The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

That night as we were finishing the evening meal, I recalled over teahow, long ago in this village, in the days when the farmers were turningthe fields by hand, one man began to use a cow. He was very proud ofthe ease and speed with which he could finish the laborious job ofplowing. Twenty years ago when the first mechanical cultivator made itsappearance, the villagers all got together and debated seriously whichwas better, the cow or the machine. In two or three years it became clearthat plowing by machine was faster, and without looking beyondconsiderations of time and convenience, the farmers abandoned theirdraft animals. The inducement was simply to finish the job more quicklythan the farmer in the next field.The farmer does not realize that he has merely become a factor inmodern agriculture’s equation of increasing speed and efficiency. He letsthe farm equipment salesman do all the figuring for him.Originally people would look into a starry night sky and feel awe atthe vastness of the universe. Now questions of time and space are leftentirely to the consideration of scientists.It is said that Einstein was given the Nobel Prize in physics indeference to the incomprehensibility of his theory of relativity. If histheory had explained clearly the phenomenon of relativity in the worldand thus released humanity from the confines of time and space, bringingabout a more pleasant and peaceful world, it would have beencommendable. His explanation is bewildering, however, and it causedpeople to think that the world is complex beyond all possibleunderstanding. A citation for “disturbing the peace of the human spirit”should have been awarded instead.In nature, the world of relativity does not exist. The idea of relativephenomena is a structure given to170