Please Comment

one of our leaders while visiting the flood and heavy rain affected areas in Andhra..
i donno what to say abt this, can somebody comment on this pls??..

MF Hussain Campaign

If you feel what he has done is totally ridiculous, cast your vote against his paintings at http://www.mfhussain.com/ .. before doing that just see the pictures and comparisions at the following link..

MF Hussain Campaign#note

we don't need to kill cartoonists or put one million dollars on their head to kill them.. :)
but may be we can make him to walk naked on mumbai roads to understand what nudity really means and specially when you try to hurt the nation's religious harmony..
When you see the pictures in the above link, you feel whether this fellow is really eligible for Raja Ravi Varma's award or not.. i suggest take back all the awards that are announced and given to this fellow by any organisations or governments and send him to jail to sit n paint "seven Bars".. He should know about india at the age of 80, he is not a 8 years boy.. so don't temme he is unaware of the consequences or he is unaware of what he is doing.. it looks totally intentional and may be he wants to be in lime light.. like he did few years ago talking and taking movies with Maduri Dixit like a mad dog with uncontrollable sexual desire at the age of 80..

"TV Host: What it is particularly that about artist in Hussain, that gets you angry. Fact that he is Muslim, is that where the problem steps? If anyone else has done these paintings would you have shown the same objection?

Dr. Durgesh Samant: Yes! Yes! It is not because he is a Muslim. If he is a Muslim and he has drawn Goddess & Bharatmata fully clothed we would have appreciate in much better way. But ha !' he has not done so. If anybody else irrespective to any religion had drawn a naked Bharatmata, we would have objected it."

read the full debate.. its not against a religion its against an individual's stupidity called hussain's painting on bharatmaata..
Debate on Nude Bharatmata Painting:

worship ??

happy vinayaka chavithi@ganesh chaturthi..
we respect national flag, n we don't throw it, make it dirt, let it fall on the floor.. Ohhh!!! many rules.. n we all follow it.. why?? due to the respect? or due to the enforcement of rules? if it is due to respect, then how about this following?? national flag we created.. but the following is the one who created us.. but we can dump him like this.. to where the respect went? :) may be because even though we do it, we won't be dragged into the courts for the violation of rules like we will be in the case of 'National Flag'.. can somebody propose to add a new rule saying that those who do like this to the gods will be punished in the present life with the help of some law.. :)

Bihar Proved it Again - III

foto courtesy: eenadu

villagers in vaishali district of Bihar beaten 10people to death.. they accused this 10people for a theft and killed them..
donno what to say.. third incident in d past few days..

Status of religious freedom in India - II

courtesy: wikipedia
India is one of the most diverse nations. Even though Hindus form close to 82 percent of the population, the Indian Muslims form the second (or third) largest Muslim population in the world. It is home to the holiest shrines of four world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. It is said to be the only country where Zoroastrianism can be practiced freely with no hindrance, even including Dakhma-nashini [1].
Modern India came into existence in 1947 as a secular nation, two of the large sections of India, were partitioned into a new Islamic nation, Pakistan (East Pakstan later became Bangladesh). In Pakistan, the Hindu population declined from 24% to about 1.5%, in Bangladesh the Hindus declined from 39% to 10%. The Muslims in India have increased from 10.3% to 13.4% .. follow the link..
Status of religious freedom in India

Status of religious freedom in India - I (continuation of "Freedom")

"Hinduism is more a way of life than a method of worship.
Dharmo Rakshati Rakshithaha
If you protect Dharma, Dharma will in turn protect you"

when we read the sentences like this, we feel proud to be a Hindu..
same goes to a muslim or christian..every religion have great sayings like the above and every individual feels proud about their own religion..

those who are not satisfied with their religion, or those who are in a need to change due to the inevitable circumstances will(or)can change their religion from hindu to muslim, etc., etc.,

what my concern here is..

why a religion needs publicity or promotion??
why a religion need to offer benifits to the people for conversion of the religion instead of the conversion on individual's wish??
why a religion can or can not have harmony with other religions??

the sentences that i mentioned in the begining of this article applies to all religions, its a way of living than a method of worship.. nothing else..
including hindus, here i would like to say few words..

