Astrophysics...

20th Anniversary of ‘Hubble Telescope Launch'

From the dawn of humankind to a mere 400 years ago, all that we knew about our universe came through observations with the naked eye. Then Galileo turned his telescope toward the heavens in 1610. The world was in for an awakening.

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Saturn, we learned, had rings. Jupiter had moons. That nebulous patch across the center of the sky called the Milky Way was not a cloud but a collection of countless stars. Within but a few years, our notion of the natural world would be forever changed. A scientific and societal revolution quickly ensued.

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In the centuries that followed, telescopes grew in size and complexity and, of course, power. They were placed far from city lights and as far above the haze of the atmosphere as possible. Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Telescope is named, used the largest telescope of his day in the 1920's at the Mt. Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California, to discover galaxies beyond our own.

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Hubble, the observatory, is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space, the ultimate mountaintop. Above the distortion of the atmosphere, far far above rain clouds and light pollution, Hubble has an unobstructed view of the universe. Scientists have used Hubble to observe the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system.

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From far to near, from the earliest moments in the universe to current sandstorms on the surface of Mars... Hubble's launching in 1990 marks the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo's telescope. Our view of the universe and our place within it has never been the same.

Hubble's top five scientific achievements:

Continued...http://mystery-of-the-universe.blogspot.com/2010/04/hubbles-top-five-scientific.html

happens for a reason...that is unknown to us.

"When things are at their worst I find something always happens"

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A Story

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for GOD to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions.

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One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, "GOD! How could you do this to me?"

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Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

“Someone is there with….. Only for whom who believes…." ~Imm

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Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson / Winston Churchill

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Criticism

By Peter Shepherd

In the first stage of this series we have been looking at the factors that can cause fragmentation of our identity: invalidation (feeling put-down by someone), co-dependence (where we put aside our own feelings), suppression (the opposition to one's goals and purposes by another), and in today's lesson we look more at how criticism can affect us, and how best to handle it.

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A person tends to defend himself and protest, when confronted by another's criticism or complaint. Nevertheless he may afterward start to introspect - "Is it really true, what was said?" - causing him to fixate his attention inwardly on himself. Compulsive introspection is caused by a false criticism being accepted, which causes the person to look inwardly and worry about the mystery caused by this error. In a normal person this can cause diminished activity and unhappiness or illness. With a neurotic person it can push him over the edge into psychosis.

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This may begin early in childhood with the 'overcautious-parent' syndrome - "What are you doing?", "Careful, careful, careful!" when you're climbing up a ladder, and such things that interfere with the natural flow of simple actions, so the person arrives at a point in life where he is inhibited from handling the world around him. Such a person has to think about everything he does, rather that just do it.

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Another's criticism or complaint is rarely specific and accurate enough to be helpful. Often it is a generality or exaggeration, i.e. more than the truth ("You're always moaning" whereas I only moan sometimes); or it may be not quite true ("You don't give clear instructions" whereas I have normally been giving clear instructions but I didn't in this particular person's case).

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If the criticism is completely off the mark it is less likely to cause confusion and introspection. The trouble is, criticism often has an element of truth in it, and if the criticism is rejected off-hand, the truth of things remains uninspected and unhandled.

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Even if the criticism is accurate, having behaved in a certain way for some time, often all his life, a person asserts the rightness of it - he IS the behavior! - and becomes resistive to inspecting and handling the condition objectively. Further criticism just makes this worse. But unless a person is able to evaluate his own behavior objectively, which includes learning from other peoples' point of view, he will not be able to break free from the shackles of a limited personal identity and realize his actual unbounded Higher Self.

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For each person that you know, consider if there is something which that person has suggested is wrong with your behavior or attitude?
For each criticism that you find, consider whether it's an over-generalization or exaggeration, and whether the criticism was made from a viewpoint of intolerance or negative thinking.

Was the criticism based on a false assumption?

Is the criticism partly true or is it true of just a specific instance?

