Last Thursday was a holiday in Negeri Sembilan commemorating a significant Islamic event Isra' and Mi'raj regarding Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) ascension to the heavens. It is one of the many things for me that is best kept as mystery, just as the many unfathomable ordinary things in life. I remembered an Islamic magazine approached and interviewed me on the matter from a scientific perspective given that they have found some website on the internet trying to do so. It was really a difficult situation for me to explain my position as I prefer to keep the religious event and scientific theories separate. With the little knowledge that we have of both, speculative explanations often becomes a disservice to both. The normal things that people often try to do is to find the latest (speculative) findings in physics and explain the possibility of such travel. Wormholes are usually referred to in this case, just like they are often referred to in science fiction for interstellar travel (before wormhole, they normally just say generically space-time warps). Physicists have been toying with wormholes for quite awhile and the first instance it was discussed mathematically was by Morris and Thorne in American Journal of Physics, a journal published by American Association of Physics Teacher. The article showed that wormhole can be given as a nonsingular solution of Einstein's equation but it however needs exotic matter with negative energy density. The article's aim was, in fact, a pedagogical one as the title "Wormholes in Spacetime and Their Use for Interstellar Travel: A Tool for Teaching General Relativity" suggests. There is no evidence that wormholes exist physically but that did not stop physicists studying it. Wormholes continued to be explored in physics journals in various guises. Matt Visser even wrote a book on it and I recommend it to those who wants to understand wormholes mathematically. Some even argue further that wormholes can be used as time machines (see e.g. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.1446).
With speculations running wild, physicists can also be very imaginative in putting up titles such as "The Jinn of the Time Machine: Nontrivial Self-Consistent Solutions". Before anyone takes this literally, do get some knowledge of general relativity and read up the article properly. It is all about closed timelike curves and their mechanics. Idea of closed timelike curves perhaps first appeared in Godel's cosmological solution of rotating universe. Yes, it's the same Godel of the Incompleteness Theorem fame. There is a nice article on "Visualization of the Godel Universe". Thus, one can see physicists tend to explore the realms of what is possible, but bound by mathematical theories. Whether 'nature' follows them is totally a different question and it is important to know details so as not to be misguided. The broad classification of theories by Penrose in his book The Emperor's New Mind may be useful to help one sieve theories namely superb, useful and tentative. Most current theories are in tentative category and some bordering on fantasies.
Let us now descend on to the real world of mundane activities. Recently the cinemas are allowed to operate for people to go to with social distancing procedures observed. They have been closed for almost a year now. So on Thursday, my kids decided to go and watch Monster Hunter. My other half and I did not go as we were just too busy with other things. Here is a photo of what it looks like in the cinema.
Yesterday it was my turn to be at the Faculty and it is for the whole full day. Took the opportunity to get my supply of meds at the university health centre. In the afternoon, there was a departmental meeting held online (see below for a pic). In the meeting, I was given the task of organizing seminars for the department and apparently I'm the only academic involved. I will try to do this according to my capacity. Will try to do this fortnightly, alternating between a guest from outside the department with members of the department. Hopefully it will be recorded.
At the same time, INSPEM was holding a weekly seminar in conjunction with the International Day of Mathematics tomorrow. Due to the departmental meeting, I cannot be there. There was also the launching of Bicara Naratif of INSPEM giving views of the founders of the institute. Their videos can be seen below.
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