Random Thoughts About God And Physics

[brianthephysicist]

As the title suggests, I've had some random thoughts about God and physics and I just wanted to share them. I don't know if this is the proper place to post this, so admin feel free to move it elsewhere.

I'll try not to get too deep into 'physics talk' as I am oft to do (even though I still probably will, so sorry in advance), but a basic understanding of topics in modern physics (special relativity, quantum mechanics, etc) will most likely be necessary.

Let's dive right in





My first two random thoughts are on the connection between God and light. In special relativity, there are some laws (possibly postulates, don't quote me lol) that deal with light and the nature of our universe. One of the laws deals with the concept that no object can travel faster than the speed of light. This sets an absolute speed limit on our universe. There is not, however, a limit on the amount of kinetic energy that an object can have. I'm not going to touch the equations here, but if we plot kinetic energy (x-axis) vs. velocity (y-axis), there is a horizontal asymptote. Sorry I couldn't find a better pic:
[img]http://twinkle_toes_engineering.home.comcast.net/~twinkle_toes_engineering/electron_speed_plot.jpg[/img]


Essentially, no matter how much energy we put into an object, it can never reach the speed of light. This is a great metaphor for our human striving for God's holiness and perfection. At first, that curve isn't terribly difficult to ascend; we can somewhat easily make some of these first changes to grow closer to God. But, as we grow, we approach that horizontal asymptote, where God gives us progressively more difficult challenges in order to learn to fully lose ourselves to Him. But even with all of the grace that God gives us, there is a maximum; we will never be able to match God's holiness in our earthly life. I especially like this metaphor because of the symbolism of God as light. No other object in the universe, can match this fundamental quality of light, just as we as humans cannot match God's holiness.





My second thought is similarly based in special relativity. This is based on the principle of time dilation. Assume we have two observers, observer A and observer B. A is standing still and B is moving extremely close to the speed of light. If B travels to another solar system, A and B will each look at their very accurate watches and will disagree about how long it actually took. A will say that it took a very long time, while B will say that it took a very short time. If B moves at 90% of the speed of light, then in what B observes as ~21 years, A will observe ~50 years.

This is a paradox to our understanding, but it has been experimentally proven. The faster an object moves, the more it 'slows time'. We already stated that an object cannot move at the speed of light, but we can still look at the limiting condition; an object moving at the speed of light would observe everything that they come into contact with in a single instant. Light created in the big bang, traveling since the start of the universe, is still experiencing that same instant in time. I often wonder about what it means for God to exist outside of time. Since I have only ever experienced time linearly, it always seemed too much to wrap my head around. But He has given us a concrete example of something experiencing the entire universe in a mind-boggling time-scale.





My next thought comes from quantum mechanics and deals with the nature of the 100% humanity and 100% divinity of Jesus in respect to particle-wave duality. For a very long time in physics, we knew that light is a wave. In the early 1900's, there were some experiments done on light in which its wave properties could not explain what was happening. If light was treated as having the properties of a particle, then the experiments could be explained perfectly. After observing particle properties in what was always considered a wave, people began to experiment to see if there were any wave properties for objects traditionally held to be particles. Sure enough, this was experimentally shown. Matter, things like electrons, atoms and even people, can paradoxically be both a particle and a wave. This is so hard to accept, but the experimental evidence is irrefutable. In trying to similarly accept Jesus' dualism of 100% humanity and 100% divinity, I am glad to have been given this great example of duality.





My fourth thought also comes from quantum mechanics and deals with the Trinity and the three Persons in respect to the collapse of wave-functions. In quantum mechanics, a particle whose movement is constrained can only exist in certain discrete states. These states are described by what are called wave-functions. See Pic:
[img]http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/~hill/tutorials/qm1_tutorial/pib_psi.png[/img]


These states can generally be described with numbered states, in this picture, the numbered states are n = 1, 2, 3, or 4. Each state has a corresponding wave-function (that's the blue squiggles in the left part) and this can be squared to give a probability density (that's the blue squiggles in the right part). Note: this is only one example of a constrained particle. There are infinitely many constraints that we can construct, but this is one of the simplest examples to explain wave-functions with.