** never give publicity**
its a bare truth that everybody has to accept that "hindu societies" always patient(tolerant) to the other religions and always had the harmony with the other religions.. you can read the facts in the coming lines..

just to simplify and make it clear to everyone, let me take few live examples..

sachin tendulkar (or) Mohd.Azharuddin (or) Sunil Gavaskar (or) KapilDev (or) Sir Don Bradmon doesn't need publicity, cause they are the legends in their area
Titanic doesn't need publicity
Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Google, Yahoo Don't need publicity
Nokia, samsung, Sony don't need publicity
Ferrari, Merc don't need publicity
Myke Tyson don't need publicity
Mahatma gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Carl Marx, Saddam Hussain don't need publicity
charlee chaplin don't need publicity
McDonalds, KFC don't need publicity
watican city, Mecca don't need publicity

by this time you might have understood what i am trying to say..
if the idealogy of our religion is broader and our religion is remarkable in its preachings,
we don't need to give publicity, people they themselves would love to learn about it..
all the above said people and places don't need publicity we all love to learn about them..

now i expect wise answers from some stupid and rich organisations dumping their money into India and other growing countries to convert people into their religion..
now i expect answers from OSAMA for his recent video stating all americans to join Islam..
now i expect answers from some hindu extremist organizations who have a feeling of hatred about other religions..

the more they come and ask other religions to convert, the more they are loosing their ground..
the more they try to promote their religion, they are telling the world how small they are..

no religion taught to "HATE"..
no religion taught to "KILL"..
no religion taught to "CONVERT"..

what we are seeing today is the result of the acts of some oppurtunists.. don't buy their stories..

be what you are..
change your religion if you want to or if you need to..
don't change because of some benefits offering by the organizations..

be proud if you change your religion for being a better human being who knows about two religions instead of one.. some people may talk about your conversion, but you can ask them what do they know about their current religion and what they have done so far for the current religion?? I bet, they cannot answer you.. :) because they have done nothing for their religion and they know nothing.. most of us only know how to close our eyes and wish for something during prayers time and with that we will be thinking that our feelings are deep for our religion..
as you know it is always easy to criticise than appreciate..

"IF SOMEBODY COME AND ASK YOU TO CHANGE THE RELIGION, ASK THEM THAT WHETHER THEY ARE WILLING FOR MUTUAL ??"
a religion which gives freedom of practising the religion is always better than a religion which will try to restrict you for your life time..
a religion can play an important role in a human being's life style and values but life is not just religion.. its just a part of life..

follow the principle "Live and Let the others Live"..
at the end everybody is a human being and one fine day everybody goes six feet under.. In the middle why do you need barriers like religion, race etc.,??

Love a person, Love a nation, Love nature, Love anything, But when it comes to religion, understand your religion but don't build a mad love about your religion.. i hope all the religion extremists will understand this..

and here i would like to add few more words for them who complain about religion extremists as well..
for every action there will be a reaction.. if you slap a small boy, be ready for the return slap in your life.. you may get it anytime..

those who talk about "SHIV SENA", those who talk about "GUJARAT GOVERNMENT's SIDING FOR HINDUS" etc., etc.,
the following lines will tell the facts about the incidents against HINDUS and their Temples.. [interesting, in malaysia they still have this temple issues.. don't think that you are in 21st century, not in malaysia.. visit www.othermalaysia.org.. you can find some valuable articles by Mr.Farish A Nor, a malaysian also.. :)]

you play with hindus feelings in Mumbai, shiv sena was born.. you made Bal thackrey a Great Leader.. now even hindus are saying he is an extremist, but who is the reason behind this?? you burn innocents in a running train in GHODRA, Gujarat consequences came and the next elections have shown the feelings of the country.. you break temples, you break statues of Lord Buddha,

Here one should understand this "YOU" refers to who.. i don't mind if every muslim put himself at this place.. but its not my fault, its all depends on your wisdom towards the truth and religion..

thara singh from rajasthan should be punished, but what made him to do that?? who asked 'YOU' to come to my country and convert my people..
what are the benefits that they have got in LIFE after conversion.. don't talk about materialistic benefits like few thousand rupees for conversion..

