offer excellent examples of this theory. The Maratha army was facing Abdali’s troops on the field of Panipat. There was no great disparity between the latter’s troops and the opposing forces. Their armour was comparable.
So, a lot depended on the leadership and the morale of the troops. The juncture at which Vishwasrao, the son of and heir to the Peshwa, was killed proved to be the turning point. As history has it, his uncle, Bhausaheb, rushed into the melee and was never seen again. Whether he was killed in battle or survived is not known.
But for the troops at that particular moment, that blow of losing their leaders was crucial. They lost their morale and fighting spirit. There followed an utter rout. “Exactly, Professor!
And what you have shown me on that torn page is the course taken by the battle, when the bullet missed Vishwasrao. A crucial event gone the other way. And its effect on the troops was also the opposite. It boosted their morale and provided just that extra impetus that made all the difference,” Rajendra said.
“Maybe so. Similar statements are made about the Battle of Waterloo, which Napoleon could have won. But we live in a unique world which has a unique history. This idea of ‘it might have been’ is okay for the sake of speculation but not for reality,” Gangadharpant said.
“I take issue with you there. In fact, that brings me to my second point which you may find strange; but please hear me out,” Rajendra said. Gangadharpant listened expectantly as Rajendra continued. “What do we mean by reality?
We experience it directly with our senses or indirectly via instruments. But is it limited to what we see? Does it have other manifestations? “That reality may not be unique has been found from experiments on very small systems — of atoms and their constituent particles.
When dealing with such systems the physicist discovered something startling. The behaviour of these systems cannot be predicted definitively even if all the physical laws governing those systems are known. “Take an example. I fire