The God Particle

ATLAS Experiment 2012 CERN

THE GOD PARTICLE

What happens when we cut matter into smaller and smaller pieces? The ancient Greeks asked this question and came up with the word ‘atomos’, which means ‘uncuttable’  as a description of the smallest unit. Not being experimentalists, the Greeks had no way of verifying what the smallest unit of matter was.

Some 2,000 years later, thanks to huge advances in experimental physics, we now know that the atom is not indivisible. Using electron microscopes that can actually photograph single atoms, and by building bubble chambers and powerful accelerators, scientists were able to ‘split open’ the atom and find a zoo of smaller particles that make up matter. They found 12 elementary particles, which seem to occur in families of three: 6 quarks and 6 leptons.

Looking at a single atom, each is composed of electrons, protons and neutrons (except hydrogen that has 1 electron and 1 proton). Every proton and neutron is made up of even smaller particles called quarks which exist in groups of three. In addition, there are two other elementary particles: the first is the electron (3 types) and the second is neutrinos (3 types) called leptons, which in Greek means 'small'. These particles have no further structure that we know of and are called elementary particles. They are the very ‘building blocks’ of all matter. In addition, there exists particles called bosons such as the photon that transmit forces among the elementary particles. For example, light is made up of photons, the better-known boson responsible for mediating the electromagnetic force. In this figure the 4 purple boxes represent 4 bosons that transmit forces.

And now we come to the Higgs boson, which stands out from all other bosons, because it does not transmit forces like the other three types of bosons. It transforms energy into matter, as in Einstein's equation, E=mc² The British physicist Peter Higgs, almost five decades ago, hypothesized that a boson should exist that would be responsible for giving mass to the particles created at the Big Bang. The existence of this boson was recently proven experimentally at CERN and was named after the scientist who predicted its existence – Higgs.

The photo at the top of this posting is a simulation of data collected following a collision of 2 protons. A Higgs boson is produced which decays into 2 jets of hadrons (heavy particles) and 2 electrons. The Higgs boson is responsible for holding everything together in the universe because by giving particles mass, they become subject to gravitational force. Otherwise, without mass, particles would simply fly apart. Scripture says, “He (God) is before all things and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17) Perhaps that is why the Higgs boson is called the God Particle. It holds the universe together and without it, nothing material would exist.

To learn more visit: The Search for Elementary Particles at CERN

To watch a simplified explanation of the Higgs boson see: Dr. Don Lincoln from Fermi Labs explains the Higgs boson

The Miracle of Water

Photo by Sergiu Baciolu; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

THE MIRACLE OF WATER

Five Amazing Facts about Water

1.           It expands as it freezes as opposed to most substances that become denser as the temperature falls. This allows it to float rather than sink in liquid water. This quality is critical for liquid water to exist on our planet.

2.           It can store energy because of its high heat capacity, thus regulating our body temperature.

3.           It has a very high heat of evaporation (540 C/gram). This means that as water evaporates, it removes a large amount of heat, which helps keep our bodies cool as we sweat.

4.           It remains in liquid form, when other substances become gaseous.

5.           It is the only substance on earth that exists naturally in all three forms ((ice, liquid and vapor).

70% of our planet is covered with water and 90% of our bodies are composed of it.  Water has one of the simplest possible chemical formulas: two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H-O-H). Yet it is one of the most anomalous substances known to us. On a practical level, we know water as an ordinary and abundant substance, essential for life, but scientifically it is complex and exhibits unusual behavior. In fact, it has over 40 unique properties that combined, make life possible on earth.  No wonder NASA is searching for water on other planets as a condition for speculating whether life can exist.

The components of water are two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, arranged in the manner of a triangle, with oxygen at the apex and the hydrogen bonds as its two legs, with 104.45 degree separation. This structure, with the additional property of oxygen being slightly positive and the hydrogen atoms being slightly negative, creates what scientist call hydrogen bonding. This very structure is responsible for water’s unusual properties. In fact, minute changes in this 104.45 degree angle, or changes in the charges, would make it impossible for liquid water to exist!  Water has been extensively studied by scientists, but still holds many puzzles.

It is no accident then that Christ used the metaphor of liquid water to explain a spiritual principle to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4:14). Jesus said the water he gives us “…will become in [us] a spring of water welling up to eternal life”.  Just as physical water is essential for life, so spiritual ‘water’ gives life to our soul, as God’s Spirit quenches our thirst for something beyond ourselves, something eternal. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me…streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:38).

for more information on water’s amazing qualities visit: US Geological Survey's - Water Education for Schools

Whispers from Heaven

Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI

WHISPERS FROM HEAVEN

In 1980 a huge radio telescope system was built in the remote deserts of central New Mexico. It is called the Very Large Array (VLA). The array consists of twenty seven dish antennas, each weighing 230 tons and 25 meters in diameter. The VLA was built to ‘listen’ to radio emissions from our solar system and beyond, to the edge of the known Universe, billions of light–years from the Earth. It has made key observations of black holes, proto-planetary disks around young stars, probed the Universe’s cosmological parameters and provided new knowledge about physical mechanisms that produce radio emissions.

Few realize that the VLA has also been used to listen for possible radio signals from intelligent beings somewhere in the universe, who might be attempting to contact us. The project is named SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The film by Carl Sagan entitled ‘Contact’ where astrophysicists receive an unexpected series of signals that provide the first 100 prime numbers, was based on the SETI project. Information like this could only have been sent by intelligent beings. Alas, that story is still fiction, in spite of great hope that mankind might hear from extraterrestrials!

The exceedingly fine-tuned universe, the incredible odds for life to emerge from non-living matter and the unusually privileged position our earth has in space, make the odds of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe very low. Even if there were intelligences like ours, the millions of light years needed for signals to reach earth from sources in our galaxy alone, make it all but impossible for us to know who else is out there!

However, we know from Scripture that God created the heavens and the earth, made humans in His Image, and 2000 years ago he himself made a soft landing on planet earth, as recorded by eye-witnesses in the Gospels. If the Creator of the Universe visited planet earth and expressed His love and care for us, doesn’t it seem strange that we dismiss this ‘Intelligent Being’ so easily and instead, seek for 'intelligent life' beyond our solar system to contact us and tell us how to live a better life?

The VLA and its more recent, much improved Expanded VLA version, require careful listening by radio-astronomers to the weak signals from space. The array needs to be in a location with minimum radio interference from man–made radio noises. Both the VLA and humans need solitude and quiet to be able to hear 'from beyond'! We need to practice intentional listening in order to hear that ‘gentle whisper’ from God. While despondent and hiding in a cave, Elijah heard that comforting whisper. (1 Kings 19:12)  Are you also listening?


for more information about Radio Astronomy visit:  National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Survival on the Fringe

Pompeii Worm

SURVIVAL ON THE FRINGE

 Did you know that scientists have found micro-organisms that can survive and even thrive under extreme conditions of heat, pressure, radiation, salt and yes, even high acid concentrations. These organisms represent a new biological category that was discovered only 40 years ago. The new term for such organisms is ‘extremophiles’ (philo is the Greek word for ‘love of’). At first, bacteria were discovered thriving at temperatures of 50^oC in the hot mineral pools of Yellowstone National Park. Today, scientists like Karl Setter have identified organisms that thrive at temperatures of 100^oC. Numerous organisms have been found near volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, where there is no oxygen or light.

What is even more amazing is that scientists have found life at 1.6 kilometers below the ocean floor. Similar discoveries have found organisms that can survive high acid concentrations or so called ‘radioduran’,  that can survive 1000 times the level of radiation that would kill a human!

This new science of extremophiles has now identified acidophiles (acid lovers), halophiles (salt lovers), piezophiles (pressure lovers) xerophiles (dryness lovers) and many others. The science of extremophiles is still in the research stage but one can see its enormous potential for mankind, especially for the pharmaceutical industry.

Once again we see God’s wonders in creating life freely and abundantly, in all its forms, anywhere in the world, and under probable and improbable conditions, to teach us of his boundless creativity and ingenuity. Psalm 104:24,25 declares: “How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number – living things both large and small.”

Two Dark Mysteries

A Star Nursery: 

A baby star is being born in the midst of a nebula, an interstellar cloud of gases.

TWO DARK MYSTERIES

One of the ways the heavens declare the glory of God is through the many mysteries He has hidden in the universe, waiting to be found by astronomers and cosmologists. Today cosmologists are searching for answers to several baffling mysteries in the universe.

Dark energy is considered to be the most profound and puzzling of all these mysteries. Dark energy, discovered in the early 1990’s by two groups of astronomers (one at UC Berkeley and the other at Johns Hopkins University), is postulated to be the energy behind the mystery of the expansion of the universe. The Big Bang theory, which is now widely accepted, states that the universe had a beginning, some 14.7 billion years ago, when matter and time began. It would be logical to expect that as the universe expanded the rate of acceleration would slow down, much like an explosion. When an explosion (like fireworks) eventually runs out of energy the particles slow down and in the case of fireworks, fall to earth. Surprisingly, the opposite has proven to be true – the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. The term given to explain this phenomena is Dark Energy. Some astronomers call dark energy the fifth force or ‘quintessence’ that may be responsible for this acceleration.

