Introduction to the scientists’ film

The science channel, Channel 8, produced a program on science, and who did they present? The biggest name scientists in Israel in genetics, physics and chemistry. We took the entire series of 13 broadcasts and sat down to some learning. To tell you the truth? We were convinced: if previously we’d just thought they know nothing, now we KNOW that they know nothing. Nothing at all. How do we know? They say it themselves, that they know nothing: “It sounds interesting… but I have no idea. I have no idea…” And that’s from the new program, “The Scientists.”

Amazing facts about the universe

“The universe has trillions of stars.” From “The universe: The foundations of Astrophysics.”

“A single drop of water contains 1,700 trillion molecules.” From “General Chemistry.”

“In a single cell there are hundreds of millions of combinations.”

“The human body contains 100 billion cells.”

“The human brain contains 10 billion neurons.”

“The human body has 80,000 kilometers of blood vessels.”

“The eye’s retina has 127 million color receptors.” From “The Human Body Encyclopedia.”

“There are millions of life forms on earth.” From “The Encyclopedia of Nature.”

 

Does all of this bring itself into being by coincidence? Or is there some guiding force that created it all in well thought out ways?

Logic says: behind such complex things there must be cogitation and planning.

Science says: “Everything came about on its own.” And if science says so, it must know…

What does science really know?

What does science actually know? Excerpts from conversations with Tzvi Yanai, former CEO of the Office of Science, with other scientists: Professor Uri Maor, The School of Physics, Tel Aviv University; Professor Doron Lancet, Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science; Tzvi Atzmon, editor of the science magazine “Galileo”; Professor Yakir Ahronov, School of Physics, Tel Aviv University; Professor Menahem Megidor, President of Hebrew University Jerusalem.

Tzvi Yanai, CEO of the former Ministry of Science: Welcome. I’m pleased to open this series of 13 episodes on science in general and nature sciences in particular, as they currently stand near the close of this millennium. Many expected that our increased knowledge in science would bring us to the portals of absolute truths, and open doors to full answers in various scientific fields. In actuality, the number of questions left unanswered as we close this century is no less than the number unanswered at the start of the century. In fact the reality as revealed to physics and biology is as vague and unclear as it was at the century’s start.

Hawking seeks a theory

Introduction: the physicist Stephen Hawking seeks a theory for how the universe came into being. From Channel 2 broadcast in March 1998

 

Hawking: I was born exactly 300 years after Galileo’s death. I estimate that a further 200,000 babies were born that same day.

Narrator: One of those babies took up Galileo’s path and is now the most important theoretical physicist at the close of this century. He serves as Dean of Cambridge University’s Faculty of Mathematics, a role previously filled by Newton. Hawking is involved with finding that singular theory which will explain how the universe was formed. Some fifteen billion years ago there was nothing. The entire universe was a minuscule dot concentrating all the material that currently comprises the world. A physical change in that point caused an incredible explosion, the “Big Bang,” and the material exploded, creating the universe. Since then it has continued to spread.

Hawking did not wait for reality to disprove the theory but did that himself. This week he and his research partner published a new explanation for the creation of the universe, that pinpoint from which it all began. Hawking says it was always there, but the Big Bang created time as we know it. The universe expands in perpetuity, stars distancing from each to the infinite.

Hawking: An expanding universe does not negate the existence of a Creator, but limits the range of time in which it is feasible for that Creator to have executed his work.

Narrator: Hawking is convinced that quite soon, perhaps in his own lifetime, it will be possible to solve the riddle of the universe and address questions that only few may know their answers.

Hawking: If we can find the answer to that, it will be human insight’s absolute victory, because then we will understand the Creator’s purpose.

The physicist Stephen Hawking admits that there IS a Creator, admits that the Creator has a purpose (but he’s still seeking a theory for the creation of the universe!)

What does science know about the start of the universe?

What does science know about the start of the universe?

Tzvi Yanai: Here we get to the critical point where you can’t go further back with physics to that singular point, because that’s where all the rules are crushed, so it’s impossible to derive anything new from that point. That’s why physics has a problem. Along comes Hawking and proposes a solution where we say that it wasn’t the infinitesimal mathematical point that’s possible to imagine but a kind of wave of small bodies, a quantum wave entity that nonetheless has a bit of depth, a bit of square centimetrage.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: It’s not like a plastic wave having significance but it was all fluctuations that aren’t able to explain space and time, just that this fluctuation comes to a moment that we call the start of the universe, the Big Bang. After that, linkages start forming that can be described as time and space. Before that, it’s impossible.

Tzvi Yanai: So how have the wise folk assisted with their corrected form? Or in other words, what has Hawking solved, what problem of physics, what are the dilemmas or paradoxical situations that did or didn’t exist in that singular point and no longer exist…

Professor Yakir Ahronov: He didn’t, and no one is claiming he did. He is the one making the claim.

Tzvi Yanai: He is claiming.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: He is making the claim. He claimed other things that physicists later didn’t agree with. He himself changed his mind. No, no one thinks that there’s a solution to this problem of the start of the universe.

 

What does science know about the start of time?

What does science know about the start of time?

 

Tzvi Yanai: We spoke about the problem of the start of time, how time can start, what it’s starting point is, and if something starts at a particular point in time, then it’s always possible to ask what the moment before that start was, and whether physicists can say to us that that question is not legitimate, does not conform to the rules.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: Time: you can’t ask what existed before the start of the universe because there was no time before that.

Tzvi Yanai, former CEO of the Ministry of Science: Alright, let’s agree between ourselves…

Professor Yakir Ahronov: Yes?

Tzvi Yanai, former CEO of the Ministry of Science: …that I can ask…

Professor Yakir Ahronov: You can ask, but you won’t get an answer.

Tzvi Yanai: Precisely. Physicists don’t have an answer to that very naïve question of what came beforehand, and with that let’s leave the universe alone because I see it’s a very problematic topic.

Science on the beginning and essence of life

What does science know about the beginning of life?

Professor Doron Lancet: It could very well be possible that life began in this way, that is: there were molecules floating in the space of a cell, and miraculously, through a network of mutual interactions, they knew to do something like A linking with C to create L, and L linking to S and so on, producing a mutual interactive chain of commands.

Does science know what life is?

Professor Doron Lancet: We’re talking about an extremely difficult process, the details of which we can’t even imagine for creating such a complex entity, complex at the molecular level, and we need to remember that molecules are extremely small, which is why there’s an astronomical number of molecules in each of us. All the molecules, in one form or another, “talk” to each other within the cell, and the cells “talk” to each other, cells in limbs talk to each other, to hormones and chemical releases. The result is massive complexity, and we’re trying to understand the details. When we do, maybe we’ll understand what “life” is.

 

Intermediary scientific summary

Intermediary scientific summary

The start of time: unknown

The start of the universe: no solution

The start of life: perhaps a miracle

The essence of life: no idea

 

Does science understand that the universe is planned?

Does science understand that the universe is planned?

Professor Doron Lancet: At the end of the day, a human’s plan, and actually also that of many other beings, includes the nematode worms we mentioned earlier, including plants and insects and so forth. This plan, which by the way is very similar among the different creatures, is written in the same language, the same code, the same principles. As soon as we’ll discover this plan, we can take the reins, use super-computers, try to link the parts with each other, try to understand how proteins created in this program react to each other in the process. We could call this the smart blocks, blocks that recognize each other and create the total structure.

And who, according to science, is the planner?

Professor Doron Lancet: Life has a plan but the plan is inside it, and the most important thing is that the plan creates parts that know how to build the whole on their own, spontaneously. A tells C to come into being, C tells L, L tells K which then tells S, and so on. A network of mutual instructions to create each other. We could call this the smart blocks that create the overall structure, and in the end, it will allow us to understand things.

Intermediary scientific summary

Intermediary scientific summary

There were very clever cells… they built themselves and then sat down to set a plan, where A told C to come into being, C told L, L closed with K, K told S.

Can complex things be self-created?

