More Science Stuff

More science “stuff” to ponder.  Credit Scientific American.

If you were traveling away from the Earth at 40% of the speed of light (74,400 miles a second), and someone fired a laser beam (light beam) toward you, would the light in the laser be coming toward you at 111,600 miles a second (the speed of light minus the speed you are traveling away from the light source, or would the laser beam still be coming toward you at 186,000 miles a second?  Answer:  The beam would still be coming toward you at 186,000 miles a second.  The laws of nature are the same no matter how fast you are moving relative to anything else in the universe.

The faster you travel,; the slower time passes for you.  Additionally, the faster you travel, you become “length contracted”.  That is, you begin to flatten like a pancake along the direction you are traveling.  You also would gain mass the faster you travel.  If you could travel at the speed of light, you would lose the third dimension entirely, but would have infinite mass.

If you push a rock up a hill, it gains gravitational potential energy, and therefore also gains mass, because mass and energy are interchangeable and identical.

If you could turn the mass of an ordinary golf ball into energy, that energy would power a 75 watt light bulb for about 2 million years (about 1,300 megawatts of power).

The path of earth’s movement through space-time is called a world line.  Earth’s world line is shaped like a helix.

As GPS satellites orbit the earth, variations in gravity slow their internal clocks relatie to one another.  Scientists use Einstein’s theory of General Relativity to correct the errors.

The core temperature of the sun is estimated at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.  Every second, it crushes 700 million tons of hydrogen into 695 million tons of helium.  The other 5 million tons is turned into energy.

Photons created inside the sun can take upwards of a million years to get to the surface, even though they travel at the speed of light.  The mass particles are crushed so tightly inside the sun that the photons constantly bounce off of them and only gradually reach the surface.

That’s it for this time.  More cool stuff in a later post.

One Hit Wonders and Parables

Our church custodian is a busy man.  He is continually doing something at the building which involves cleaning, painting, repairing, or something else.  He does have a routine, however, and on Mondays he usually is in the auditorium cleaning up after the Sunday services.  On days when he does this, or if there are times when he will be working some other place for a period of time, he will play a boom box.  The songs are invariably Simon and Garfunkel.

He is about my age, and although I have never asked, he probably grew up listening to them as well as others of that era.  They, however, seem to have a lot more staying power than most of the other groups and individuals that inhabited that era.

There are others, of course.  Peter, Paul, and Mary immediately come to mind.  The Beatles are yet another.  Chicago, John Denver, and others come to mind.  You can make your own list, which may or may not have all of the same groups and performers that mine has.

Then there are the one hit wonders.  Steam, the Cuff Links, Zager & Evans, Lemon Pipers, The Fifth Estate, the Murmaids and many others hit that list.  You can find a complete list at Wikipedia, by the way.  These groups or performers had but one hit on the top 40 charts.  Some of them, such as the Statler Brothers, were hits in their own right in other venues, not all that concerned with being in the top 40; it just happened that way.  Others really tried to break into the industry as a career, but it just didn’t gel.

We had a sermon yesterday on the parable Jesus told about the sower who went out to sow his seed.  As he scattered it, some fell on a hard pathway.  Some fell on rocky places where there wasn’t much soil.  Some fell where there were thorns and thistles growing.  But some fell on good soil and produced a good crop.

The lesson from the parable is, of course, the idea of the message of God being scattered and falling on the hearts and minds of people.  Some are like the hard, pathway soil and the message doesn’t penetrate.  Others are like the rocky soil where the message sprouts, but can’t get a good footing in the shallow soil.  Still others are like the soil where the thorns and thistles grow…the good plants are crowded out by the bad.

But there are some people upon which the message is like the seed that finds its way to the good soil.  The message of God’s love for mankind sprouts, grows, and produces a crop…a child of God and another sower who goes out and scatters seed.

Although the story is old and familiar, the meaning remains fresh to this day.  Our job as Christians is not to determine who will or will not accept the message.  Our job is to “scatter the seed;” spread the message to all who will hear.  It’s up to them to decide what kind of soil they will be in their hearts and minds for the seed of God’s message of love and forgiveness.

The one hit wonders sort of remind me of those people within whom the message of God sprouts, but has no firm footing…those with rocky soil.  They spring up for a short while, but don’t last.  The ones who had a lasting career remind me of the people with the good soil.  They are the ones that have what it takes to produce a crop over time.  I know, that’s not true every time with every one hit wonder and every long-lasting group.  But from now on, I’ll probably connect those two separate thoughts in my mind whenever I think either of the parable of the sower or of the one hit wonders of the 1960’s.

Week Off

Taking this week off.  See you next week.

Thank You Al Gore (or Whoever)

I’ve heard so much negative about the social media lately.  Although I have both a Twitter and a Facebook account, I don’t use Twitter.  But I do regularly check FB.  And, yes, there are things there that are not good.  This election cycle has brought out a lot of posts about this politician or that, and I admit I’ve been a part of that.  Recently, however, I decided it was not only futile to post, but was a turn-off as well.  So, I’m foregoing all of that, and I haven’t posted anything political now for many weeks.