"WHO EVER TALK TO ME ABOUT CONVERSION OF A RELIGION ON BELIEF IS A S*****D IN MY VIEW"
the only answer i can give is "LOOK AT YOUR BACK AND CORRECT YOURSELF, THEN TALK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR RELIGION" Hindus are not exceptional here.. i am talking whoever it is..

If i marry a muslim and she wants me to convert for her, i can and i would love do that..
If i marry a christian and she wants me to convert for her, i can and i would love do that..
and i only like to debate with the people who can do such.. (not only for ur wife, for any of ur personal reasons.. n from any religion to any religion..)
those who can not do, are still hanging to a tree of religion, they can hang there and enjoy..

India Never called tourists from the world saying "Truly Asia" or any other thing... People come on their own for its well known culture..
India never encouraged any single religion, it is open for all and all religions have equal rights.. (more for minorities)

If somebody want to comment on Hindusim,
let me answer as a HINDU,

"Hinduism" is like an ocean..

Its too deep to understand for a normal human being in his life time.. where is the oppurtunity to criticise it when don't even know the full meaning..
This ocean can take in how many other rivers also, and taking out few waters from this ocean can never make this ocean to dry..
This Ocean never asks the rivers and canals to come and join and it wont complain if its water is being removed and used in some other form..
Its existence is forever and one cannot change it..
The wealth of knowledge this ocean gives you depends on howmuch you can extract from it, there is no limit..
The more it has been evaporated by external factors, the more it will be filled in back with fresh waters without any effort..
Those leaving it thinking the waters are salty will sent back to the same for the same reason..

and i wish to hear every religion say proudly about their religion the same way as long as they have tolerance for other religions..
the day we don't have it.. howmuch we sing our religion song also, forever we will be there where we are..

And finally...

to the morons who are trying to bring communal riots in india.. (may be you are DAWOOD, may be you are OSAMA, may be you are MUSHAROFF, may be you are BUSH or may be you are any Hindu Extremist thinking that you are the only true hindu)

"Don't try to play with INDIA@HINDUSTHAN, our waters are more than enuf to sink you and your whole bloody rationalsim to the deepest.. I promise you, you will never return again"

Don't ever try to take the advantage of the Patience of India..
the day it opens its third eye, all you oppurtunists are no more..

"And i request all who condemn my usage of Hindusthan in the above lines to leave my country on the spot without any demands, because that is what India is from the day it got independence..those who can not accept it, please find USA, UK, Pakistan, bangladesh or some other country according to your convenience. Thank you for staying with us all this while, but it is always better to stay where you feel your home is instead of staying in the neighbour's house and thinking about home and singing your family song"

"as i said in earlier blog..
national anthem is for indians, not for muslims, hindus, christians, sikhs, parsis or for any single religion..

"SING NATIONAL ANTHEM OF INDIA IF YOU ARE A CITIZEN OF INDIA, IF CANNOT.. YOU LEAVE OR WE WILL MAKE YOU TO LEAVE"
the idea of it is not to rub our ideas on others, but to bring in a feeling of a new religion called "INDIAN"..

"Hindusthan: is me dil bhee hai our dum bhee"

Freedom

"FREEDOM" is the undefined dictionary synonym for a human being's life in "INDIA"..
we love freedom and we are enjoying this more than any other country citizens..
what if this "FREEDOM" cross the limits??

for RELIGION, we have freedom
for faith, we have freedom
for marriage, for place of living, for supporting a political party, for conducting an agitation, to express support to any organisation, may be many are missing here due to my hurry in finishing this long pending topic, but on top of all, in india we have "FREEDOM OF SPEECH".. an young journalist can send a government to ashes if he can prove the scams of the government or if he can prove the government is totally inefficient in its administration.. that is the power of freedom we have where we can not find in many other countries..

but most of the recent issues need our concern.. specially the misuse of freedom or misuse of authority..

let me talk about the authority first.. come to my state, the first state of India that starts alphabetically, "ANDHRA PRADESH".. we would have been in the same position in terms of development also if the earlier government continued ruling the present tenure.. now what was happening exactly is people are scared to open and read the news paper early in the morning, cause it will screw up your mood totally, same thing goes in the night.. :) who want nightmares because of reading a news paper before going to sleep??

just look at the recent incidents followed one after one in the state:
*** politicians do land grabbing @ land mafia..
*** sons/daughters of prominent people misue their parents power (like the parent like the children.. why only these fellows can commit such kinda acts? cause their parents are in power.. 3 to 4 recent news in the paper will tell you who are they and what they did..)
*** collapsed fly-overs
*** bomb blasts in a mosque
*** serial bomb blasts in the city HYDERABAD
*** divide and rule nature of the politicians ( i need telangana, i need rayala seema, i need kosta... bloody hell, you all need your power.. have you ever think of what people need??.. we have some politicians who need seperate state, talk like an illeterate fellow and use his mouth to say any kinda words just to rage up the people's feelings)
*** you need education, we need business (private and corporate educational institutes sucking the blood and sweat of parents.. also mainly under the binami names but the actual investors will be some big shot politicians)
*** my adorable brothers from forest executing bomb blasts on the leaders who enforced strict rules against them during the ruling ( these brothers don't have any other better things to do a??)
*** gang rape on tribal ladies
*** demolition of ramoji film city
*** murders by factionists to eliminate the opposition from the root in their area.. (building strong basement for future elections?? :) )
*** Lease of mines and the continuos stories
*** ministers signing the documents without reading it.. (Can't they read?? or no time to read?? god only knows..)

there is no end to this list, by the time i am writing here, don't know with which new story the news paper printing sections are busy with.. all the above said are due to misusing the authority and power..

now lets talk about misusing the "FREEDOM"..

our country gave freedom to us to choose whatever religion or faith that we want to follow.. whomever we want to get marry with.. whatever political party we want to join etc., etc., until it become like "INDIA - FREEDOM EVERYWHERE"..

so some of the anti social elements taking advantage of the above said word with the help of above said people (who misuse the authority, we can add them also into this anti social groups) and trying to create disturbances in the harmony of our lives, trying to play with our peace, trying to play with our growth, in a word these B*****Ds are playing with our lives..

few reasons that i can see for the formation of these anti social elements especially from some religions are:
[not that we have no other reasons or religions involved.. everybody is involved here, but some i can see as a normal observer of the society.. the more reasons you find, pls send to me.. let us add here to voice out all kind of issues that are causing these troubles, NO? u want to take it negatively.. want to see my end for expressing my views.. "WELCOME" :)]

*** they have their own rules (don't know which gentleman set these rules, but in my opinion, there should not be any special rules for any body.. all indians are same.. enforce the same rule for all.. if my law says i can marry howmany i wish, what i'll do?? ofcourse i will marry four or five.. then what i'll do?? i'll produce six to seven children from each family(cause i don't believe in family planning), then what i'll do?? already produced around 24 new lives and my income can only can cater the needs of 3 or 4,.. now what to do?? leave them on their own.. what else i can do.. so now what they will do?? God Knows.. play n freak on the roads.. get in touch with few other fellows of same kind.. start street level anti social activities for few rupees.. slowly become higher level anti social elements (Promotion maaaaa.. u donno a??).. now i complain, my children become worst, they are not listening to me.. please scold me.. "bloodyfool, which son or daughter will listen to a parent who can do nothing for them??".. ya, i am sorry.. now only i realised.. i am useless, produced two cricket teams in my life time with my sexual ability but these teams will never play cricket for the country, they will play with balls called BOMBS and they will play this for the neighbouring countries.. Wah.. INDIA.. Wah.. what a freedom you have given me..

"ONE CIVIL LAW FOR ONE NATION"

noone is special, our religion is one religion.. "INDIAN".. (don't say its not a religion, it can be..) from the day we got independence, we amended many rules and many definitions.. why can't we amend "DEMOCRACY" a bit to make the above law and why can't we amend "RELIGION" a bit to form the above "RELIGION"??

