What do you think of each year as spring approaches? My thoughts turn to western Europe and visiting family and friends there. Signs of the season arrive weeks earlier in Denmark and England than they do here on the northeast coast of North America. Leaving in late March means avoiding summer tourist crowds and high costs, and getting a head start on spring itself. This year I’m happy to board the plane with Albert Einstein, who has travelled with me before.
Einstein’s theories photo collage, clockwise from top left: The Einstein Cross Gravitational Lens, J. Rhoads (ASU) et al., copyright WIYN Consortium, Inc., all rights reserved, NOAO/AURA/NSF; Albert Einstein photograph, Orren Jack Turner, United States Library of Congress; Einstein’s famous equation; artist concept of Gravity Probe B orbiting the Earth to measure space-time, a four-dimensional description of the universe including height, width, length, and time ~ NASA. Images from Wikimedia Commons.
While I love science and study it regularly, I don’t have an especially mathematical mind. Mathematics is a language unto itself, a particular way of seeing, but words are my medium of choice for learning. It takes longer to explain something with words than by using equations. You might think of the former as the scenic route to understanding as opposed to the super highway.
Studying science is as necessary to the quest of faith seeking understanding as studying theology. It is science that helps to explain the mystery and mechanics of God’s material creation. Yes, you can view our world and the cosmos with awe and wonder without ever grasping the meaning of E = mc2, but as you learn about what exists beyond sensory experience, awe and wonder vastly increase.
If I can understand something well enough to speak or write about it with ease, I feel it has been truly learned. There are still so many aspects of science that challenge me to do that. These include
- power laws,
- the Standard Model of particle physics
- wave functions in quantum physics, and
- the whole range of Albert Einstein’s theories.
The further my own quest takes me, the lighter I like to travel. Yet I also prefer real pages to screens when I read. This means choosing carefully in order to maintain a relaxed but regular reading schedule and still avoid checked baggage. Weight and size influence my choices in the broad categories of theology, science, and recreational reading.
Did you ever notice that books of the same size can differ greatly in weight? Happily, I have a paperback copy of Lincoln Barnett’s classic book on Einstein’s theories. It is light as a feather and takes up very little space, which is why it has joined me on other travels. It allows me to review and reinforce what I have learned about the concepts of Relativity and other forces that sustain creation. This year, as I fly eastward over the Atlantic and continue on to Denmark, I will keep company once again with one of the great minds of history.