And yes, there’s the bullying thing that goes on.  Then there’s the sex stuff, and all of the other rot that is part of society in general.  FB is an image of society.  Why would we expect it to be anything else?

But the good, if it is used correctly, can be gratifying, informative, and just plain fun.  One can find old friends, make new friends, and keep up with the goings-on of people in far away places.  The things one learns probably won’t shake up the world; nor will they cause any great changes in how we live, but nevertheless are, to use a well-worn phrase, “cool.”

For example, this morning my cousin posted that her husband was beginning to cut into their bedroom wall sheetrock to repair a leaky pipe.  She said something about hearing a power saw working and ended her post with “hmm.”  Nothing earth shattering, but I enjoyed knowing about someone I knew who was working on a household project.  I could relate very well to what was going on there.

I posted back that maybe she should peer over his shoulder.  She responded that she did, and found that he hadn’t put down something on the damp carpet to catch the sheetrock dust.  Oh, can I relate to that!

Those kinds of interactions are both enjoyable and connecting.  I had lost track of this cousin years ago, and only recently at a funeral were we able to reconnect.  She is a joy to see on FB, and I relish the connection we have made there.  She is the last of her line of the family and has no children.  So when she’s gone, that part of the family will be extinguished.  That’s not a bad thing…it just makes the connection we now have even more important.

That, friend, is what is important.  Not the sheetrock dust.  Not the plumbing problem.  The connection is what is important.  You might say that connecting like this is unfulfilling and isn’t nearly as good as face to face.  You’re right.  But without FB and the technology, this particular connection wouldn’t happen at all, because they live in Texas and we live in Kansas.  I have many FB friends who would not connect with me at all were it not for social media, because they live so far away.  FB brings us closer.

So, there ya’ go.  While I still like to send cards in the snail mail, and even write something once in a while to send that way, I also like the immediacy and the reach of the social media.  I can immediately connect with friends the world over, enjoy their good times, and encourage them in the bad times.  With apologies to Al Gore (sorry, I couldn't resist...all in good fun), THANK YOU to whoever invented the Internet!

Bringing to Focus

I’m not sure where to go with the blog this week.  There have been a couple of ideas kicking around in what’s left of my brain the past couple of days, but nothing much has gelled yet.

Let’s see.  Yesterday was the culmination of having a broken tooth for several days, and having to make adjustments to how I ate and carried on some of life’s normal activities.  Then there was the man I saw at a Quik Trip that was truly a big man…broad at the shoulders, quite a bit taller than I, and a nice person who excused himself as he and I arrived at the entrance approximately together.  He reminded me of that old Jimmy Dean song, “Big John.”

Then there was choir practice.  I’m in a choir that will be doing “The Messiah” in about 6 weeks.  The music is challenging; the emotions are running high; the message of the oratorio is thrilling.  And there was the storm of storms off the East Coast…we have no relatives out there, but know some people who were in the path of the storm.  And of course, there is the election and all of the politics, haggling, maneuvering, and posturing that goes with all of that.

So, all in all a truly mixed bag of things spinning in my head, trying to make an exit of some kind.  And I’m in a kind of quandary regarding whether to give any of them more than the cursory time of day.  Sometimes, you see, all of these things just don’t seem to matter all that much when compared with the things that we can’t see…the things that are eternal…the things that really matter (according to Jesus of Nazareth).

And maybe this is one of those times…when the weight of the things of life sort of take a back seat to the things that are ahead…the things of the life to come.  After all, I’ll spend a lot more time, so to speak, in that next life than I ever would in this.  The things that I’ve worked so hard for in this life really won’t do me any good in the next, except for the deeds I’ve done and the Name that I’ve called upon for salvation, protection, and rest.

Which sort of brings broken teeth, storms, and old songs into focus as things which may or may not be good…yet are a necessary part of life in the here and now; but really have no weight when I think of my eternal destiny hanging on my appeal to the cross of Jesus Christ, and of His recognition of me as a forgiven and adopted Son of the living God.

And therein lies the entirety of it all.

The Heavens are Telling

The Heavens are Telling

From “The Creation”

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament;

Today that is coming speaks it the day,
The night that is gone to following night.

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament;

In all the lands resounds the word,
never unperceived, ever understood.

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.

—Author and Composer: Franz Joseph Haydn

These words may not mean a lot to you.  It is the closing number of part one of The Creation by F. J. Haydn.  It is translated from German, so the English rendering may appear to be rather stiff and stilted.  But the meaning is clear.  It is taken from Psalm 19.  Of this, Wikipedia says the following.

The text is based on Psalm 19:1–3, which had been set by Bach as the opening chorus of his cantata Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, BWV 76. Haydn's century, following on the discoveries of Newton, had the view that an orderly universe—particularly the mathematically-governed motion of the heavenly bodies—attests to divine wisdom.

Wiki continues to describe Haydn and this work.  The work on the oratorio lasted from October 1796 to April 1798. It was also a profound act of faith for this deeply religious man, who appended the words "Praise to God" at the end of every completed composition. He later remarked, "I was never so devout as when I was at work on The Creation; I fell on my knees each day and begged God to give me the strength to finish the work."

The words above may still not mean much to you…and that’s understandable.  Listen to it performed.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqqfbinUDY