Saturday, March 20, 2010

What happens when an immoveable object meets an unstoppable force?

The question posed is quite the treat for the philiosophical mind. It can be pondered over.Hypothesis suggested.Then that word WHY appears in your head. That measly word. Use any adjective you like, it stays there. You proceed to disprove yourself not being able to decide whether to hate the annoying question or your own incapability to answer it. How you describe a question is quite imperative to whether you eventually answer it. You can call this one annoying, interesting, scientists might even curse the question saying that such things do not exist. Neither immoveable objects nor unstoppable forces. But what if?
I pose my favourite supposing question. I say God is an unstoppable force. And if He is God then he can certainly create an immoveable object. What would happen when these two entities meet? They are both imaginable entities in their own right. Yet it seems imagination is too small a place for both of them. Yes even imagination! The largest place known to man! It is like the room of requirement in the Harry Potter series. Your imagination can take any size you want. Anything is possible in your imagination. I can reach the peak of the everest over there. Eat my favourite food at all meal times. I can even get into Harvard. It is truly a heaven on earth. Not Dubai. Imagination is the real heaven on earth. And I have just proved how easy it is to deviate and digress when posed with a difficult question.
So what does happen when an unstoppeable force meetsa more than stubborn object; An immoveable one. Consider the concept of inertia. Inertia is defined as a body's tendecy to resist changes in a state of rest or motion. The objects in the question both have infinite inertia. Only, it is of different types. One body wont stop moving. The other will not move no matter what you do. What if these two collide? Momentum can help us describe motion and predict collsions and their outcomes. How strange that I can safely and confidently predict the collision of two bodies. Both unstoppable forces( considering both the unstoppables as equals). And also say that two immoveable objects will ofcourse never bother each other. Yet I cannot apply the physcis I know or the physics I think I will have learnt in the years of education ahead when I try to collide an unstoppable force with an immoveable object. What will I get?A headache! That is the current conclusion based on research and observed evidence.
Enough of humor. This is bad! How can I not answer this question. Its maths, physics and it can be made into many more things. This question has so many dimensions.Its amazing. It feels like the apocalypse of questions. You can't reply to this question with another question(if you hope to answer it atleast). Any peers whom I have asked this question have shed no more light than reflected by their frowning fore heads. My physics teacher evaded the question with a smirk. A similiar response my maths teacher managed to show. In mathematics terms had I posed this question. He was lecturing how numbers divided by infinity result in zero and how number divided by zero result in infinity. I, treating infinity as an unstoppeable forceand the number zero as an immoveable object asked what is zero multiplied by infinity.A smirk. Oh cmon you fat..
Infinity multiplied by infinity is INFINITY. Zero multiplied by zero is ZERO.Multiplications treated as mathematic collsions.However if we consider the two equations that ANYNUMBER/Infinity=Zero and ANYNUMBER/Zero=Infinity, cross multiply in both, We get to the conclusion that Zero*Infinity=ANYNUMBER. The respective substitutions give you the result that When an immoveable object meets an unstoppeable force, what can happen? ANYTHING. Hardly the answer I had expected or was looking for. Yet I learnt not to expect anything expectable on this little philosophical journey of mine.
I proceeded to search on the internet. I found many ridiculous answers, denials rather than real answers. People were more concernedwith stating that such quantities and phenomenon do not exist. One answer however was given in a humorous note by a person. She said simply,that the unstoppable force gets a hole punched in it and proceeds.Interesting! She might have been joking but she succeeded in thinking and I believe she possesesan extra touch of grey matter. This doughnut theory is still fundamentally flawed. It in essence awards the victory to the immoveable object as anyportion of the unstoppeable force that meets the object gets "stopped" thus making the hole in the doughnut. Wow, Im sure I will beat Thomas Edison at finding more number of ways of not succeeding at something.
A different sort of idea and situation which came to mind was that of religion. Religous beliefs are in many cases immoveable objects. That is essentially why the word dogma is used to describe it. Most of you reading this follow the religion which has been followed by your parents and their parents. And Im sure all of you believe whole heartedly you are on the right path. Now it must be agreed upon how as we all understand our own religions best, most arguements, if not all, that question the basis of our beliefs are disbanded by us. Are we all magically on the straight path, albeit different ones, or are our hearts stubborn? Why can I without having complete knowledge of my holy book, the Qur'an, assure any of my atheist readers that I will not be convinced to believe that there is no God no matter how hard they try. Simply, my belief is my immoveable object. I may have seen proof of God, but the atheist has "seen" proof of His absence too, and we are both standing half way in concrete( consider that an immoveable situation :-). However, many of you might be wondering now about converts, Aren't they the answer to my question. Hasn't there belief changed, there immoveable object moved? Rebuttal ? Yes! For example if they converted to Islam, then their beliefs were never immoveable in the first place, and Islam was the unstoppable force that moved them. And Islam which proved to be an unstoppable force to them, is my immoveable object too! What a wonderful thing, something which cannot be moved, but cannot be stopped either! I love being a muslim! As do you being a christian, jew, buddhist, or atheist.
Another interesting concept which helped me shed some light on the situation were black holes. While viewing a video recommended to me by my mother of Professor and Physicist Michio Kaku, I listened to him describing what might happen when black holes meet. Black holes are extremely dense points of mass. They posess the strongest gravitational force in our universe, sucking all matter around them. For the sake of arguement they can be called the unstoppable forces in our universe. What is different is that black holes create attractive forces as opposed to in my question where the unstoppable force is heading for impact with the immoveable object. So what would happen when two unstoppeable "sucking" forces prey on each other. Which one will consume the other? Will they merge? Only time will tell, but in a billion years. However if it is correct that we end in 2012, remember to ask God. (unless you're an atheist :-) then there no hope for you at all :P

9 comments:

  1. 'And if He is God then he can certainly create an immoveable object. What would happen when these two entities meet?' This has been debated upon for quite a while (Can God build a wall he can't jump over?), with exactly the same result
    'They are both imaginable entities in their own right. Yet it seems imagination is too small a place for both of them. Yes even imagination!'
    We can't apply the Laws of Physics tot he supernatural. If we could, they wouldn't BE supernatural.
    love the article mashaAllah.

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  2. Feels good to know more people have started blogging.

    Brilliant post.

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  3. love how u think, now if only u'd stop singing party in the USA all day long i'd propose to u....thats how brilliant this piece is =P

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  4. Nicely written. Honestly, it adds to another riddle that has been bothering me for the past few years. Personal experience, will tell you tomorrow. ;)

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  5. So why can't the unstoppable force bend around the immovable object?space curves right? :D

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  6. Aussie??? wht a lame nickname...coco-butt suits u best :P.... i dont wana read this again and make my mind go numb with the bullcrap :P

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  8. my professor said in answer to this paradox that since God can do all things, maybe he can make contradictions come true, that is, create an immovable object and also move the object.
    Beat that .. :)

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  9. then how was the object immovable in the first place Eru?

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