Light and Life

“There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.” (Horace, 65-8 B.C.)

A QUESTION OF STANDARDS
It only takes a moment of reflection to realize that there are yardsticks for everything. From common weights and measures to building specifications and academic proficiency, everything is measured against some reference standard. But have you ever stopped to wonder about the origin of those standards? Take the meter, for example, the international unit of length.

Imagine that you want to cut a length of lumber one meter long. You take out your trusty meter stick and start measuring, but before you mark it down, your wife walks by, noticing what you are doing and asks, “Hon’, how do you know that stick is one meter long?”

“Well, Claire, the company that makes these sticks does so according to internationally accepted standards.”

“So, how do you know that those standards are right?”

“Claire, weren’t you about to take the kids to soccer practice?”

We take many things for granted in our technologically saturated age, including the consistency of basic measurements. Unlike Claire, very few of us ever stop to question the validity of their underlying standards.

To answer Claire, we need to go back in time to the French Revolution. It was during that period that the meter was defined as one ten millionth of the length of the meridian running along the surface of the Earth and passing through Paris on June 22, 1799. However, metrologists soon realized that since this measurement was taken at a certain time and place, it would be difficult, if not impossible to reproduce if later challenged by a questioning person like Claire. Therefore, a more universal and absolute standard was needed.

LIGHT AND INVARIANCE
In 1905 a Swiss patent clerk named Albert Einstein published a paper on special relativity. Although most people associate his theory with the relative nature of time, it is really about the equivalence of mass and energy and the invariance of the speed of light. What Einstein showed was that regardless an observer’s motion, light will always appear to travel at 300 million meters per second. Consider how different that is from common experience.

Say you are driving on the expressway at the legal limit of 70 miles per hour. All the sudden some NASCAR wannabe races past you at 100 miles per hour. According to your perception, the reckless speedster leaves you in the dust at 30 miles per hour. Simple enough, right? Now imagine you’re on the Starship Enterprise traveling at 70 percent of the speed of light. Then imagine a beam of starlight approaching you from behind at 100 percent of light speed. You might be tempted to assume that the light beam would overtake you by 30 percent of light speed. But you would be wrong! The light approaching you from any direction would appear to you to be traveling at the full speed of light. Strange? Well, welcome to the “looking glass” world of relativity!

Unlike other measurement references that are difficult to replicate or are subject to change, the property of invariance makes light an ideal standard. Therefore, in 1983 the meter was officially re-defined as 1/299,792,458 the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in one second.

AGELESS AND EVERYWHERE
Invariance also leads to another strange phenomenon. Against all intuition and common experience, as an object approaches the speed of light, time slows coming to a full suspension once light speed is attained. Physicist Brian Greene explains the provocative upshot of this in The Elegant Universe: “Thus light does not get old; a photon that emerged from the big bang is the same age today as it was then. There is no passage of time at light speed.” So light is eternal? Right. But hold on to your seats, there’s something more.

Consider Captain Kirk on his starship traveling from Earth to the star Alpha Centauri at the speed of light. Since Kirk would not experience time, there would be no interval between his departure from Earth and his arrival at Alpha Centauri. Our intrepid captain would be at both places, Earth and Alpha Centauri, and at every point in between, simultaneously!

So not only is light invariant and eternal, it’s omnipresent. It brings to mind Another whom the Revealed Word says is light and “who alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light.”

THE TRUE LIGHT AND MEASURE
Light. What a perfect metaphor for the Ancient of Days, I AM, the Alpha and Omega! It’s a word picture communicating something much deeper than spiritual illumination. As the psalmist explains, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”

The first phrase of that verse reveals that only what is eternal can be the source of life. The ephemeral—the “seen” world of the physical universe—can be the conduit through which life passes from one generation to the next. But only the timeless, unseen, and unchanging can be the origin from which life springs.

The second phrase speaks of Him who exposes things hidden: the invariant, the eternal, truth. And it is by Him that ultimate Truth, “namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” is revealed to all who truly seek.

Just as special relativity points to light as an absolute measure for material things, the revealed Word points to God as the absolute measure of all things. Astonishing! Thousands of years before Einstein, the Biblical writers used a metaphor that could only be fully appreciated in the advent of modern physics.

The eminent philosopher Anthony Flew, after rejecting a life-long commitment to atheism, recently remarked that the more he studies science, the more he is convinced the writers of the Bible were writing about more than they knew. Although Flew does not currently accept the notion of a personal, revelatory God, he is obviously wrestling with the evidence of a revelatory Bible.

This is as it should be. For as long as science is about the quest for truth, new scientific insights will not only be congruent with divine revelation, they will lead to greater comprehension of Scriptural mysteries. In the present example, modern science gives us a fresh peek into the mystery of the “true Light that gives light to everyone entering the world.”

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Regis Nicoll is a freelance writer and a Centurion of the Wilberforce Forum. His "All Things Examined" column appears on BreakPoint every other Friday. Serving as a men’s ministry leader and worldview teacher in his community, Regis publishes a free weekly commentary to stimulate thought on current issues from a Christian perspective. To be placed on this free e-mail distribution list, e-mail him at: centurion51@aol.com.

The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene