Einstein understood the universe. I want to survive the title.
Cynicism aside, what will it all be?
Optimism can make pessimism more persuasive. Science may be persuaded – except for those who make sure it already has all the answers. This is a view that can be reassuring simply by telling the truth, or at least taking a step in that direction.
There is no single physical theory that explains everything. Instead, there are many things each have been constructed to describe a particular part of the universe. From the movement of quarks and electrons to the movement of galaxies. These theories are not always agreed.
Aristotle’s physics described fallen objects as natural movements towards the center of the earth. Newtonian mechanics replaced this with universal gravity. The two are not compatible, but both share similar structures. They start with basic assumptions and resolve the outcome. Newton’s Law of Movement and James Clark Maxwell’s Electromagnetic Equations are compact statements that produce a wide range of predictions.
Modern physics is discussed in mathematics. This is a language that follows the patterns that nature itself continues. Numbers are not just us, and some are never different. Mathematics is not neutral. It assumes the possibility of explaining order, consistency and reality. But the universe continues to agree.
But understanding is not the same as understanding. “God doesn’t play dice,” Einstein said. Quantum mechanics rolled them anyway – and uncertainty won. What exists can depend on how we look. From one perspective, particles or events fit. From another, the opposite fits. Rather than finishing the search, we test, measure and calculate tests, measurements and calculations to keep it alive.
Neils Bohr said it sharply: “The opposite of trivial truth is clearly wrong. The opposite of great truth is also true.” Freedom/security. Change/Stability. God exists/Atheism makes sense. Great truths live in tension, not contradictions. Each side reveals what others can’t, and the big picture only appears when both are held together. In science, like life, these pairs are not about choosing other pairs other than recognizing how to define, limit, and complete each other.
Physics is not ethics. It tells us what to be. It is “eternal” mathematics, a language that passes past the final decimal place and runs beyond the AI range. Resist the final answer, but reveal how the past, present and future are interconnected. Call it the God design of that connection or the indifferent frame of the universe. Either way, it shapes what may seem like an opportunity until the next surprise.
Losses are hopeful. Death becomes life.
In a moral world, like the body, powers act in pairs. Justice is by no means abstract. It takes shape against the reality of injustice. One reveals that the other is not the same, but neither is final. The law can be punished without healing. Mercy can be forgiven without repair. To restrain them in tension is less about symmetry than refusing to make either one the last word. This is entwined with nature and supernatural, not stacked in separate areas, but woven into real fabrics.
CS Lewis once wrote about looking at God in desperate need, finding “the door slaps in your face, double bolting inside.” He knew that pain and suffering could have tragic meaning. It has come to have divine meaning in assurance of God’s providence and existence.
The language of faith holds the same equation. There is no Easter without Good Friday. Not because God is behind the violence and injustice of the world, but because God promises a resurrection and a new life for the present and forever. If that doesn’t work for you, try calling it a resolution you haven’t come.
Losses are hopeful. Death becomes life.
Notes and reading
-
Albert Einstein, “Physics and Reality” in Ideas and opinions (1954), he reflects the wonder that the universe is completely understandable.
-
Neals Bohr – Danish physicist, Nobel Prize.
“The opposition to a correct statement is a false statement, but the opposition to a deep truth may be another deep truth.”
– Neils Bohr: His life and work as seen by his friends and colleagues (1967) Son, Hans, 328. -
Sean M. Carroll, Quanta and Fields: The Greatest Ideas in the Universe (2022) – How elegant theoretical frameworks face the complexity and unpredictability of the physical world.
-
Brian Clegg, Are the numbers real? The eerie relationship between mathematics and the physical world (2016) – On a philosophical puzzle about whether mathematical beings exist independently of human thought. cf. Mathematical Destruction Weapons – Mathematician and data scientist Kathy O’Neill (2017). “Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.”
-
David Bentley Hart – Nature and the supernatural are intertwined. With great care in the tired nature and tradition, it brings together a complete challenge to normal “supernaturalism” including the split between tired nature and Grace You are God: About Nature and the Supernatural (2022).
-
CS Lewis – “The door was knocked in your face…” See the transition from theory to reality when sadness tests his own reasoning. Sorrow has been observed (1961) and Pain problems (1940).
-
Maya C. Popa, quoting Amy Hempel and Alan Watts – “How do you know what happens to us?” Today’s poem (January 31, 2024). Popa is a modern poet and critic. Hempel is an American short story writer. Watts was a British writer and speaker on philosophy and religion.
-
Bill Bradley – Basketball once said, “The best players have a visibility of the surroundings.” His own scope was amazing. It is now 195° and 70° upward horizontally. -from The sense of where you are: Bill Bradley of Princeton By legend New Yorker Author John McPhee (1999).
Tip #222 – Don’t forget that it’s normal
Found by loss
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
