You Can't Know

Chapter 7

You Can't Know

            Quantum Mechanics was the bane of Einstein’s existence. As stated in chapter two, Einstein could not reconcile the supposed disorder of quantum mechanics to his theory of Relativity. No matter how many recalculations Einstein made, the results were the same. It seemed as though the quantum level operated with a different set of rules than the universal physical world. In the quantum level there is no way to determine the position and direction of an object at the same time. You can’t pin anything down in the quantum world. There is no up, down, left, right, or even before and after. All these 3 dimensional representations of reality disappear.

            As talked about a little bit in the second chapter, Quantum was developed when it was noticed that the electron acted differently purely based on whether or not you were observing it. It was almost as if the electron, and any subatomic particle for that matter, had a brain of its own and knew when we were observing it. In a normal, double slit experiment, the photon acted like we would expect, a wave. It produced an interference pattern of a wave. However, when scientists decided to see if they could find out which slit the electron actually went through they discovered something that blew their minds. When they found the exact location of the photon, it produced an interference pattern as though it was a particle, with no wave properties at all. This was ridiculous, and rejected by many scientists. How could one piece of matter be two different things in the exact same experiment?

This really is the most significant piece of information that we have obtained from quantum mechanics. The very act of observing changes the way the universe operates. This revolutionized science. No longer could experiments be taken at their face value. In fact, reality itself can no longer be taken at face value. The very act of observing our surroundings changes how they actually act. Does this sound a little like magic to you? If it doesn’t you probably don’t get it yet. The old question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make any sound?” is actually a legitimate question. In fact, it can be taken one step further, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to see it, did it actually happen?” The answer is no. According to many scientists today, nothing exists until it is observed. We change what “exists” and doesn’t just by existing and observing what is around us.

These experiments showed that it is impossible to obtain exact experimental data. This provides astounding implications for the entire universe, not just the electrons, but for all things that contain matter. All data must be taken as relative to the observer. There is no reason to believe that what is observed could not behave differently. We literally can only study what is inside our reality, and bringing anything into that reality changes the way in which it behaves. Not only that, but no electron can be calculated because it could be anywhere or everywhere at one time. It is impossible to know the location of any subatomic particle.

If we lived in a Quantum world, there would be no way to know if we were here, or over there, or in both places at once. In fact, we would not even be able to know the time at which we arrived at a certain destination. Did, we arrive just now, or have we not yet arrived at our destination and will be there in a few seconds, or did we arrive before we arrived? Quantum mechanics explains much more than just the electron and subatomic particles. It holds implications for real life as well. It explains what actually happens in our world.

In quantum mechanics, there is a chance that anything can happen. We can’t know for certain the outcome of a certain experiment. We can only calculate the probability of the outcome occurring. For instance, according to the quantum theory, it is completely possible to walk straight through a solid brick wall, because at some point in time, all our molecules would randomly line up in a precise way with the molecules of the wall, which would allow us to step straight through it. The only problem is that it would take you nearly an eternity to do so. This theory is so accurate that Quantum mechanics has never contradicted an experiment, but neither has relativity, and yet they were so completely opposed to each other. One makes the assumption that everything in the universe is understand able and obeys the speed of light. It is a very organized world and very rule oriented and non-contradictory. Quantum mechanics on the other hand is totally different, everything is changing, the rules of the natural world don’t apply, reality begins to break down, and nothing is solid and known. Both cannot both be right, because both theories require the other one to be false.

You can see why Einstein made his statement, “God does not play dice!” Einstein refused to believe that a God of order would create something disorderly. Einstein was not overly religious, do not extract from my writing that Einstein was a religious man, he was not, but he had at least a basic belief in a God. This basic belief however, was Einstein’s undoing. Who is Einstein to say what God does or doesn’t do? He limited his understanding because of his basic belief in what God could or couldn’t do. It is extremely important that we recognize how much greater God is, for that one belief shapes every belief that comes after it. Niels Bohr responded to Einstein’s rash statement by saying, “Einstein! Stop telling God what to do!”[1]

It was clear that to reconcile these two theories that have been tested hundreds of thousands of times, every time both being confirmed, there had to be a larger theory that encompassed both. For example, black holes follow both Quantum and Relativity. Black holes are so immensely small that they do not follow the laws of the General Theory of Relativity, but yet their density is so large, that their gravitation impact does not obey the laws of Quantum either. Both Theories must be used to explain the behavior of black holes. Einstein was right about one thing, not that Quantum was wrong, but that the universe should have a logical explanation. Everything in our universe up to now has operated by following logical laws that fit in with mathematical observations. This does not mean that there will never be something that we cannot understand; it simply means that we can expect that there should be and we should study and experiment until we find it.

