Our Elegant Universe

snowbird

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-gates.html

A physicist talks about the string theory.

Sylvia

snowbird

Bumping for BurnTheShips.

Thanks for awakening me.

Sylvia

BurnTheShips

Those higher dimensional branes are throwing off my posting ability.....

Gates: Einstein made the statement once that imagination is more important than knowledge. For a long time I was very puzzled by this statement. How could it be that imagination—which I associated with play fantasies and hobbits and such matters—how could it possibly be that that was more important than knowledge? Now, having worked as a physicist for over two decades, I think he was saying that when you try to create new knowledge, the only tool we have as humans is our imagination. The creation of new rational paradigms is itself an irrational process.

Here is a little more background on the physicist.

http://www.superstringtheory.com/people/jgates.html

I remember reading about string theory, and all kinds of other stuff in Paul Davies' books as a kid. I wanted to be one when I grew up. Or an astronomer.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio , Than are dreamt of in your philosophy .

BTS

Sad emo

I think he was saying that when you try to create new knowledge, the only tool we have as humans is our imagination. The creation of new rational paradigms is itself an irrational process.

"...unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

!!!

snowbird

NOVA: Why did Einstein pursue the idea of unification?

Gates: Einstein clearly had a large spiritual dimension to his thinking. He talked about God, and he clearly believed that the universe has an overall grand and beautiful pattern to the way it works. With his achievement of special relativity, more of that apparent pattern was revealed to mankind. But he also understood that it could not be the full pattern. Einstein was one of those physicists who really wanted to know the mind of God, which more prosaically means the entire picture.

The Creator of All You Can See or Imagine

Isaiah 40 12 -17 Who has scooped up the ocean
in his two hands,
or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger, Who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets,
weighed each mountain and hill? Who could ever have told God what to do
or taught him his business? What expert would he have gone to for advice,
what school would he attend to learn justice? What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows,
showed him how things work? Why, the nations are but a drop in a bucket,
a mere smudge on a window. Watch him sweep up the islands
like so much dust off the floor! There aren't enough trees in Lebanon
nor enough animals in those vast forests
to furnish adequate fuel and offerings for his worship. All the nations add up to simply nothing before him—
less than nothing is more like it. A minus. MSG

Sylvia

snowbird

Passage Job 41 :

Job 41

I Run This Universe

1 -11 "Or can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a fly rod and stuff him in your creel? Can you lasso him with a rope,
or snag him with an anchor? Will he beg you over and over for mercy,
or flatter you with flowery speech? Will he apply for a job with you
to run errands and serve you the rest of your life? Will you play with him as if he were a pet goldfish?
Will you make him the mascot of the neighborhood children? Will you put him on display in the market
and have shoppers haggle over the price? Could you shoot him full of arrows like a pin cushion,
or drive harpoons into his huge head? If you so much as lay a hand on him,
you won't live to tell the story. What hope would you have with such a creature?
Why, one look at him would do you in! If you can't hold your own against his glowering visage,
how, then, do you expect to stand up to me? Who could confront me and get by with it?
I'm in charge of all this—I run this universe!

12 -17 "But I've more to say about Leviathan, the sea beast,
his enormous bulk, his beautiful shape. Who would even dream of piercing that tough skin
or putting those jaws into bit and bridle? And who would dare knock at the door of his mouth
filled with row upon row of fierce teeth? His pride is invincible;
nothing can make a dent in that pride. Nothing can get through that proud skin—
impervious to weapons and weather, The thickest and toughest of hides,
impenetrable!

18 -34 "He snorts and the world lights up with fire,
he blinks and the dawn breaks. Comets pour out of his mouth,
fireworks arc and branch. Smoke erupts from his nostrils
like steam from a boiling pot. He blows and fires blaze;
flames of fire stream from his mouth. All muscle he is—sheer and seamless muscle.
To meet him is to dance with death. Sinewy and lithe,
there's not a soft spot in his entire body— As tough inside as out,
rock-hard, invulnerable. Even angels run for cover when he surfaces,
cowering before his tail-thrashing turbulence. Javelins bounce harmlessly off his hide,
harpoons ricochet wildly. Iron bars are so much straw to him,
bronze weapons beneath notice. Arrows don't even make him blink;
bullets make no more impression than raindrops. A battle ax is nothing but a splinter of kindling;
he treats a brandished harpoon as a joke. His belly is armor-plated, inexorable—
unstoppable as a barge. He roils deep ocean the way you'd boil water,
he whips the sea like you'd whip an egg into batter. With a luminous trail stretching out behind him,
you might think Ocean had grown a gray beard! There's nothing on this earth quite like him,
not an ounce of fear in that creature! He surveys all the high and mighty—
king of the ocean, king of the deep!" MSG

Sylvia

frankiespeakin

Here's some quotes concerning Einstein beleief in God:

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings." Upon being asked if he believed in God by Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue, New York, April 24, 1921, Einstein: The Life and Times, Ronald W. Clark, Page 502

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein

snowbird

Hmmm ...

Spinoza and Einstein resembled the Athenians of Paul's day.

Athens

Acts 17:16 The longer Paul waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy, the angrier he got—all those idols! The city was a junkyard of idols.

17 -18 He discussed it with the Jews and other like-minded people at their meeting place. And every day he went out on the streets and talked with anyone who happened along. He got to know some of the Epicurean and Stoic intellectuals pretty well through these conversations. Some of them dismissed him with sarcasm: "What an airhead!" But others, listening to him go on about Jesus and the resurrection, were intrigued: "That's a new slant on the gods. Tell us more."

19 -21 These people got together and asked him to make a public presentation over at the Areopagus, where things were a little quieter. They said, "This is a new one on us. We've never heard anything quite like it. Where did you come up with this anyway? Explain it so we can understand." Downtown Athens was a great place for gossip. There were always people hanging around, natives and tourists alike, waiting for the latest tidbit on most anything.

22 -23 So Paul took his stand in the open space at the Areopagus and laid it out for them. "It is plain to see that you Athenians take your religion seriously. When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across. And then I found one inscribed, to the god nobody knows. I'm here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you're dealing with.

24 -29 "The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn't live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn't take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don't make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn't play hide-and-seek with us. He's not remote; he's near. We live and move in him, can't get away from him! One of your poets said it well: 'We're the God-created.' Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?

30 -31 "God overlooks it as long as you don't know any better—but that time is past. The unknown is now known, and he's calling for a radical life-change. He has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right. And he has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead."

32 -34 At the phrase "raising him from the dead," the listeners split: Some laughed at him and walked off making jokes; others said, "Let's do this again. We want to hear more." But that was it for the day, and Paul left. There were still others, it turned out, who were convinced then and there, and stuck with Paul—among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris. MSG

Sylvia

Our Elegant Universe

The Creator of All You Can See or Imagine

Job 41

I Run This Universe

Athens

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