That figure you quoted for the speed of light is in meters per second, not miles. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, if you want to quote it in miles. I think one needs to be very careful about such details when invoking science in a humanities argument.
I was an astrophysics major before I jumped ship to computer science (there's a story here, but I'll skip it for now). I had no issues with special relativity, which is what you're talking about here, and even in high school I could derive this from Newton's equation of motion using the same method Einstein did. (This isn't a brag... anyone with decent algebra can do this, it only took a genius to see why to do it in the first place! 😂).
But my physics professors broke me when they started about light not travelling at c. This is because light solely travels at c in a vacuum. In a medium, it's a different matter... and according to those professors, light could travel faster than c under certain circumstances to do with the relevant medium. I was unable to get them to adequately explain this to me, and none of the other students even cared. Indeed, a large part of my leaving physics was the physics students total lack of interest in asking questions and the staff's corresponding lack of interest in answering questions. To say that I didn't feel like I was on a science degree is an understatement.
This was at one of the major physics laboratories in the UK, incidentally.
Anyway, while I'm wary of taking the immensely metaphorical genius of Genesis literally, there is (as you say here) good reasons to start by making photons and causality before making astronomical bodies. As a matter of fact, anyone who cleaves to the Big Bang (by no means the only origin story on offer in astrophysics!) more-or-less requires photons first.
Wonderful article ! Perhaps if you’re interested in a totally different approach there are two books to read. 1) The Holographic Universe by Talbot and 2) A Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness by Bentov
Anything determined by random probability. It's why the term “stochastic terrorisn” (like filling the Internet with junk saying Zionists are evil and violence against us justified) means encouraging acts of terror against a general population to a general audience, without being culpable when someone acts on it, because the perpetrator, the specific act of violence, and the exact victim were all unknowable at the time of the speech act.
Religion and science are not enemies of any kind, for they are not answers to the same questions. As for the speed of light C being a cosmic constant, I have always wondered why that would be so. For someone to say "it just is" is not a satisfying answer for me whatsoever.
Does anyone beside me find it understandable that clocks slow down and steel bars get shorter as they approach the speed of light? If those outcomes make sense to you (anyone), please explain how using language in its usual way.
Does anyone besides me wonder at how the speed of light can be reckoned at all, aside from its velocity relative to some other thing's velocity? Is there some reference point that has no velocity? The notion that space and time change (warp), BECAUSE the speed of light must be constant has always struck me as an astonishing statement. If the statement is true (which I realize every physicist on earth says is the case), then it is unfathomable for me (no doubt because my general cognitive ability is way too low to fathom such).
As for there being light before there was a sun, well ..., what was the source of the light? And by the way, so far as I know, Genesis is not about the creation of earth, so why all this talk about the sun? The source of light could not have been God, since God was doing the creating, and if it were God, then there was already light before God created it. So far as I know, light must have a source. Please, someone correct me and explain, if I am wrong about that.
To your question "...how the speed of light can be reckoned at all..." I Googled "What is the experimental proof of the speed of light?" A lot of answers came up. The ones I can remember after a quick 30 second skim read involved gravitational lensing in astronomy and studies of eclipses of the moons of Jupiter.
From past studies, I'm also aware of laboratory studies of red dots of light shone through very small pinholes behaving in strange ways predicted by quantum physics. Then there's the whole rabbit hole of things discovered and things experimentally proved by atomic colliders.
That same cursory Google search has Microsoft Copilot (their version of Chat GPT) admitting that some things in Einstein's relativity theories are predicted but not yet verified empirically, although many elements such as the speed of light itself and some other elements of relativity have consistently been verified in experiments.
The scientific method is not about confirming evidence, as I am confident you know. It's about tests that have the power to falsify the theory.
One question I have that I have never seen an answer to is this: how does light propagate in the first place. I know that light is said to be simply a particular frequency range of the electro-magnetic spectrum. But the old question of what is it that's waving in the first place (use to be called the ether), has not been answered in a convincing way, so far as I have ever seen.
It is probably be true that Relativity may not be “true”. What is true is that if it’s not true, it’s because we haven’t been able to observe adequately what happens when it is “stressed” like in Black Holes. Just like Newton’s F=ma is true…until it’s not (like when it doesn’t adequately explain Mercury’s orbit around the Sun, but Einstein’s General Relativity does), Einstein’s theories will hold until we develop some sort of new technology that allows us to directly observe and measure where it breaks down and how it breaks down. Both F=ma and E=mc2 have provided us great powers even if perhaps they aren’t the whole story.
