Book Title: Cosmology Old and New
Author(s): G R Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Previous | Next

Page 29
________________ THE PROLOGUE XXV "He who has a thorough knowledge of the structure of the world cannot but admire the inward logic and harmony of Jaina ideas. Hand in hand with the refined cosmographical ideas goes a high standard of astronomy and mathematics. A history of Indian astronomy is not conceivable without the famous Surya-prajñapti." What conclusion can be drawn from the brief considerations given above? The answer in the words of Leopold Infeld is "that all theories in physics, like human life, have their beginning and their end. In the twentieth century, with its enormous and intensive developments in science, they enjoy for a time the fullness and joy of life, but their life is short. Our mental picture of the universe is constantly undergoing modification and change. Science is ever giving it a new shape. Science is not a structure in which only the ornamental details of secondary importance are changing. Such a picture of it would be not only sad and dreary, but quite wrong. The joys of creative work and the joys of scientific knowledge and of an appreciation of scientific principles and laws lie in their eternal youth and change. Change is progress, the road upwards leading through error and mistake. We change or modify theories in order to bring within their ambit an ever wider range of facts and to obtain an ever greater degree of agreement with observa tion." The reader may well note the great contrast between the never changing laws of Nature enunciated by the Jaina Tîrthankaras and the ever changing theories of modern science. In view of this fact it is never wise to reject what at present seems to be contradictory against the theories of science. The science is ever sounding the bell: "We are beginning to appreciate better, and more thoroughly, how great is the range of our ignorance."3 "Truth is what the scientist aims at. He finds nothing at rest, nothing enduring, in the universe. Not everything is knowable, still less is predictable. But the mind of man is capable of grasping and understanding at least a part of Creation."" Then there is another important feature introduced in science by the great Theory of Relativity. Einstein has very 3. The World in Modern Science by Leopold Infeld, p. 60. 4. The Restless Universe by Max Born, p. 278.

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232