Have you ever criticized someone of the same thing?

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The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.

~Robert H. Schuller

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सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं
सच है सतत संघर्ष ही ।
संघर्ष से हटकर जिये तो क्‍या जिये हम या कि तुम,
जो नत हुआ वह मृत हुआ,ज्‍यो वृन्‍त से झरकर कुसुम ।
जो पंथ भूल कर रूका नहीं,
जो हार देख झुका नहीं,
जिसने मरण को भी लिया हो जीत, है जीवन वही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

ऐसा करो जिससे न प्राणों में कहीं जड़ता रहे,
जो है जहां चुपचाप अपने आप से लड़ता रहे।
जो भी परिस्थितियां मिलें,
कांटे चुभें, कलियां खिलें,
टूटे नहीं इंसान बस संदेश जीवन का यही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

हमने रचा, आओ हमीं अब तोड़ दें इस प्‍यार को
यह क्‍या मिलन, मिलना वही जो मोड़ दे मंझधार को।
जो साथ फूलों के चले,
जो ढाल पाते ही ढले,
यह जिंदगी क्‍या जिंदगी जो सिर्फ पानी-सी बही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

अपने हृदय का सत्‍य अपने आप हमको खोजना
अपने नयन का नीर अपने आप हमको पोंछना।
आकाश सुख देगा नहीं,
धरती पसीजी है कहीं,
हर एक राही को भटक कर ही दिशा मिलती रही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

बेकार है मुस्‍कान से ढकना हृदय की खिन्‍नता
आदर्श हो सकती नहीं तन और मन की भिन्‍नता।
जब तक बंधी है चेतना,
जब तक प्रणय दुख से घना,
तब न मानूंगा कभी इस राह को ही मैं नहीं।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।
~ Jagdish Gupt

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Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.

Mao Tse-Tung

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Lessons of the Square Watermelon :

Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than shops in the USA and therefore don't have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it.
That is how majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, 'How can we provide one?' It wasn't long before they invented the square watermelon.

The solution to the problem of round watermelons was not to solve as the farmers did not assume it was impossible and simply asked how it could be done.
They found out that if you put the watermelon in a square box when they are growing, the watermelon will take on the shape of the box - and grow into a square fruit.

This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the growers could charge a premium price for them.

Few Lessons from this story which may help us :

Don't Assume: The major problem was that most people had always seen round watermelons so they automatically assumed that square watermelons were impossible before even thinking about the question.. Things that we have been doing a certain way our entire life have taken on the aura of the round watermelon and we likely don't even take the time to consider if there is another way to do it. Breaking ourselves from assuming this way can greatly improve our overall life as we are constantly looking for new and better ways to do things.

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Question habits: The best way to tackle these assumptions is to question our habits. If we can make an effort to question the way we do things on a consistent basis, we will find that we can continually improve the way that we work. Forming habits when they have been well thought out is usually a POSITIVE THING, but most of us have adopted our habits from various people and places without even thinking about them.

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Be creative: When faced with a problem, be POSITIVE AND CREATIVE in looking for a solution. This often requires thinking outside the box. Most people who viewed this question likely thought they were being asked how they could genetically alter water melons to grow square which would be a much more difficult process to accomplish. By looking at the question from an alternative perspective, however, the solution was quite simple. Being creative and looking at things in different ways in all portions of our live will help us find solutions to many problems where others can't see them.

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Look for a POSITIVE WAY: The square watermelon question was simply seeking a better and more convenient way to do something. The stores had flagged a problem they were having and asked if a solution was possible. It's impossible to find a better way if we are never asking the question in the first place. Get into the habit of asking our self, 'Is there a better way we could be doing this?' and we will find there often is.

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Impossibilities often aren’t: If we begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for us. If, on the other hand, we decide to see if something is possible or not, we will find out through trial and error. Take away the lessons and apply them to all areas in our life. We will find that by consistently applying them, we will constantly be improving all aspects of our life.

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