Monday, July 28, 2008

The apology of Burmakin I

Burmakin: Happy birthday, Grand Madam. I wish may you long live up to 1200 Celestial years.

Queen Sujata: You too, my grandson. May you be as swift as Lord of all horses, as stocky as Lord of all trees, as lustful as Chief General of the Asura Titans, for a human life for 120 years.

Burmakin: What a variegated pageant in Heaven for today. What a graceful lady like Grand Madam is. Your majesty, you are probably one of the most fortunate creatures to be blessed with such a graceful lady like Grand Madam is.

King of Angels: Well, my son. For just a flicker of her squint from your admirable ladies, how many lives of you arrogant guys have toiled too hard, have shed your sweat and blood, and have knelt before them. You should know how it also had been a daunting task for me to hold her back.

Burmakin: For me, you are a role model of classical love; maybe you so blind, so enamored with temerity, so imprudent to steal Grand Madam from Asura Titans.

Queen Sujata: The story began when I bestowed this hoary-headed old man with my chaplet. Maybe he was not that blind; me too blind to be so attracted to this old frost. The young titans, so proud of their gallantry for winning my love, were so surprised at why I chose such a cranky person, in his shaggy old age. Well, my grandson, actually, this was my choice that changed the history of Heaven and Human World. I prejudiced my love to an underdog as my Karma guided it.

Burmakin: Your majesty, you were a great hero to escape from these Asura fighters. I still imagine what a lovely scene it is. With an odorous garland worn on your grand head, you held Madam’s hand, roaring up against Asuras, “I am the King of Angels from Tavatainta”, and you two jumped inside your Vaijenyatha warrior chariot. While Asuras were amazed at seeing this, you started drilling your warrior horses back to heaven. You alone managed to win Madam’s love in such a heroic way.

King of Angels: My story known to you Burmese is a typology of hero-worship. The hero will overcome everything that you Burmese simply believe. The real story was not that easy. I didn’t go to Asuras’ paradise alone. My spies were already rampant inside Asuras’ community. They interrupted the Asura fighters who forthwith tried to pursue me. The chariot I used in running away with your Grand Madam was also not Vaijenyatha that was just a creaky one for some pomp exhibition. The swiftest chariot in our Tavatainta world at that time was the Suria chariot (Sun chariot) that could run at a speed of 135 miles per second. I had been so ignorant to believe that this was the swiftest chariot in our universe. I didn’t realize that Asuras’ civilization had already made a novelty in their war vehicles to defeat our Devas’ (Angels) kingdom. Their latest model chariot could run at a speed of 675 miles per second, which was five times faster than my Suria chariot did. Paharada, the chief general of titans, ran after me with this flying monster that they called Rahu pulled by six sun- like unicorns. My snail-like Suria chariot pulled by a single unicorn could run only at a speed of only one sun. So Rahu was five times speedier than Suria. I repented that I had risked my life. So the enemy’s chariot Rahu was sure to catch my chariot Suria finally.

Burmakin: Woo! So interesting! How do you make it to get away from the enemy’s hands?

King of Angels: I had only one hope. That was the notion of my enemy to notice that I had left earlier than he did, no matter he was much faster than me. Paharada was a master of Upanishads in his last life. Especially, he was one of the greatest mathematicians in the ancient Veda Age of India. If I could make out a mathematical question to him right now, for his great confidence in mathematics, he was sure to figure out what the answer was.

Burmakin: This sounds like the psychological warfare that the demon, Arlawaka launched against Buddha. You thought if Paharada couldn’t think out the answer of your problem, his heart was so frail so that he couldn’t garner any more courage to pursue your chariot.

King of Angels: Exactly. But the problem should be related to our current events. Otherwise, Paharada was smart enough to be careful about not turning his attention to non-circumstantial questions. With so much love for your Grand Madam that I had attempted for hundreds of human years, I called out to Paharada in a tone of certitude.

“Hey Paharada, do you believe that your chariot could catch me up?”

“Why not Marga, Didn’t you see that my Rahu is approaching very fast to your Suria.

To let you know, I myself designed to supersede your fastest model, Suria. Rahu is like a racing hare. Yours is just a small turtle. Rahu is five times faster than your Suria. In a second, your life is doomed to decay”

“I don’t believe. I believe Rahu could never catch Suria. You know that Marga, I, King of Angels, never tell lies”

“Why Rahu could never catch Suria? Why a racing hare couldn’t catch a slow tortoise? Why you believe like this if you never tell lies?”

“The answer is, Paharada, because the tortoise started earlier than the hare did”

Burmakin: So great, your majesty. Paharada as a mathematician was sure to think about it. As you left earlier, he could never catch you. Because once he has reached the point you left, you have already left this point before! The hare could never catch the tortoise as the tortoise always left earlier when he reached the point.

In their chariots’ race, Paharada was overwhelmed by King of Angels’ question and gave up following him as he was convinced that Rahu would never catch Suria because Suria quitted always one step ahead.

As Rahu has given a start to Suria, the swift Rahu will not be able to catch up with Suria. Let Rahu driven by Paharada be at Point R and the Suria driven by King of Angels at Point S. When Paharada dashes Rahu to Point S from Point R at a faster speed than Suria, but when he arrives at S, King of Angels is no longer there, but a little further ahead at S’.

When Paharada with the fast Rahu arrives at S’, but King of Angels with the slow Suria was no longer at S’ again; Suria was a little further ahead at S’’ and so on, to the infinite. To catch up with Suria, Paharada had to cover the infinite segments, RS, SS’, S’S’’, S’’S’’’, that will be infinite in number. To run infinite segments will take infinite time, and therefore Paharada will never be able to catch up with King of Angels.

(To be cont…solution to this paradox)

6 comments:

Alvin S. C. Lee said...

Interesting 'twist' in calculus understanding!

The 'problem' seem to stem from relative speed. S started first, then R. But speed of R was said to be 5 times the speed of S. This means that as S slow down, R also slow down. If S is at rest, then R will have to be at rest because 5 times zero is zero.

As long as S stop moving, R will always be a fixed distance away. Hmm... reminds me about the story of Angulimala who kept chasing the Buddha but could never catch up... as the Buddha told Angulimala: "I have already stopped".

:)

Anonymous said...

Remind me about the classic Greek story saying " if u keep on jumping half the distance of your previous jump , at some point , u can't go on further anymore" :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Burmakin,

Just my two cents.

Sujata addressed you as "grandson" but her husband who is apparently much older than her, addressed you as "my son".If you could review this inconsistency, that will be great.

Peace,
CNT

Anonymous said...

I think the time taken by the rabbit to reach the tortoise will be halved in each next chase. The problem is because the fraction always has some value. So the value of time taken is never equivalent to zero whereas it is approaching v.vvvv.... close to zero. Only when you get " time taken = zero " in one next chase, the puzzle is solved.

Maybe this is a series like this if time taken by the rabbit to chase the tortoise are summed up. Let's take the first time for the rabbit to reach the tortoise be 1 hr.

(1hr+ 1/2hr+ 1/4hr+ 1/8hr+ 1/16hr+ 1/32hr+ 1/64+ ... + (1/2) to the power n, where n is infinity)that will be endless. Probably,the rabbit will never catch the tortoise if the tortoise has started earlier. Probably, I will be surprised if the rabbit has caught the tortoise - getting Ko Star Train's words:)))

Anonymous said...

hi,

may be we should read this one first?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise

Casper said...

Asymptoic line of the curve: time(t) on X coordinate,approximation(d) on Y coordinate
f(x)=1/x satisfies the problem. The curve will never meet the X-axis where y becomes zero. The X-axis is the asymptote of the y=1/x curve at the point x is approaching infinity.