Einstein Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

October 11, 2023October 10, 2023

Nobody Is an Expert in Everything

Everyone knows that Albert Einstein, the father of relativity, was a genius. Over the years, we have published several articles dealing with relativity and how it helps us understand modern cosmology and the nature of God. One unintended lesson we can learn from Einstein is that a genius in one area of human endeavor may still be below average in other areas. Nobody is an expert in everything.

Reader’s Digest had a wonderful story of an area of human endeavor in which Einstein failed miserably – sailing a sailboat. In 1939, Einstein rented a cottage in Cutchogue, Long Island, New York. A sailboat came with the house, and Einstein decided to go sailing, thinking that he could be oblivious to the world while sailing.

The problem was that Einstein knew nothing about sailing and couldn’t seem to learn how to do it. On top of that, Einstein had never learned to swim. He capsized the boat over 30 times, requiring local people to rescue him and the boat, towing them to safety. Once, Einstein got caught in a strong wind that took him to Connecticut, where he was stranded and again had to be rescued.

Interestingly, movie stars or professional athletes often comment about politics, education, or how to raise a family, and the media presents it as an expert opinion. A star quarterback in the NFL is probably a poor choice to give a lecture on global warming or vaccines. Being good in one area does not mean you are good in all areas because nobody is an expert in everything.

The same goes for religious leaders commenting on cosmology or paleontology. Sometimes, when I have discussed rock types or methods of measuring time and distance in outer space, a preacher will counter with a comment showing a lack of understanding of those topics. I have heard statements from church leaders indicating that granite was laid down by Noah’s flood or that the Web telescope is looking at galaxies created less than 10,000 years ago.

Knowledgable young people recognize when a church leader makes a disproven scientific statement, and it causes them to see the Church as a relic of the past with no help in their daily lives. Those factors are part of the reason young people leave Christianity. Nobody is an expert in everything, but sometimes, we are better off being silent rather than displaying our lack of understanding.

Reference: Reader’s Digest, September 2023, pages 60-61.

July 22, 2022July 21, 2022

Brain Power and Einstein’s Brain

One of the challenging questions we face is why some people seem to be smarter than others. We may think that intelligent people have brain power because their brains are somehow different from the rest of us. Most people would probably say that Einstein was more intelligent than they are, and perhaps because his brain was different from theirs.

When Einstein died in 1955, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy removed his brain. The University of Pennsylvania dissected Einstein’s brain and made slides and sections available to scientists so they could look for the secret to Einstein’s brain power. They found nothing in those studies showing anything unique about Einstein’s brain.

The whole question of intelligence is very complicated because there are different kinds of intelligence. Some people have musical intelligence, some can create poetry and literature, others use mathematics creatively, and still others can handle mechanical processes. My son Timothy was labeled “retarded” because a Stanford-Binet intelligence test showed his I.Q. was under 50. When he was given the Wechsler-Bellevue test, his I.Q. was measured to be 120, which is considered normal intelligence. That test is based on literary intelligence, while the Binet test measured mechanical association intelligence.

In teaching physics for 41 years, I had students who did poorly in English class but did marvelous work in my class. When I started teaching, people believed that physics was for boys because girls could not do physics. I battled the guidance department and even some parents as I encouraged girls to take physics, and some of them did very well. In my son’s case, my wife read to him constantly before he could walk or talk, and his love of books and literature continued throughout his life. My daughter excelled in science and became a science teacher, but she grew up under my influence and encouragement.

The point here is that intelligence is not a matter of brain power. Barring brain damage, we all have equal intelligence. The difference is shaped by how we are raised, what happens in our lives, who we are exposed to, and what we learn from those around us. God created all of us with the ability to think, understand, reason, and respond to Him. We may do it in different ways, and we can overcome our limitations, but God tells us that we are responsible for what we do with what we have. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) is within reach of all of us.

Reference: Parade Magazine for July 10, 2022, page 10.

August 24, 2020January 18, 2023

All That Is Or Ever Was Or Ever Will Be

“500 + amazing facts you need to know about galaxies, black holes, Einstein’s Relativity, the Big Bang, Dark Matter, and more!” Those are the words on the cover of Astronomy magazine’s special issue titled “Cosmos – Origin and Fate of the Universe.” The magazine has a great listing of discoveries made in the last decade, and it’s full of photographs, artwork, and a variety of charts. David Eicher, the magazine editor, opens the issue by quoting Carl Sagan’s famous line, “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” That is Sagan’s religious view, and Eicher plugs it by ending with, “We pack it all in here, and hope you will enjoy reading, and thinking about all that ever was, or ever will be.”

