1 Raymond Historical Publications presentsIn association with Holy Trinity Anglican Church Raymond Historical Publications presents Are We Alone in the Universe? (Depends on the definition of Universe) “The Search for Spock” – Part II One in a series of historical perspectives on the Christian Church in America Tom Raymond November 20, Ver. 1.0
2 How did the Universe begin? How did life arise on Earth?These are among mankind’s most important questions throughout the ages In the last century we’ve learned more about science and the creation of the Universe than everything known before the 20th century. In the last two decades new discoveries have led to new theories that give us unique hypotheses about the nature of the Universe and the presence of God.
3 Presentation OverviewPART I (last week) Resources and Inspirations Literary Choices: Fact and Fiction Definitions; Scales for Reference Components of our Universe(s) PART II (today) Genesis Contact Souls Q&A and Take Away
4 Resources Holy Scripture (KJV): Genesis, Job, Matthew, RevelationThe Book of Common Prayer The literature and media, including: Phenomenal Physics, “A totally non-scary guide to physics and why it matters”, Isaac McPhee, 2016 The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence M. Krauss, 1995 How the Universe Works SCI Channel, Comcast Cable TV
5 Recent inspirations for this workPassing comments from Fr. Brad Bible college - cosmic string theory ref. a planet and three moons – signs of liquid water, possible microbes! Richard Doster, religion columnist, Fernandina Beach News Leader 100th anniversary – 1916 – Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, i.e. gravity and time Proof positive beginning in 1919 Ref. also 1905, Special Relativity, i. e. the speed of light
6 Other inspirations Four recent major scientific milestones in humanity’s view of the Universe 2012, Higgs Boson detected, long-theorized but elusive subatomic particle; explains how matter gains mass (not why) 2015, Voyager 1 (1977 launch) reached interstellar space; we escaped our Solar System! 2015 and 2016, Gravitational waves detected, long-theorized; the 4th force? August 2016, Earthlike exoplanet detected nearby (4.3 LY); first one inferred in 1995, > Analog: “moth next to a searchlight” 50th Anniversary of Star Trek
7 Sci-Fi out-takes Star Trek isn’t just about stun guns, warp drives, beaming up. It’s 50 years of story lines wrapped around the human spirit, the quest to reach beyond, to the stars or deep within, into the human soul, to fully embrace, appreciate (Job!), and nurture it. Stories of faith, hope and charity, of love as practiced through our Judeo-Christian tradition. The search for truth.
8 Book of Common Prayer Playfully called the “Star Trek” canonBCP 1928 I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And of all things visible and invisible …. BCP Eucharistic Prayer C God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise Glory to you for ever and ever. At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home By your will they were created and have their being. Playfully called the “Star Trek” canon
9 Genesis
10 One of Faith One of PhysicsTwo Genesis Stories One of Faith One of Physics In the Big Inning Lions Christians x - 7
11 “In the beginning ….” The term holds several uses for us In faithGen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In science Space: Universe’s starting point Time: T= 0
12 Let there be time, let there be lightIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and dark-ness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, NOTE 5 And there was light.
13 NOTE 5 If physics ,through its muscle and grit, is the fatherly force behind the universe, then mathematics is its mother, wrapped in all her veils and layers of elegance and grace.
14 Early Human Optics – EM SpectrumThis is what the elders and scribes of Holy Scripture had to work with
15 Another Creation Story - FaithGen 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And God created a “gatherer society”… this before the Fall. Cast out, survival demanded society become: hunter-gatherers agrarian industrial - steam, electrical We soon identified, utilized entire EM spectrum today’s modern info-tech IT society.
16 Complete Spectrum of EM RadiationGenerated by man on Earth or incoming from space today, indeed back to the beginning of space-time, detected with telescopes
17 Genesis of Space-Time Cosmic vacuum, T = 0 Point singularity, T = 0+quantum fluctuations of energy matter & anti-matter, appear and disappear Point singularity, T = 0+ Big Bang – CMB: T = 14.7 billion years ago time then as we know it today as yet undefined Great Inflation T = zillionth ns later 1 zillion plus one particles of matter 1 zillion particles of anti-matter That’s why we’re here, avoided annihilation! Our Universe began T ~400K “yrs” later: Time & Elements H, He, Periodic Chart ~120 elements NOTE 6
18 Genesis of Life on EarthNOTE 6 Planet in the Goldilocks Zone, primordial soup: To date, earliest evidence for life: 3.8 billion year old rock, western Greenland; not fossilized remains but a chemical signature of living organisms Next, ancestors of amphibians, reptiles, fish, dinosaurs, birds; no mammals yet 66 mil yrs ago: 75% of Earth’s life wiped out by Yucatan meteorite (9 mi. wide, 45K mph), all animals over 55 pounds - back to dust Rise of modern animals incl. mammals and humans
19 The Questioners
20 The Questioners through HistoryOne question answered yields two new queries First scientist, “natural philosopher”: Thales of Miletus, ca BC Greece: Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes Rome: Jesus / Islam, Dark Ages Renaissance: Copernicus, Galileo, da Vinci, Brahe, Kepler, Descartes Scientific Method developed 1800s, door opens to modern science
21 Remarkable programs to reach outAstronauts: 1) Earth-Moon Mercury, Gemini, Apollo 2) Earth-Int’l Space Station Shuttle 3) Earth-Mars Orion, 2030s Telescopes: Deep Space Hubble, Optical & UV, 1995 Chandra, X-ray, 1999 Kepler, exoplanet hunter, 2009 James Webb, optical & near IR (red-shift), 2018
22 Contact
23 Will we ever get there? Can we? Can they get here from there?Physical Vehicles -> matter-energy transfer Rocket ship, bulky fuel Solar sails, too slow Matter-antimatter drive, energy intensive Ion drive, too slow Warp drive, worm hole, theoretical, energy intensive
24 Can we at least eavesdrop?Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - SETI Hollywood classics Forbidden Planet, 1956 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977 Star Trek First Contact, 1996 Contact, 1998 Original SETI: Mountain View, CA, 1960s Modern SETI, 2016: Thousands of times greater searching/computing power today Yet still looking for the proverbial one intelligent grain of sand in all the world’s the beaches NOTE 7 NOTE 8
25 Drake Equation N = R • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L (7 factors) NOTE 7Number of civilizations in Milky Way galaxy with detectable EM emissions Rate of formation of stars suitable for intelligent life % of stars with planetary systems and # planets with an environment suitable for life % of planets with a) basic life appearing and with b) intelligent life emerging % of civilizations with technology to release signs of existence into space length of time they release detectable signals into space
26 A more current calculationNOTE 8 A more current calculation Earth Similarity Index (ESI) Factors beyond Drake Equation include a planet’s, or moon’s, physical characteristics such as radius, density, escape velocity, surface temperature Some exoplanets have a remarkably high Index yet most are several hundred LY away, out of reach of modern technology
27 Sending out messages? (Event #2)“Bottle into the cosmic ocean”, Carl Sagan 1977: Voyagers 1 & 2: “Golden Records” sounds, images of life and culture on Earth V1 will reach a nearby star in 40,000 years! Do we really want to attract the good, but what could also be the bad and the ugly?
28 Physical and Spiritual States
29 Universal States Eternal Solid Liquid GasPlasma – e.g. Aurora Borealis Bose-Einstein Condensate – artificially created state of matter, cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero; subatomic particles Eternal
30 As the Preacher of Ecclesiastes said …God has put eternity into our minds So that we may merely contemplate the magnitude of all the worlds of God God's creation is incomprehensibly greater than this world, yesterday, today, tomorrow, always Far beyond our tools, our physics, math, infinitely beyond terms like “God particle”, aka Higgs Boson (Event #1)
31 Large Hadron Collider - LHC at CERNHiggs Boson, (Event #1) Long-anticipated Explains how matter gains mass “Standard Model” or 4 forces particles Large Hadron Collider - LHC at CERN
32 Gravity Waves 2015, 2016 (Event #3)Ripples in space-time created by merging black holes billions of years ago in distant galaxies millions of light years away Created huge gravity waves at that time, greatly diminished but detected here today for the very first time, two locations and two independent events Gravity particles, gravitons, yet to be detected ... if they exist at all!
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34 Gravitation May link this possible “fourth force” to other three Electromagnetic force: gives us power, light, radio, etc.; also binds atoms into chemical compounds and substances Strong nuclear force: binds together the atomic nucleus Weak nuclear force: tears apart unstable atoms, i.e. radioactive decay; makes atomic energy possible Gravity as a force: ???
