QUASARS- UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way is an average sized galaxy in the Universe and contains 10,000 crore stars. Each galaxy radiates an amount of energy, that makes it visible both visually and also by emission of Radio waves depending on the distance.

A class of objects were discovered known as Quasars (Quasi Stellar Radio Sources) which are exceedingly far away from us with the farthest ULAS J1120+0641 [2] being 1290 crore light years away. At this distance we should not have been able to even know that these objects existed because the energy emission that is required for their identification on Earth would have to be enormous.

These Quasars show swift variations in energy which is possible only when the energy is originating from a compact source. For these light fast variations to occur, the size of its source has to be the size of our solar system or less. With such a small object giving out radiation which is more than 100 times that is being emitted by a whole galaxy is simply unbelievable.

The Quasars are supposed by scientists to be galaxies with super massive black holes at their centers. Due to their vast distances from us we can only detect its super radiating core and nothing else is known about their other properties.

The other properties of Quasars are unknown to us and they remain one of the mysteries of the Universe to Cosmologists.

THE PROBLEM ECONOMY OF GREECE.

Greece enjoyed a very high standard of living which ranked it 29th on the Human Development index. Greece is a good case of what corruption can do to finish off a country. Greece is the most corrupt nation in Europe if one excludes Bulgaria. Greece’s underground economy (i.e.black money)

Which is around 25% of its GDP is very high for a European nation. Along with corruption,the crisis in Greece has also come about due to uncontrolled Government expenditure and the public sector accounted for 40% of its GDP. Greece is a welfare state and provided 32% of its 2012 budget for social services and pensions.

When Greece entered the European Union in the year 2000, its Government presented manipulated figures so that it qualified to enter the union. In 2009, the budget deficit stood at 15.4% which is unacceptable for any country. Its debt stood at 126% of its GDP which is far above the danger mark. (India presently has a debt equaling 76% of its GDP and its fiscal deficit is hovering round 5%). This led to further debt to service the debt and it spiraled to 148% of its GDP.

Greece’s GDP contracted by 6.8% during the year 2011 and the unemployment rate is presently around 21%.

It was about to go bankrupt when the IMF and the other Eurozone countries intervened and bailed it out with a loan package. Whether Greece would be able to service this package later is the billion Euro question. In order to obtain the bailout package, Greece had to agree for harsh austerity measures which resulted in social unrest. The other Eurozone nations are threatening to throw it out of the European Union if it does not deliver on the austerity measures and reduce its budgetary deficit.

IS PHILOSOPHY REALLY ESSENTIAL FOR MANKIND?

Some people say that Philosophy is very difficult to understand and there is no point in wasting time in reading Philosophy. –True enough, one need not read Philosophy or for that matter any other subject and still live on, but one should remember that if such a thing had happened then man would have still been in the caves and would not have been different from any other animal.

Some people think that Science is the greatest and there is no need for Philosophy at all. They should understand that Philosophy is the beginning of science and is also its ending.

When man does not know about something he speculates and this speculation is nothing but Philosophy. Then he experiments and that philosophical concept advances to become science.

Similarly when Science ends at a point man again speculates which again is Philosophy. This in turn gives rise to experimentation again that leads to further science and so on in an unending cycle.

Apart from this there are certain human values that are beyond Science. What is meant by Good, Bad, Beauty, Love, Justice, Morals etc. which cannot be dealt by Science and Philosophy comes to our rescue.

It so happens that in philosophy each philosopher considers his system to be the ultimate. But there comes another philosopher with his system and his own philosophy. No philosophy is ultimate and there is always room for development. This is the seed that germinates into science.