This persistence to find a unifying theory that mathematically unifies Quantum with Relativity led to a new theory, the Theory of Everything; String Theory. String Theory is extremely complex, and I will not be explaining it in detail, for the simple reason that I do not understand it. I will speak of only the implications of the theory; I will not be going into the actual math of the theory.

As scientists worked feverishly to find a theory to unify Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, they began to see that what the math was describing was pieces of energy so small that it is just as impossible to imagine them as it is to imagine the vastness of our universe. These particles of energy were found to be massless, pure energy termed strings. According to the math, these strings could vibrate, and move in any direction. Strings were found to be a billion billion times smaller than the atom. It was theorized that these vibrating strings make up everything in the universe. All matter is composed of these vibrating strings. The way the “string” of energy vibrates or moves determines the properties of the matter it makes up. This theory provided a viable description of gravity on the quantum level. Also known as the Graviton Particle, strings carry with them pieces of spacetime. Indeed, these particles, are the frame work of which spacetime is made.

As these particles interact with each other, they make up the 

observable universe. We are all made up of these strings in theory. Trillions and trillions of them. This explains gravity, because each string is a piece of spacetime itself, and thus the more that come together, in other words, the more dense an object is, the more spacetime it contains, and the more effect it has on spacetime around itself. The most dramatic example of this would be a black hole, which contains so much spacetime that not even light can escape its curvature of reality. Our sun is anther example; the sun contains so much space-time that it bends the space around itself and puts the planets in a continual orbit around itself. I won’t go into this any farther to spare myself sounding like a fool who doesn’t know what He is talking about, because in truth, I do not. However, there are a few more things to consider that I think are worth our time. 

String theory predicts multiple dimensions in every point of space-time because in order for these oscillating strings to be stable, they require the existence of at least 10 other dimensions. You see, there are two different kinds of strings, open-ended strings that are held in place to this realty, and closed ring strings that are not. The closed ring would be our force of gravity that can project in all dimensions. Each string that is tied down to this particular space-time membrane is composed of multiple dimensions. We exist on just one of these alternate space-time dimensions.     The only difference between the extra dimensions of our dimension is their shape.

According to string theory, shape is everything. A string vibrates in different ways thus making up all the different particles in the universe. Thus our reality is just one vibration of the multiple ways in which these strings could vibrate. So we live in a world in which certain things happened because of the way things vibrate. It could be that in the next reality over, a very different set of circumstances are observed. Everything that could happen at a certain point in space-time, does happen, just not in the same reality.

What does this say about our ability to make our own decisions? Do we live in a fixed universe that is unchanging? Is our reality predetermined? My suggestion is that this is not the case. What if God has given us the ability to exist in which ever of these dimensions we choose? In other words, our very actions alter space-time itself and determine which reality we happen to exist in. Something completely different may be happening in the reality next to you because of a decision you made differently in the past. I will explore this idea a little further in the next section of this book, but just as a spoiler alert, what if God allows all realities and possibilities to play out in which he does every alternative possible to give you the chance to choose life. Thus in heaven, if we have a question about how our life would have turned out if such and such hadn’t have happened, God will be able to show you the entire spread of time and show you that no matter which circumstances you face, you ended up making the exact same decision. Or perhaps God will bring all realities into one single reality, in which you remember yourself, every different scenario that could have happened in your life, and yet you choose Christ in every single one. The God I believe in will not let anyone be lost who, if circumstances were different, would have been saved. Everyone that would be saved will be saved.

