Evolution and God

          We've been through a lot of Physics lately, so I thought we might take a break and discuss some other things I came across..

                The scientific reason we're living right here at this moment is because of the earth's suitable specs, it is at a distance from the sun that allows it to retain water within it and neither freeze nor boil it. It's the reason we didn't end up a dry planet like those closer to the sun nor freezing gaseous like the ones farther.

        When scientists say that water gave life to everything, they literally mean the sentence. It is believed that all of the various lifeforms we see today, from tiny bacteria to gigantic blue whales, developed from one simple organism that formed from the ocean's simple molecules over three billion years ago. This organism -known as the common ancestor- multiplied, forming its species and over a long period of time (millions of years) developed to more sophisticated ones, each with specific traits suited to where they are and what they need to do in order to survive. This organism developed into another known as Cyanobacteria which was the first organism to be capable of photosynthesis. Sexual reproduction began around 1.2 billion years ago, and since then organisms started developing much faster. The bacteria soon evolved to become more sophisticated water plants, and some other bacteria developed into tiny fish. Some of the more developed fish developed into amphibians like reptiles who used their limbs to crawl the lands and eventually call it home, losing their water compatibility and developing more land-suitable traits. Some even got themselves a pair of wings and became the birds we know today!

             

            What I was just talking about is the process of Evolution, first brought up by the seemingly notorious Charles Darwin. He suggested that every species develops a certain trait or characteristic (either physical or mental) to meet the demands of survival. Giraffes have long necks to reach for food on trees, camels have an extra stomach to save water and food in desert terrain, fish have gills to perform respiration underwater, chameleons and tigers use their skin as camouflage, flowers have that sweet scent to attract insects which in turn help in pollination and reproduction of this flower's species. I could go on forever, but the idea is: Every characteristic of these organisms is there for a functional reason.

          Darwin's theory became the result of a huge debate when the theory spoke of the Human Species (Homo Sapiens) in his book "The Descent of Man". He suggested that we evolved from apes, specifically chimpanzees, and there everybody went to make jokes like "If... then I'm a monkey's uncle". Many despised his theory, mostly religious people, because supposedly God created us himself. We can never be descendants of some stupid chimpanzees because we are God's perfect creation they said. I think it was a matter of ego for those people rather than conviction. After all, nobody likes to be proven wrong.

          The opposite picture shows the embryos of a human (up) and a dog (down). Notice the similarities in the structures of both, the human even has a tail (labelled L)! Fortunately it grows to become a series of vertebrae in our backs, not protruding like in other mammals. This is because we dismissed the need for such a structure to provide balance for us. The human's head though seems to be bigger than the dog's, this is what is known as adaptation. We need bigger brains because we need to use it much more than the puppy!

           Let's go back about 3000 years ago. The ancient Egyptians apparently made up their own Gods and started worshiping them, about the same time the Greeks were hailing Zeus and begging Poseidon to stop the earthquakes. Why is it that these primitive civilizations were so concerned with supreme beings that they made up their own and worshiped them? Did they really believe their own lie? Did they feel secure when they convinced themselves that some omnipotent beings are watching over them? One thing is certain, the priests had to emphasize on the importance of pleasing the Gods to please themselves. They were among the wealthiest of people at the time. Even kings would pay them grandly for their blessings when going to war. It seemed like a good business for those people.

       However, I think the true reason behind Man's countless attempts to forge deities throughout the ages lies in their unanswered questions. Many of the universe's wonders remain undiscovered till this day in spite of all the technologies we have acquired. We automatically attribute that which we do not comprehend to the Gods.

          I conclude with the following opinion: Darwin's theory proved to be acceptable among the scientific community. It has provided predictions that met experimental success. There is no reason to deny it. However this does not mean we shall claim the nonexistence of a God. There is not much evidence that allows us to make such a claim yet.  We'll have to wait before building up any stable fact about the matter. Each expert in every field has a specific thinking pattern that grants them facility in dealing with problems within the field, and we can simulate them with a little knowledge and thoughtfulness.
         