So, now that I have done a terrible job explaining wave-functions, I would like to dive into the idea of collapsing a wave-function. For example, in the picture on the right, look at the level n = 2. These two humps describe areas of high probability and the dip in between them corresponds to an area of zero probability. This means that the particle can sit on either the left or the right side, but can never be in the middle. If we observe this particle to be sitting on the left side, then come back a little while later and observe it again, it might be on either the left side or the right side. "But Brian - I thought you said it couldn't be in the middle, how did it get to the right side?" Essentially, the particle's wave-function describes a particle in both sides at the same time; when we observe the particle, we 'collapse' the wave-function. This collapse of the wave-function forces the particle to 'decide' where it is. Similarly, we can draw a relationship to the separate-yet-connected nature of the Trinity. When God acts in our lives, we observe the actions of a specific Person in the Trinity. God really is all three Persons all the time, but we can only observe one part at a time, not God's entire 'wave-function'.





I discover new things like this in physics every so often and unfortunately I've forgotten quite a lot of them. If I remember any more or if I come up with any new ones I will be sure to post them. I hope you guys can share some nice examples that I haven't thought of.

Praise God!

[BG45]

Totally over my head with the hard science, but what I followed was definitely cool!

Edit: Had a "why" instead of "What".

Edited September 8, 2011 by BG45

[MissyP89]

lolwut.

[mortify]

Brian,

I think you will enjoy this site:

http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/Multimedia.php

[MithLuin]

Hmmm, I'm not convinced on the relationship of the nature of the Trinity to the collapsing wave functions, but the other thoughts were pretty cool. Thanks for sharing!

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1315452327' post='2302003']
Brian,

I think you will enjoy this site:

[url="http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/Multimedia.php"]http://www.st-edmund.../Multimedia.php[/url]
[/quote]
Oh cool. Thanks!

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1315452909' post='2302009']
Hmmm, I'm not convinced on the relationship of the nature of the Trinity to the collapsing wave functions, but the other thoughts were pretty cool. Thanks for sharing!
[/quote]

Yea, I'm sorry. I can't really explain it as well as I'd like. I think of it loosely like St. Patrick's analogy with the 3 leaf clover....just more vague lol.

[MithLuin]

Hehe, it's more like...I know what wave functions are, and I know what the Trinity is, but I don't think the analogy works.

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1315456590' post='2302034']
Hehe, it's more like...I know what wave functions are, and I know what the Trinity is, but I don't think the analogy works.
[/quote]

Well, when I was originally thinking of it, I was thinking more along the lines of a linear superposition of three separate wave-functions, but I already had the picture of the well and I thought that the single wave-function example might be able to express it just as well. I don't really know lol, I just kind of have a vague sense of all this.

[Theresita Nerita]

I like it!

This isn't exactly physics, but I'm reminded of once listening to a lecture on set theory by my pal who now has his phd in theoretical math or something. I haven't taken a math class since calc, so the only thing I retained was something about a sentence that could be neither true nor false - something like, "This sentence is false." If it's true, it's false - if it's false, it's true. And I remember thinking (not very logically lol) - "so! God exists, then." More accurately, so, our minds can simultaneously comprehend and not comprehend the incomprehensible which nevertheless exists because it's right in front of me. Reminded me of my ability/inability to comprehend God who nevertheless exists and is evident and extremely simple.

Another thing that blows my mind is that .9999999 equals 1. I'm sure that has something to do with God too (most things do) but it's too late for me to think about what it is.

Eh, I'm sleepy.

But I enjoyed your physics! I don't think [i]your [/i]examples, at least, were vague at all!

[Luigi]

This is so far out of my league that all I'm gonna say is, "That's very nice."

[faithcecelia]

I am another who found this totally over my head, however I am a numbers fanatic and find that they bring me closer to God, and He shines out of them, so I think I can relate to your enthusiasm!

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='Theresita Nerita' timestamp='1315458549' post='2302039']
I like it!

This isn't exactly physics, but I'm reminded of once listening to a lecture on set theory by my pal who now has his phd in theoretical math or something. I haven't taken a math class since calc, so the only thing I retained was something about a sentence that could be neither true nor false - something like, "This sentence is false." If it's true, it's false - if it's false, it's true. And I remember thinking (not very logically lol) - "so! God exists, then." More accurately, so, our minds can simultaneously comprehend and not comprehend the incomprehensible which nevertheless exists because it's right in front of me. Reminded me of my ability/inability to comprehend God who nevertheless exists and is evident and extremely simple.

