[問卦] 有沒有印度科學家的八卦？

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‘Ravana’s airports’, ‘Modi waves’ leave science congress stunned

「拉瓦納機場」、「莫迪波」在科學大會上留下一片愕然

NEW DELHI/ JALANDHAR: Two lectures at the Indian Science Congress in which scientists, including the vice-chancellor of a state university, made cms about achievements of ancient Indians have created a new controversy. These cms havehighlighted a fundamental problem for the congress: in the past few years, what had once been a gathering of the country’s most reputed scientific minds has become a platform for numerous such statements based on mythology.

新德里/賈朗達爾：在印度科學大會上，包括一所邦立大學的副校長在內的科學家們就古代印度人的成就所做的兩場演講引發了新爭議。這些演講凸顯了國大黨面臨的一個根本問題：過去幾年，這個曾經匯聚了全印度最有聲譽的科學家的大會，已經變成了發表許多諸如此類神說迷思的平台。

On Friday, Andhra University vice-chancellor G Nageswara Rao, a professor of inorganic chemistry, cmed that Kauravas from the Indian mythological epic Mahabharata were born using stem cell technology and that Ravana from the Ryana had 24 types of aircraft and that Sri Lanka at that time had airports. Rao then expned evo tion and human civilization while talking about the Dasavatara or 10 incarnations of Vishnu. He said this at a session which included children inthe audience.

At the same session, K J Krishnan, a scientist at a centre in Tamil Nadu, cmed that the theories of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were wrong and would be disproved. He said gravitational waves would soon be renamed as ‘Narendra Modi waves’, while the gravitational lensing effect in physics would be renamed as ‘Harsh Vardhan effect’. He went on to cm that ricity and magnetism were
the same phenomena.

上星期五，安得拉邦大學副校長、無機化學教授G Nageswara Rao聲稱，印度神話史詩《摩訶婆羅多》中的俱盧族就是通過乾細胞技術誕生的，《羅摩衍那》中的Ravana有24種飛機，當時斯里蘭卡也有機場。Rao接著談到了進化論和人類文明，同時談及毗瑟奴的十種化身。他是在一個有兒童參加的會議上說這番話的。

在同一會議上，泰米爾納德邦一個中心的科學家KJ克里斯南聲稱，艾薩克牛頓和阿爾伯特愛因斯坦的理論是錯誤的，會被人們*。他說，引力波將很快被重新命名為「納倫德拉莫迪波」，而物理學中的引力透鏡效應將被重新命名為「哈什瓦爾丹效應」。他還聲稱電和磁是同一現象。

This was not the first time that the congress has witnessed such cms. In the Mumbai session in January 2015, Anand J Bodas, principal of a pilot training school in Ker and Ameya Jadhav, lecturer at a Mumbai junior college, presented a paper within a symposium titled ‘Ancient Sciences Through Sanskrit’. Bodas
and Jadhav cmed that ancient Indians had invented aircraft that could fly in multiple directions and had even reached other planets. They cited as reference a text known as the ‘Vaimanika Shastra’, which has descriptions and some di
agrams of what have been cmed to be ancient aircraft. The text, cmed to have been written by the Vedic sage Bharadwaja is, however, dated to 1904 and scientists earlier had concluded that the designs in it were unrealistic and such aircraft could not have achieved flight. Prior to the congress, ned scientists had objected to the paper being presented because of its pseudo-scientific nature.

這並不是第一次在科學大會上聽到這樣的說法。在2015年1月的孟買會議上，喀拉拉邦一所試點培訓學校的校長阿南德彙歲桯F斯和孟買一所專科學院的講師阿米亞毓捆F夫在一場名為「梵文中的古代科學」研討會上發表了一篇論文。博達斯和博達斯聲稱，古代印度人發明瞭可以多方向飛行的飛機，去到過其他星球。他們引用了「Vaimanika Shastra（航空科學）」中的內容作為參考，書中有對據稱是古代飛機的描述和圖片。這本書是吠陀聖賢巴拉德瓦賈所著，可以追溯到1904年，科學家們早先曾得出結論，書中的設計是不現實的，這種飛機不可能飛上天。在大會召開之前，一些著名科學家因為這篇論文的偽科學性質反對該論文的發表。

At the same symposium, other papers were presented on ‘Engineering applications of ancient Indian botany’,‘Neuro-science of yoga’ and ‘Advances in surg
ery in Ancient India’, all of which cmed ancient Indians had made fantastic inventions predating ideas in the West in the Early Modern period. Addressing delegates at the session, Union science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan cmed that ancient Indian mathematicians had discovered the Pythagoras theorem
“but very gracefully allowed the Greeks to take the credit”.

At the 105th Indian Science Congress at Imphal in March 2018, Vardhan had cmed that the late British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking had stated that the Vedas contained a “theory superior to that of Einstein’s e equals mc squared equ
ation”.

在這個研討會上，還發表了「古印度植物學的工程學應用」、「瑜伽的神經系統科學」和「古印度外科醫學的先進之處」等論文，所有這些論文都聲稱，在近代早期，古印度人在西方思想出現之前就已經有了了不起的發明。歐盟科技部長哈什‧瓦爾丹在會上向代表們發表講話時聲稱，古代印度數學家發現了畢達哥拉斯定理，「但非常優雅地讓希臘人搶得了功勞」。

在2018年3月於印帕爾舉行的第105屆印度科學大會上，瓦爾丹聲稱，已故的英國天體物理學家斯蒂芬‧霍金曾表示，《吠陀》里就有「比愛因斯坦的e = mc平方方程更先進的理論」。

Mainstream scientists have expressed displeasure over these cms. Regarding the latest lecture by the Andhra University VC, the Indian Science Congress Association has expressed shock. “I feel very sad about the type of things he presented before the children. I had told our team to keep a check and that nothing unscientific should be spoken about from the stage. It is shocking when a person of the stature of a state university VC speaks like this,” said ISCA general presi nt Manoj Kumar Chakrabarti, a biologist.

“All the abstracts of the papers to be presented at the sessions were scrutinised properly. The research papers were all above board and had no unscientific cms. However Rao came just for a talk at the Children’s Congress. The was not vetted as it must have been assumed that a vice-chancellor could give an inspiring talk to the children. I will now have to check how Rao got invited togive the lecture and whether there was a hint of what the contents of it would be,” Chakrabarti added.

主流科學家對這些說法表達了不滿。對於安得拉邦大學副校長最近發表的演講，印度科學大會協會表示震驚。「我對他在孩子們面前展示的東西感到非常難過。我告訴我們的團隊要謹慎，不能在台上說任何不符合科學的東西。國立大學的副校長這樣有聲望的人居然說出這樣的話，真是令人震驚。」ISCA主席，生物學家Manoj Kumar Chakrabarti說道。

「所有提交會議的論文摘要都經過了合規審查。這些研究論文都沒有不科學的說法。Rao只是在兒童大會上做了一次演講。這篇演講沒有經過審查，我們都以為副校長肯定會給孩子們一個鼓舞人心的演講。我現在得查一查Rao為何會被邀請來做講座，是否提前瞭解過講座的內容。」查克拉巴蒂補充說。

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ISCA general secretary Premendu P Mathur said, “Science is based on citation, logical explanation and experimentation. Had I been there, I would have questioned him about it. One should have asked him for evidence.”

However, on Saturday Rao stood by his cms. “Ryana and Mahabharata are not mythology, but history. Because we don’t understand it today, we can’t say that
it’s not science,” he told TOI over the phone.

“I stated that now test tube baby and stem cell technology are known and probably Kauravas were born through a similar mechanism. I am relating present-day science with what happened during the Mahabharata period. Otherwise how could there be 100 sons from a single mother. About Ravana, if he had aircraft there must have been infrastructure and fuel for it,” Rao added.

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ISCA秘書長Premendu P Mathur說:「科學是建立在引證、邏輯解釋和實驗的基礎上的。如果我當時在場，我肯定會向他提問。應該有人讓他給出證據的。」

然而，Rao星期六仍堅持自己的主張。他在電話採訪中告訴印度時報：「羅摩衍那和摩訶婆羅多不是神話，是歷史。不能因為我們今天不理解，就說它不是科學。」

「我那天說，如今試管嬰兒和乾細胞技術已經為人所知，可能俱盧族也是通過類似的技術誕生的。我把今天的科學與摩訶婆羅多時期發生的事情關聯起來。否則，一個單身母親怎麼可能會有100個兒子呢?關於拉瓦納，如果他有飛機，那麼就一定有所需的基礎設施和燃料。」

Such cms have led to ned scientists staying away from sessions of the congress in the past. In 2016, Indian-born Nobel laureate V Rkrishnan, a biologist atCambridge University, had objected to re gious ideas being mixed with science. “I attended the congress once and very little science was discussed. I will
never attend it again. The idea that Indians had aircraft 2000 years ago sounds almost essentially impossible to me.

在過去，此類說法讓著名科學家不願參加大會。2016年，出生於印度的諾貝爾獎得主、劍橋大學生物學家V Rkrishnan反對將思想與科學混為一談。「我參加過一次大會，會上並沒有進行多少關於科學的討論。我再也不會參加了。那種2000年前印度人就擁有飛機的說法在我聽來幾乎是不可能的。」

有沒有印度科學家的八卦？

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