Introduction to Relativity

         Relativity was a major breakthrough in theoretical physics in the early 20th century. It can be applied on the simplest and most complex situations alike. A simple idea of how relativity works would be the following example: Imagine sitting with a pretty girl for one hour, you'll feel how fast time passed by at the end of the hour. Now imagine that you are studying a subject you do not like, you'll feel that 10 minutes of study seem like an hour, and that time is passing by slowly. Hence, depending on your situation, you will have a different 'sense' of time.

       The theory of relativity has more to do than with our sense, it was used to describe how gravity works, and the effects that Newton never came across. A very famous thought experiment is as follows: Imagine the sun suddenly disappeared into nowhere. What will happen to us (Earth)? According to Newton, gravity is an instantaneous force, hence the effect of the sun disappearing is that we will float out of orbit the second it vanishes, wandering in space with Earth's inertia in a straight line. That was what Newton assumed (sounds logical enough?).

        The genius of Einstein lies in his totally different perception of the universe, he viewed everything in his own imaginative way. His calculations had led him to a cosmic speed limit (speed of light in vacuum) which could never be exceeded. Like a car which has a maximum speed, the universe as well has speed limits! So how in the world could something like gravity have an instantaneous effect if light itself which is the fastest couldn't? Light takes about 8 minutes to reach us from the sun, so if you're looking at the sun right now you're actually seeing it 8 minutes ago in cosmic time. This enigma led him to the following conclusion.

         

          He imagined space and time to be linked together as one fabric of several dimensions (The three dimensions of space plus that of time which makes up four dimensions known as space-time). That 'fabric' is where all cosmic bodies float in. Imagine having an elastic surface on which you put a weight heavy enough to considerably bend that fabric downwards towards the shape of the body (in this case celestial bodies are round in shape so they will distort space-time in a roundly manner). The reason we are attracted to the sun is not because there's an invisible rope tying us with it, as Newton had imagined, but because we simply float into that distorted curvature -the distorted space-time- caused by the sun's shape. If you don't get it yet, try to imagine the effects of a whirlpool. That kind of explains the centripetal force along with gravity!

         So we now know that gravity works due to the distorted curvatures in space-time which we only logically follow. Back to the thought experiment, what will happen to the earth if the sun suddenly disappears? According to Einstein's view that we just discussed, the sudden disappearance will result in a space-time that's trying to get back to it's normal shape (flat), this will generate a wave that starts from the middle of the distorted area that will travel to compensate for the sudden up-bend of space-time. We will not be affected by the sun's disappearance until that wave reaches us. Einstein calculated the speed of that wave to be exactly the speed of light, thus we will float out of orbit the moment the last sun ray reaches us. Everything makes sense now! :)

         What you have just read about is only half of the theory of relativity, called the General Relativity, which basically describes the effects of gravitation as we have discussed. The other halve -Special Relativity- was brought up by the earlier Galileo Galilei in the 16th century when he suggested that all uniform motion is relative, meaning that observers at different points in the universe will not agree on the same calculations due to their different positions hence their measurements being only a relative matter according to each's inertial frame of reference. Einstein expanded on this idea thoroughly in his 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". The effects described by this theory include time dilation, length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity. We will be exploring these effects some other time.

Quantum Theory

          The quantum theory is concerned with the behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and sub-atomic level. It is mainly rooted in the idea that everything is available in discrete amounts, which Max Planck came to be aware of. He found out that the frequency(of a wave of energy) and the energy it carries are proportional. In mathematics, when two proportional subjects are expressed, they are considered as being equal to each other with a constant factor. Thus the equation : E = hf, where E is the energy, f the frequency and h the constant which was discovered by Planck thus carrying his name.

