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Jainism : Through Science
33 In the wake of progress in physics it becomes all the more significant to know whether light consists of rays or particles. Are the objects known to classical physics as waves, really waves or are they particles ? If they are really in the form of particles, why is it that they behave like waves ? This needs to be explained. Different types of waves – rays of visible or invisible light, sound waves of different wavelengths, ultrasonic waves of very high frequency and of very low frequency i.e. infrasonic, which are not audible and electromagnetic waves of different frequency and different wavelengths, which are useful in broadcasting radio signals and television signals and signals of other transmitters are known to classical physics. Are all these rays in the form of waves or particles ? This is a very important question of modern physics and we shall try to find its solution.
Jain religious treatises state that shabda (sound), Andhakār (darkness), Udyot (coolling, soothing light i.e. moonlight), Atapa (hot light i.e. sunlight), Prabhā (irregular spread reflection, interference etc. of light) are modifications of prime matter. All the aforesaid phenomena are constituted of microscopic particles (paramāņus) of a matter. In the fifth chapter of TATTVĀRTHA SŪTRA, Umäswāti, while defining pudgal (the prime matter) says - prefer trefa çfa TGT: 1 In pudgal (the prime matter) the process of splitting i.e. fission and combination i.e. fusion of particles is ever going on. No object remains in the same condition for ever. e.g. There are billions of cells in our body. Lakhs of them are destroyed every moment and they are replaced by nearly as many newly created cells.
In atomic physics the process of fission and fusion is the best examples of splitting and combination of particles. Both these processes need energy. In certain circumstances fusion produces atomic power and in others fission produces atomic power.
Uranium, radium etc. used in atomic process emit three types of rays namely alpha (a), Beta (b), and Gamma (y). These rays are nothing but shower of particles of a particular kind. An oscilloscope produces their trace on the screen. Particles of alpha rays are like nuclei of Helium atoms, Beta rays contain electrons and Gamma
