Kiran Bedi trolled for fake video
Bedi made an embarrassing gaffe regarding a scientific fact.
(Web Desk) – Retired Indian police service officer, social activist, former tennis player and current Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry Kiran Bedi on Saturday tweeted a fake video claiming that the NASA had found that the sun chants “Om”, which is considered the holiest sound in Hinduism.
In the video (below) posted on Twitter, various images of the sun are displayed with a much vocalised “Om” being audible.
- Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) January 4, 2020
The video contains a clear recording of the chant itself, and isn’t the actual video released by NASA. Bedi was immediately called out on social media for posting the clip without checking its veracity.
The video also contains accompanying commentary, in an American English accent, claiming that Greek philosopher Pythagoras had also “heard” these sounds made by the Sun in the 6th century BCE.
The commentator wonders how Hindus were able to hear the Sun’s ‘Om’ emission that human ears can’t normally hear, and says that language, as information, can travel faster than the speed of light. There is also a comment that human speech can be transmitted over radio waves at the speed of light and people can send their “personal energy signature” into the universe.
These statements are factually incorrect. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Also, even sign language is considered as a language, and it travels at the speed of light.
Original NASA video
NASA did actually release a ‘sounds of the Sun’ video, which can be found on YouTube and its official website. This clip, created by the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, shows vibrations produced by solar magnetic phenomena.
The Sun is not silent. The low, pulsing hum of our star s heartbeat allows scientists to peer inside, revealing huge rivers of solar material flowing, along with waves, loops and eruptions. This helps scientists study what can’t be seen. Listen in: https://t.co/J4ZC3hUwtL pic.twitter.com/lw30NIEob2
- NASA (@NASA) July 25, 2018
However, a video (above) released by NASA in 2018 shows the sonification of electromagnetic waves from the sun is not, in fact, an “Om” chant but a “low, pulsing hum.” These vibrations are approximately translated into a low, pulsating hum of the Sun.
This video was created with data from the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) that had captured the dynamic movement of the Sun’s atmosphere for over 20 years.
Thus, Bedi made an embarrassing gaffe regarding a scientific fact.
Satellites, Ram Setu and other unscientific notions
Manipulated videos, similar to the one Bedi shared, which attempt to establish a pre-historic religious or divine connection to science, have been shared on the social media.
Several members of the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dispensation have come under strong criticism for spreading different notions which are unscientific in nature.
Earlier, ministers have claimed the existence of satellites during the era of Mahabharata, and that a ‘Ram Setu’ – the supposed bridge between India and Sri Lanka that Hindu God Rama crossed in the epic Ramayana – was built by Indian engineers.
Ahead of the ongoing 107th Indian Science Congress in Bengaluru, an event at which many allegedly unscientific proclamations have been made before, scientists had written to organisers to categorically avoid giving opportunities to false scientific statements.
