On the Edge of Reality

“Never let your schooling interfere with your education.” – Mark Twain

I remember reading a book by Robert Cormier in about 4^th grade called “I Am the Cheese.”  In the book, a boy lives inside an alternate reality created by his own mind.  Everybody from this reality is a part of his, but each takes on different roles in his mind, and what he lives in is essentially an imagined simulation of the true reality.  The more and more I’ve learned about the universe in which we live, the more intriguing this model has become to me.  Allow me to explain.

For starters, the concept of “infinity” is a mathematical concept that remains elusive in our exploration of the physical universe.  We can understand the concept of infinity, but we have not been able to find it in the universe.  The startling discovery of 20th century physics is that our universe is finite, not infinite as was commonly presumed in the past. It may be expanding, but it is not infinite. We appear to be journeying within the interval following that initial singularity, commonly called the “Big Bang,” and precluding an ultimate thermodynamic heat death in which no more work can be done.

Most astonishing is the absence of “infinity” in the microcosm—the world of smallness.  For example, let’s consider the simplest atom of all the hydrogen atom.  It is usually represented by the nucleus of a single proton, surrounded by a single electron.

This picture is not to scale, but illustrates the point anyway.  The hydrogen atom is approximately 10^-8 cm in diameter. Its nucleus is approximately 10 - 13 cm in diameter. The ratio of these diameters is 10^-8/10^-13, or 10⁵. The diameter of the atom, therefore, is about 100,000 times larger than that of its nucleus.

Translation from Geek to English: If you were making this model to scale, using a golf ball to represent the nucleus, the electron would have to be placed over three miles away!

But wait, my friend, there’s more.  For the area covered, that length needs to be squared: (10⁵)²; and if there’s volume involved, it must be cubed: (10⁵)³ or 10¹⁵!

This explains the notion that space is “mostly empty”: the perceived solidity of matter— the chair you’re sitting in, or the desk you’re leaning on for example — it simply results from the electrical collisions of the molecules involved. Our “reality” actually results from an electrical simulation!

Is your mind blown?  Not yet?  Well good, because there’s more still. We presume that we can always divide any length, no matter how small.  If we take a length of string (or whatever) and cut it in half, then we can take the remaining half and divide it again.  We assume that we could do that indefinitely—always dividing the remainder. Even when it becomes too small to actually divide it in practice, we presume that—conceptually at least—this could go on indefinitely. But that’s not actually true.  When it gets down to 10^-33 cm., and we attempt to divide it again, it loses a property that physicists call “locality.”  The minimum unit of length is the indivisible “Planck length.”  We now know that virtually everything—length, mass, energy, and even time itself —are all composed of indivisible units, called “quanta”; their study is known as “quantum physics.”  Therefore, we appear to be entrapped within a finite envelope which is simply an elaborate digital, simulated, virtual reality.  Furthermore, we also now discover that the ostensible constants of physics are, apparently, changing, which implies that our reality is but a mere “shadow” of a larger reality.

But the very interesting thing is - that’s what the Bible has been saying all along!

One of the most useful insights from modern physics comes from the insights of the famed Albert Einstein: that time itself is a physical property, and that it, too, is not uniform, nor absolute, nor linear; that time varies with mass, acceleration and gravity.  Incidentally, even time is composed of indivisible units: there is no time shorter than 10^-43 seconds—the minimum “Planck” unit of time.

The realization that time is a physical property also facilitates our dealing with the apparent paradox of predestination versus free will.  We do, indeed have “free will.”  However, God is not within the restrictions of our time domain, and He (alone) has the ability to “see the end from the beginning.”(Isaiah 46:10, 57:15).  He knows our choices in advance – before we choose.  This appears to be paradox, but only when viewed from within our time domain.  He is outside of those restrictions.  

It was Einstein’s realization that we don’t live only in our familiar three dimensions; we live in (at least) four: three spatial dimensions plus time. Incidentally, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, saying:

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,”(Ephesians 3:17-18)

I just find it interesting that Paul listed 4 dimensions.  Something that makes it even more interesting to me:

The ancient Hebrew scholar Nachmonides, writing in the 12^th century, concluded from his studies of the text of Genesis that the universe has ten dimensions: that 4 are knowable and 6 are beyond our knowing.  Particle physicists today have also concluded that we live in 10 dimensions: That 3 spatial dimensions and time are directly discernible and measurable. The remaining 6 are "curled" in less than the Planck length (10^-33 centimeters) and thus are only inferable by indirect means.

Some physicists believe that there may be as many as 26 dimensions.  10 and 26 emerge from the mathematics associated with superstring theory, a current candidate in the pursuit of a theory to totally integrate all known forces in the universe.

There is a provocative idea that these 10 (or more) dimensions were originally integrated, but suffered a fracture as a result of the events outlined in Genesis Chapter 3.  The resulting upheaval separated them into the "physical" and "spiritual" worlds.

There appears to be some Scriptural basis for an original close coupling between the spiritual and physical world.  The highly venerated Onkelos translation of Genesis 1:31 emphasizes that "...it was a unified order."  The suggestion is that the current physics, including the entropy laws, were a result of the fall.  The conclusions we draw about the world, it’s ecology, and the universe at large may have been very different in pre-fall.  It’s interesting to consider that everything know about the physical universe is only from observing the universe after the upheavals of Genesis 3.

I extend my gratitude to the authors of the following books and articles for whetting my appetite for information regarding this matter:

"Determination of Light Hadron Masses," Dürr, S. 2008. Ab Initio

“The Constancy of Constants,” Scientific American, June 2005.

“Quantum Physics: The Boundaries of Reality,” Personal Update, July 1998

Thank you for reading, my friend, and until next time – Don’t drink and drive, don’t text and drive, and God bless America, it’s a beautiful country.