Christ and Light and Richard Feynman

Solitary Servant
Jul 25, 2017 · 6 min read

The Duality that is Jesus Christ

John 1: 1, 9, 14 http://drbo.org/chapter/50001.htm (Douay-Rheims online)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Incarnation is the union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word (Catechism text paragraph number 461). Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, united in the one person of God’s Son. The Catechism further clarifies by making the distinction that the incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor is he some sort of mixture of the divine and the human (464). He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man (480).

Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith (463). Beginning in the early church years, various distortions or denials of this truth developed. Major heresies associated with the God/man duality of Christ, some of which persist today, are summarized in the table below:

Although the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, Incarnation heresies are evidence that finding words with which to (1) understand the concept and (2) explain the reality of “true God/true man” in unerring fashion has been a challenge. Given the “unique and singular event” that was the Incarnation (464), it follows that there are no comparable human experiences from which to develop an understanding of, let alone explanation for, the God/man duality that is the reality of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is a mystery (483).

The Duality that is Light

Genesis 1: 1, 3–4 http://drbo.org/chapter/01001.htm

Starting well before the Incarnation, thinkers have pondered the essence of the light that God spoke into being. Included among these were Plato, Euclid, the Pythagoreans, and Empodocles. Amazingly enough, these “early physics fathers” developed a notion of light that subsequent thinking and experimentation have only refined and reinforced: light appears to have two “natures” — a wave nature and a particle nature.

We are familiar with “waves” — consider as an example of a wave the ripples moving away from a stone dropped into a lake. We are also familiar with “particles” — consider as examples of particles bullets or billiard balls. Since waves and particles are within our human experience range, we too can develop our own understanding of the dual nature of light. And, although it might not be immediately obvious to us, we are also familiar with “wave-particle duality” — in optical images such as photographs.

Consider the everyday example of photographs. Light from sunshine or flash spreads like a wave toward and across the surface of what is to be photographed, the subject. When the light bounces off the subject toward the open lens of the camera, it still retains its wave-like nature. When the light “hits” the film, it behaves as if it were individual bullets or billiard balls (particles of light called “photons”), triggering a chemical reaction in the photographic film precisely where the photons hit the grains of chemicals suspended in the film. Photographs that convincingly illustrate this point can be found in Albert Rose’s Vision: Human and Electronic ( Plenum Press, 1973, p.38), as can be seen in an excerpt from Rose’s book, below, used in a college physics course.

Another illustration may help lead to the insight that light is not sometimes a wave and other times a particle — it exhibits both wave and particle natures at the same time. One of the characteristics of waves is that they can interfere with each other as they travel outward from their origin. An example of such interference is the spectrum of colors visible in a soap bubble. As light waves travel through the soap bubble film, the waves interfere with each in complex ways to produce the colors we see in the bubble.

Now think about taking a photograph of the soap bubble, such as the one below. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soap_bubbles-jurvetson.jpg)

The “wave” nature of the light creates the rainbow effect in the bubble and its “particle” nature triggers the film chemistry, as in our previous example. Photographs of soap bubbles, then, are evidence that the wave nature and the particle nature of light occur together. There’s a word for phenomena which occur together — it’s “conjugate”.

Photograph of soap bubbles: The “wave” nature of the light creates the rainbow effect in the bubble and its “particle” nature triggers the film chemistry

Yet a third illustration should help lead to the insight that light is not partly wave-like and partly particle-like but is, instead, fully wave-like and fully particle-like. In this third illustration, consider one or more devices that are also now an everyday experience for us: solar-powered lights, photocells that turn lights on automatically at dusk (and off automatically at dawn), and light-actuated intrusion/security alarms. All of these devices rely on light’s ability to generate electric current. How does it do so? Consider once again our earlier photograph example. If our photographic film is replaced with a material that conducts electricity, photons (particles) from a steady stream of light impinging on the atoms of that material will literally knock out electrons, freeing them to create a stream of electrons — electrical current. This “photoelectric effect” had already been observed before the dual behavior of light had been fully established. Albert Einstein subsequently described this photoelectric effect mathematically. The math that matches the observed effect was conclusive proof for the particle nature of light and for the equivalence between lightwaves and particles. The energy of the (hail of) particles is directly proportional to the wavelength of its conjugate property. Albert Einstein won a Nobel Prize in Physics (1921) for this math exercise. His work validated, for the first time, the “particle” theory of light, adding it to the already established wave theory. After winning the Prize, Einstein wrote: “There are therefore now two theories of light, both indispensable, and … without any logical connection.”

Still a Mystery

Hebrews 11: 1, 3 http://drbo.org/chapter/65011.htm

We now grasp the concept of the dual nature of light. We also see reflected in the duality of light the essence of the duality of Christ: two natures individually, fully, and immediately present and operative in a single entity. Can we go further and explain the why or how of what we experience as reality?

In regard to the duality of light, what humans are able to observe is limited to a size scale that is much, much, much larger than the dimensions of an atom, the level at which the wave/particle duality and its effects originate. To explain (or attempt to explain) why we see what we do requires developing an understanding of what’s going on at the atomic-level dimension — the domain of theoretical physicists called quantum mechanics. Among those who have succeeded in advancing our understanding of this phenomenon is another physicist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his effort, Richard Feynman (1965). The late Richard Feynman was Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. His Lectures on Physics is arguably the “catechism” for physics students and professionals alike. Here is what Professor Feynman’s “catechism” says:

“Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to get used to, and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone — both to the novice and to the experienced physicist. Even the experts do not understand it the way they would like to, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should not, because all of direct, human experience and of human intuition applies to large objects. We know how large objects will act, but things on a small scale do not act that way. So we have to learn about them in sort of abstract or imaginative fashion and not by connection with our direct experience. The behavior at this level is called quantum behavior. It (quantum behavior) contains the only mystery. We cannot make the mystery go away.”

It would seem, then, that the hypothesis of the wave/particle duality of light has a further parallel in the hypostasis that is the God/man duality of Jesus Christ: both are offered to us as mysteries.

References/Sources:

  1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, revised
  2. Hunter College, City University of New York, Physics 101, Lecture 25, 2006
  3. Conjugate Properties and the Hypostatic Union, Michael Bozack, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Vol, 39, June 1987, pp. 105–107
  4. Quantum Physics, presented by Richard P. Feynman at CalTech, September 29, 1963, The Feynman Lectures on Physics
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