This is possible precisely because of quantum mechanics. Because our particles can exist in any place at any time, and cannot be calculated in any way, our brain can choose anything at any time without being determined. In fact, it is impossible for us to be determined, because God has created the universe without the ability of calculation. An electron can be everywhere at once, and nowhere at the same time, thus it is possible that our intellect that makes up every decision we make can go anywhere at any time. To my knowledge, creatures with an intellect are the only things that can control any aspect of space-time around them. We literally bend reality to our will. Doesn’t this idea strike you as amazing, that God would give us such power over the universe? If this God is real, He is great indeed. Even our own free will has a reason, and is a created thing. Our very reality, free will, time, space, and existence itself, is all created. Everything has a cause, and a reason, and that cause and reason could be nothing but an infinite creator, above all, and of none. He was in the beginning, and before Him there is nothing.

So my last question for you is this, if string theory really is the theory of everything, describing every known observation in the universe, and it appears to be self-existent, doesn’t it explain away the need for God? Many seem to think so. There is only one problem with this, that is, what started these strings of energy vibrating in the first place? Even more disturbing is that these strings can actually decay. Space-time is decaying as we speak. That means that time is not eternal. You understand what that means!? Time itself is decaying. Bit by bit, piece by piece, these strings can decay taking with them both the space, and time they occupy. In order for the universe to continue, a power greater than the string must sustain it.

String theory also predicts a universe that works like a clock. The properties of these strings, that is to say, the way in which they vibrate, make up all the forces in the universe. All the constants we have in the universe, the speed of light, the electromagnetic force, and gravity, all these forces are determined by the careful balancing of the these vibrations of the strings. The universe balances on the edge of a knife, if even one of these constant forces were changed just slightly, the entire universe would break apart.

The 10 dimensions cause these forces to equal out, and help determine the constants of nature. We live in such an irreducibly complex universe. String theory does not negate the need for God; to the contrary, it shows a universe that requires Him to exist. Quite literally, if God ceased to exist, the entire universe would go to ruin. I believe, that if God ceased to exist, so would all of space-time, because the universe is an extension of the mind of God. Yet even if my theory were not true, without the clock maker to wind the clock and carefully balance its gears, the clock (this universe) would, without a doubt, end.

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[1] http://www.davinciinstitute.com/2012/03/07/niels-bohr-and-albert-einstein/

Should We Obey Without Question?

Today we have an idea that it is righteous not to question the will of God. It is taught as a virtue to obey God without understanding, and without knowing for yourself what is actually right. We cite sources such as Abraham when he obeyed God at his command to murder his son. We cite Job when he stayed committed to God though everything was taken from him. I was at church singing with the congregation a few months ago, we were singing a hymn and it said this, "teach me never to reason why, but to follow Jesus." When I sang that verse both my dad and I looked at each other in shock and and slight horror and just shook our heads. I sang that hymn as a child never even thinking twice. I believed it was good to trust God no matter what not realizing that the Bible says something very very different. 

The major theme throughout all the Bible is not actually believing and trusting God no matter what, the major theme found in the Bible is actually questioning, demanding of God an answer. One of the most startling of these examples come from the father of obedience himself, Abraham, "Shall not the judge of all the Earth, do what is right?" Gen 18:25 at first glance this doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but on actual examination it becomes a shocking revelation of the human/divine interaction. Abraham isn't just questioning God, Abraham is in fact accusing God of being amoral. Abraham is holding God to a standard, he does not just stand back and say, "well God must have a good reason for what He is doing, so who am I to question Him, God is doing it so it must be right." No, Abraham holds God to a set standard of ethical morality, human morality in fact. 

I often hear it said that we are human, God is not, so we cannot understand the workings of God. Abraham did not think this way, neither did David. They understood that if God's dealings with humanity cannot be understood in human terms than He was not a God to be worshiped. God deals with humanity in Human terms. Why do you think God required animal sacrifices in the Old Testament? If you go back to Abraham and his offering of his son, you see something very interesting. The sacrifice of Isaac was not a test of the absolute faith of Abraham, it was an experience designed to set a president for all time. If you look at the history of Israel, it is filled with a constant returning to human sacrifice. Over and over again for hundreds and hundreds of years, Gods "holy" people kept on going back to human sacrifice. There was 1 story however, past down from generation to generation, that proved God did not require human sacrifice, the story of Abraham and Isaac. Though all the other Gods of Abraham's time required human sacrifice in order to save humanity, the God of Abraham did not. Human sacrifice was not acceptable before the God of Israel.  This was the main purpose of the sacrificial story, it had almost nothing to do with the faith of Abraham. In fact, Abraham's blind faith betrays something about his understanding of God. He believed God to be capable of such an atrocity. He thought God was like the God's of other nations. He was wrong, and his "faithfulness" to God was wrong as well. We praise him for it, but it was wrong. 

