Letters from 23
to 29 April 2007
Like all letters
to the editor everywhere, these letters are the opinions of the writers
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Are
you certain?
I
was wondering what the significance was of Maxwell's equations included
in the message
from Anglicans Online published yesterday? We have
a poster on the wall which says:
And God
said...
[insert
Maxwell's equations]
. . . and
there was light.
I'm assuming
someone at AO will get this joke seeing as someone put the equations
in :-). Mind you, given the nature of the discussion on mystery,
uncertainty and the brief nature of knowing I think this might
have been more appropriate:
ΔxΔp=h/4π
Best Regards
and thanks for your wonderful site,
Catherine
Nancekievill
St Mary's, Linton
Cambridge, ENGLAND
23 April 2007
(Ed: Don't you mean ΔxΔp ≥ h/4π ?)
The gift
of uncertainty
I'd not
thought to see Maxwell's equations on AO's lead page, put they
complemented the text marvelously well. They also brought to mind
a short piece I did some while back for a very different venue.
You may do with it what you like.
____
An Orion
Moment
Fiat Lux!
Pepper Marts
The first
words of the Pentateuch might well have been translated:
In the
Beginning of creation when God was making the heavens and the
earth, the earth was a vast waste. Darkness covered the deep and
the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. God said:
Let del
dot D equal rho, and let
del dot
B equal zero, and let
del cross
E equal minus the partial of B by t, and let
del cross
H equal I plus the partial of D by t
and there
was light . . .
These possibly
unfamiliar words represent a set of partial differential equations
developed by the English physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879).
They describe the relationships among measurable entities that
allow us to predict how time-varying electro-magnetic fields will
behave: light, radio waves, gamma radiation . . .
That such
a description is possible I interpret to mean that God has made
the created order in such a way as to be understandable to those
with the necessary wit and drive to investigate it. Although that
understanding is and will be imperfect, we can describe much of
the physical world and make predictions that subsequent experience
confirms.
We have
not the same facility either to describe the human psyche and
soul or to understand the actions of human beings. Psychologists
and psychiatrists, sociologists and historians, have much to offer
of data and conjectures that provide insights to the mysterious
inner realm, to our interior state — but there is no reliable
predictive strategy, there are no partial differential equations.
Instead we depend on our perceptions of what we believe others
have done in the past, our imagination of what their motives might
have been, and then we guess. From start to finish the endeavor
is clouded.
Sometimes
we further obscure an already murky process by our desire for
a particular outcome. We may identify so strongly with an individual’s
position on an issue that we are blind to the uncharity of which
that person is capable. Similarly, we may find a person’s
position on an issue so distasteful that we cannot see the honest
search for truth that lies behind it.
May the
God who made light and offers the grace to investigate it preserve
us all from such errors.
____
Pepper
Marts
St Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
mpm29@cornell.edu
23 April 2007
The Parish
of Saints B
& B?
Hello!
This is Anna from Poland! I've been searching many web sites this afternoon
but could not find the information I need so much! I'm a teacher
of English in Poland and love your country and its capital even
more than my own:-)
This summer
we (me and my husband) would love to visit London for for one
week and we are looking for some accommodation that we could afford.
I've heard from my English friends that some of London churches
rent their guest rooms. I wonder if you could help by providing
some web links...
Thank you
in advance and God bless!
Anna
Baptist Church
Warsaw, POLAND
25 April 2007
(Ed.
note: If you are aware of churches in London let out 'guest rooms',
let us know and we'll
email Anna.)
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