The magazine’s factual matter is impressive, but the philosophical and religious beliefs raise far more questions than they answer. The size of the cosmos has been a subject of intense study. Research shows that the number of galaxies in the cosmos is at least two-trillion –10 times greater than was previously thought. That amount of mass in the cosmos means that any explanation of how the creation happened is outside of current scientific understanding. It is becoming increasingly clear that only 4.9% of the universe is made of ordinary matter. The rest is mysterious dark matter (26.8%) and dark energy (68.3%).

The magazine presents the current scientific theory of the creation process with a “puffy giant dark star” made of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS). These WIMPS collided, annihilating each other and producing a halo of dark matter and black holes. This inadequate explanation makes it clear that the universe did not come into existence on its own. There was a beginning, and that beginning was caused. The cosmos is not self-existing. Those of us who believe in God would suggest that if these theories are correct, they are just God’s tools for creation. They may explain the methods He used, but it is clear that the cosmos we see is not all that is or ever was or ever will be.

This current scientific explanation of creation has implications for other scientific fields. For example, evolution depends on a religious belief called uniformitarianism, which says that no process has operated in the past that is not going on today. Much of what the magazine discusses is not going on today.

Two things are certain from this issue of Astronomy. We know little about the creation, and we deal poorly with what we do know. It’s evident that the cosmos is not all that is or ever was or ever will be. We suggest that a periodical like this one shouts again, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Psalms 19:1).

May 2, 2020April 30, 2020

Mass and Acceleration at Light Speed

Yesterday we looked at the two postulates of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. We saw how our view of time is changed by taking the two postulates and applying them to motion at or near the speed of light. Now let’s look at mass and acceleration at light speed.

Looking at the top equation, which we presented yesterday, you can see that at the speed of light, the equation’s denominator becomes 1 – 1, which is zero. Time stops. If the velocity could somehow exceed the velocity of light, the denominator would be the square root of a negative number, which is not possible.

Another one of Einstein’s equations is a description of length in the direction of motion. The second equation shows that an object’s length in motion (L’) is equal to its length at rest (L) times the quantity square root of 1 minus the velocity (v) squared divided by the speed of light (c) squared. Thus the faster you move, the thinner you are in the direction of motion. An object one meter long at rest would be .765 meters at half the speed of light. At the speed of light, it would disappear, because it would have no length. There would be energy, but no physical length. What travels at the speed of light? The answer, of course, is light itself. Light is two-dimensional. It has no thickness in the direction in which it is moving, precisely what Einstein’s postulates predict.

Mass is another quantity that is affected by Einstein’s postulates. The equation for mass is similar to the equation for time. The mass in motion (m) equals the mass at rest (m’) divided by the square root of 1 minus the velocity squared divided by the speed of light squared. As an object moves faster, its mass increases, but it can never reach light speed. What, then, can we know about mass and acceleration at light speed?

One of the fundamental laws of physics is Newton’s Second Law. It says that when we apply force to a mass, the force (F) depends on the amount of the mass (M) and how much we want it to accelerate (A). The equation is F=MA. At the speed of light, the mass of an object would be infinite, and the force required to accelerate it to that speed would also be infinite. Because of the magnitude of the force, the mass would collapse into a black hole long before reaching light speed. So, it is not possible to achieve mass and acceleration at light speed.

Scientists have verified these formulas experimentally. When you accelerate a sub-atomic particle to a high velocity in a particle accelerator, its mass increases. So what created the mass in the first place? Infinite force – one of the properties of God. Proverbs 8:22-31 finds “Wisdom” is the tool God used for everything He created. Einstein has given us an excellent way to get a small understanding of the creation we live in and the wisdom and power of the God who created it.

May 1, 2020April 30, 2020

Relativity and Light Speed

Relativity and light speed present a confusing concept in physics. My students always came into the physics class with prejudice based on what their family had told them. The relatives scared the students into thinking physics class was going to be hard. I always began the year by telling the students that physics was the easiest class they would ever take as long as they learn to speak algebra.

One year, a student enrolled in my physics class who had escaped Viet Nam and spoke virtually no English. The guidance counselor questioned how the student could handle my class with the language handicap. The young man smiled and said through his interpreter, “But I speak excellent algebra!” That was true, and he was my best student that year. Einstein’s theory of relativity is a physics unit that invokes fear in many minds, but it’s easy to understand if you know a little algebra.

The problem is not understanding relativity and light speed. The problem is believing it. Relativity begins with TWO BASIC POSTULATES:

THE FIRST is that the laws of physics are the same no matter where you are or what you are doing. If you are sitting in your chair reading this, all the laws of physics work very well. When you drop an object, it falls in accordance with the laws of motion. If you were in an airplane traveling near the speed of sound and you drop the same object, it would fall the same way as it did when you were sitting still.

THE SECOND postulate tells us that the speed of light is a universal constant. This one is easy to understand, but very hard to believe. Suppose I were in a rocket traveling toward you at half the speed of light. If I turn on my headlights, the light beam will travel at the speed of light. You are sitting still and measuring the speed of the light beam. What would your measurement be? You might be tempted to say, “The speed of the rocket, 0.5 times light speed, must be added to the speed of light. The answer would be 1.5 times light speed.” What Einstein’s postulate says is that you would measure it to be the speed of light–186,000 miles or 300,000,00 meters per second. That’s because the speed of light is a constant, independent of the motion of the light source or the observer.

Light speed is designed to be a universal constant according to Einstein relativity equations. You say, “How can that be?” According to Einstein, time is a created thing that depends upon the motion of the observer. As you go faster, time slows down. The algebraic equation is that the time you experience (t’) equals the time you would experience at rest (t), divided by the square root of 1 minus the velocity (v) squared divided by the speed of light (c) squared. Notice that the velocity cannot be higher than the speed of light. If it were, the denominator would be the square root of a negative number, which is not possible. If you don’t understand the equation, understand that time is not a fixed thing. It changes with velocity. The faster you go, the slower time passes. At light speed, time would stop.

Science fiction writers have suggested that this is a way to build a time machine. That won’t work, because time doesn’t reverse. Since the speed of light is always the same for all observers, time gets slower and slower but never stops. This is not wild speculation. Experiments at very high speeds in particle accelerators have verified what we have briefly sketched here.

Not only does this change our understanding of time, but it gives us a new understanding of space and mass. This knowledge helps us understand not only the creation but also the wisdom and design built into it. Everywhere we look, we see that a wonder-working hand has gone before us. Tomorrow we will look at the implications of relativity and light speed in Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019

Scientific Method Is a Friend of Faith

Scientific Method Is a Friend of Faith Our mission statement is: “Science and faith are friends and not enemies.” One of the challenges that we hear from atheists and skeptics is that statement is bogus because the scientific method can not be applied to it.

As a public school science teacher I always tried to make sure that students knew what scientific method is and could see how to apply it to the problems we face in the modern age. Sometimes that is incredibly difficult to do. Our textbooks usually gave six steps to use the scientific method:

1. Identify and define the problem.
2. Accumulate all possible data.
3. Formulate a tentative hypothesis that would solve the problem in step 1.
4. Conduct experiments to test the hypothesis – the more experiments, the better.
5. Interpret the results of the experiments without prejudice.
6. Repeat the steps until you find an acceptable solution.

In high school science classes, those six steps are usually easy to do, but sometimes later data alters what we thought was a solid fact proven by scientific method. Suppose we ask, “What causes gravity?” We could say “I think gravity is a property of mass.” All objects with mass have a gravitational attraction for all other d objects that have mass. Other people might say that it’s a property of electric charge, or maybe spin. You write down all the possibilities and conduct experiments to see which hypothesis can be experimentally verified.

To see if mass produces gravity, I fill two large bags with cement, and I hang them close to each other. If mass causes gravity, they should attract each other. That is an experiment I can do. I can also charge two balls electrically and see if they attract each other including the electric forces in the calculation. I can spin the two balls and see if they change their attraction for each other as they spin. The mass experiment works, and all the others don’t. I publicize my results and wait for additional experiments to support or deny what my experiments have shown.

The example I have just described is in most physics textbooks and has been done and repeated hundreds of times. But then a scientist did an experiment that didn’t support this conclusion. He found that when a beam of light passed by a huge object (the Sun), the light curved. This suggested that gravity was actually a product of space, not mass. The difference was that the size of the experiment produced different results when you used a star instead of a bag of cement.

