Jan 27 2010

Hydrogen atoms

Category: Soft Edges — Jim Taylor @ 3:27 pm

Wednesday January 27, 2010

Perpetual motion machines

By Jim Taylor

Long, long, ago, when I was young and dinosaurs still roamed the rain forests, we imagined that atoms and molecules were something like Tinkertoy – tiny solid balls of matter glued together in complex patterns, rather like our solar system, only more so.
        Today, I gather, physicists think of those “balls” as something more like clouds of energy. Even a simple electron is a whirling energy field, composed of its own internal energy fields – a magical thing that defies precise location, more like a probability than a solid ball.
        Bigger atoms consist of energy fields so interwoven that they make a bowl of pasta look organized.
        The simplest molecule is hydrogen – a single electron orbiting a single proton (yes, I know, that’s still the old visualization).
        In the Big Bang – or whatever launched the universe, some 14 billion years ago – hydrogen atoms were the first atoms formed. All other elements are based upon that initial atom. Even the uranium atom, with 92 electrons whirling in multiple shells, evolved from combinations of the hydrogen atom’s basic proton and electron.
        The electronic field in a hydrogen atom spins around its nucleus approximately a ten million billion times (22 zeroes) a second, travelling at slightly under 1 per cent of the speed of light.
        As far as we can tell, that rotation rate has not changed in 14 billion years.

Missing factors
        Now, my high school physics teacher also assured us that there was no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.
        We studied some fanciful perpetual motion machines that people tried to create. Like waterwheels that pumped water back up to the top to run down and drive the waterwheel again… Or pendulums that used their swing to wind themselves upwards…
        Always, he noted, the designers ignored some basic factor, such as friction, which could only be overcome by the input of extra energy.
        Even our solar system will not last forever, he reminded us. The earth’s rotation is slowing, infinitesimally, over the eons, because of the drag of ocean tides. In fact, 3.5 billion years ago, a day was four hours shorter.
        Over longer periods, even planetary orbits will run down, because they too consume energy to keep whirling through supposedly empty space.
        But the hydrogen atom has not slowed down at all, as far as we can tell.
        Which might make it the ultimate perpetual motion machine.
        Does that mean that there’s no friction inside an atom? Or is it drawing energy from some other source to maintain its speed?

Veiled by the future
        Half a century ago, we didn’t know enough to ask those questions, let alone hypothesize answers. Twenty centuries ago, such questions would have been beyond imagination.
        So it baffles me that some people continue to treat the Bible as containing ultimate answers to scientific questions. Not so much about sub-atomic particle physics. But whenever astronomy, or geology, or biology conflict with biblical testimony, they insist that the Bible must be right.
        Those weren’t the questions the Bible was trying to answer.

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Your Turn



“Thanks for your sharply stated words that God does not cause such tragedies as the mudslides, the Haitian earthquake and similar disasters,” wrote John Shearman. “Keep hammering away to get your more progressive theology across.”
        John added, “Did you see Satan’s response to Robertson from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune? http://tinyurl.com/yj7ztft
        “I wonder if there is a better response than humour, much like C.S. Lewis’ ‘Screwtape Letters.’ Shouldn’t we also forgive him as well as rebuke him for his ignorance and incitement of the fears of the Old South two centuries after the slave revolt in Haiti and 150 years after the Declaration of Emancipation?”

Freda McCormick wrote from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia: “I, too, think that God does not cause such things to happen. In many cases, we, in our actions with the earth, cause them. I also feel that our universe, though created by God did develop through evolution. I have heard that science and religion are getting closer together. When that happens, I think we will see our responsibility and realize what creation really was and is.”

Suzanne Edgar wasted no words in her comment: “I said as much in my sermon on Sunday. You said it better!”

I’m flattered. But there’s always an alternate view; in this case, from Steve Roney: “Logically, and theologically, Jim, of course God is responsible for natural disasters. Clearly, if he is omnipotent, he could at a minimum prevent them if he chose. He dos not. And if God is behind it, he must also have his reasons. For all the flak Pat Robertson is taking, supposing that God does not send natural disasters on evildoers requires denying what is plainly stated many times in the Old Testament, starting with the stories of Noah and Lot.
        “As to the quotation from Jesus, I think you have changed its meaning by pulling it out of context. Jesus goes on immediately to say that his listeners, being equally evil, can expect the same. This plainly implies that God DID cause the tower to fall because of the wickedness of the eighteen. Clearly, this view is not currently fashionable–look at the reaction to Pat Robertson. But if you can see a way around it, I can’t.”

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About My Books



Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.

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