35 The Teleporter
36 Inanimate Objects and Human LifeDisregard the Holodeck and Computer which deal w/ inanimate objects …“A cup of Earl Grey, hot.” The Teleporter: dematerialize – rematerialize Electronically, bits & bytes, 1s & 0s … plausible Physically? Matter becoming energy and energy back to matter? Consider the binding energies to overcome… Human organs including nervous system; the brain: 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections; 4x capacity of Library of Congress Other chemical compounds, molecules, DNA Atoms: electrons & nucleus - protons, neutrons Subatomic: leptons, mesons, baryons, quarks Scientific American
37 Matter-Energy Budget Energy and mass are virtually the same thing, just in different forms (e = mc2) But it’s too cost-prohibitive, thus too impractical, to transform mass to energy and back to mass All physical means of teleportation are today, and likely will remain so into the 23rd century, constrained by the Matter-Energy budget
38 Furthermore … What of the Soul ?, … asks author KraussSimple spiritual energy? Or something more? Let’s see….
39 The Human Soul
40 1) Human souls in worship in Heaven, NTRev 4:1-2 (KJV) After this I (John) looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard … said, Come up hither …. And immediately I was in the spirit …. Rev 5:1-5 …. And one of the elders saith unto me … behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book … to loose the seven seals.
41 Continuing … souls in HeavenRev 5:6 -13 When he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb …. Thou … hast redeemed us to God … out of every kindred, tongue, people, nation; And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth … heard I saying, Blessing, honour, glory, power, unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
42 2) A human soul on Earth: Job, OTJob 38:1-7 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said …Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? …. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Huh, Job, huh?”, asketh the Lord. ======================================================================================= Bottom line: An artificial matter-energy-matter human teleporter would simply not accommodate the human soul.
43 The End of Time
44 The end of time Our “today” The Physical UniverseTime slows down approaching massive objects Time ceases in black holes! Detected at centers of galaxies; we observe X-rays fm accretion disk, edge of event horizon past which no light escapes The Physical Universe Modern physicists posit: The Big Rip, the Big Crunch, the Big Whimper Noah knew the end was coming, the flood; just didn’t know when The Physical-Spiritual End Nazarene carpenter knew, just didn’t know when Another possibility: The Rapture The Truth: The Second Coming
45 Return with us now to the StarsAll-Star Lineups
46 Adam and Eve Noah and Abraham Elijah and Moses Solomon and David Mary and Joseph John Baptist Matthew, Mark, Luke, John Peter and Paul Augustine and Aquinas
47 A TEAM: Scientists who believed in GodGalileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Age of Enlightenment James Clerk Maxwell, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Guglielmo Marconi, Enrico Fermi, Werner Heisenberg,
48 B TEAM: Atheists/AgnosticsNeils Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger, Edward Teller, William Shockley, Carl Sagan, Peter Higgs, * Stephen Hawking, * Neil deGrasse Tyson, * * Never too late! NOTE 9
49 Albert Einstein: A half-believing agnosticNOTE 9 Albert Einstein: A half-believing agnostic “I do not believe in a personal God. If something is in me which can be called religion, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
50 Original Star Trek TV SeriesStarship Enterprise encounters a planet on the far side of our galaxy with a civilization that announces itself - via the “Universal Translator” - to be sun worshippers. Per the Prime Directive, Capt. Kirk and crew are to leave them undisturbed. Just before exiting orbit, Communications Officer Lt. Ohuru discovers that they are not worshippers of their sun after all. “Captain, they are worshippers of … the Son!”
51 The Last Command
52 Take us out of here, Mr. SuluAye, Captain
53 Indeed, take us out of here, on chariots of fire …NOTE 10
54 Are we alone in the Universe?NOTE 10 Are we alone in the Universe? Scripturally: No, see Revelation, angels, etc. Imaginatively: “They’re out there and may one day visit or may have already visited.” Statistically: We’re probably not alone. Practically: We and “they” will likely never know of one another in this our mutually HUGE physical Universe Spiritually: Beyond all human understanding
55 The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, 1958“It is good to renew one’s wonder,” said the philosopher. “Space travel has again made children of us all.” Slide show by Thomas M. Raymond Raymond Historical Publications © 2016