Repost!

So, I really will update and finish this soon. There's been kind of a lot going on. In the meantime, I merged this with an older version of the blog, so if some of the dates are a little surprising, well, that's what happened. Look forward to posting more soon!

Free Particles

(Author’s Note:  In order to post entries in a timely manner, it has become clear that it will be necessary to break some entries into several  posts, even if some of the posts are quite short.  This is one of those entries…)

One of the interesting concepts of physics is that of a free particle. 

Often when the word “free” is used in the general vernacular, it invokes a sense of unlimited choice.  Be who you want to be, do what you want to do – no rules, no limitations.  The possibilities are endless.  There is no right or wrong.  This is not quite correct.

“Free” is a much richer concept than “having an endless supply of options”.

To be continued…

Preface: A Christian and a physicist

Psalm 19:1-3 states:  “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork.  Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.  There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.”

This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.  The very creation that we observe each moment gloriously displays the majesty and beauty of our God.  As both a Christian and a physicist, I am fascinated whenever I notice a parallel between a natural law and biblical truth.

I would like to establish my position from the outset.   I am a Christian.  My worldview is that God created the heavens and the earth from nothing.  I believe that the Bible is literally true.  I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to Earth and died on the cross for my sin, rose again on the third day, and now sits at the right hand of God the Father, preparing a place for me.  I believe that I have been born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, that God is my Father, and that I will live for ever and rule and reign with Jesus the Anointed one in the ages to come.

I also believe that God has called me to be a physicist.  I believe that well- conducted observations and experiments on natural systems can lead to the discovery of useful and decipherable patterns, which in turn can be used to describe the universe in which we live and make reliable predictions regarding the evolution of those systems.  I believe that through repeated experimentation, accurate, reliable results can obtained and used to enhance our understanding of the world around us.  I believe that, properly understood, some of these results can reveal and illuminate the character of God.

I believe that the Bible is the final authority on any subject.  This means that where there is uncertainty or speculation, the Bible is the final, ultimate Word of God on the subject.  Future illumination may come.  When it does, to be sure it will uphold what has already been revealed in the recorded word of God.  I believe that the aid of the Holy Spirit is essential in the correct interpretation of the Bible, as is the careful application of hermeneutics and exegesis.  Christians call this “rightly dividing the word of God”, as in 2 Timothy 2:15. 

I believe that there are some subjects on which the Bible is largely silent, and others in which few details are provided.  In many of these cases, I believe that speculation can be sustained, as long as:
1.  The speculation doesn’t contradict known biblical truth.
2.  The truth of the Gospel is upheld.
3.  There is strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis.
4.  The understanding that the hypothesis or speculation is subject to change with additional revelation or new evidence is upheld.

I believe that true, objective science ultimately points to the conclusion that there is a Creator, that the Creator is the God of the Bible, and that His interactions with man have been real and historical. 

I do not want anything that I say or write in this blog to become a point of contention for members of the Church, or a stumbling block for those who are genuinely looking for a relationship with God and His people.  There have been instances in history where some aspect or theory of the contemporary science was connected with a particular interpretation of scripture, and the Church unfortunately fell into the trap of dogmatizing the associated interpretation.  Later, when the theory was superseded or discredited through new evidence, many saw it as a threat to or a proof against the scripture as well.  This led to all kinds of strife, antagonism, and animosity both within the church and between the church and the world that they were supposed to evangelize.  This is not my aim.  I simply want to share my excitement over what I believe are fascinating and telling parallels between the laws of physics as we know them and the laws of God as they have been revealed to us. 

I hope that you enjoy sharing my journey.

Scale Up

Picture: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day, Oct. 14 2009: "The Pleiades and Stardust"
I've recently been humbled by the realization that were we not specifically created, our existence would be completely insignificant.
I was listening to an old Astro C10 podcast by my university (Woo!!) and the facts are astonishing.
Consider: On the size scale where the sun (which, mind you could fit about 1,000,000 earths for volume) is the size of the period at the end of your sentence, the nearest star would still be nine miles away. The galaxy contains billions of stars. Then when you imagine all of the star systems, galaxies, nebulae, and superclusters you start to see just how small we really are. One wonders that God can even see us, much less be involved or concerned with some moving dirt on a relatively microcopic speck of the universe. (And we're nowhere near being the smallest parts of the universe - there's atoms, and nuclei, quarks, gluons, leptons; maybe strings...so much detail!) Meanwhile, you can also make comparisons on a time scale - the universe is currently estimated to be around 14,000,000,000 (14 billion) years old. The average human life is about 70 years. The ratio there is 0.000000005. (Five nanoseconds, or five billionths of a second.) A human blink is on average about 300 milliseconds (.3 seconds), so, by analogy, if your life was 5 nanoseconds, then just in the time it takes to blink you could live about about 60 million lifetimes. Even if you don't believe that this is the correct age of the universe, you can see my point - everything that we do, every vacation you take, every career you pursue, every generation of a family that lives rises and falls in a ridiculously trivial amount of time. It reminds me of David's prayer - "What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that thou visitist him?"

Kind of makes eternity a little more impressive...