You mention Quantum physics— which as you know is considered to be I incompatible with classical physics (of which Relativity is a part). It too, is very counterintuitive to us humans. So counterintuitive that many physicists don’t try to understand why it is, just that it is and they just compute.
I am not a physicist, just a physician. But it seems to me that one of the main issues I had in trying to understand these physics is this— there is no “nothing” in the universe— there is always a potential for energy or mass, and when we think there is “nothing” it’s really an average of something and its opposite.
I think you might be interested in reading a book titled The One, by Heinrich Pas. I found it fascinating. You are not "just" a physician. You, too, are a scientist, if you are in search of true, positive statements. Your methodology may not be the scientific method, but then, neither was Einstein's 😊
“I have always wondered why that would be so. For someone to say "it just is" is not a satisfying answer for me whatsoever.”
The way I think about special relativity is this— no matter which way you try to measure the speed of light it is always the same. Every. Single. Time.
If the speed of light is constant, then there are several things that would be true and which you can test. And every single experiment that has been done has proven this to be true: every observer in any given reference frame measures the speed to be the same.
The speed of light must be constant— because we haven’t measured it to be any other way.
General relativity is the extension of this: Time and space are the same.
General relativity is gravity’s effect on spacetime.
I think that science doesn’t really answer WHY things happen. Science describes HOW things happen. We human beings, as moral agents, want to know WHY things happen as an extension of some underlying moral principle or system. I would say that is not science— science isn’t about moral understanding but about describing in the most simple terms HOW things behave.
Special and General Relativity are both simple elegant concepts that describe how things happen and can predict physical phenomena. (The modern GPS system is living proof: the technology needed for the satellites orbiting the Earth requires both General— because they are farther from the center of mass of the Earth— and Special — because they are traveling faster than us through space— Relativity to help us)
Both relativity are deeply counterintuitive to us humans because we are profoundly enmeshed in gravity and we don’t travel relative to each other anywhere near the speed of light.
Your observations are spot on, of course. 😊 And yes, it's definitely true that Einstein's theories are close enough representations of reality to allow us to accomplish great technological marvels.
But as I think you already know (based on your super interesting and intelligent comment), Einstein's theories of general and special relativity may not be "true." Even stranger, unintuitive claims in quantum physics come to mind. So far as I can tell (which isn't very far, mind you), so-called standard model notions about time and space may be yesterday's news before long.
No, it is not the job of science to tell us "why," about what is the case, but the job of science goes beyond telling us "what" is the case to "how" it is the case. So, how does it happen that C is a constant? Are we certain that it is? Can we be certain?
I mean, yes, none of that space warp stuff makes sense to me. Nor does "curved space." And I don't see how you can measure light speed. But it also doesn't make sense to me that I can have a conversation with ChatGPT or that somehow the whole Internet is just ones and zeros or how TV and radio work. . . . I'm just an English major promoted to professor somehow.
I just assume the physics guys know what they're talking about, though if they don't, I guess that's no big surprise. People used to be pretty confident about the four humors. And a lot of physics, as I understand it, which is not much, is, actually just theoretical, especially when you get to quantum. Years ago, I read a book called "The End of Physics," which basically argued that string theory etc, was just a lot of unverifiable speculation.
As for God creating light without a source of light, I guess it could mean that He designed it--or something like that. It's all metaphor, ultimately.
I am fascinated by cosmology and physics, even though I am a financial economist, hence a social scientist. I confess that I have yet to read in 50 years an account of special and general relativity that did anything but make fantastic claims.
As for the math of the theories, well the math doesn't explain why C would be a constant. That's a hypothesis of the theory, so far as I know. I press on in the face of my ignorance.
I understand the reluctance to full accept relativity. The problem is this- its postulates that come out of the theory predicts alot of things. Like alot.
And while it is certainly true that there is probably more to it, it is very useful to accept it. You can’t unbelieve yourself out of an atomic explosion.
I'm not sure if you know this, but your question is virtually the one Einstein asked that set him on the road to relativity (minus Barry Allen). He was sitting on a tram and idly wondered, "What would a beam of light look like if I was travelling alongside it?"
This, by the way, is part of my defence of sitting around, doing nothing except letting my mind wander (or wonder), against (on the one hand) the phone that wants me to scroll it and (on the other) people who think my every spare moment should be spent learning Torah.
Hi, Thomas.
That figure you quoted for the speed of light is in meters per second, not miles. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, if you want to quote it in miles. I think one needs to be very careful about such details when invoking science in a humanities argument.
Damn those metric users! Fixed. Thanks!