       

         Without getting into much technical detail, the theory showed that waves of certain frequencies must carry certain amounts of energy. Visible light, along with the entire electromagnetic spectrum, are energy-carrying waves. The spectrum features waves of varying frequencies and wavelengths. So one can say that ultraviolet waves carry more energy than visible light waves, and infrared waves carry more than radio waves.

         

          This discovery was put into good use. At the beginning of the 20th century, a famous experiment was conducted. An electrical circuit, with a power supply, was opened by cutting the loop of wire to have two detached ends. Each end of the wire was tied with a small metal plate. Between those 2 ends was a tube, inside the tube was vacuum. The system was exposed to a light of variable frequency. When they shone bright blue light (high frequency), current passed. This meant that some electrons passed through this vacuum from one end of the wire to the other. The electrons actually took sufficient energy to escape from their atoms, and get attracted to the positive end of the wire to go into the circuit and produce a current. Only thing is, when bright red light was shone, no current passed at all. This meant that the electrons needed a minimum specific amount of energy to escape from their shells, which was not provided by red light, even with a source that's much brighter no electrons will pass. The equation shows that the only factor here is the frequency, but scientists were looking for a more physical explanation.

       

         Albert Einstein came to know of the results of that experiment, and had a very convincing explanation, which he received the noble prize for in 1905. Einstein said that photons-the virtual building units of light-each carry a specific amount of energy. An electron can be struck with only one photon at a time, and absorb its energy. The reason why a highly intense red light could not produce any current in the experiment is due to the fact that each single photon has the same amount of energy in that of a faint red light. However a blue light's photons will have much more energy than that of the red light photon's, thus giving current. If we use ultraviolet radiation, we will have more current, because as the frequency increases so does the energy carried. Two or more photons can never strike the same electron and combine their energies to set it free.

       This opened doors for many advancements in quantum theory, quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, even a bold approach to describe gravity in terms of quantum laws. The theory of gravity, as known from Newton, came to be corrected in Einstein's theory of relativity when it suggested a model of how gravity works, something Newton never came across. He was able to describe its effects with the greatest accuracy, but never really told us the reason it's there. We'll be discussing Einstein's theories next.

           

How the universe was created

               Through the grand scientific advancements and technological leaps that happened in the early 20th century, scientists were able to observe the universe in a more sophisticated manner, and conclude how the universe that we know today was created. They started measuring distances between planets, stars, and even entire galaxies (by detecting the wavelengths of their emission spectrum) only to find that with time these distances actually increase, hence suggesting that the universe is expanding. This completely threw the idea of a static universe out of the window and gave birth to what we know today as the "Big Bang Theory" as coined by Fred Hoyle who had a hard time believing the theory himself.

             
        The theory suggests that, since the universe is expanding, it must have been infinitely small when it started. The rate of expansion decreases with time, but with an inverse square proportionality (thus never reaching zero). The static universe theory was a model that stood for thousands of years, and this revolutionary discovery was met with skepticism for some scientists. Fred Hoyle was at the top of this list. Theories after another mostly declined the necessity of divine intervention, until this one. This theory came to suggest that the universe had a start, and that it had not been like that forever. In fact it went through multiple stages to become the universe we know today.

               
    Hoyle, being an atheist himself, disapproved of the theory that suggested the universe had a beginning (which must have been triggered somehow by some force/being), due to his belief that no such divine force exists. Science always wins though, and the theory was tested numerously ever since and never failed in any of the trials. Because Hoyle was so tied to his belief, he came to oppose what happened to be the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century.

       
        Is the big bang theory a conclusive evidence that God exists? Umm.. I'm afraid not. It did give us probabilities though. If the rate of expansion at the time of the ultimate explosion was less by the tiniest fraction, the universe would have collapsed again into itself and repeated the process forever, expanding and collapsing instantly for eternity. In fact, the number calculated happened to be exactly the number needed (minimum number) to expand and keep expanding till this day. Every number, every cosmological constant is so precisely accurate that the tiniest alteration in any of them would result in a total chaos, a universe -unlike ours- far from perfect. It seems something desired the universe to be the way it is, maybe it desired itself too, who knows??

         
     If a God created the universe, I would not be surprised He made it that way. A God is omnipotent, and it seems logical that with one little burst He could create a whole universe without the need of His intervention again, why would He bother to anyway? An intelligent being gets maximum work done with minimum effort needed, why would that not be the characteristic of the genius that created it all? Why must it be interpreted that God is holding the universe between His hands and works on it continuously intervening every now and then? If so, I think we would've been used to seeing miracles on a regular basis.

       
     "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe, is that it is comprehensible" - Albert Einstein. 

                     

                    

Reality as we don't know it..

        Since about the start of my teenage years, I started thinking outside the box I was put in the day I was born. It was weird for the first time, but when I got used to doing so I finally realized that it's only natural to think with no boundaries, and I came to be aware of things I never thought of before (or perhaps neglected). The time you'll take to be enlightened with this awareness depends on how curious you are.

         As human beings, it is of innate behavior that we are curious. No one learns to be curious throughout their lives, you are born that way. As babies we are fond of any strange thing that pops up from sounds and noises to interesting motions or behaviors of complex systems (such as metal cans flying right above us). However you can 'deactivate' that 'feature'. With years and years of mouth-feeding you get from school, it would be a miracle that you still have one tiny bit of curiosity, as once said by Einstein. We simply start depending on others to teach us, we know that we're gonna know, sooner or later (or at least think so).. So why bother to ask questions to ourselves? Most probably because you get deluded by the idea that you'll learn it at the right time of your life, or simply because it would be too tiresome, you're already getting enough education to work on and the only extra time you got is for leisure and relaxation.

        People with a background in popular science, or particularly physics will find the title of the blog very familiar. For those of you who aren't, "The Theory of Everything" is simply a theory that is in the making which will explain and predict any event inside the universe. Like many other theories, it has to be proven first (with a set of equations and experimental success), and the only viable candidate for such a theory is called "M-theory" (The M stands for nothing though!). Newton did NOT discover gravity, he was only able to prove it by a set of equations and laws that are derived from those equations. Newton used mathematics to prove his theory, and so has every scientist ever since. Many theories have come up through the ages, countless of them failed to be proven and thus have no place in our science textbooks this present day.

         For a person to be truly educated, one has to temporarily neutralize themselves from any mental bias they have towards anything. And when I said truly educated I meant literally to base all their knowledge on truths and facts rather than opinions or beliefs. That is something that my father-a journalist-taught me in my earlier years. One can never have one source of truth to depend on for everything. 

         I won't be emphasizing much on how one could be 'truly' educated, because I myself still have a long way to do so. I was born into an Egyptian Muslim family of some tradition, and will always be limited if I think with that identity. I must have another one, a blank mental I.D, one that I use only to think with, the other to identify the physical me. Same should go to anybody. Even atheists do so by denying the possibility of the existence of a supreme entity, declaring the universe with all its wonders came by itself with no real evidence. 

         Now what? Simply ask yourself questions that would be awkward to ask in front of your parents/friends, nobody will know what's going on inside that head of yours. There will never be one single truth, but several logical suggestions that pour down into one flowing river. Just think how Hitler's troops were so confident in what they're doing, how they fought with him, killing many innocents with no regrets. You could say that he 'brainwashed' them. Why could that not be you right now, except that you are not brainwashed by a warlord, but subconsciously by your beliefs and/or tradition? What makes you so confident (if at all) that you are right and everybody's wrong? This greatly hinders the curious mind you were given, because whenever such thoughts arise you completely shut them. Rather than striving to prove your righteous position, open up and see why those people over there are so convinced that Metallica is better than Mozart, or why those guys are living a carefree life with no boundaries, or why those are so extremely self-chained to their religion that they choke themselves with their uptight behavior. You'll find that no answer will be entirely convincing, nor entirely illogical.