Saturday, February 27, 2010

The most famous architectural wonder The Taj Mahal


Taj Mahal is the most famous architectural wonder of India. Taj Mahal means Crown Palace. According to the English Poet Sir EdwinArnold,” Taj is not pieces of architecture, as other buildings are, but Proud Passions of an Emperor’s love wrought in living stones’. Simply saying, “Having been designed by giants and finished by jewelers”. In other words, “Elegy in Marbles”.

The dome is made of white marble set against the plain across the river. It sparkles in the moon lights when the precious stones inlaid into the white marble in the main mausoleum catch the glow of moon. It is of pink color in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden color in the moon light.

It was build by Shah Jahan the fifth Mughal Emperor in memory of his second wife Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian Princess. Construction began in 1631 and was completed in 12 years. It stands on a square platform of 186×186 feet forming an unequal octagon. The architectural design uses the interlocking arabesque concept, in which each element stands on its own and perfectly integrates with the main structure. It uses the principles of self-replicating geometry and symmetry of architectural elements. The basement of Taj is of high red sand stones and the terrace is made up of huge white marbles on which four tapering minarets. In side the dome lays the jewel in laid Cenotaph of the Queen. The dome is made of white marble set against the plain across the river.

Here the contradictions begins, yes the other versions about Taj Mahal: The Moghul rulers used their captured temples and mansions as a burial place for their royal courtiers. So many examples are there Humayn, Akbar and Safdarjung are all are buried in such way only.

Researchers like P.N.Oak say that Taj Mahal, the tomb of Queen Mutaz was an ancient temple of Lord Shiva known as Tejo Mahalaya belongs to Maharaja of Jaipur. It was usurped by Shajahan from Jain sing Maharaja of Jaipur. It was recorded in Bahdhusha Nama court records of the Emperor.

The samples from the river side door way of the Taj were subjected to carbon dating tests and it revealed that the door was 300 hundred years older than the Shah Jahan’s rule. With reference to Peter Mundy, John Albert Mandelslo the Taj was a famous one well before Shah Jahan.

Even now many rooms of the Taj Mahal have remained sealed, and are not assessable to any common public give raise to the doubt. Still many Historians believe that Hindu gods’ statues are there in side the sealed rooms.

What ever may be the truth, what ever may be the mystery behind the Taj Mahal,

IT IS THE ELEGY IN MARBLE

It is a quite accepted fact by all.

Friday, February 26, 2010

The Brain, Store house of Memory Part V


Complicated switching mechanisms of Brain:

Research has found that a central role in long term memory is played by an area called the Hippocampus, which is located in the temporal lobe. All new information must pass through the hippocampus, and it retains these impressions for up to several weeks before passing them on to areas in the cortex were they permanently recorded. In these cortical areas, memories are connected with specific emotions.

The hippocampus is closely linked to the brain limbic system one of the keys to our emotion world. The front temporal lobe contains areas that are responsible for short term memory. The so called reticular formation, situated between the brain and the spinal cord, contributes to wakefulness and attention, which are vital for both active and passive learning, as well as the active recall of memories. The cerebellum situated in the rear cranial cavity, harbors those memories that are necessary for conditioned or acquired reflexes. It also plays a role in maintaining the body’s equilibrium.

At present, we posses only fragmentary knowledge about how the mechanisms of memory retention and recall actually work. It is clear that our nerve cells name thousands of connection which are known as synapses. These are specifically re formed or re activated when mental processes occur. Together with the arrangement of special groups of nerve cells, the synapses create a neuron network for storing information. But the actual formation of memories is still poorly understood, and remains a subject for future study.

The Brain, Store house of Memory Part IV


Data stored and retrived from the senses:

The explanation for this lies in the huge variety of messages received by the memory. Every second of the day, we are busy probing our environment though our five senses. From the outer ear to the retina, the tip of the tongue, the mucous membrane inside the nose or the surface of our skin, special sensory perceptions is then linked to a large number of previous experiences. The brain has several ‘libraries’ where impressions from the senses are ordered and stored and it is these that determine our memories. There is a library for images, for taste impressions, colors, words, music, shapes and smells.

Many of our capacities – such as vision touch or smell- are processed in specialized regions of the brain. There are also extended areas of the brain know as areas of association, whose task is to evaluate and associate sensory perceptions. Even if we cannot directly remember our first taste of milk or the first time we saw a dog or cat, new stimulation through similar events is usually enough t refresh our memory. They associative pathways reactivate the formerly activated areas of the brain and enable us ot recall the past.


Advances in medial imaging technology have provided a much more detailed picture of how the brain functions. These advances now permit scientists to connect retain areas of the brain to certain memory tasks, an ability that is especially useful for patients suffering from loss of memory, epilepsy or memory impairments.

(Cont.)

The Brain, Store house of Memory Part III


Scrects of Super brains of the Genious!

Along with the constant processing and discarding of information, there are many thousands of pieces of knowledge and memories that we will retain for ever. These pieces of data have been consigned to our long term memory, a data bank that examines and stores selected information for long term recording. The long term memory ensures that these pieces of information will always be there for us.

The long term memory works by first checking the new elements for their significance, them admitting them in proportions to how often they are repeated. This is why so called swatting, or memorization- the apparently endless repletion of what ever has to be learned- is not a torture invented by cruel teachers, but is one of the basic principles of memory retention. In many cases of extraordinary memory, the secret is simply well trained abilities. But we do need certain inherited talents if we wish to compete with the likes of Bhandata Vicitsara or Hideaki Tomoyori.

After a period of three years most people only retain abut a tenth of several hundred pieces of stored information. The remainder usually stays in their memory until the end of their lives. But to understand this process better, we need to examine where these messages are placed while they are waiting to be recalled.

The physical layout of the human memory is complicated, since our memory is not localized in one single area of the brain. This can be seen in patients who suffer from memory disturbances but not complete memory loss. Many people forget what they did the previous evening or a few hours ago- in extreme cases, even a few minutes ago. Other people cannot recall entire periods of their lives. All memory malfunctions indicate that events affection us activate several areas of the brain.

(Cont.)

The Brain, Store house of Memory Part II


Saving data in the Brain:
Whether it is learning to read, remembering our first love, recognizing an aroma or noting a telephone number, not a single moment in our lives escapes our memory; even dreams can be partially recalled from sleep. From the moment of birth- and even before then- our memory is constantly registering, sorting and ordering the tiniest pieces of information that it considers worth saving. Thanks to this valuable ability, we are able to take note of our experiences and remember them.

Information can be held in the memory simply forgotten or fade away with time. The key is our consciously increased capacity for retention- in other words, how much attention we devote to it without this capacity we data passing the nerve endings in the brain would simply rush by and be erased within a few tenths of a second.

This is fortunate, since forgetting is a very useful tool when it comes to ordering our thoughts and filtering useless information. If our brain cells could retain every crap of conversation that we hear in the course of the day, we would soon so no longer know what was happening in our heads. So our memory is constantly busy selection and ordering information is to us at present or will be for the future. A lot depends on the emotions that we associate with the information, as well as the relationship it has to our personality and experiences. Some messages are only stored for about ten seconds- the time needed, for example, to remember a telephone number and dial it – and discarded immediately. We seldom succeed in recalling such fleeting information.

(Cont.)