As we have looked at the very large (quasars) and the very small (quarks), we have found that the scientific method is hard to do and sometimes impossible. String theory, brane theory, multiverse theory, and a variety of other proposals simply cannot be tested by an experiment. For the time being at least, we cannot test them by scientific method. They are not alternatives we can hold up as fact. They cannot even be considered as serious scientific explanations since they cannot be demonstrated or falsified by scientific method.

Trying to use the scientific method in areas like psychology, sociology, and matters of faith are also frequently difficult. What we generally do is to rely on statistics to evaluate a potential cure for a psychological difficulty. Does a treatment method work? Is a particular activity statistically helpful in relieving a mental or spiritual problem? As more and more data become available, we examine that data. We must reject some psychological theories (like Freud’s view of sex) and use the data to make a new proposal we can analyze.

Christ challenged his followers to examine the data. When the disciples of John came to Christ to ask if He was the promised Messiah, He responded: “Go and tell John what things you have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised …” (Luke 7:22). Jesus didn’t ask the disciples to take His word for it. He asked them to look at the evidence. The evidence supports the claims of Christianity. If we honestly examine the evidence, our investigation will lead to a better understanding of how our faith works.

The scientific method is not an enemy of Christianity. The whole basis of our ministry is to ask people not to blindly accept what anyone says. The title of our ministry is “Does God Exist?” and that is the question at hand. We offer data for our readers to evaluate. The tentative hypothesis is that God does exist and that intelligence and design will be seen everywhere we look in the creation. As you continue to look at new data, we hope that you will find the solution for the struggles in life. The scientific method is a friend of faith.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 6, 2019October 13, 2021

Does Intelligent Design Destroy Science?

Does Intelligent Design Destroy Science? Skeptics claim that Intelligent Design destroys science. This claim shows how badly the skeptics misunderstand intelligent design.

The dictionary defines science as knowledge. When we do scientific experiments and make observations, we are trying to gain knowledge. We apply that knowledge to those situations where we can gain more knowledge. We never just say “God did it” and stop investigating. We continue experimenting because we want to understand how and why God did it. Believing that there is design in all aspects of the creation never stops us from looking for a deeper understanding. Naturalism is frequently just the opposite. A classic example of this is Junk DNA.

As naturalists examined the DNA in various animals, they found that there was DNA that didn’t seem to be necessary. They called it “Junk DNA” assuming that it was a byproduct left over from the evolutionary process. For many researchers, that was the end of the story. No further experiments were designed to find a purpose for junk DNA. In this case, a naturalistic view and assumption stopped the scientific investigation, or at least slowed it down.

A biology professor chastised me for referring to junk DNA as a dead-end street. His exact words were “God doesn’t make any junk.” The assumption that junk DNA wasn’t junk led to further investigation. That research now tells us the so-called “junk” has a purpose and plays a vital role in life processes. Believing that everything we see was created with a purpose and a design, and wanting to understand that design is a great catalyst for scientific investigation.

Historically, most of the significant discoveries of science over the past 1000 years have been made by scientists who recognized purpose and design in the cosmos. They were striving to understand that design. In our quarterly journal (which you can read on doesgodexist.org), we have a column titled “Scientists and God.” We present statements by leading scientists about their faith and their recognition of purpose and design in the creation. Does Intelligent Design destroy science? No, it supports science.

We quoted Albert Einstein in our first quarter journal for 2019 when he said:

“We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written the books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human beings toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

Whether we study biology or quantum mechanics, Intelligent Design enhances science because the universe was intelligently designed.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

April 16, 2019April 15, 2019

Black Hole Picture and The Beginning

On April 11, 2019, scientists released the first actual image ever taken of a black hole. The black hole picture used wavelengths that are outside of what our eyes can detect. Astronomers used eight radio telescopes to see wavelengths that are beyond human vision. They photographed a black hole that is as large as our entire solar system, so it is a supermassive black hole.

This scientific accomplishment is significant because it allows scientists to test some of the predictions of Albert Einstein even down to the shape of the hole. A black hole is so massive that even light itself cannot escape the gravitational pull. The relationship of gravity and the shape of space is a concept proposed by Einstein that has radically improved our understanding of the nature of the universe.

