Sunday, March 6, 2016

Gravity Waves and God

What may arguably be the greatest scientific discovery of the last 50 years is explained over at the American Thinker by Tom Sheahen in an article entitled The Discovery of Gravitational Waves. The discovery of gravitational waves places Einstein's theory of General Relativity on a par with Newton's Principia; as close to iron clad law as theories in physics get. Go read the article. I can not explain it better.

The discovery of gravitational waves was one of Einstein's predictions and shows that Einstein was on the right track with his theory. But, subsequent work has proven that objects that appear quite solid are in fact made up largely of empty space. A massive concrete wall seems solid enough, and if you crash your car into it, it will destroy your vehicle in spectacular ways. But the massive concrete wall is in fact mostly empty space. Which begs the question, why does matter have mass, and why does matter seem to attract other matter giving rise to the phenomenon known as gravity?

To answer the first question, the Higgs boson was proposed in 1964. The Higgs boson is a "particle" or a "field" or ..a field that appears as a particle.  The fact is that Heisenberg's theory applies, namely that you can't observe the object without changing it. In any case, the discovery of the Higgs boson, in 2013 is reported in Physics here. The theory behind it not only accounts for why matter has mass, but why mass attracts mass, making gravity possible, which in turn makes beings capable of understanding gravity possible. One can only wonder at the genius of the Creator, who could design a system so complex as to appear simple. What does all this say about the God who loves us so much?

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