[[[otherwise people like OSAMA will be releasing few more videos asking people to convert their religions... :) OSAMA should remember that he can not be a great leader like "SADDAM HUSSAIN".. there will be always a difference between an elephant and a ### .. ### can never be the elephant.. same goes to OSAMA, he can never be a "SADDAM"..]]]

here i want to add one more strong view.. "IF WE STAY IN INDIA, WE HAVE TO SING janaganamana or vandemataram, IF WE CAN NOT, THEN WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO STAY IN INDIA, BETTER LEAVE. WHEN WE CAN NOT FOLLOW WHAT THE COUNTRY SAYS, THEN WE ARE NOT ELIGIBLE TO STAY HERE AND THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT PLACE FOR US"

we know some religions imposing or trying to get people converted into their religions by offering benefits.. :)

btw.. one more recent news,
*** Painting nude pics of other religion GODS.. (all my admiration has gone.. this old fellow have nothing else to paint aa?)

other major reasons that we can see can cause the formation of these anti social elements are..

*** illiteracy
*** corruption
*** politics
*** poverty etc., etc.,

we also have leaders who send the files of terrorists for MERCY, which again leads to "FREEDOM".. :) Do they know the difference between a crime against an individual and a crime against the society or country?? If they know, they wont send the files for "MERCY".. who knows the leaders who are doing such, may come under the same category but with "White Collared Crimes" and always need the support from these anti social elements.. leaders or terrorists or heroes or heroines, country should teach us that there is no one special under the umbrella of LAW when it comes to the cost of the Country..

We Indians can live without any thing, but can not survive without "FREEDOM" :) so, rules should be made and enforced in such a way that one commits a crime against the country can never have one's freedom again in the lifetime.. Just do it and see, we definitely can see the drop of crimes against country.. (no more freedom for those: who are involved in fake currency, who are involved in drugs, who are involved in illegal ammunition, who are involved in forcing to do prostitution, who are involved in land mafia, who are invloved in low quality constructions, who are involved in extortion, who are involved in lending money for high interests, Mainly WHO ARE INVOLVED IN UNDER TABLE COLLECTIONS.. :) how many of the officers are really counting the bars now that we read about them for the last few years for having enormous wealth which they earned under tables??.. may be now they dont have job.. but they have money n "FREEDOM".. they might be preparing now for new crimes or to join politics.. :)

please read the next blog and find some of the good and bad things(ofcourse interesting) in "Status of religious freedom in India:"..

Bihar proved it again - II

Happened again.. A better education leads to better civilization.. hope efforts will be made to bring up humanitarian values in this stone-aged state.. Sorry to say this, but that is what they are proving to the world again and again.. pls go through the following..

NDTV Correspondent
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 (Newada)A mob tortured and pierced the eyes of three teenagers who stole a motorcycle at gunpoint at a village in Nawada Monday evening.

The mob was waiting for the alleged thieves after their victim complained to the village elders.

The crowd dragged the three off the bike and beat them up before piercing their eyes with a sharp tool.

''I don't have any past police record. This is the first time I have stolen something. But in the past I have been jailed in another case,'' said Pinku.

''This man has a criminal record. He was involved in a car theft case. He is a wanted criminal. Even the other one has been to jail. All these are friends and were together when this happened,'' said Laxmikant, Sub-Inspector, Buniyadpur Thana.

Only days ago a man was brutalised by a crowd in Bhagalpur and dragged by a policeman riding a bike.

True Love

The man had fought for the US in the War against IRAQ and after returning, he had got married with the girl he was in Love with… Real true Love indeed… Hats off… She is one of the greatest women in the world as far as I can see.

Donno for how many families dear butcher n his team gave this kinda future.. hope somebody will post d details of this great lady.. thx..

we laugh shamelessly

Look at the expressions of Andhra Pradesh ministers in the all party peace meet on Hyderabad twin bomb blasts.. What do u feel like doing now?? copy this image and send to as many as possible or share this post to as many as possible.. hopefully people will answer with silence on the "Judgment Day"

Hmm.. we don't even bother where we went and what we are doing..

thanks to kishore n Big B for the contribution..