When you invoke faith, belief without proof, as of value … your ideology is as far from science as possible.
Hi Thomas,
I was an astrophysics major before I jumped ship to computer science (there's a story here, but I'll skip it for now). I had no issues with special relativity, which is what you're talking about here, and even in high school I could derive this from Newton's equation of motion using the same method Einstein did. (This isn't a brag... anyone with decent algebra can do this, it only took a genius to see why to do it in the first place! 😂).
But my physics professors broke me when they started about light not travelling at c. This is because light solely travels at c in a vacuum. In a medium, it's a different matter... and according to those professors, light could travel faster than c under certain circumstances to do with the relevant medium. I was unable to get them to adequately explain this to me, and none of the other students even cared. Indeed, a large part of my leaving physics was the physics students total lack of interest in asking questions and the staff's corresponding lack of interest in answering questions. To say that I didn't feel like I was on a science degree is an understatement.
This was at one of the major physics laboratories in the UK, incidentally.
Anyway, while I'm wary of taking the immensely metaphorical genius of Genesis literally, there is (as you say here) good reasons to start by making photons and causality before making astronomical bodies. As a matter of fact, anyone who cleaves to the Big Bang (by no means the only origin story on offer in astrophysics!) more-or-less requires photons first.
Stay wonderful!
Chris.
Wonderful article ! Perhaps if you’re interested in a totally different approach there are two books to read. 1) The Holographic Universe by Talbot and 2) A Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness by Bentov
Both extraordinarily mind bending. Shabbat Shalom
Stochastic parrots aren't necessarily useless.
In truth, I don’t even know what “stochastic” means.
Anything determined by random probability. It's why the term “stochastic terrorisn” (like filling the Internet with junk saying Zionists are evil and violence against us justified) means encouraging acts of terror against a general population to a general audience, without being culpable when someone acts on it, because the perpetrator, the specific act of violence, and the exact victim were all unknowable at the time of the speech act.
Religion and science are not enemies of any kind, for they are not answers to the same questions. As for the speed of light C being a cosmic constant, I have always wondered why that would be so. For someone to say "it just is" is not a satisfying answer for me whatsoever.
Does anyone beside me find it understandable that clocks slow down and steel bars get shorter as they approach the speed of light? If those outcomes make sense to you (anyone), please explain how using language in its usual way.
Does anyone besides me wonder at how the speed of light can be reckoned at all, aside from its velocity relative to some other thing's velocity? Is there some reference point that has no velocity? The notion that space and time change (warp), BECAUSE the speed of light must be constant has always struck me as an astonishing statement. If the statement is true (which I realize every physicist on earth says is the case), then it is unfathomable for me (no doubt because my general cognitive ability is way too low to fathom such).
As for there being light before there was a sun, well ..., what was the source of the light? And by the way, so far as I know, Genesis is not about the creation of earth, so why all this talk about the sun? The source of light could not have been God, since God was doing the creating, and if it were God, then there was already light before God created it. So far as I know, light must have a source. Please, someone correct me and explain, if I am wrong about that.
To your question "...how the speed of light can be reckoned at all..." I Googled "What is the experimental proof of the speed of light?" A lot of answers came up. The ones I can remember after a quick 30 second skim read involved gravitational lensing in astronomy and studies of eclipses of the moons of Jupiter.
From past studies, I'm also aware of laboratory studies of red dots of light shone through very small pinholes behaving in strange ways predicted by quantum physics. Then there's the whole rabbit hole of things discovered and things experimentally proved by atomic colliders.
That same cursory Google search has Microsoft Copilot (their version of Chat GPT) admitting that some things in Einstein's relativity theories are predicted but not yet verified empirically, although many elements such as the speed of light itself and some other elements of relativity have consistently been verified in experiments.
The scientific method is not about confirming evidence, as I am confident you know. It's about tests that have the power to falsify the theory.
One question I have that I have never seen an answer to is this: how does light propagate in the first place. I know that light is said to be simply a particular frequency range of the electro-magnetic spectrum. But the old question of what is it that's waving in the first place (use to be called the ether), has not been answered in a convincing way, so far as I have ever seen.
It is probably be true that Relativity may not be “true”. What is true is that if it’s not true, it’s because we haven’t been able to observe adequately what happens when it is “stressed” like in Black Holes. Just like Newton’s F=ma is true…until it’s not (like when it doesn’t adequately explain Mercury’s orbit around the Sun, but Einstein’s General Relativity does), Einstein’s theories will hold until we develop some sort of new technology that allows us to directly observe and measure where it breaks down and how it breaks down. Both F=ma and E=mc2 have provided us great powers even if perhaps they aren’t the whole story.
