Cosmic Symphony

I thought I would take a chance and share with you a little bit of what I have been learning lately. This might seem like heady stuff but I think you might like the ending.

Since college I have been interested in physics but never had a chance to pursue the field. So I have been doing a lot of reading about the topic now that I have the time. Recently I attended a lecture at U.C. Davis. The speaker was an icon in theoretical physics, especially in what has been called "String Theory".

For many years, scientists thought that the smallest particles of matter were protons, neutrons and electrons. But some time ago they discovered that even these elementary atomic particles were made up of a whole menu of sub-atomic particles given such strange names as quarks, neutrinos, muons, etc. In fact, they have found 19 or more even smaller building blocks of matter.

Scientists didn't like how "messy" this is. For some reason, nature is supposed to be more symmetrical or "elegant" as they like to say. Therefore they began to suspect that there might be even smaller fundamental building blocks of nature. Because these new particles would be so very very small, current technology can not see them at all. They only have indirect knowledge of their existence. However, they can prove mathematically that they should exist.

They now believe that all matter could be made up of the same particle, an infinitesimally small vibrating string. It is analogous to a violin string. The only difference between one substance and another is the frequency and resonance of the comprising vibrating strings. It seems that music may be the underlying structure holding all things together.

To give you an idea though of how small a theoretical string is, consider that the distance from a person to the outer edge of the known universe is on the same scale as the distance from a person down to a string. Pretty small huh? But isn't it interesting that man, God's highest creation, sits right in the middle, size wise, of His total creation?

Randy Jackson of American Idol fame was once asked why he thought that Idol was so very popular. In a rather profound moment he simply said, "everybody needs music in their lives." Music is an "instrumental" (ha!) part of our life, all through our lives. Could it be that music touches something very basic within us all, something primeval? We all wonder why music can stir up such deep emotions and responses. But it's probably no wonder to God.

Could it be that we are all part of a great cosmic symphony with a Divine conductor arranging music all throughout creation?

It may take decades before this can be proven but the possibility has stirred a renewed interest in theoretical physics not seen since the golden years of Einstein's E=MC2. Even after all his achievements, Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life chasing the idea of this one unifying particle theory or, as they have now coined, "The Theory of Everything", but he came up short.

So I look forward now to listening to a new icon at UT. I'll be watching his lecture schedule as he is also one of most prominent proponents of String Theory. I suspect I will be listening to music, both on the drive to his remarks, and throughout his lecture as well.

Play on...