God Outside of Space-Time: Thoughts on how Einstein's theory of Special Relativity informs us about how God works

There are very few Christians who question the majority belief that God is not constrained by the same physical limitations as humans and earthly creatures are. We believe that God has the ability to be anywhere he wants, at any time he wants, and is even able to be multiple places at once. In fact, most of us believe that, in one way or another, God is really everywhere all the time. I have opinions about how the belief came about, but that is a topic for another conversation. The topic of conversation for today centers around our beliefs about how God works in relation to time.

Time is a tricky concept, at least in part, because it is something that is very difficult to define. Time seems to be simultaneously a human construct that we impose on the world in order to understand it and a real natural phenomenon we have absolutely no control over. In the same way, our discussions about how God relates to time end up being quite complicated and usually only end up making sense to the person making the argument.  For this reason, I would like to start by proposing a working definition for time before moving on to discuss how I believe God works with regard to time.

We begin our discussion with a geometry lesson: We know that in a triangle, the sum of the squares of the lengths two sides of the triangle add up to the square root of the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle. The equation that relates to this looks like this:

Many people encountered this in their middle school geometry class, found out that it is called the Pythagorean Theorem and subsequently forgot about it. Another way to think about this, is if you went a certain distance, x, in the horizontal direction and a certain distance, y, in the vertical direction, your distance from where you started (which we will call displacement from now on), in two dimensions, would be H. Your displacement in this situation is related to how far you moved in the x direction and how far you moved in the y direction. What most people don't know is that interesting similarities to this can be seen in other formulas relating to the quantifying "distances."

One similar formula can be seen in the calculation of what we might call the "hypotenuse" of a 3-dimensional triangle (really a type of prism, but that's not  important). In the example of the 3-D triangle, we can look at something like what is shown in the picture at the right which has a side in the x-direction (to the right), one in the y-direction (up), and one in the z-direction(out of the screen). If a person traveled along the x side, the y side and then the z side, the total displacement would be the side labeled I. The calculation of the length of this side comes from the formula seen here:

The similarity between this calculation and that of the hypotenuse of a 2-D triangle is clear. This may not seems stunning to many people, but it will be more interesting momentarily. The fact that, when another dimension is added into the mix, the formula simply expands to accommodate it will shed real light on the concept of time.

The next similar formula requires a little bit more upfront explanation to ensure that everyone understands (at least to some extent) where it is coming from. I'll start out by simply mentioning the theory of Special Relativity which Albert Einstein developed and which as changed very little since. Many people have probably heard of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, but most probably do not actually know what is all about. Basically, Einstein wanted to understand light better because light has a number of very odd properties. One of the more interesting things about light is that, no matter what substance it travels through, it always travels the same speed. That's really weird!

Anyway, part of what he ended up doing was looking at the behavior of other types of matter when they moved at high rates of speed. What he discovered is that the faster something moves, the slower time goes by. This is a really odd concept, but it has been documented extensively by now. Scientists have calibrated two atomic clocks, kept one on the ground and took the other into a fast jet that flew around for a while and when it landed, the clock from the jet was behind the clock that stayed on the ground (There are also many more complicated predictions and findings, but we need not concern ourselves with them given our current purposes). What this told Einstein is that time is not really a fixed construct like we normally think of it as. It can, in fact, be changed to some extent.

One of the results of Einstein's work on the theory of Special Relativity was his development of the concept of space-time. Space-time is a concept used in many science fiction movies and whatnot, but it is never really explained. Basically, it is exactly what it sounds like - a combination of space and time. It is really a mathematical model that looks at the combination of space and time which is based on Einstein's ideas that space and time are actually related due to the theory of Special Relativity. Just like we have calculations to figure out the displacement of a person who moves in 2-dimensional space or in 3-dimensional space, we also have a calculation for the displacement of a person moving in space-time:

In this formula, everything is the same as in the 3-D one except that now we add in a quantity of time. What is being looked at is how far someone moves in each of the three dimensions along with how much time it takes and what we get is the quantity represented by J which is the displacement in space-time. It is largely because of this formula, that time is sometimes referred to as "the fourth dimension."

What we can learn from this last formula and its similarities to the other formulae is that time is really just a dimension like the three dimensions (length, width, height) we normally talk about. Time truly is just the fourth dimension of the universe we live in. So the question that interests me from all this is in relation to how we should think about God's relationship to time.

