I have an entire galaxy of Samsung devices, a smartwatch, earbuds, a phone, a tablet, a Chromebook, a laptop, a monitor, and a television. They have become an extension of who I am. Like other Gen Xers, I witnessed the transformation of human culture as mobile communication knit us together with radio waves cast around the globe. My parents used to tell me they remember life before television and microwaves. Well, I remember life before electronic devices.
In his 1968 book, Integral Humanism, Jacques Maritain refers to the human person as a “universe of spiritual nature endowed with freedom of choice,” as an independent whole unto himself in the greater physical universe (9). He wrote about the tragedy of humanism for failing to acknowledge the human as something more than a body. He also described an anthropological problem in medieval Christendom. Represented in the teaching of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were formulas for thinking about the human person as a body and rational soul composite with intellect and free will, following the hylomorphism of Aristotle, but in those days, theologians were only beginning to understand the lived experience of the individual person as a creature before God. In this sense, philosophy and theology might move slower than technology. I think we are still very much in the era of discovering what it means for a human to be a universe of his or her own that transcends the universe. I do note, however, that the term “galaxy” (from Samsung) rather fits with this idea.*
When I learned about the theological word circumincession to describe how the divine Persons of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) give all of themselves to the other except to be the other, that the Persons just are the relations in an eternal flow of life and love, I better understood why humans innovate. Made in God’s image, we, as human persons, also want to be in perfect relationship with others. Even if we cannot achieve that perfection as the Holy Trinity does, we strive for such complete union. Of course, we would co-opt atoms for global communication!
Most of us do not need to think about how mobile devices work on a daily basis, but the invisible electrons in the atoms are the material cause of all the (aptly named) electronics do. The energy to operate comes from the flow of electrons between terminals in batteries. Processors are hardware that receive, interpret, and perform instructions, all of which depends on whether or not electrons flow through a transistor. Touch screens respond to changes in capacitance, the ability to store electrons. Communication involves human input, such as your voice or text, and then that is converted into electric signals by a modulator that translates your information into various frequencies of radio waves, all produced by electrons moving between energy levels in the atoms. These waves are transmitted from the phone and through a cellular network of towers and satellites orbiting the Earth. Whatever device receives the modulated radio waves converts them back into the message on the other end. It’s all about the electrons in atoms.
And it is all orchestrated in time. Where humans once relied on shadows cast by the sun or pendulums and gears, we now count seconds with the movement of electrons in the Cesium-133 atom. In 1967, the International Committee of Weights and Measures formally declared the second as “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom.” In 2019, because the Earth’s rotation slows slightly, the duration value was set as this number and “leap seconds” added as needed to correlate years and seconds more precisely.
This number fascinates me. I memorized it the way some people memorize Bible verses. When I give talks and lead audiences through an explanation of atomic structure with energy levels and transitions, I see that people are impressed that I know this number by heart. That’s not my purpose in reciting it though. Astonishment sets in when people realize that every second that passes by us is marked by the incomprehensible regularity of these electrons. In the time it took you to read that last sentence, somewhere in the world the ground state electrons in a Cs-133 atom moved in its hyperfine levels over nine billion times. And it continues for all 31.5 million or so seconds each year, incessantly.
What is hyperfine splitting? It’s worth a short chemistry lesson. The ground state of an electron is where we visualize it existing without any energy transitions, kind of like the lowest rung on a ladder. Motion does not stop in the ground state. Motion never stops. The ground state is not thought of as one distinct energy level. Electrons have spin (up, down). Likewise, protons have spin (also up, down), so there are combinations of possible energy states between electrons and protons with very, very close energies. These can be calculated, and they can be orders of magnitude smaller than the differences in the energy levels and orbitals within the atom. In the Cs-133 atom, these jiggles emit radio waves. Similar to how mobile devices transmit radio waves, that’s how we know the frequency. We discovered this regularity in nature, and someone decided that is how we would define the second. Your smart watch knows what time it is because of these atomic clocks.
The big difference in mobile devices and Cs-133 atoms is that humans make electronics, but humans do not make Cs-133 atoms. See where I’m going?
In Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, this is designated as the difference in extrinsic and intrinsic design. The technological device (the “artifact”) is envisioned in human minds and then manifest in the products we buy and use. The devices that are produced by human ingenuity, however, depend on the inherent properties of atoms. In his Fifth Way, Aquinas identifies God as the great envision-er and manifest-er of nature. This is a powerful concept for believers. Sure, it might be notable that Stacy Trasancos can memorize a number. But what is really stunning is that such phenomena exist at all, and more so, that these phenomena are intelligible to us.
So, I realize we probably don’t stand amid the grandeur of nature, stare at our smart phones, and then just want to drop to our knees and weep for joy, but for me, this kind of scientific knowledge inspires greater faith and hope. It’s a prayer. Where the ancient Israelites saw the regularity of nights and days as evidence of God’s faithfulness, we’ve got 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom counting our seconds! If God can keep that going, surely, He knows the plans for me and those I love, each of them as many awesome spiritual universes with a purpose beyond this time-marked world. I guess you don’t have to see it that way, but why would you not?
*I am not and never have been an Apple user, so my apologies for leaving apples out.
Sources
Jacques Maritain, Integral Humanism: Temporal and Spiritual Problems of a New Christendom, trans. Joseph Evans (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968).
International Committee for Weights and Measures (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, BIPM), SI Base Unit: Second.
Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures, “The Hyperfine Splitting in Hydrogen” (California Institute of Technology, 1965, 2006, 2013).
Let's just say that atheism is the sincerest form of pride. My friend pointed out that in the case of
ie; theism, you can't argue that Genesis is faith based when it is neither doctrine nor dogma and
not required to be held in belief. So they reason you haven't got any ducks lined up in a row to
counter their reasoning.
Atheism is a very logical, subjective reaction to the wildly inconsistent, non nonsensical - sequitur
written by men about metaphysical unknowns. Had Moses or whomever composed Genesis, KNEW of evolution’s theoretical, scientific impact on humanities understanding of itself, there would be no such ugly entity as Original Sin. In the mind of atheists, good gods do not create a ‘vale of tears’ habitat then declare it all “good” – last time they saw it, anyway – then blame the mortal and defective species they created, holding the bag until they get around to sending a redeemer. This has nothing to do with a lack of faith on their part, but a ludicrous affront on the rational mind. In other words, change the narrative and you’d end up with at worse, a world of agnostics. To think for one moment that ‘atheists’ don’t draw upon hope and charity in their heart of hearts to get them through a day is to separate them from the DNA that binds us all.