Over the last few months, I have been reading and listening to a bunch of physics.\u00a0 Particle physics and cosmology.\u00a0 The micro and the macro of the attempt to understand the universe.\u00a0 Limitless vistas of space with super clusters of galaxies and more exotic objects that stretch back to the alleged Big Bang.\u00a0 And inside the proton are the ephemeral quarks and gluons flashing in and out of existence in (I kid you not) a yoctosecond.<\/p>\n
And all of this hyperactivity of nothingness just to make it possible for me to push on the keys of my laptop to write this post.\u00a0 All of those electrons and quarks following all these conflicting forces at various distances; the strong force, weak force, electro-magnetic force and gravity just so that reality can be felt and tasted.\u00a0 All of these incredibly complex concepts and the mathematics that tries to describe it.\u00a0 And the weirdness of quantum mechanics and its inherent and explicit ruling out of determinism.\u00a0 All of this and how far we\u2019ve come from Galileo and Newton.\u00a0 And all we\u2019ve achieved in technology.<\/p>\n
And yet\u2026<\/p>\n
What are quarks made of?\u00a0 What are gluons made of?\u00a0 What happened five minutes before the Big Bang?\u00a0 What happens five minutes after the End of the Universe?<\/p>\n
There is no bottom.\u00a0 There is no top.\u00a0 There is no start.\u00a0 There is no finish.<\/p>\n
The human mind cannot encompass the infinite.\u00a0 If we find something beneath quarks, I am sure there will be something under that.\u00a0 And when the successor to the James Webb Space Telescope is put into service in twenty years at a cost of $100 billion or so I\u2019m sure it will show us even further wonders that defy our ability to explain.\u00a0 And so will the telescope after that.<\/p>\n
And as the man said, \u201cNot that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.\u201d\u00a0 But that\u2019s the part you have to wrap your head around.\u00a0 Thinking that scientists have the ultimate truth is a misnomer.\u00a0 All they have is the latest and greatest explanation as to how things work.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019ll never be able to tell you why you\u2019re here or why you should care.\u00a0 Each of us has to do that all by ourselves.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s remarkable.\u00a0 Five hundred years after the Renaissance put us on the trajectory of man is the measure of all things and God is dead, we come right back to the same place.\u00a0 The universe isn\u2019t a big windup toy that means nothing and will return to nothing.\u00a0 And after science tried to convince us that Earth is nowhere and humans are less than nothing it turns out that life is really the only thing with inherent value.\u00a0 And human life is the miracle that we started out with before we killed God.<\/p>\n
The more we study life the more in awe we are of its complexity and miraculous properties.\u00a0 The more we study humans the more we discover about their potential.<\/p>\n
I do not mean to disparage science.\u00a0 Wresting the secrets of the universe from Nature is a noble endeavor.\u00a0 And done with proper humility it is one of the finest works that can be achieved by the human mind.\u00a0 But surely by now all the best minds in the world must be aware that an infinite universe cannot be defined by finite beings.\u00a0 God built this nursery for us and it\u2019s built to hold us while we grow up.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine we\u2019ll find the door to the nursery unlocked.\u00a0 At least not on this side of reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the last few months, I have been reading and listening to a bunch of physics.\u00a0 Particle physics and cosmology.\u00a0 The micro and the macro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1263,2852,3545],"tags":[2442,86,165],"class_list":["post-28958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-religion","category-science","tag-physics","tag-religion","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"\n