Credit to Whom Credit is Due

Sunday 11/3/2013 6:28 AM

I spent the last three days at a math conference learning better ways to teach and marveling at the way mathematics can describe and model the natural world.  In the time between sessions I read portions of the book Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, by Morris Kline.  It is a history of mathematics and explores the development of mathematics and its effect on the science, the art, and the philosophy of the time.  I just finished reading the section describing the work of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo and the switch from a geocentric view of things to a heliocentric view.  They had a way of thinking that went completely against the prevailing views of the time.  They saw things from a different perspective.  They looked for a simpler explanation for the movement of the planets around the sun than the circular motions with seventy-seven epicycles that the Ptolemaic system required and Kepler’s laws of elliptical orbits fit very well.  They believed that the universe was ordered and followed simple laws so they looked for such laws.

Since that time mathematicians and physicists have made further discoveries about the nature of the universe.  Relativity, quantum theory and string theory now dominate the landscape of mathematics and physics bringing with it new ideas about dark matter, dark energy and new dimensions in order to explain observed phenomena.

This morning I read Daniel 2:20-23, a prayer of Daniel after God had revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to him.  “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.  He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others.  He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.  He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.  I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.”  Modern science and mathematics have made great strides in explaining the nature of the universe but one seldom hears any credit being given to God.  God is explained away by the Higgs field and by the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle.”  I have a feeling that if Daniel were a modern day physicist or mathematician he would pray, “I thank and praise you, God of the universe; you reveal deep and hidden things.  He knows what lies in a Higgs field and the Higgs boson dwells with him.  You have given me wisdom and have made known to me the nature of the universe.”  That would be a refreshing voice to hear coming from the scientific community.