A second mystery is the recently discovered dark matter that seems to be holding galaxies together. Dark matter, unlike the matter we see around us, does not send any electromagnetic signals and therefore its nature remains unknown. Dark energy and dark matter together constitute 95.4% of the known universe, limiting our knowledge of what makes up this vast universe to a mere 4.6%!

In the Bible, Job 38 records what God says about human’s knowledge and power: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?...Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons?... Do you know the laws of the heavens?”  Indeed, these mysteries, together with a number of others, speak to us of the wonders that God has placed in his creation. Wonders that mankind continues to explore using all the wisdom and insight God has given his creatures.

To wonder, to search, to explain these mysteries leads us to worship the Almighty and Glorious Creator.

(The other mysteries astronomers are exploring have to do with the inability to account for all the ordinary matter that makes up the 4.6%; the exact mechanism of stars exploding to form supernovas; the source of energetic cosmic rays; and why is our solar system made up of such diverse planets, not one of them being similar to the others, including their respective satellites.)

Looking at the World with Two Lenses

LOOKING AT THE WORLD WITH TWO LENSES

When considering a problem, one needs to look both at the surface causes as well as the root causes. Both are necessary; one without the other becomes necessary but not sufficient, for determining the causes of the problem.

The AAAS Journal Science devoted its May 18, 2012 issue to analyzing the causes of human conflict.  Eleven articles present detailed studies of what causes human conflict, such as fights, wars, terrorism, etc. However, after describing these problems, the authors describe only the surface causes of these problems, because they base the causes of these conflicts in our evolutionary development and history, offering answers based solely on ‘scientific/materialistic’ data. These scientists write from a perspective of ontological naturalism. They believe that the material is all that exists and there is no spiritual aspect to existence. This ‘faith’ limits their analyses to natural causes only, implicit in a person’s physical body and his psyche, and transmitted to the present state from our so-called evolutionary struggles for survival of the human species.

Their ontological materialism prevents these scientists from going deeper into root causes best described by the British philosopher C.E.M Joad, as pathological to the human nature, rooted in his alienation from the Creator. The scientists who authored these articles on violent conflict and terrorism refrain from using the term ‘evil’, afraid to bring in anything that smacks of the spiritual – an area of inquiry that lies beyond the competence of empirical verification.

In his writing, Joad concludes that the Bible has the best insight into human’s pathological tendencies towards evil, by attributing it to a person’s ‘fallen nature.’ Other explanations like Freud’s attribution of ‘evil to the human libido, or Marx’s view of evil as social/economic injustices, Joad finds weak.

The causes of human conflict analyzed in the 11 articles in Science do represent necessary conditions, but fall short of dealing with the sufficient condition that points to a person’s fallen (sinful) nature. Looking at the spiritual/philosophical aspects is an approach which is beyond the purview and competence of the scientific method.

Paul says in Ephesians 4 18 “They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself.” (The Message) God has given us two lenses to use when perceiving reality. Let’s use them both, otherwise our conclusions are one-sided and insufficient.

I Wonder as I Wander out under the Sky...

I WONDER AS I WANDER OUT UNDER THE STARS

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,

How Jesus the Savior did come for to die....

These words, which accompany a haunting traditional melody, evoke the vision of a pensive, searching soul under the heavenly canopy of God’s starry hosts, seeking answers to life’s most pressing issues. The searching is done however, in a spirit of humility, recognizing that God is the creator and we are the created. ...For poor on’ry people like you and like I:I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

This Christmas carol was written by John Jacob Niles in 1933. He was visiting Appalachia when he saw a beautiful young girl, Annie Morgan, in dirty clothes and unwashed, step upon a platform and sing the first few lines of this carol, based on a traditional hill-country tune. Mr. Niles left with “three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material - and a magnificent idea.” This haunting, minor-key melody, accompanied by the deeply moving words quickly entered the repertoire of Christmas music and have been used in compositions by Benjamin Britten, as well as other composers.It is in this spirit of searching with an attitude of humility and wonder that we would like to open this blog. 

There are critical issues at hand today that we would do well to attend, but often we can loose the forest for the trees; i.e. we can get so caught up in the details of the arguments, particularly when it comes to science and faith issues, that we lose our sense of wonder and amazement as we observe the world we live in. Even worse, a loss of wonder can affect our worship, shrinking and diminishing the experience. We are particularly concerned about the next generation, young lives which begin with an overwhelming curiosity about the world around them. When we limit our answers about this world to those provided by the scientific method of empirical observation, we rob these young hearts and minds of the power of creative intuition, of an appreciation for the mystery and intricacy of all that exists, and ultimately, of a deeper knowledge of the Creator/Designer who is the source of the visible world and who can be known through it. Truly, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge." Psalm 19:1-2 

Please join in our discussion as we attempt to restore a sense of wonder to the study of the physical world.