Appendix: “Logic”

Can complex things be created from their own selves? Let’s start with a sharp stone. From the film “Evolution” broadcast on the science channel: bits of stone like this fill the African landscape. It’s strange to think that perhaps they constitute a further key into human life. The question was if these are regular stones… or did someone make them? And if so, when?

Archeologist: Some would look at this and say “There are similar things in my back yard.”

My answer is: If you can find these in your back yard, you are probably on an archeological site because stones don’t pare down like this in nature. Here there’s control, there’s a sense of geometry. Frequently we can connect them at the site with the ancient Stone Age and see, a knock here, a chip there, how they’ve been pared down.  And they haven’t rolled 4 kilometers up the hill. A humanoid of some kind carried them there. Often they’re found far from their geological source. At some point there was a crisis, it seems there were a huge number of particles and so, to release from this crisis, part of the solution to this crisis was to come up with the existence of quantum. A flint stone sharpened on both sides…

Science says: It can’t be formed by chance…

Now pay attention: a living cell, built of billions of combinations packed into one thousands of a millimeter. Science says: Yes, it formed by chance…!

Scientific logic: A stone, geometrically broken: clearly this is no coincidence. A cell, made of billions of combinations: that IS coincidence!

 

What do scientists do when they don’t know?

What do scientists do when they don’t know?

(1)  Envisioning particles.

I did my doctoral work with a very well-known physicist called David Bow who died a few years ago, unfortunately. And he really did invent an alternative theory to the quantum theory, called The Theory of Hidden Variables, which to date has earned many followers. What do scientists do when they don’t know?

(2) Invent theories and collect followers.

Professor Uri Maor: It’s well known that ליסבורן, Albert Einstein and the greats of that generation very clearly felt uncomfortable with many of physics’ meanings. This was well known.

Tzvi Yanai: And nonetheless 70 years have passed since then.

Professor Uri Maor: And with many areas we still don’t feel comfortable. What do scientists do when they don’t know?

(3) Feeling uncomfortable

Tzvi Yanai: Simply, I’ll present you with Richard Feinman’s reaction. He’s one of the greatest physicists of this century. When lecturing students, he once said: “Calm down, don’t ask physicists what they do all the time, how can it be possible. Just accept that that’s how things are done. What do scientists do when they don’t know?

(4) Believe and accept without questions.

 

Intermediary scientific summary

Intermediary scientific summary

Envision particles, invent theories

Feel “uncomfortable”

Believe without questioning

 

A scientist on scientific theory

What does a scientist say about scientific theory?

Tzvi Yanai: Currently part of a large group of physicists is concentrating on something completely new in the framework of the string theory, on a kind of particle as I said earlier on. It’s an extremely minuscule string which fluctuates and from its fluctuations, all the particles we’re familiar with are formed. Do you personally…

Professor Maor: Yes, you believe that theory, but do you really think that’s the answer also to the problem of unifying with the quantum theory and the general movement, and all the multitude of particles? Is the answer in that same minuscule sting that is thought might exist?

Professor Maor: That answer is very, very interesting. It’s very promising and I have no idea…

A scientific “proof” has been found for evolution

You’re about to see a one of a kind finding that finally offers scientific proof of the theory of evolution. From the film “Evolution,” broadcast on the science channel: In Laetoli, Tanzania, the legendary Mary Leakey discovered quite by chance something incredibly impressive. These footprints were made 3.5 million years ago by people who walked upright on two legs. This is the most ancient evidence which undeniably shows the great change, that amazing time when one of our key characteristics came about.

It is the time when the animal that eventually became humans stood straight for the first time. The footprints were preserved due to an outstanding circumstance between fresh volcanic dust and rain. The rain can be seen in the dust, and the prints of other animals walking past here on that same day millions of years ago. Another piece in the human puzzle: walking upright began 4.5 million years ago. The clouds disperse. This is how “Scientific Evidence” for the theory of evolution looks! Check it out for yourselves!

Science or faith?

Science or faith?

Tzvi Yanai: As a physicist, you face an almost absurd situation where deciding what should be found determines what WILL be found. Do you feel comfortable with that?