The Bible is continually progressive. Truth is not stagnant, and the Bible builds on itself as men add to the understanding of truth. Sacrificing humans became sacrificing animals, became sacrificing yourself as a living sacrifice to a God. Slavery was common and not condemned, then rules were developed about slavery, and as the Bible progressed there became more and more rules concerning how you can treat a slave, until today we now believe that slavery is evil and should not be engaged in at all. Women were essentially property, then rules and laws were developed to protect women, these rules continued to develop until the New Testament when they were recognized as being a jewel of creation to be cared for, respected, and loved. And now today we have carried that truth in the trajectory of the bible where women have equal rights in all aspects of life, including now ordination in some places (can I get an amen! amen and  amen!).

Truth requires questioning God. You will never grow in your understanding of God unless you question everything. As Luther said in his own trial, "unless I am convinced by the word of God AND sound reason, I cannot and will not recant." Currently I am in professional school taking a doctorate in Dentistry and a masters in bioethics. As you climb the rings of the ladder of education you encounter more and more the need for critical thinking, questioning, logic and sound reason. One of my bioethics teachers, Dr. David Larson stated this, "Always think for yourself, but never think alone." As a questioner of ideas, of Biblical thought, God, theology, science, religion, philosophy and logic, you join a community of thinkers who shaped the world. You join people like Abraham, David, Isaiah, Paul, Martin Luther and even Jesus. Blindly following where God leads is not righteousness, but foolishness. God desires that you know, understand, and believe. 

General Theory of Relativity and God

Chapter 6

General Theory of Relativity and God

Because Einstein understood that light has a fixed speed and nothing in the universe could travel faster than light, it led him to conclude that gravity and every other force in the universe must obey that speed limit as well. There was a famous thought experiment of that day, if the sun were to all of a sudden cease to exist, what would happen to the planets orbiting the sun? In the classical model of physics, the earth and all the planets would immediately fly off into space. Einstein recognized that this was impossible, because that would mean that gravity would travel faster than the speed of light since it takes light 8 minutes to travel the distance from the sun to the earth.

With these thoughts in mind, it was proposed that gravity had to travel at a speed, in fact, traveled at exactly the speed of light. Thus it would take 8 minutes for the earth to experience any difference in its orbit. This posed a huge problem for Newtonian Physics. It was realized that gravity could not just be the attraction of two masses to each other. It had to be something completely different all together, and it had to be related to the speed of light.

Einstein had another famous thought experiment. If you are in an elevator and the cable holding that elevator at the top of the building is suddenly cut, you will fall at the same speed as the elevator. Thus, relative to your view inside the elevator, you float and there is no gravity, the only thing that tells you gravity still exists is when you hit the ground and suddenly you realize that gravity did not disappear, but you were in fact falling. Now transfer this thought to a rocket in space. In space there is no gravity, so you will float inside the spaceship, you will float as if there is no gravity until the rocket begins to accelerate. When the rocket accelerates you will hit the floor as if there was gravity. Thus Einstein recognized that gravity and inertia are essentially the same force. There would be no way for you to tell whether or not gravity or inertia was having its effect, as long as the ship continued accelerating. Yet it proposed a problem. It only happens so long as acceleration is maintained. So what is the fundamental difference between inertia and gravity?

It was proposed that our universe is spread out on a surface of space-time. Space and time were proposed to be one and the same. Spread out in a fabric that could bend and warp, kind of like the surface of a trampoline. Thus heavy masses create a depression on this surface that warps space-time around it. In essence, there is no such thing as the attractive force of gravity, as previously thought. The orbiting of planets is simply one mass falling down the space-time curvature of another heavy mass.

 In this model, everything in the universe is simply traveling in the straightest line possible. Relative to space time, there is no such thing as a circular orbit. The planets and moons are simply traveling in what appears to be a straight line, but in following that path they fall into the depression of a heavier mass and cannot escape. Think of those coin collectors you might see at Wal-Mart. When you drop in a quarter it travels in a straight line down the ramp, and tries to continue in that line. That is why the quarter goes round and round the funnel on its decent into the coin collector. The coin “tries” to follow the straightest line possible, which is why it does not just fall down the funnel.

Even light is subject to this force. Einstein theorized that in the rocket, if you were moving fast enough, a beam of light would appear to bend as you passed it. If this was true for inertia, than it must be the same for gravity. This fit nicely into the idea of space-time. Light attempts to follow the straightest path through space, but as it travels this space-time fabric, light bends slightly around heavy objects. Observing a total solar eclipse of the sun proved this idea.

By viewing this event it was seen that stars were observed at slightly different positions than they were in actuality. This was caused by the lensing effect of the bending of the space-time fabric by the sun. As the light passed the sun, it followed a straight path down the space-time curvature and exited its path toward earth in a slightly different direction, so that our observations of the position of these stars were different than their actual position. Stars were observed that were in actuality behind the sun, yet we were able to see them as though they were right on the edge of the sun. This was one of the first experimentally verified evidences that even light could not escape the depressions made by heavy objects on the fabric of space-time.

  

The most intriguing part of this theory, in my opinion, is the idea that gravitational fields actually warp time around them. All things travel in a straight path, it is only because we split space and time into 2 separate dimensions that we see things traveling in elliptical orbits etc. In a space-time graph the earth is traveling in uniform motion, thus its graph is a straight line. In a space and time graph the earth still travels in a straight line, but to us it appears that earth actually follows an elliptical orbit around the sun. This warping of space and time actually gives us our illusion of time, just as the speed at which an individual moves effects the rate at which time passes.

This suggests that time is different depending on the mass of the object you happen to be orbiting. If you were orbiting a massive black hole for instance, everything would appear normal to us, because our time is relative to our frame of reference, but to people looking from outside in it would appear that we were moving extremely slowly because the warping of space and time are different around much more massive objects. In theory this would allow for time travel to the future. We could orbit a very massive object for a relatively short period of time and travel years into the future, in the exact same way that the twin on the space ship could travel years and years into the future by traveling very close to the speed of light.

Thus it can be clearly seen that time and space are closely linked. This holds extreme implications for the universe. I hope that if you haven’t seen it before this that you will now. Our universe is a created dimension. Our very understanding of time itself is only based off our frame of reference; it is not standard, or fixed. There have been many experiments that seem to prove this theory true. Using extremely sensitive instruments it has been shown that time even runs slower at the base of a building when compared to the top. This is known as the Mossbauer Effect. As I said before, I happen to be dating an identical twin. If she wanted to be older than her sister, I would tell her to work at the top of a building because she would actually be older than her sister working at the base of the building. Granted it would be by a billionth of a second, but she would actually be older than her sister.

 One more interesting point is the complexity of our universe. Our universe is irreducibly complex. Take inertia for instance. Inertia is based purely off the reference frame of the universe. If not for the other galaxies billions of light years away, no inertia would be experienced thus no movement would be possible. Think of it this way, if nothing existed in the universe, to say you were accelerating toward anything would be meaningless. You would experience no inertia at all. You would be falling into your own space-time depression and would not be able to move at all. The galaxies actually affect how we behave here on earth, and how physical laws behave as well. 

When we view the universe with a relativistic mind set we can see the true nature of creation. Mankind has such a high view of himself.  We only think in terms we understand. The earth rotates because we compare it to everything else around us. Picture this though, what if nothing else existed but the earth? It would be ridiculous to state that the earth rotated, because there would be no frame of reference to base such an observation on. We wouldn't notice any movement of the earth at all because relative to nothing, the earth does not move because nothing rotates at the same speed as the earth.

If the entire universe rotated at the same speed and in the same direction as the earth, we would not consider the earth to be rotating at all, but in fact see the entire universe as standing absolutely still. This puts creation in a totally different frame of reference for me. I see clearly how created we really are. We live in a universe that is relative to our understanding of it and our point of reference. In other words, our complete understanding of space and time is rolled up in what has been created around us. I began to see a universe that is not self-existing but was created, with each piece being put into place in order to make the others make sense. Even time was created and needs a cause. A supreme intellect built a universe in which things could make sense to creation.