What it says to me about how God works in relation to time is that he is not constrained by time in any way at all. As discussed at the beginning, many Christians do not have a problem believing that God does not have to operate within our limitations regarding space. He can be (and I would argue he probably is) simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. I certainly do not believe this previous statement literally as it is because, in reality, I believe that God simply does not need to "play by the rules" when it comes to spatial constrictions. As parts of his creation, we cannot operate outside of the concept of space as defined by the physical laws God created and which are interpreted and defined by us in terms of mathematical models. I do not believe, however, that God needs to operate within the physical law he set out to be the foundation of his creation. It is from this belief accompanied by the limited understanding of what time really is that I draw the conclusion that God does not operate within time at all, but time is merely another part of his set of laws for this physical world he created.

I am not simply saying that I believe God is able to move through time as he pleases, any more than I would say that he can move through space as he pleases. Sure, those things are probably true, but it goes so far beyond that. God does not even need to exist within space even though I believe he probably chooses to at times. In the same way, God does not even need to exist within time regardless of whether he chooses to.

Just as width is a feature of space, so time is a feature of space-time. And just as I believe God is not constrained to operate within any width-related boundaries, so I believe he is not constrained to operate within any time-related boundaries. God created everything that exists including the laws that govern the universe (like space-time). Though he may choose to exist within his creation, and even within the physical laws that he created to keep order his creation, he certainly is not bound to be governed by any aspect of his creation.

Butterscotch-Pecan Pancakes

When I was a kid, I always enjoyed when my mother would spoil me with chocolate-chip pancakes because they were still pancakes, but had that little bit of internal sweetness which eliminated the need for syrup. This simple modification of the breakfast classic holds similar appeal for me.

I visited my brother recently and he introduced me to this concoction which I have now completely fallen in love with. It apparently all originated with a friend of his who is a good cook and enjoys coming up with new dishes. There is very little to actually say about this breakfast marvel, but I wanted to share it anyway just because I like it so much.

The idea is simple and the title has already told you almost everything there is to tell. Putting things into pancakes is not even close to a new idea, but I had never heard of this particular set of additives before. The pancake batter is made however you normally make it and before dropping dollops of it onto a hot skillet, butterscotch chips (like the kind you put in cookies - same as chocolate chips only they’re butterscotch flavored) and some crushed pecans. The butterscotch chips add the sweetness that I loved in the chocolate-chip pancakes of my youth and the pecans add a satisfying crunch as well as a feeling of sophistication that surpasses even the classy, fruit-infused flap-jacks served at country clubs.

Overall, if you enjoy bread-derived breakfast foods, have a somewhat youthful sweet-tooth, and appreciate a rather contrived feeling of refinement, then grab a cup of coffee or your favorite fruit juice (or maybe chocolate milk?) and enjoy.

Modern Day Gospel

If Jesus had come to earth for the first time today, how would the rest of the world find out about it? Would it be the same as when he did come over 2000 years ago? I'm thinking not. When he came to live with humans the first time, people told each other in person (which would probably still happen) and some (very well educated people) wrote each other letters which were then sent by messenger (on foot or maybe horse) to the recipient. We know that some letters were written and some people wrote things about Jesus down just to keep a record of it, but in reality, this was not very useful to most of the world because most people couldn't read or write. Beyond the fact that this method of transmission for the gospel would be much more effective these days because people can read, I think the method of transmission would also be completely different. I can't really imagine many people meeting Jesus tomorrow and writing a letter or a book about it (at least not until they realized they might be able to make money off a book). So how would it actually happen today?

If you met Jesus today, wouldn't you text your friends and post on Facebook and Twitter about this Jesus dude you met today how interesting he was? You might want to let all your friends know about the cool guy you met today and how he is trying to change the world, but you would definitely not do it by writing a book. I mean really, if you had just watched him knock over the tables and shelves in the gift shop of your local mall-church, wouldn't you record it on your phone and post it to YouTube?

There would be bad grammar and incorrect science (because most people don't understand correct science) all over in it, but would that make the message less true? If you mentioned that the force of Jesus pushing on the table was greater than the force of the table pushing on him (incorrect) , would that mean that your message about who Jesus is and what he is trying to do can't be trusted? Sure the medium of communication matters and must be taken into account when reading and interpreting the information, but does it affect the truth of the message?

Model for Memory

Memory is like an infinitely large warehouse full of filing cabinets with a table in the corner that has a tray for papers and a workspace. The warehouse is your entire long-term memory. Things are put into different folders in different drawers of different filing cabinets throughout the warehouse. They may be placed so that they are in a logical location neatly ordered so that they can be found with ease when looking for them. Some things, however, are roughly shoved between two folders in an already messy drawer of one of 137 filing cabinets labeled “misc.” The information is in that warehouse, but good luck ever finding it back.

The table represents the combination of short-term and working memory. It has a finite, limited place that multiple things can be placed and held onto after being pulled from the filing cabinets or before being placed in them (or before being shredded). This area corresponds to the short-term memory of a person where things are held onto until they are either moved to long-term memory or forgotten. It also has a space so that a limited number of those things can be placed out and manipulated on a workspace. This space relates to the active/working memory of a person.

Social Inequalities

Racial inequality is not only a product of our current society, but the concept of race itself is a product of current and past societies. There is no fundamental difference between Caucasian Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans or any other Americans. The only differences that exist are the differences that people throughout the past have imposed on these racial groups. The problem is that because these differences have been imposed for so long, some of them have begun to take hold at least in superficial ways. Anyon points out very clearly throughout her book that the literacy levels, income levels, access to things like health care and healthy food, along with many other things, are just not equal between white and black Americans.[1] These differences in skin color really have nothing to do with it except that people with darker skin pigments were forced into bad neighborhoods, bad schools, bad jobs, etc. for many years and now that historical act has become a very difficult to break cycle. The fact of the matter is that bad neighborhoods produce enough bad kids to keep the neighborhoods bad and the same goes for schools and jobs. The problem we face is that now that we have already gotten this cycle going, how do we end it? How do we go about working to help the bad neighborhoods become good neighborhoods in a way that actually works?

The same problems exist with socio-economic inequalities. Our entire economic system is based on the fact that there are inequalities between people. People need to work harder to earn more money to buy more things to improve their lives. If there were no inequalities, there would be no motivation for any individual person to work hard or even work at all because everyone else will still work and we’ll all still be in the same situation anyway. It is precisely the issue of what went wrong with the socialist/communist movement in the USSR (obviously not the only thing that went wrong, but a major factor in why the movement ultimately failed). There were too many people who were dissatisfied at getting no relative gain out of working harder or even just pulling their own weight.[2] Socialism and communism are wonderful ideas in principle, but due to the corrupt nature of humans, it just does not work on a large scale.

Because of these issues I see with the ideas of many of the educational/social philosophers, I have a hard time knowing what to do, myself, about the social issues facing the educational system. I look at the ideas of people like Anyon, Greene and even Blomberg and I recognize the beauty and the virtue of their visions, but at the same time, I see them as far too idealistic to actually work in the real world. A big part of my problem with what I see as a kind of “call to arms” from these philosophers is how they interact with my view of human nature. Because I believe humans to be naturally corrupt, I do not believe that these idealistic visions for the future could ever be realized. I have no problems with people trying to implement plans to improve the inequalities that exist in our society, but I also have no faith that they will actually solve anything. Throughout the world, political and social reform rarely improves situations as a whole for any extended period of time. The inequalities of a nation or society do not go away after a revolution, they simply change and generally get more difficult to distinguish.

[1] Anyon, Jean. Radical Possibilities. New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 2005.

[2] Lovell, Tom. "The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Whys And Wherefores." The Raleigh Tavern Philosophical Society. http://www.raleightavern.org/lovell.htm.

New Ken Follett Book

 Ken Follett recently released a new novel which I know almost nothing about, but am very excited to read nonetheless. Follett is the author of two of my favorite books, World Without End and Pillars of the Earth, and I am incredibly excited about a new publication.

As the first book of Follett's new Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants, will take place during the First World War and the Russian Revolution. According to Follett's website, Fall of Giants, will explore the interrelations between five families from different countries and their struggles throughout the war, revolution and women's suffrage. It appears that in this new trilogy, he will be weaving his talent for writing thriller novels in with his incredible historical research and ability to make the characters into real people with real lives.

I just started reading the book and already I think it might be one of my favorite books of all time! I am 68 pages in and, in his typical form, Ken Follett has already hooked me in with a story filled with action, adventure, mystery, tragedy, and romance. I am not exactly an avid reader, but I am itching to get back to reading right now. I'll have updates when I've read more.

Stay Inside Your Shocked Car

I was listening to the news a few days ago during a very bad storm where there were trees falling, trash cans blowing, and power lines falling all over the place. As I have now heard multiple times while watching the news or weather during a storm, they warned people to be careful of downed power lines. They said specifically that people should stay away and call Consumers Energy if they were to see a downed power line. They also mentioned that if you are unfortunate enough to have a power line come down onto your car (or if a downed power line touches your car in any way) you should not leave your car because you are safe within your car, but could die if you try to get out.

This is perfectly true, but not for the reason we are always told. On this occasion, the reporter made no mention of why people should stay in their cars, but it is quite common to hear an incredibly incorrect reason. News/Weather people always tell you to stay in your car, but normally tell you it's because the tires insulate the car from being grounded. This is ridiculous for two different reasons.

Firstly, high voltage electricity is not nearly as afraid of rubber as the electricity running through the wires of your headphones is. Guess what? Lightning and electricity from high voltage power lines has enough potential energy that your tires are really not that big of an obstacle. Have you ever heard of fulgurites? They are also called lightning glass. Fulgurites are the objects that are formed when lightning strikes sand and actually melts the sand into glass. Sand (and glass) is not a good conductor, but is in fact a relatively good insulator. So how did the lightning go through it? Also, think about what one of the most common outdoor objects to get struck by lightning is……Trees! Wood is another material that is a terrible conductor of electricity, but it is very common that lightning will go through trees to get to the ground.   Lightning has enough energy that it can go through just about anything it wants.

You could think about this much like thinking about different vehicles at things that would normally block them. If you drive your Ford Escort at a cinderblock wall going maybe 30mph, you will not get through it. However, if you drove an M1A1 Abrams tank into that same wall (at the same speed), I'm guessing the wall would not be that big of an obstacle. The same is true of high voltage electricity. Your Ford Escort is like the electricity from a 9V battery and the Abrams tank is like lightning or a high voltage wire. You are more used to dealing with the 9V battery, so in your experience, you can't just drive through a wall, but high voltage electricity can break the rules of your normal experience.

The second reason that this particular reason of why it is safe to stay in your car is ridiculous, is because of the simple issue of whether your car is grounded. Your car not being grounded does not make you safe inside your car or outside your car. Really, you would be much better off all the way around, if your car simply were grounded. If it were grounded, the car would not hold any electrical energy within the body and frame and you wouldn't need to worry about being electrocuted. All the electrical energy would simply flow through the car and into the ground, if it were grounded. If the rubber of your tires wasn't present, you would be in great shape because all the electricity would already be through your car and into the ground before you were even able to process what happened. The reason it is not safe to get out of your car is related to the car not being grounded, but it has nothing to do with why it is safe to stay in the car.

The real reason of why you are safe inside your car when it gets electrified has nothing to do with grounding and everything to do with the nature of electricity and the 3-dimensional shape of your car. Electricity is simply the flow of electrons (negatively charged, subatomic particles) through a material. Materials that easily allow electrons to flow through them are called electrical conductors and things that do not are call resistors (or insulators). You probably learned at least a little about electrical charges and magnets and stuff in elementary and middle school and really, that is all the information you need to understand what goes on with your car. When your car is electrified, what that means is that there are tons of extra electrons just hanging out in the metal frame and body. We learned in middle school that all electrons are negatively charged and that things of the same charge repel each other. From this we can infer that all the electrons now residing in the metal frame and body of your car are all trying to get as far away from each other as possible. Since your car is generally kind of a 3-dimensional hollow oval shape, the best way for the electrons to get away form each other is to line the outside surface of the 3-dimensional oval shape. If the electrons were to line the inside of the oval, they would have to be closer together than if they were on the outside and they don't want to be closer together. Now, obviously your car is not actually an oval, but the principle works exactly the same way for the more complicated shape of your car.

 

So, when your car gets electrified, all the electrons from the high voltage power line or from the lightning will line the outermost surface of your car because they are all repelling each other. This means that there are no electrons on the inside of your car so that is where you want to stay. If you stay inside your car, you are safe because all the electric charge is on the outside of the car and not near you. If you get out of the car, as soon as you touch the ground, you would provide a path for the electrons on the outside of your car to get to the ground through you. This would be a very bad situation and would most likely kill you.

I would like to reinforce the fact that it is a terrible idea to get out of your car if it has been either touched by a power line or struck by lightning. It is highly unlikely that you would be able to get out of your car safely (i.e. without dying) after it has been electrified. There are a few, very limited situations in which it would be reasonable for someone to try to get out of their car while it electrified. If, for instance, a power line falls on your car while you are stalled on railroad tracks and you can see the train coming, you need to get out. If for some reason you need to get out of your car (need = there is no reasonable chance of living if you don't get out) after it has been electrified, you should get out by jumping and trying not to touch the ground or anything else until you are as far away from the ground as possible. I would recommend trying to get onto the top of your car somehow and jumping hard enough and far enough that you almost certainly hurt yourself badly when you do hit the ground. Even if you jump from your car, there is high likelihood that the electricity will jump to you and then to the ground once you land, so absolutely do not attempt this if you do not need to.