There are important implications for apologetics in this discovery as well. A significant question that has been debated by atheists and believers for hundreds of years is whether the universe had a beginning or whether it has always existed. The biblical concept is that there was a beginning. Well-known atheists have claimed that matter/energy is eternal and just gets changed from one form to another forever. The nature of a black hole is that it sucks in everything that gets near it, including light. There is no escaping a black hole and attempts to propose a way around this fact such as wormholes and white holes have all been disproven.

If the universe has existed forever, and if black holes are continuously sucking in all matter including electromagnetic radiation, what would be the ultimate result? It seems pretty obvious that everything would have been sucked up by black holes and there would be nothing left but one supermassive black hole. That obviously isn’t the case, so there must have been a beginning to the creation.

If there was a beginning, there had to be a cause to that beginning. Ideas such as string theory and brane theory have attempted to get around this logical point without success. If there was a cause, there has to be a causer. The design, intelligence, and purpose that we see in the cosmos identify some of the properties of that causer, and God fits those criteria uniquely.

The black hole picture is another case where the advancement of science provides evidence for the factual nature of, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth. “

March 24, 2019March 21, 2019

Reality of Space Travel

Although space-travel movies are exciting and fun, they are not very realistic. Einstein’s theory of special relativity says that it’s impossible to travel at the speed of light. There is overwhelming proof that he was right. That fact has an impact on the reality of space travel.

Astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross wrote an excellent book entitled Why the Universe is the Way It Is. In this book, he states that due to the laws of physics the top speed of a spaceship would be limited to about one percent of the speed of light, or 6.7 million miles (10.8 million km) per hour. Based on that, he says that for aliens to travel from any other planetary system where intelligent beings could possibly exist would take at least 25,000 years! (Remember that it will take nine months just to travel to Mars, our neighboring planet.)

So when you watch a two-hour movie in which people travel from one planetary system to another at hyper-light-speed, remember that it’s only Hollywood. The reality of space travel is not what we see in the movies. We live in a universe designed by a Creator who gave us a special place with everything we need to live. Is there any kind of life, not just intelligent life, anywhere else in this vast universe? We don’t know, but the chances of meeting intelligent beings from another planet are very, very slim. That’s the reality of space travel.

By the way, my picture is poking a little fun at a statement made by the well-known atheist biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. He begins chapter 1 by stating, “Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilization, is: ‘Have they discovered evolution yet?’”

So does discovering evolution indicate advanced civilization and the level of our intelligence? More importantly, does evolution explain the reason for our existence? Personally, I think the reason for our existence is not found in evolution, but begins in Genesis chapter 1 and is developed in the rest of the Bible.

March 21, 2019March 18, 2019

Operating on Faith

Philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) told the story of a king who refused to eat until he knew with certainty that his food had not been poisoned. The more he thought about how little he knew with certainty about his chef and his attendants, the more concerned he became. He finally starved to death. This story makes the point that everyone is operating on faith.

Atheists ridicule Christians for operating on faith not realizing that they depend on faith, and so does science. A classic example was a Greek scholar named Eratosthenes of Cyrene born in 276 BC. Eratosthenes noticed that on a specific day of the year, the Sun was positioned so that it illuminated the bottom of a well where he lived. From that fact, he had faith that the Earth was spherical.

On the day that the Sun shone to the bottom of the well in Syene (modern Aswan, Egypt), Eratosthenes placed a vertical rod in the ground at Alexandria and measured the angle of its shadow. Using the difference in angle of the Sun’s rays and the distance between the two locations, he calculated the circumference and diameter of the Earth with high accuracy. He even established the concept of latitude and longitude from his measurements. Scholars of Eratosthenes’ day ridiculed his idea because everyday experience suggested the Earth was flat and endless. They indicated that he was mistaken or his measurements were wrong. Their criticism did not sway the strong faith of Eratosthenes in what he believed.

A modern-day Eratosthenes would be Albert Einstein. His radical ideas were still not accepted by many in the scientific community some 40 years after he originally proposed them. The critics were silenced only when Einstein’s ideas could finally be tested and proven correct.

For many scientific discoveries in the past, that pattern has been repeated. A scientist operating on faith expressed a hypothesis based on his or her observations. The hypothesis could not be tested when the concept was proposed, but from that faith, something important was eventually discovered.

The definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 fits this scientific concept of how discoveries are made: “Faith forms the solid ground of things hoped for, perceiving as real what is not revealed to the senses.” (Amplified Bible).