Attack on Nedurumalli Janardhana Reddy

nedurumalli janardhana reddy has been attacked by maoists this morning while he was on his way to tirupathi to attend a function where he supposed to get the doctorate..

according to sources, its a convoy of 20 cars (too big for this event) and he and his wife were in the third car, the blast killed 3people (2 party men and a driver) all are travelling in the 5th car..

i still wonder sometimes when i see the activities of maoists..
fighting for society while facing troubles and staying away from families??

if so, why not these brothers kill the accused of "Mosque Bomb Blasts" or the accused of recent serial blasts in hyderabad??
people like us who can't participate in direct violence and who care for a peaceful society will definitely appriciate, if the brothers do such kind of heroic deeds..

if they are heroes,
i urge them to succeed where the government failed,
i urge them to succeed where the police failed,
i urge them to succeed where the administration failed,
i urge them to succeed where the social values failed..

there are many places for them to clean up or improve..

and it is always better to target the root of the problems, target the societies which are causing these problems.. then people will respect them and love them as elder brothers/sisters.. that is what people are looking for.. we dont want them to come and kill individuals, if they can do something for the society, we expect them to eradicate the organisations involved in recent hyderabad bomb blasts, or we expect them to eradicate the outskirt robberies ..
there are many to add in the list.. why can't they see these problems??

carrying a gun and blasting people doesn't come under heroism, if so where is the difference between them and the recent bomb blast killers or any other anti social organisations??

"Hope they Do some heroic deeds if they still want to go ahead with that kinda life away from the society.. can't see these kinda things so often n feel what they r doing n why.."

hoping that atleast one BROTHER will read this and think the way public is thinking..
long live brothers..
people have some feelings for you, don't loose it..
why only we need to have a happy families and nice living??
why can't you have it??

Hmm... enuf i think, lets go and read all the nonsense that will be released to the press and public by our beloved government.. :)

“What is Reality?” by Roger Penrose

nice.. please read it if you have enuf patience..
“What is Reality?” by Roger Penrose
New Scientist magazine, Nov. 18-24, 2006

WHAT do we understand by "reality"? For those of us who consider ourselves hard-headed realists, there is a kind of common-sense answer: "Reality consists of those things - tables, chairs, trees, houses, planets, animals, people and so on - which are actual things made of matter." We might tend to include some more abstract-seeming notions such as space and time, and the totality of all such "real" things would be referred to as "the universe".

Some might well consider that this is not the whole of reality, however. In particular, there is the question of the reality of our minds. Should we not include a conscious experience as something real? And what about concepts, such as truth, virtue or beauty? Of course, some hard-headed people might adopt a doggedly materialist point of view and take mentality and all its attributes to be secondary to what is materially real. Our mental states, after all (so it would be argued), are simply emergent features of the construction and behaviour of our physical brains.

We behave in certain ways merely because our brains act according to physical laws - the same laws as those that are strictly obeyed by all other pieces of physical material. Conscious mental experience, accordingly, has no further reality than that of the material underlying its existence; though not yet properly understood, it is merely an "epiphenomenon", having no additional influence on the way that our bodies behave beyond what those physical laws demand.

Some philosophers might take an almost opposite view, arguing that it is conscious experience itself that is primary. From this perspective, the "external reality" that appears to constitute the ambient environment of this experience is to be understood as a secondary construct that is abstracted from conscious sense-data. Some might even feel driven to the view that one's own particular conscious experience is to be regarded as primary, and that the experiences of others are themselves merely things to be abstracted, ultimately, from one's own sense-data.
I have to confess to having considerable difficulty with such a picture of reality, which seems to me lopsided. At best, it would be difficult to convince anyone else of a theory of reality that depended upon such solipsism for its basis. Moreover, I find it extremely hard to see how the extraordinary precision that we seem to observe in the workings of the natural world should find its basis in the musings of any individual.

Even if such a solipsistic basis is not adopted, so that the totality of all conscious experience is to be taken as the primary reality, I still have great difficulty. This would seem to demand that "external reality" is merely something that emerges from some kind of majority-wins voting amongst the individual conscious experiences of all of us taken together. I cannot see that such an emergent picture could have anything like the robustness and precision that we seem to see outside ourselves, stretching away seemingly endlessly in all directions in space and in time, and inwards to minute levels that we do not directly perceive with our senses; all requiring many different kinds of precision instruments to explore the universe over a vast range of different scales.

