Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!!

A great man once walked amongst us - he who dared to challenge all existing laws, the most fundamental laws, and bring in light a radically new theory, that would forever change the way in which we understand the behaviour of everything around us - from the tiniest of elementary particles to the working of the entire cosmos... We simply know him as Albert Einstein.

One of the outcomes of his famous Theory of Relativity is that time "dilates", or "slows down" as an object travels at very high velocities. This effect is more pronounced at relativistic speeds, that is to say at speeds near the speed of light. However absurd this may sound, it has been proven both theoretically and experimentally, beyond the shadow of doubt.

Here ends the physical aspect of time dilation. Can there be, or is there, another totally unconnected yet seemingly similar effect, psychologically? Can you be totally convinced that for a very small duration of time, the brain, under abnormal conditions of events, "stretches out" its sense of perception in time, to give a feeling that something is happening rather "slower" than it actually is? Mind you, I'm talking totally in the psychological sense, and I'm not insane enough to claim that the brain can reproduce "time dilation" in its true sense!

The reason for this weird chain of thinking is my recent accident. Following was the sequence of events - I was riding at about 60, signal ahead was green so the speed, a man came walking across the road much prior to the intersection, I was caught off guard, honked the horn and immediately let go of the accelerator, horn was still depressed and man was still just standing there right on collision course, I hit the brake and tried to steer clear, horn was still depressed and man was still in exact same spot looking at me dumb struck. Luck was not on my side. Oil was spilled on the road. As I initially hit the brake I realised this, since the bike was skidding, yet was recoverable, had the obstacle cleared by now and had I let go of the brakes. The obstacle was still in place. I knew where I was headed, but had no choice; I squeezed the brakes again, trying to maintain balance of the now very shaky bike, destined to fall on one side. Seeing me go down, the obstacle finally took two steps ahead, to get out of the crashing mass of my vehicle with me holding on. After the fall everything was more spontaneous and involuntary - I left the bike, and it went skidding, sideways now, about 20 feet away (I noticed after getting up).

I got up, went partially limping towards my obstacle, filled with rage and abusing on the way. A policeman came, supported me and guided me to the "chowky" just adjacent to the intersection. Another policeman started shouting at my obstacle, for trying to cross the road at the wrong place, despite a green signal for the traffic and despite seeing me approaching the intersection. It all ended 15 minutes later with me washing my wounds and hopping on my bike again and driving home. That night I got an xray done because the pain in my left wrist was excruciating. It is now in plaster, although there seems to be no apparent fracture or major dislocation. It will however be in plaster for 21 days since the doctor can't rule out the possibility of a small hairline crack which strangely enough is not seen in an xray for up to one week.

Getting back to the "time dilation" funda, when I think about it all, those few seconds just before the bike hit the ground, and few seconds of skidding, appear to be very prominent and strangely "slower" than the rest of the happening. By this I mean those 4-5 seconds passed in front of my eyes at that time and also pass in front of my mind's eye now, as though in slow motion! I know from sheer logic that at that speed it would have taken at the most 5 seconds for everything to happen, but it just felt so slow! I am forced to believe that something different goes on in our brain during such critical moments. For example, although I fell on the right side, my left wrist took all the impact, while my right hand was held above ground - why? Isn't it more natural or rather probable that my right wrist be injured?

It is a known medical phenomenon that the body has the capacity of sacrificial or preferential protection - for example, in conditions of hypothermia (extreme cold beyond the body's capacity) blood supply to vital organs is maintained at the cost of limbs being deprived of it. Similarly, does our brain process information from our sensory organs at a faster speed, allowing it to subconsciously take precautionary measures to preserve our body to the maximum extent? This faster-than-normal processing might explain the slowdown effect of time. Studies on house flea show that they see an approaching object "slower" than it actually is, and this explains their lightning fast reflexes when we try to hit them with a roll of paper. The fly is actually simply seeing the roll come slowly, thereby allowing it to avoid the roll effortlessly. Some may argue that it is the air movement caused by the motion that alerts the fly. However, last time I checked, the speed of light was faster than any air disturbance! ;-)

Whatever be the case, the human brain is and will perhaps always remain one of the most complicated wonders of nature to understand. As of now, it is estimated that we have understood only 10% of its functioning. Rather intriguing what all the brain might be capable of at full potential!