Another thing that blows my mind is that .9999999 equals 1. I'm sure that has something to do with God too (most things do) but it's too late for me to think about what it is.

Eh, I'm sleepy.

But I enjoyed your physics! I don't think [i]your [/i]examples, at least, were vague at all!
[/quote]
Oooh that's a cool logic trick with the true/false. I like nice little paradoxes like that, I might not get anywhere with them, but they sure give my brain some much needed exercise.

The proof for 0.999... = 1 is relatively short so I'll show it very quickly

1 = 1

3 * (1/3) = 1

(1/3) = 0.333...

3 * 0.333... = 1

0.999... = 1

Unfortunately, I can't figure out a way to relate this to God. I'm pretty sure that this specific instance is only an artifact of the base 10 system, although with some experimentation in other bases I might be able to find similar behavior, something such as in base 6, .555... = 1.

Thanks, now I've got some good food for thought

[brianthephysicist]

[quote name='brianthephysicist' timestamp='1315489801' post='2302109']
I'm pretty sure that this specific instance is only an artifact of the base 10 system, although with some experimentation in other bases I might be able to find similar behavior, something such as in base 6, .555... = 1.
[/quote]
So I spent some time thinking about this and I realized that there is a trick to doing this in any arbitrary base (except I can't figure it out for binary so it might just be any base greater than two. We can call an arbitrary base some integer 'n'. In base n, we can show that

1 = 1

(n - 1) * [1/(n - 1)] = 1

[1/(n - 1)] = 0.111... * I want to note here that I do not have a proof of this step, but that I have tried it and it works for all bases n > 2 that I could reasonably try (this includes 3 through 16, 27, 43, and 72)

(n - 1) * 0.111... = 1

Since 1 * any number = that number, we can see that we will have a repeating decimal that looks like 0.(n - 1)(n - 1)(n - 1).... = 1

Sometimes generalizations like this are hard to see, so I can do it very quickly with some actual bases. First, I can show it again in base 10, but this time, I will take advantage of 9 instead of 3:
1 = 1
9 * (1/9) = 1
(1/9) = 0.111...
9 * 0.111... = 1
0.999... = 1

Base 3 (if you are unfamiliar with base 3, it has digits 0, 1, 2 and we can count in this base by going 0, 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 100, 101, etc.):
1 = 1
2 * (1/2) = 1
(1/2) = 0.111...
2 * 0.111... = 1
0.222... = 1


Base 4 (similarly, this counts 0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, etc.):
1 = 1
3 * (1/3) = 1
(1/3) = 0.111...
3 * 0.111... = 1
0.333... = 1


Base 5 (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, etc):
1 = 1
4 * (1/4) = 1
(1/4) = 0.111...
4 * 0.111... = 1
0.444... = 1


Base 6 (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, etc):
1 = 1
5 * (1/5) = 1
(1/5) = 0.111...
5 * 0.111... = 1
0.555... = 1


Base 7 (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, etc):
1 = 1
6 * (1/6) = 1
(1/6) = 0.111...
6 * 0.111... = 1
0.666... = 1

Skipping ahead, base 16 (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, e, f, 10, etc.):

1 = 1
f * (1/f) = 1
(1/f) = 0.111...
f * 0.111... = 1
0.fff... = 1

It is a very nice and somewhat simple pattern. Unfortunately, I do not have the background in Number Theory to explain how it works or to actually prove that [1/(n - 1)] = 0.111... instead of just spending a really long time checking each of these individually and eventually assuming that it works.

I do not know of a good metaphor or relation to God, but it was interesting and fun to play with. Thanks again!

[Adrestia]

sweet

[brianthephysicist]

Thanks Luigi!


[quote name='faithcecelia' timestamp='1315471961' post='2302053']
I am another who found this totally over my head, however I am a numbers fanatic and find that they bring me closer to God, and He shines out of them, so I think I can relate to your enthusiasm!
[/quote]
That's quite alright, there's still so much that I will never be able to comprehend. God sure did give us a wonderful universe to study. I agree with your thoughts on numbers. I don't often remember them, but I frequently come across little number references throughout my day that serve as tiny reminders of God's plan for me.