Allen explains the atomic tensions that are the root of all the variety we witness in the universe. From this exploration he is able to glean spiritual truths that mimic this fundamental creative dynamic. This was first published in the student newspaper of the Bryn Athyn College, BACON Bits, in April of 2009. -Editor.
Teaching chemistry at Bryn Athyn College, a New Church institution, I have the opportunity to explore science and religion in a Swedenborgian context. Seeing the physical world as God’s creation and therefore reflecting, at least in its matter and forces, God’s intent, opens up additional dimensions of meaning embedded in physical law. If the natural and spiritual worlds are both created by God, and created as a whole rather than as wholly separate cosmoses, then we can expect to find in our study of the natural world insight into the spiritual world as well. In the New Church these connections are often called “correspondences,” a term used many times in English translations of Swedenborg’s theological works. I find pursuit of these connections more satisfying than engaging in debates about the authority of science and religion. Rather than determining which perspective should have more standing, I feel that each has standing in its own context, and that the tension sometimes created between the two can enrich both.
In my courses I find that students engage more fully with subject matter when that subject matter informs them in more than one way—when it builds a key skill in the immediate subject-specific objectives and in doing so also connects by analogy or extension into their social life, philosophical or religious questions, or issues of the day. Finding meaning in experience is a skill well developed in the human brain, and so looking for levels of meaning while studying topics in science is a natural and satisfying endeavor. In this brief article I give one example of making these kinds of connections while exploring the tension caused by forces acting on an electron bound to an atom.
One fascinating aspect of chemical reality, at least as we understand it today, is that all the chemical elements are made of the same subatomic particles—which for simplicity we can reduce to electrons and protons. Atoms also contain neutrons, but neutrons can be thought of as a combination of one electron and one proton. Of course these subatomic particles are built from more fundamental particles, but matter at the energy levels we experience is condensed into atoms, and from atoms into ions and molecules. Remarkably, although atoms of all elements are made of the same subatomic particles, each element (each type of atom) has unique chemical and physical properties. It turns out that the nature of each element is determined by the number of protons it has in the nucleus, which, to achieve electro-neutrality, dictates how many electrons are associated with the atom.
How can two subatomic particles combine to create over 100 elements, each with unique properties? And how can those elements then combine with each other to make millions upon millions of unique compounds? In other words, how can various combinations of just two entities, protons and electrons, give rise to the entire ensemble of physical matter with its tremendous variety of physical and chemical properties?—solids, liquids, gases, varying degrees of density, heat capacity and conductance, color, transparency, hardness, reactivity, stability, ductility, and so on. Why all that variety? Somehow, electrons and protons must associate in more than one way, and these various associations, more than the subatomic particles themselves, must control the physical and chemical properties.
How? To understand this in a scientific way, we need to examine the forces acting on electrons and protons in atoms.
Consider the following:
1) Protons are positively charged and are clumped together in the nucleus.
2) Electrons have 1,840 times less mass than protons do, but have exactly the same magnitude of electrostatic charge, though it is negative.
3) Electrons and protons are in constant motion because all matter must move to exist (third law of thermodynamics). These motions are invisible at the macroscopic scale but significant at the atomic scale.
4) The movement of matter at the atomic level is in the form of waves. The length of the wave depends in part on the mass of the particle. The smaller the mass the greater the wavelength.
5) Because the electron is less massive than the proton, the electron waveform is much, much larger than the proton's waveform.
6) This waveform motion spreads the electron’s negative charge out into a relatively large volume, while the proton’s positive charge is spread into a relatively small volume. (The negative charge is spread into a volume about 1015 times larger than the volume of the positive charge.)
7) Electrons and protons are attracted to each other electrostatically, but because their waveforms are different they cannot ordinarily combine.
8) Because electrons are attracted to nuclei but must also maintain their wider waveforms to exist, electrons are caught in the tension of two opposing forces.
The balance of these two opposing forces is different for each element because each element has a unique number of protons. The various balance points between the two opposing forces (electrostatic attraction and the electron’s expansive waveform requirement) acting on each electron is why the elements behave differently, even though all elements are made of the same subatomic particles. The tension between these two forces is the cause of all chemical reactivity and nearly all physical properties.
The spread of the electron’s negative charge versus the condensed positive charge of the proton allows atoms to attract more electrons than they have protons. Electrons in atoms “feel” more positive charge than they “feel” negative charge, because the positive charge is concentrated in one place. This creates the appearance that there are not enough electrons to go around, which is why chemical reactions are atomic battles to gain electrons. Some elements are better than others at capturing electrons. It is the tug-of-war for electrons that makes reactions happen, and that tension is caused and made dynamic by the tension the electrons are under in all of their associations with nuclei. There is no one set up that allows an electron to relax. Matter experiences unending tension, and it is that tension that gives matter its creative properties. There would be no chemical processes without it.
Jumping levels, we can view the creativity made possible by the tension on bound electrons as similar to the creativity of a musical instrument, whose various pitches and tones are made possible by varying tension. And jumping another level we can think also of our consciousness as similarly under the tension of balancing opposing forces. It is the tension among our guiding principles that gives our thought resonance. Just as no musical instrument can sound without tension, if we slacken our strands of thought, or if we attach all thought to the same point, then we cannot vibrate with new ideas. But if we expand our set of guiding principles, perhaps including even self-contradictory elements, then there is tension and we are ready to sing. Jumping yet another level, the grandest example may be the tension between the Lord’s universal love for us and the Lord’s imperative that we all be free. The Lord’s love draws us in but the gift of freedom keeps us from merging with the Creator, even in our best moments. Our entire reality may be animated by that Divine tension.
Atomic, electronic tension gives us a matter-based illustration of how opposing forces lead to tremendous creativity—God put tension in the very fabric of the universe, and using that tension matter became astoundingly complex. And in the laws of Divine Providence we see that God’s purpose of creation and the means of achieving that purpose set up tension as well. God creates us out of love and from that love God wants to save everyone. But saving us against our will, or in a way that unites us entirely with God, would destroy our freedom.
In addition to being an example of possible extensions of thought available through study of the physical world, this particular example also gives a model of why we study both religion and science. We do this not to remove tension between scientific and religious thought, but to use that tension creatively. When we sense God in the tension between electrons and protons and perhaps see in it a model of tension between God’s zeal to save us and God’s requirement that we be free, then we might also accept as a creative blessing the tension between our pictures of reality based on religious belief and those based on science. Like the elements then, maybe we can be more than the sum of our fundamental parts.