True, there is a mystery about consciousness itself, and it is profoundly puzzling how it could come about from the seemingly purely calculational, unfeeling and utterly impersonal laws of physics that appear to govern the behaviour of all material things. Nevertheless, among the basic laws of physics that we know - and we do not yet know all of them - some are precise to an extraordinary degree, far beyond the precision of our direct sense experiences, or of the combined calculational powers of all conscious individuals within the ken of mankind.
One example of an over-reachingly deep and precise physical theory is Einstein's magnificent general theory of relativity, which improves even upon the already amazingly accurate Newtonian theory of gravity. In the behaviour of the solar system, Newton's theory is precise to something like one part in 107: Einstein's theory does much more, giving not only corrections to Newton's theory that become relevant when gravitational fields get large, but also predicting completely new effects, such as black holes, gravitational lensing and gravitational waves - the analogues, for gravitation, of the light waves of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.
The agreement between theory and experiment here has been extraordinary. Astronomers have, for example, been monitoring the orbits of one double neutron star system - known as PSR 1913+16 - for around 40 years. The emission of Einstein's predicted gravitational waves from this system has been confirmed through a very gradual shortening of the stars' orbital period, and there has been an agreement between the signals received from space and the overall predictions of Einstein's theory to an astonishing 14 decimal places. At the other end of the size scale, there are multitudes of very precise observations that give innumerable confirmations of the accuracy of quantum theory and also of its generalisation to the quantum theory of relativistic fields, which gives us quantum electrodynamics. The magnetic moment of an electron, for example, has been precisely measured to some 11 decimal places, and the observed figures are matched precisely by the theoretical predictions of quantum electrodynamics.

An important point to be made about these physical theories is that they are not just enormously precise but depend upon mathematics of very considerable sophistication. It would be a mistake to think of the role of mathematics in basic physical theory as being simply organisational, where the entities that constitute the world just behave in one way or another, and our theories represent merely our attempts - sometimes very successful - to make some kind of sense of what is going on around us. In such a view there would be no particular mathematical order to the world; it would be we who, in a sense, impose this order by describing, in an elaborate mathematical scheme, those aspects of the world's behaviour that we can make sense of.

To me, such a description again falls far short of explaining the extraordinary precision in the agreement between the most remarkable of the physical theories that we have come across and the behaviour of our material universe at its most fundamental levels. Take, for another example, that most universal of physical influences, gravitation. It operates across the greatest reaches of space, but as early as the 17th century Newton had discovered that it was subject to a beautifully simple mathematical description. This was later found to remain accurate to a degree that is tens of thousands of times greater than the observational precision available to Newton. In the 20th century, Einstein gave us general relativity, providing insights at a yet deeper level.

This theory involved considerably more mathematical sophistication than Newton's: Newton had needed to introduce the procedures of calculus in order to formulate his gravitational theory, but Einstein added the sophistication of differential geometry - and increased the agreement between theory and observation by a factor of around 10 million. It should be made clear that, in each case, the increased accuracy was not the result of a new theory being introduced only to make sense of vast amounts of new data. The extra precision was seen only after each theory had been produced, revealing accord between physical behaviour at its deepest level and a beautiful, sophisticated mathematical scheme.

If, as this suggests, the mathematics is indeed there in the behaviour of physical things and not merely imposed by us, then we must ask again what substance does this "reality" that we see about us actually have? What, after all, is the real table that I am now sitting at actually composed of? It is made of wood, yes, but what is wood made of? Well, fibres that were once living cells. And these? Molecules that are composed of individual atoms. And the atoms? They have their nuclei, built from protons and neutrons and glued together by strong nuclear forces; these nuclei are orbited by electrons, held in by the considerably weaker electromagnetic forces.
Going deeper, protons and neutrons are to be thought of as composed of more elementary ingredients, quarks, held together by further entities called gluons. Just what are electrons, quarks and so on, though? The best we can do at this stage is simply to refer to the mathematical equations that they satisfy, which for electrons and quarks would be the Dirac equation. What distinguishes a quark from an electron would be their very different masses and the fact that quarks indulge in interactions - namely the "strong" interactions - that electrons are blind to. What, then, are gluons? They are "gauge" particles that mediate the strong force - which is again a notion that can only be understood in terms of the mathematics used to describe them.

Even if we accept that an electron, say, should be understood as being merely an entity that is the solution of some mathematical equation, how do we distinguish that electron from some other electron? Here a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics comes to our rescue. It asserts that all electrons are indistinguishable from one another: we cannot talk of this electron and that electron, but only of the system, which consists of a pair of electrons, say, or a triple or a quadruple, and so on. Something very similar applies to quarks or gluons or to any other specific kind of particle. Quantum reality is strange that way.

Indeed, quantum reality is strange in many ways. Individual quantum particles can, at one time, be in two different places - or three, or four, or spread out throughout some region, perhaps wiggling around like a wave. Indeed, the "reality" that quantum theory seems to be telling us to believe in is so far removed from what we are used to that many quantum theorists would tell us to abandon the very notion of reality when considering phenomena at the scale of particles, atoms or even molecules.

This seems rather hard to take, especially when we are also told that quantum behaviour rules all phenomena, and that even large-scale objects, being built from quantum ingredients, are themselves subject to the same quantum rules. Where does quantum non-reality leave off and the physical reality that we actually seem to experience begin to take over? Present-day quantum theory has no satisfactory answer to this question.

My own viewpoint concerning this - and there are many other viewpoints - is that present-day quantum theory is not quite right, and that as the objects under consideration get more massive then the principles of Einstein's general relativity begin to clash with those of quantum mechanics, and a notion of reality that is more in accordance with our experiences will begin to emerge. The reader should be warned, however: quantum mechanics as it stands has no accepted observational evidence against it, and all such modifications remain speculative. Moreover, even general relativity, involving as it does the idea of a curved space-time, itself diverges from the notions of reality we are used to.

Whether we look at the universe at the quantum scale or across the vast distances over which the effects of general relativity become clear, then, the common-sense reality of chairs, tables and other material things would seem to dissolve away, to be replaced by a deeper reality inhabiting the world of mathematics. Our mathematical models of physical reality are far from complete, but they provide us with schemes that model reality with great precision - a precision enormously exceeding that of any description that is free of mathematics.

There seems every reason to believe that these already remarkable schemes will be improved upon and that even more elegant and subtle pieces of mathematics will be found to mirror reality with even greater precision. Might mathematical entities inhabit their own world, the abstract Platonic world of mathematical forms? It is an idea that many mathematicians are comfortable with. In this scheme, the truths that mathematicians seek are, in a clear sense, already "there", and mathematical research can be compared with archaeology; the mathematicians' job is to seek out these truths as a task of discovery rather than one of invention. To a mathematical Platonist, it is not so absurd to seek an ultimate home for physical reality within Plato's world.

This is not acceptable to everyone. Many philosophers, and others, would argue that mathematics consists merely of idealised mental concepts, and, if the world of mathematics is to be regarded as arising ultimately from our minds, then we have reached a circularity: our minds arise from the functioning of our physical brains, and the very precise physical laws that underlie that functioning are grounded in the mathematics that requires our brains for its existence. My own position is to avoid this immediate paradox by allowing the Platonic mathematical world its own timeless and locationless existence, while allowing it to be accessible to us through mental activity. My viewpoint allows for three different kinds of reality: the physical, the mental and the Platonic-mathematical, with something (as yet) profoundly mysterious in the relations between the three.

We do not properly understand why it is that physical behaviour is mirrored so precisely within the Platonic world, nor do we have much understanding of how conscious mentality seems to arise when physical material, such as that found in wakeful healthy human brains, is organised in just the right way. Nor do we really understand how it is that consciousness, when directed towards the understanding of mathematical problems, is capable of divining mathematical truth. What does this tell us about the nature of physical reality? It tells us that we cannot properly address the question of that reality without understanding its connection with the other two realities: conscious mentality and the wonderful world of mathematics.