What is this life

Life —a set of philosophies, emotions, expectations, struggles and achievements. Sometimes, it amuses the mind of a person; this is something beyond the limitations of a human mind. It takes a lifetime to comprehend the purpose of this blessed "Life". This life is a precious gift of Almighty to His creation. Its purpose  is to discover your gift; the meaning of life is giving your gift away. 

Life is a race there is no other destination but grave. It is a game played by everyone, where your performance will figure out your consequences. Life is a waiting room where the wait ends on the moment which leads to eternal life. It is a colorful journey that depends upon the miscellaneous ideas of a person. Life is an art: how to know, deal, and lead the people. Life is what we make it. It is all about faith, knowledge and great understanding between mind and soul. Life is a continuous struggle; one only gets whatever he believes in and whatever he struggles for. Although, Man may be captain of his soul and master of destiny.

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Life is a race between good and evil, between your attitude and aptitude, your dedication towards your destiny. It is a war between heart and mind. The mind adjusts and materializes the ways to overcome this materialistic world but only the heart discovers the absolute destiny. Only the heart knows how to find what is precious. There is only one journey, going inside yourself. Life is an examination whose question paper is same since long, defined and publicly announced.

The life of this world is merely a deception and a test for all. What is eternal is the life after death and we have to realize this fact before our time runs out. As Quran says:

"It is He who has created death and life that He might try you—which of you is best in deeds; and He is the mighty, the most forgiving." (67:3)

We in today's life remain in search of power and fame; we keep running for the accomplishment of our desires. A poor man striving to get one meal throughout his life, lives with satisfaction and gratefulness to God for blessing him whatever he desired for. That poor man is leading a better life. As compared to the people living in this scientific age who make themselves the powerful and successful man of the world but have done nothing for the life after death, because they didn't have time to interpret the true essence of life.

Life comes with no guarantees, no time and no second chances. You only live once but if you do it right once is enough. Life started since the birth of Adam; life comes with ups and down. Mistakes are the second name of experience. One who will learn from his mistakes, will lead to a meaningful life. An adversity of a life builds up character of a man.

Everything happens for a reason. Life should be to serve humanity and never harm anyone from your soul. As Rumi said, "This world is a mountain in which your works are echoed back to you".

According to Iqbal, the rhetorically attributes of man should be: we can't direct the winds but can adjust our sails; turn your doubts to question, turn your question to prayers and turn your prayers to God. Be the rainbow in the storms of life. Life is to the fullest; live it's every moment meaningfully, keeping an eye on its end. Life is a story, write it by yourself under the shadow of divine rules.

By Maya Halepoto

C.S.S. Academy Latifabad

The importance of volunteering

With busy lives, perhaps it can be hard to find time to be a volunteer. However, the benefits of volunteering are enormous to you, your family, and your community. The right match can help you find friends, reach out to the community, learn new skills, and even advance your career. Volunteering can also help protect your mental and physical health, learn more about the many benefits of volunteering and find tips on getting started as a volunteer. Volunteering offers you the chance to try out a new career without making a long-term commitment. It is also a great way to gain experience in a new field. In some fields, you can volunteer directly in at an organization that does the kind of work you’re interested in.

For example, if you’re interested in nursing, you could volunteer at a hospital or a nursing home. Your volunteer work might also expose you to professional organizations or internships that could be of benefit to your career.

Many volunteers take up volunteering to add meaning to their lives. Most people intrinsically believe that the meaning of life has something to do with helping people, and volunteering can make you feel like you are in harmony with that.

After all, when asked why they volunteer, many people say simply “To make a difference” or “It’s something I believe is important.”.

Volunteer work comes in numerous forms and is also carried out by a broad range of diverse individuals. Many people involved in volunteering are specifically trained in the area they choose to work in, such as emergency rescue, first aid, medicine and education.

Why not spend a little time helping others, because in the end, what goes around comes around. Volunteering is not only effective but it is also,is a good way to meet people, learn, and develop social skills. By helping or supporting others, you learn and use new skills, gain confidence, build yourself. A volunteer also benefits themselves because they get to see how their contribution has made a difference.

This experience contributes to personal development, especially in areas such as self-fulfillment, self-confidence, and self-esteem which often flourish in the midst of volunteering experiences. The selfless act of volunteering provides a spiritual enhancement as well. Knowing that you made a positive impact on someone is an emotionally uplifting experience that can never be matched by money or fame.

Volunteering is a fun and an easy way to explore your interests and passions. Doing volunteer work that you find meaningful and interesting can be a relaxing, energizing escape from your day-to-day routine of work, school, or family commitments.
On the other hand – there will be people who will declare that volunteering is an individual process, and nobody can force a person to do something against his their will.
Most importantly, make sure you’re having fun! The best volunteer experiences benefit both the volunteer and the organization. If you’re not enjoying yourself, ask yourself why. So where do you start?


By Nikolina Kunić

Prijedor
Bosnia & Herzegovina

Fettered Fancy

Oh, My Adam and Eve!!

Know, it takes time to heal

The wounds of infidelity,

The scratches of betrayal.

Fears of tossing coins every moment

And flipping of right and wrong,

Is no easy to be subdued.

It require ages, subsiding the pain

Of loss and letting go.

Woes of learning and yearnings of love!

And of wrong decisions,

Yeah, “nothing is more painful than learning”.

