Sunday, December 6, 2015

Lyra theology:Singularity and the One

Within the boundaries of the constellation Lyra is a multitude of heavenly objects. They look and behave very differently from each other floating among cosmic clouds of dust and being pierced by cosmic radiation.

Scientific research has shown that simple light spots, stars seen there by naked eye like Vega, Sheliak, Sulafat or R Lyr, actually represent many different stellar classes and types. In addition to stars, the fiery ring of Messier 57 is a planetary nebula made of the the remains of an exploded star. The colliding galaxies NGC 6745 do not even resemble familiar spiral galaxies. This astronomic crash site has many newborn stars shining as a blue ribbon.

Highly sensitive instruments measuring visible and invisible electromagnetic wavelengths have demonstrated that star light is far from constant but varies in subtle ways. The changes provide astronomers significant information about the shining stars and their companions. 19 Lyr is an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum variable while V473 Lyrae is a Classical Cepheid variable. Even more sensitive instruments provided data suggesting that Gliese 758 has planet(s).

Challenge
The sky in the direction of Lyra is full of variation, multitude of different classes and types of objects and physical and chemical processes. Many of these objects are gigantic and much larger then Sun. It is therefore rather surprising, that 20th century science took most significant steps in explaining these phenomena by studying the smallest things known to man, atoms and their sub-particles.

Nuclear physics and particle physics are today an essential part of Astrophysics and careful observation, sophisticated mathematical modeling and also experiments in particle accelerators and other instruments provide the data and theoretical foundation for explaining the multitude of objects and their behavior in space.

Accordingly, Cosmology represents a very tightly bound singularity where explanations are reduced to a few fundamental principles such as gravity. Theoretical Physics is actively looking for the Theory of Everything, "a hypothetical single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe.".  (Wikipedia)

The scientist who is able to unite the basic Laws of Nature into a single theory will surely be a Nobel price candidate.

Singularity in Cosmos is also apparent from another point of view. With the help of Cepheid variables Edwin Hubble gained understanding of distances not only to stars but to those enigmatic nebulae that were generally considered nothing but dust clouds in the only galaxy, Milky Way. He not only realized that these nebulae were islands of billions of stars, other galaxies in deep space but also noticed that the distance is reflected in the star light showing Red Shift.

As the expansion of the Universe became established a very natural idea rose to the mind of brilliant scholars such as Albert Einstein and his friend Georges Lemaître: since Universe is expanding what happens if we reverse the process? Following this thought Lemaître suggested that in the beginning everything was in a single dot, the Cosmic Egg.  British astronomer Fred Hoyle mocked the idea - the believed that Universe is eternal with no beginning or end - and coined in a BBC program the catchy name Big Bang. It is now embedded to most languages as the terminus technicus.

Everything explained by a single theory of Physics, everything having its origins in a single point existing before time.


Theological point

Jewish confession of faith is from Deuteronomy 6:4. It is very simple and extremely deep:
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יהוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יהוה אֶחָד 
Sh'ma Yisra'el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad
Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One.


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