This Elegant Universe

Einstein's biggest contribution to the field of physics was his 1915 Theory of General Relativity, that said: gravity is the bending of the geometric fabric of spacetime. He theorized that orbits of planets and even an apple falling to the ground is an attraction to that bend in space and time caused by the force of large object's gravity.

With this theory, he predicted that even light could be bent by a gravitational pull. He said that the gravity of the sun was enough to make stars appear to be in a different place because its effect and bend on the light they emit.

The only way to test this, however, was during a solar eclipse, because the sun's brightness itself would completely obscure the affected stars' light. On May 29, 1919, Arthur Eddington traveled to the island of Principe to catch a solar eclipse and to prove Einstein's theory right or wrong.

"When the success of Eddington's 1919 expedition to measure Einstein's prediction of the bending of starlight by the sun had been established, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz sent Einstein a telegram informing him of the good news. As word of the telegram's confirmation of general relativity spread, a student asked Einstein about what he would have thought if Eddington's experiment had not found the predicted bending of starlight. Einstein replied, "Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord, for the theory is correct." Of course, had experiments truly failed to confirm Einstein's predictions, the theory would not be correct and general relativity would not have become a pillar of modern physics.
But what Einstein meant is that general relativity describes gravity with such a deep inner elegance, with such simple yet powerful ideas, that he found it hard to imagine that nature could pass it by. General relativity, in Einstien's view, was almost too beautiful to be wrong." (Greene, pg. 166)

Reason and science are always pitted to be the most static, solid, and factual basis of life. But here, described by a Ph.D in the field of Physics, Dr. Brian Greene, in his book "The Elegant Universe", the scientific realm is honestly being described as an unknown and artistically interpreted place. Where theories are concocted on the basis of their elegance and beauty and are satisfying to scientists because of their symmetry versus simply being a means of describing the world.

--"..we are generally not interested in a theory if it has no capacity to resemble anything we encounter in the world around us. But it is certainly the case that some decisions made by theoretical physicists are founded upon an aesthetic sense -- a sense of which theories have an elegance and beauty of structure and par with the world we experience. " (Greene, pg. 167)

This is what science is to do, right? But while describing the world around us, scientists trend toward the more elegant and beautiful descriptions. What grounding do they have to discriminate a theory on the basis of it being more or less elegant? None, really. That is not based on hard, cold lab evidence.
This is what God is for me. He describes the world around me and He fits with the world I experience, and while many other theories and ideas also fit.. God is the only one that gives an elegance to the description, that allows for a license of wonder.

"Imagine a universe in which the laws of physics are as ephemeral as the tastes of fashion -- changing from year to year, from week to week, or even from moment to moment. In such a world, assuming the changes do not disrupt basic life processes, you would never experience a dull moment, to say the least. The simplest acts would be an adventure, since random variations would prevent you or anyone else from using past experience to predict anything about future outcomes..

Such a universe is a physicist's nightmare.

"Physicists -- and most everyone else as well -- rely crucially upon the stability of the universe: The laws that are true today were true yesterday and will still be true tomorrow (even if we have not been clever enough to have figured them all out)."
(Greene, pg. 168)

We could see the unchanging laws of the universe as horrid and constraining. If there was no gravity I wouldn't be stuck here on this planet! But physicists see the symmetry, design, and unchanging consistency of the universe as the most profound and beautiful thing about it. It brings a balance, a elegant stability that physicists need. They stand in awe of it. What is true today was true yesterday and will still be true tomorrow. That is the elegance of God reflected in the universe, he is unchanging and His truth will be the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

After all, what meaning can we give to the term "law" if it can abruptly change? This does not mean that the universe is static; the universe certainly changes in innumerable ways from each moment to the next. Rather, it means that the laws governing such evolution are fixed and unchanging. You might ask whether we really know this to be true. In fact, we don't. But our success in describing numerous features of the universe, from brief moment after the big bang right through the present, assures us that if the laws are changing they must be doing so very slowly. The simplest assumption that is consistent with all that we know is that the laws are fixed." (Greene, pg 168)

Scientists can't say 100% for sure that the laws that describe what they see in the universe are factual. They can only see the effects of the laws they describe as consistent, consistent enough to have faith in their unchanging presence. Likewise, I can't prove that God is there for sure, but I see His effect everywhere, and like general relativity and gravity, I can't prove that God is the only way of explaining what I see in the world, but it is by far the most elegant way and beautiful way. He is the symmetry I see in the world.

"Physicists describe these these two properties of physical laws -- that they do not depend on when or where you use them -- as symmetries of nature. By this usage physicists mean that nature treats every moment in time and every location in space identically -- symmetrically -- by ensuring that the same fundamental laws are in operation. Much in the same manner that they affect art and music, such symmetries are deeply satisfying; they highlight an order and a coherence in the workings of nature. The elegance of rich, complex, and diverse phenomena emerging from a simple set of universal laws is at least part of what physicists mean when they invoke the term "beautiful". (Greene, pg. 169)