Agony of being judged

Of trials and assessments

Is not beyond your courage..!

But suffering is a necessity to polish the jewel

Be fearful and not be afraid!

Do fall but be righteous and repentant!

Unveil your path

But destiny will follow you

"Wish and imagine"

But for that

Bear the longings of tattered heart

Stand against the tethered longings

Be stoical and obliged

And only then

There’ll be hidden treasure somewhere

Will be bestowed on your heart

The peace and serenity

Until then

Keep yelling but keep going

Because there is no choice to quit

Or any way for quitters

Now, go!

Go and make your own world of dreams

Live the life you want to create

Pursue, what’s in your heart

You are free to go!

Oh you innocent being,

Think, choose, and decide!

Think on your own

Follow your own paths!

But beware

From now on, you’re in a hoax!

By Mubashra Manzoor

LASER move to GASER

Laser has brought revolution in the technology. It is the symbol of precision and sharpness. A large amount of energy can be gathered in a very small area of micro-level in a very small time and that is why its intensity plays very important role to discuss different phenomena. It is widely used in the industry, engineering form wood-cutting to delicate medical operations.

It is based on the principle of stimulated atomic de-excitation from the metastable state (comparatively a long-lived state). From these atomic states we are able to get laser ranging from certain electronvolts (eV) to thousands of eVs. In this way, we can have laser of that much energy which is allowed by the atomic states. No doubt the intensity can control the operation of the processes but energy puts the limit on the scale via the wavelength which is in an inverse relation to energy that is why we cannot operate laser below the atomic scale i.e., at nuclear or particle level.

We have too big accelerators in the world as big as of CERN in Geneva of the dimensions of 27 km of diameter 100 meters below the Earth. These accelerators are used to accelerate the particles to very high energies which can be used to study the fundamental nature of the particles which is necessary to get knowledge about the beginning of the universe. It has too many applications like what is done in medical physics to cure cancer. It is like a dream of human kind to have such an accelerator which can be fixed on a table. Laser is considered one of the best candidates for the table-top accelerator.

To influence the nucleus we need energies of the order of MeVs (Million eVs) that is not achieved so far with laser. If it is achieved then photonuclear reactions would be realized by these multiphoton systems that can be controlled by laser intensities without the traditional accelerators rather with the help of these table-top accelerators. Now many questions can arise in the minds of readers that how will we create population inversion? How will we initiate the process? To answer these questions we can see that in nuclear physics we associate isomers with the nuclei. Isomers are long-lived nuclei. (We are familiar with the radioactive elements which emit radiations. They emit gamma rays since they are unstable. Half-life of different nuclei is different from fraction of seconds to millions of years which indicate that the nucleons stay in higher levels for different durations.) We can just make use of this fact and can have a population inversion to move to get laser out of nuclear states. This would essentially be gamma ray laser or can be abbreviated as GASER. You can envisage its strength as Gaser can be used to obliterate dinosaur as well as enormous Cities in seconds having gigantic energy.

Direct interaction of Laser and nucleus is not permissible so we can use some other phenomena such as NEEC (Nuclear Excitation by Electronic Capture) or NEET (Nuclear Excitation by Electronic Capture) to excite the nucleus by photon. When we interact laser with an atom the atom might excite by absorbing energy. Atomic transitions take place by the energy transferred to an atom in terms of laser. When the atom de-excites it emits some energy (photon) that might excite the nucleus of that atom for which resonance condition is required. For example in figure below the process is explained:

The left portion of each diagram contains the atomic states and the right portion expresses the nuclear states. There are certain states which are available where the resonance between the nuclear and atomic states is so available that when an excited atom de-excites then the emitted photon causes the nucleus to get excited. In initial state one can see that the electron is captured by an atom while the nucleus is in ground state. The electron moves to the ground state and the photon emits which has energy equal to the energy between the two states of the nucleus as expressed in resonant state in the figure and the nucleus gets excited. In the final state when the nucleus de-excites then a photon emits. Nuclear excitation is possible with or without laser. We concentrate here on the part played by laser. Laser is used as a connection or bridge between the atomic and nuclear states through which we are able to excite the nucleus which further helps us to populate the isomer state such that to have the condition to get laser i.e., gaser.

In 2011, Eugene Tkalya from the Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University has theoretically proven thorium isomer (^229mTh) feasible to produce Gaser. We need some energy or photon as a pumping source to initiate the process. Wherever we can use laser as a trigger to excite nucleons from ground state to some isomeric state which will work as a metastable state and in the case of Thorium it will be ^229mTh (where m denotes to isomeric state). Analogous with the case of laser the long life time of metastable or isomeric state will cause the augmentation of population in the metastable state. Tkalya mixed thorium with lithium-calcium-aluminium-fluoride (LiCaAlF₆) to obtain efficient results. He produced Gaser between states 3/2⁺ & 5/2⁺ with initial trigger energy 7.6 eV. Now, we will use some trigger to de-excite the metastable state having long half life that will cause production of Gamma rays from the nuclear states. Gaser has the energy beyond the limits which can be used as an immense source of energy to resolve the energy crises in the entire world. But there is need to use it positively instead of destruction as it takes years to build a city and seconds to destroy.

By Rana Umair Asif and Atif Shahbaz
*previously published in Scientific Ravi GC University Lahore