How crazy is that thought! God is outside of our universe and understanding, yet he could not bring creation into that reality, this is the one thing I presume God cannot do, God cannot make another god. His creation is a 3 dimensional representation of his mind, and this creation is extremely limited in their ability to comprehend the non-3 dimensional. God, since he is outside of our space and time, can step into our reality at any point in space or in time. This brings a new meaning to what God claims in the Bible,

“And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”[1]

 Whenever I think of relativity I realize how created we really are. We still know very little about our universe and what happens inside of it. Mankind likes to think he knows how things happen and why, but in the future we will look back in the present and laugh at our puny understanding of the universe. We are not like God; we are so very small and our understanding so very limited. How on earth do we presume to assume there is no God?

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[1] Isaiah 65:24 KJV

Special Theory of Relativity

Chapter 5

Special Theory of Relativity

The Theory of Relativity is something I have been very fascinated with since taking physics. The idea that nothing is absolute is hard for one to understand.  Let’s lay the foundational understanding of relativity. For example, if you ask someone standing next to a highway if the cars are moving, they will say “of course” then you ask them how they know that the cars are moving, they will describe to you some fixed position they believe to be unmoving, such as the light pole next to the highway, or maybe the over pass as cars go underneath it. In other words, we describe motion based on our perception of motion. To the observer “standing still” it is obvious to say the cars are moving past, because it is relative to His or her fixed location. In reality it is just as accurate to say we are moving and the cars are standing still. Take another example; what if we were traveling on a train from Sacramento California to Stockton California, it would be just as accurate to say that Stockton was coming to us, as it would be to say that we were traveling to Stockton.

Think of another situation; what if we were traveling through space on a space ship at thousands of miles per hour. How would we be able to tell we were in fact moving if we had no external reference point for our motion? The fact is that there is no way to tell if the observer or the surroundings of the observer are moving. All motion in the universe is relative. The planet is spinning but only in relation to other things in the universe around it. Asteroids fly by the earth only from our point of view, to the asteroid it appears as if it is standing still and a giant, blue planet just flew by at thousands of miles an hour. In fact, our solar system is thought to be traveling around the universe at a speed close to half a million miles an hour, yet to us, it appears as though everything is standing still, we cannot tell that our solar system is in fact moving. Our earth orbits the sun at a speed of about 100,000 K/hr, yet to us we cannot sense this speed besides tracking the position of the sun. Our earth rotates at around 1,000 mph, yet we stand here on the surface oblivious to the fact that we are in fact traveling faster than sound. This is the base on which relativity rests that movement is relative.

 The only apparent universal standard by which we can compare our speed in the universe is the Universal speed limit of light, 299,800 km a second or 186,000 Miles a second. This brought up a problem however, because no matter what reference frame an observer is in, he or she will always measure the exact same number for the speed of light. No matter how fast you are traveling or in what direction, the speed of light is always measured as 299,800 km/s if in a vacuum, which space happens to be for practical purposes.

For instance, in classical mechanics, if you are driving in a car at 20 mph and you throw a ball forward at 10 mph the total speed of the ball will be 30 mph. The speed at which you threw the ball will add vectorely to the speed at which you are traveling. This is not the case, however, when you are dealing with light. Nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light, thus when you are traveling in a space ship, and you shoot a beam of light forward, you will measure the speed of light relative to you, as 2.998 x10⁵ km/s. An observer on planet X, will measure this beam of light you just shot forward as the exact same speed.

The speed of light never changes, it does not add to your current speed and is always measured as the exact same value. So what changes in order to make this true? The answer is that time changes. Einstein theorized that each unit of space time, had its own coordinate system. Space and time were bent in comparison to each other. In the reference frame of the person traveling in the space ship, they are traveling in a straight line, but to those outside of this reference frame, the space ship travels at an angle, relative to space time, thus it appears to those outside as if the beam of light is traveling a greater distance than it actually does.

Picture it this way, if you are traveling in a car and you throw up a ball, it comes straight back down to your hand, as it normally would. What does it look like to someone outside however? It appears to those outside that the ball travels in a parabolic fashion, traveling upwards in an arch and coming back down to your hands, because as the ball goes up, you are also moving forward. Thus in your coordinate system, moving forward at 60 mph, the ball goes up and comes straight back down, because you are moving at the same speed as the ball, but to those outside the car who are in their own coordinate system “standing still” it appears that the ball travels in an arch, moving forward at 60 mph.

When you approach the speed of light, the same thing happens with light and objects. If you are traveling very fast, and you shoot a beam of light straight up toward the ceiling, it would appear to you that it traveled a straight path, but to those outside the space ship, it would appear that the light actually traveled in an arch, that took longer to get to its destination than it actually did. Likewise, objects become contracted at extremely high speeds approaching the speed of light, so that a1 foot long ruler measured on a space ship traveling near the speed of light would be 1 foot. Yet, outside the ruler would be contracted by the amount of the Lorentz Transformation Principle. Where v is the speed at which the object is traveling and c is the speed of light.

Is Time Travel Possible?

This equation can be applied to mass, length, and even time. Relativity forever changed the way we view the universe. Space, time, and indeed all of reality, is relative to the observer. For instance, take the well-known twin paradox. My girl friend is an Identical twins, lets say that at one point in their lives say when they are 10 years old, one takes a trip to a world 10 light years away. Traveling at close to the speed of light, say 0.8 times (x) the speed of light (c), our twin on the space ship will see that it takes her a certain amount of time to get to her destination. Her clock will show that she is traveling at a normal speed and that she is years older than when she left. However, to the twin left on earth, it would appear that on the space ship, the twin was moving in slow motion. Viewed from outside, time would be traveling slower than in reality. By the time the twin got back to the earth, 20 years would have gone by for both twins, however, only one will have aged 20 years. Here is why, the twin on the space ship experienced time at a rate of 20yrs/2.24 less than actuality. She will be only 18.9 years old, while her sister will be 30.

How does this work though? If time is relative, shouldn’t it be the same for both twins? Because it is just as easy to say that the twin in the space ship stayed still and the earth receded away from her at a speed of 0.8c. The reason why the twin paradox works is because the twin in the space ship experienced inertia, while the twin in earth does not. So all though the time and speeds are relative to each other, one experiences inertia, while the other does not. This is because, relative to the universe, the twin on earth does not move, while the twin in the space ship does.

In this way, the twin actually traveled in time. Time has also been shown to be affected by the gravitational pull of large masses. For instance, atomic clocks on earth and atomic clocks on satellites orbiting earth do not run at the same speed. The clock on the satellite runs slightly faster than the one on earth, so that time in space is moving faster than time on earth. This has to be accounted for because the clock on the GPS satellite speeds up at a factor of 5 x 10^-10 seconds a day. This discrepancy could cause huge calculation errors for GPS devices on earth and would make it impossible to pinpoint exact locations. Scientists actually have to program the clock to run slower each day to account for the time dilation difference. Why is time effected by gravity? That is explained further in the general theory of relativity, which will be our next chapter.

The whole reason for explaining the Special Theory of Relativity to you is for this consideration. The theory explains that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, because as you approach the speed of light the energy needed to propel any mass grows to infinity since energy and momentum are directly related to the speed of light and thus follow the Lorentz equation, growing to infinity as the velocity of the mass approaches the speed of light. Traveling at the speed of light, time would equal zero, no time would pass inside the ship at all, and space would disappear, meaning the mass of the ship would contain zero volume. One book I read stated this, “There is no way to transmit any sort of message through space faster than the speed of light.”[1]

This brings me to an important question, how does God communicate with us? We pray expecting that God hears our prayers instantly, but if nothing travels faster than the speed of light, it would take eternity for our prayers to reach heaven. God cannot be simply a deistic super human living in a place called heaven. The physics does not work. There is no exception for prayer when it comes to the universal speed limit of light. The speed of thought is the speed of light, nothing can break that law. For some, this fact is damaging to faith, they will either reject God, or choose to believe in irrational answer, that prayer is somehow magical. As we study the sciences we must gain a deeper appreciation for how great God is. Rather than trying to stuff God into a box why not broaden our imaginations and believe in a God that is universal, infinite, and nonexistent.

The universe is the mind of God, we exist because God thought. That dawn of time at the big bang was the birth of our 3 dimensional world, God “thought” of a beautiful idea and reality sprang to life. Prayer may indeed connect us to the infinite, but to think of prayer as ascending to heaven is meaningless. God is not so small that He can be contained to a place. Look out across the vast reaches of our universe and you will begin to see a God so much bigger than we can understand.

What about Angels though? If you believe the Bible than you believe that Angels are real, and if they are real then they are just another creation like us. How do they go back and forth from our world to their own world that we like to call heaven? Even if angels could reach the speed of light time would only slow down for them. They would reach heaven in what seemed to be no time at all to them, but for us on earth it would take eternity. The only way that angels can travel back and forth through space, according to the theory of relativity, is if they actually went backwards in time. How this would actually works is well beyond my ability to comprehend, but if we believe that angels exists and that angels really do travel to and from heaven, than we must conclude that God breaks the universal speed limit of the universe.

I believe that God operates under his own laws. I do not believe God makes laws of physics and then goes and breaks them, (what would be the point of making the law in the first place then?) but remember when we talked about the Big Bang Theory? What created the universe was an infinite amount of energy, with an infinite amount of mass, all contained within zero volume. Does that sound like something we just discussed? To even reach the speed limit, you would need an infinite amount of energy to propel a mass that would contain zero volume. In other words, you would need God. If God is infinitely big, and in Him is contained infinite energy, this problem would be no problem at all.

So what would happen if we breached the speed of light? The theory is a mathematical absurdity. Our math has no way of calculating such a thing since it would mean the use of imaginary numbers. We could calculate something, but since the number we calculate is imaginary, there is no way of evaluating the number we calculate. However, in theory, if you traveled faster than the speed of light, time would began to flow backwards, so that you would reach your destination before you left. An angel wanting to reach earth would leave several days after the actual event and reach earth on the day he intended, in the past.

Think of another situation. Imagine we are in heaven. Have you ever wondered what it will be like to fly from galaxy to galaxy, visiting distant planets and exploring the far reaches of our universe, and maybe even beyond it? All these are wonderful thoughts, but have you ever considered how long it will take you? Many of those galaxies are billions of light years away, so how would you get there? Well, first off, if we really are going to live for all eternity, than relative to eternity, how long is a billion years? It is pointless to state it takes any time at all, but if we can travel at close to the speed of light relative to us, it takes very little time to get there. In fact, as the theory goes, if we actually reach the speed of light, time stops all together and we would get there at the same time we started. Only those we left behind would know any difference, and for them again we run into the same problem. Since we have eternity, the billions years we were gone means absolutely nothing. Think of it this way though, what if we can move faster than the speed of light? Then we arrive at the galaxy we wish to visit before we even leave.

The Bible says,

“…be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”[2]

Could it be that this is verse is true because Heaven is in another part of the universe and the apparent time runs differently because of the speed at which it moves? Could it be that time is nothing to God because He has, rather He is, what is needed to travel in time itself? I believe again, that God is greater than his creation, God lives outside of His creation, but the Bible seems to indicate that Jesus, the representation of God to His creation, is forever confined to his human body, thus Jesus, and the angels, who exist in a material universe, must travel in time to traverse the universe.     

            Angels could also beable to travers the 4^th dimension of time. If angels are 4^th dimensional creatures, then time to them would simply be another direction of travel, they could reach distant places without it taking anytime at all because it would be as simple as traveling in space time. There are many, many theories out there and we do not have time to deeply discuss them all but are you beginning to see a God who is much greater than our tiny understanding of reality? We can’t even understand time! We exist in a world that is ruled by perception, and based off our relative position in the universe. Time is relative to our position and speed, gravity, as we will learn in the next chapter, is relative to our position and time, and even what appears to be a straight line to us, is really just an elongated curve, bending back on itself in accordance with the laws of relativity. As we view all these things we realize how small and created we really are. We live in a mechanical universe that in my opinion was created by the mechanic of the mechanics. We can no longer hold God captive by confining him to our world, and our understanding of space and time. God is infinite, and his reality truly is beyond our ability to find out.

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[1] Gardner, Martin. “Relativity Simply Explained” Dover Publications, New York. 1997.

[2] 2 Peter 3:8