as "Everything I know" where your universe is "Everything you know". I know that there exist objects (matter or energy) beyond the farthest object that I know and there is a time before the earliest event I know. Hence universe (I use the word universe for my universe) is infinite in size (the space time). (Remind the definition for plus infinity in mathematics that is "it is greater than any real number"). But the distance to the farthest object I know ever increases as I am getting to know more new objects. Hence my universe is ever expanding. (The expanding universe fact that have been found by the scientists can also be considered. There, the distance between me and the farthest object is continuously increasing). So we obtained same properties of the well known universe, infinite and expanding. But in a different way.

     The universe is different for two persons. Assume the following scenario. You create a fake profile in facebook (let say Geetha), invite me and start to chat. For me, Geetha is a real person and she belongs to the universe. For you, Geetha doesn't exist in the universe. If people I know is another dimension of the universe,(we can define more dimensions in addition to x,y,z,t if we can not define the extra dimension in terms of x,y,z /independence ) it has been expanded with the existence of Geetha.

     Though we used the terms "My universe" and "Your universe", only one universe exists. That is my universe or "The universe".

      Can we build our theory by continuing in this way ? But we have to answer many questions. Like,

     "What happens to the universe when I dead ?" or "How was the universe at my birth ?"

---(image source : wikipedia)

Nanotechnology modelling tools

Lanka Software Foundation, a non-profit and research oriented organization in Sri Lanka initiated a project in 2009 to develop opensource software to be used in nanotechnology research work. The idea was welcome by Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology and agreed to assist in the progress.

The plan was to release a tool in 2010 and continue the progress in to a bigger project after the release. The inceptive project known as 'Ninithi' , is gradually approaching its completion. at the moment. The goal is to develop a tool to visualize and analyse widely used carbon allotropes in nanotechnology, Graphene, Carbon nanoribbons, Carbon nanotubes and Fullerenes.

The software also provides 3-D views of the molecular structures of those molecules and graphs illustrating electrical properties of them.

For more information visit the ninithi page


Developers : Chanaka Rupasinghe and Mufthas Rasikim