Professor Maor: The truth is, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: In the sense that you’d never know there are proofs, this quantum effect comes along and shows that quantum theory is a kind of new miracle, it’s the next big thing.

Professor Doron Lancet: It may very well be that life began in that form, in other words, there were just molecules floating about in the space of the cell, and in some miraculous way through a network of mutual interactions…

Professor Megidor: Most mathematicians, if you ask them what their gut feeling is, they believe these are things with some degree of objective existence.

Tzvi Atzmon: Stronger proofs of that don’t exist… but that is definitely one of the approaches. In other words, death is desirable from the evolutionary angle.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: It seems completely paradoxical and I’m really pleased, as folks say, that it appears paradoxical because that means that we don’t understand a thing about time, we don’t understand anything about time.

Tzvi Yanai: I can tell you that to me it looks like hieroglyphics. Amazing. Yes, I’ll tell you why it’s logics…

 

What does a scientist say about physics?

What does a scientist say about physics?

Professor Maor: I think the question we need to ask ourselves is whether our formulation of the laws of physics, our mathematical formulation, is the only one possible? And I believe it would be extremely difficult to answer that question absolutely.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: What is physics? Physics always needs to be precise on the basis of other things. It’s impossible to start something from nothing so we always need to set an axiomatic cornerstone which helps us explain other things. Why these axioms were chosen is a matter for…

Intermediary scientific summary

Intermediary scientific summary:

Theorists, inventors, believers and followers presume miraculous and wondrous premises. There is no concept nor any proofs.

The last scientific word to Einstein

The last scientific word to Einstein

Professor Yakir Ahronov: It looks completely capricious. How come nature behaves so capriciously, so arbitrarily? This angered Einstein so much that to his dying day he claimed he didn’t believe that quantum theory was logical, he didn’t believe God was simply rolling the dice. What that means…

Tzvi Yanai: He says we can’t tell God what to do

Professor Yakir Ahronov: One second, wait. So what does that mean? God isn’t tossing the dice in order to decide when an atom will break up, that was Einstein’s statement. Throughout my scientific research career I formulated Einstein’s statement in a slightly different but highly significant way. I asked: why does God toss dice?

Scientists are Smart People

Scientists are smart people. they research the universe, the resistance themselves, they understand that it’s a miracle, they know that everything has been made with spectacular wisdom, they know there’s thought and planning, and they admit that there’s no scientific explanation for the world but… at university they were told it’s all materials.

Professor Doron Lancet: A living creature is in fact a machine, and the difference between it and other machines is that we’re used to them, such as typewriters or computers. The difference is in the level of complexity. We were taught that the world boils down to numbers and equations.

Professor Maor: All we can say is that a radius smaller than 10 to the power of 17 centimeters, more than that we can’t say, we can’t measure. A scientific mind can’t conceive of spiritual reality.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: This angered Einstein so much that to his dying day he claimed that he doesn’t believe quantum theory to be logical, he doesn’t believe God is merely rolling dice.

Tzvi Yanai: No one can tell God what to do.

Professor Yakir Ahronov: Wait… that’s why they’ll prefer a theoretical reality, so to speak, scientific (which fail again and again).

Tzvi Yanai: So it’s not about some kind of string but some kind of pulp…

Professor Maor: Yes, and that pulp is multidimensional, with 11 dimensions, and will always reach a dead end.

Tzvi Yanai: Perhaps this truly fascinating conversation can be closed with Richard Feynman’s statement, when at the time he said: Constantly ask yourselves how it’s possible because if you ask these questions, you’ll find yourself in a dead end. But we’ll nonetheless keep asking the questions.

A modern astronomer says

A modern astronomer: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”  Robert Jastrow, God and Astonomy, pg. 116

The RAMBAM’s solution to the riddle

Rambam, Book of Science, chapter 1: “The foundation of foundations and pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a first entity which brought into reality every reality. And all the realities from heaven and earth and everything in between could not be realities without his being a reality.”

 

NEW!  Further to Torah from heaven: the lunar cycle, the cluster of stars, the earth’s radiance, the sun’s position, the set of facts, and more.