You mention Quantum physics— which as you know is considered to be I incompatible with classical physics (of which Relativity is a part). It too, is very counterintuitive to us humans. So counterintuitive that many physicists don’t try to understand why it is, just that it is and they just compute.
I am not a physicist, just a physician. But it seems to me that one of the main issues I had in trying to understand these physics is this— there is no “nothing” in the universe— there is always a potential for energy or mass, and when we think there is “nothing” it’s really an average of something and its opposite.
I think you might be interested in reading a book titled The One, by Heinrich Pas. I found it fascinating. You are not "just" a physician. You, too, are a scientist, if you are in search of true, positive statements. Your methodology may not be the scientific method, but then, neither was Einstein's 😊
“I have always wondered why that would be so. For someone to say "it just is" is not a satisfying answer for me whatsoever.”
The way I think about special relativity is this— no matter which way you try to measure the speed of light it is always the same. Every. Single. Time.
If the speed of light is constant, then there are several things that would be true and which you can test. And every single experiment that has been done has proven this to be true: every observer in any given reference frame measures the speed to be the same.
The speed of light must be constant— because we haven’t measured it to be any other way.
General relativity is the extension of this: Time and space are the same.
General relativity is gravity’s effect on spacetime.
I think that science doesn’t really answer WHY things happen. Science describes HOW things happen. We human beings, as moral agents, want to know WHY things happen as an extension of some underlying moral principle or system. I would say that is not science— science isn’t about moral understanding but about describing in the most simple terms HOW things behave.
Special and General Relativity are both simple elegant concepts that describe how things happen and can predict physical phenomena. (The modern GPS system is living proof: the technology needed for the satellites orbiting the Earth requires both General— because they are farther from the center of mass of the Earth— and Special — because they are traveling faster than us through space— Relativity to help us)
Both relativity are deeply counterintuitive to us humans because we are profoundly enmeshed in gravity and we don’t travel relative to each other anywhere near the speed of light.
Your observations are spot on, of course. 😊 And yes, it's definitely true that Einstein's theories are close enough representations of reality to allow us to accomplish great technological marvels.
But as I think you already know (based on your super interesting and intelligent comment), Einstein's theories of general and special relativity may not be "true." Even stranger, unintuitive claims in quantum physics come to mind. So far as I can tell (which isn't very far, mind you), so-called standard model notions about time and space may be yesterday's news before long.
No, it is not the job of science to tell us "why," about what is the case, but the job of science goes beyond telling us "what" is the case to "how" it is the case. So, how does it happen that C is a constant? Are we certain that it is? Can we be certain?
I mean, yes, none of that space warp stuff makes sense to me. Nor does "curved space." And I don't see how you can measure light speed. But it also doesn't make sense to me that I can have a conversation with ChatGPT or that somehow the whole Internet is just ones and zeros or how TV and radio work. . . . I'm just an English major promoted to professor somehow.
I just assume the physics guys know what they're talking about, though if they don't, I guess that's no big surprise. People used to be pretty confident about the four humors. And a lot of physics, as I understand it, which is not much, is, actually just theoretical, especially when you get to quantum. Years ago, I read a book called "The End of Physics," which basically argued that string theory etc, was just a lot of unverifiable speculation.
As for God creating light without a source of light, I guess it could mean that He designed it--or something like that. It's all metaphor, ultimately.
I am fascinated by cosmology and physics, even though I am a financial economist, hence a social scientist. I confess that I have yet to read in 50 years an account of special and general relativity that did anything but make fantastic claims.
As for the math of the theories, well the math doesn't explain why C would be a constant. That's a hypothesis of the theory, so far as I know. I press on in the face of my ignorance.
I understand the reluctance to full accept relativity. The problem is this- its postulates that come out of the theory predicts alot of things. Like alot.
And while it is certainly true that there is probably more to it, it is very useful to accept it. You can’t unbelieve yourself out of an atomic explosion.
"That’s not just a limitation — it’s a law of physics."
Barf. Unsubscribe!
(Jk - this is how gpt should be used)
I'm not sure if you know this, but your question is virtually the one Einstein asked that set him on the road to relativity (minus Barry Allen). He was sitting on a tram and idly wondered, "What would a beam of light look like if I was travelling alongside it?"
This, by the way, is part of my defence of sitting around, doing nothing except letting my mind wander (or wonder), against (on the one hand) the phone that wants me to scroll it and (on the other) people who think my every spare moment should be spent learning Torah.