Śyāmasundara: For instance, the Sanskrit language was so perfect...
Prabhupāda: Yes, Sanskrit language, everything, wonderful. So we are not carpenters, that we have to find out tools. We are brāhmaṇas.
Śyāmasundara: So if the earth is so old, for instance, it could have undergone many transformations...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. After one day of Brahmā there is devastation. So Brahmā lives for one hundred years according to his calculation. So each day there is devastation. So so many devastation passes in one month of Brahmā, then such twelve months makes one year, and such hundred years will be. So there is no calculation of devastation, how many devastations. In Brahmā's one day it is calculated 5,400 Manus are born in one month of Brahmā. So our calculation is like that. We are not very much amazed of hearing millions and trillions. It is nothing. In our historical reference is billions and trillions of years. They are nothing.
Śyāmasundara: So even though several million years ago they find no evidence in the rocks...
Prabhupāda: That does not mean that there is no civilization. That is their imperfect knowledge.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, our so-called modern scientific stories, knowledge is so empiric it's now (indistinct) on complete proof. It is always stands to have objectionable work, sides; so it is not perfect at all. Just like from Śrīla Prabhupāda's book on the Easy Journey to Other Planets, Śrīla Prabhupāda mentioned the discovery of the anti-proton, by the scientists who got the Nobel Prizes in 1959, and Prabhupāda gives all information from Bhagavad-gītā, anything, is already there; Prabhupāda has said it. They say anti-proton... They just discovered the anti-proton, but they still think it is some matter, that is not..., they say anti-proton but still they think that it is connected with matter. But Prabhupāda said it is not matter, it is spirit. Differentiation between matter and anti-matter. Matter is material thing; anti-matter is spirit or (indistinct). So Prabhupāda comments so nicely about the so-called modern scientists to do further research on this concept of anti-matter. Perhaps they will come to an understanding about the spirit, they come to a point. Our knowledge is what you call a modern scientific findings or evidences always subject to changes also...
Prabhupāda: This must be changing because the instruments by which we acquire knowledge, they are imperfect. So by our so-called research and sensuous acceptance of knowledge, that is never perfect. It cannot be perfect.
Śyāmasundara: Just like they say that the rate of disintegration of the atomic particles of an element is constant. But it may not be constant; perhaps in earlier times it was faster or slower, there are so many possibilities.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So the so-called scientists and philosophers who do not follow the system of (sic:) ascending knowledge, knowledge received from higher authorities, they are not perfect. They cannot have any perfect knowledge, either research work with the blunt imperfect senses. They will not... So whatever they say, we take it as imperfect-dream. And when Kṛṣṇa says that "I enter into the universes," viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthito jagat (BG 10.42). Now the weightlessness of the planets, the scientists describe in so many ways, but that is not very perfect. What is the cause of weightlessness? I have, what is called, (indistinct).
Śyāmasundara: That because of the orbits, different orbits of the planets cause weightlessness.
Karandhara: Centrifugal force.
Prabhupāda: Centrifugal.
Śyāmasundara: When planets go around the sun they go in such a speed, that there is no mass.
Prabhupāda: So, but who has set on the speed? How the speed is going on? That is not explained. But we have got our explanation. Kṛṣṇa says that "I enter into each and every universe and planet, and I keep them floating." That is understandable. Just like we have, in our childhood we used to, I mean to say, fly paper balloon by forcing into it some camphor smoke. Did you do it? We did this in our childhood. Such a big paper balloon, and then you take camphor, so much, and we struck up and burn it, and camphor is burning, it is producing too much—what is called—black smoke; and it becomes big, big smoke, it goes, very nice. So if the camphor smoke entered into the paper balloon can fly it, then God cannot fly all the universes by entering into it?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Another example is lot of these astronauts going to the moon, and sometimes they are afraid, they call the transition from the earth's gravitational force and the moon's gravitational force, there is a layer, this transition from one to another it is very critical. So they said that when the, these rockets or these Apollo instruments either go up or go down, they have to go to a certain angle, very specific, and if the angle is slightly changed, so they'll be either circulating the moon or either they'll be circulating the earth. They'll never be able to come down or go up, but they'll be floating like... There's no control.
Prabhupāda: Without any control.