Dear Friends,

Post 417 prompted me to write this letter. In this post, Mr. Rafi Aamer has adopted a rather convoluted method to knock down the article I had submitted earlier (post 415). It reminds me of an anecdotal story which I would like to share with you:  

A man went to a grocery store and asked for a pound of apples. The shopkeeper, weighed apples and puts them into a paper bag for the customer. Just as he was about to hand over the bag to him, the customer apologetically said, "sorry, I changed my mind, may I have a pound of pears instead?" The shopkeeper obligingly emptied, the bag  and weighed a pound of pears and put them in the bag., Apologetically, the customer said, "I am extremely sorry to bother you like this my good man, but I just remembered that my wife had asked me to bring some grapes. So would you be kind enough to give me a pound of grapes, instead of the pears?" The shopkeeper was a bit annoyed, nevertheless, he emptied the bag of pears, weighed a pound of grapes put them into the bag and quickly handed the bag to the customer before he could change his mind once again.  

The customer took the bag and as he was about to walk away, the shopkeeper asked for the money. "Money -  money for what the customer asked?" "Money for the grapes", the shopkeeper replied. "But I got the grapes as a substitute for the pears", the customer replied. "Ok, pay me for the pears", said the shopkeeper. "The pears were the replacement for the apples" said the customer.  

Angrily, the shopkeeper screamed, " Pay me for the apples, then"

Smilingly, the customer said, "But I never received the apples" and walked away without paying while the shopkeeper was still figuring out the convoluted business transaction he had just gone through.  

The gist of the said article (post 415) is that it has been confirmed or re-confirmed that genetic structure of all life, DNA, could not have evolved on its own or out of lifeless substance (a-biogenesis - already a discredited theory). In order to dismiss the article or its claim or implications, Mr. Aamer had decided to knock down Antony Flew for supporting the author of the article. In order to discredit Antony Flew, Mr. Aamer, then knocks down some Dr. Schroeder, who holds a Ph.D degree in physics but is not a practicing physicist and has apparently written a couple of books with some errors in them. Since Mr. Flew is an admirer of Dr. Schroeder, and since Dr. Schroeder is not much of a physicist, in turn, what Mr Flew says cannot be considered creditworthy.  In his post, Mr. Aamer has provided examples highlighting some technical errors in one of these books. I do not know of any of these people nor have I seen or read the books that Mr. Aamer has cited. Let us examine some of the points that Mr. Aamer has raised from the cited book(s) written by Dr. Schroeder:

From, Mr. Aamer's post, the book has the following statement about mass and weight: 

     "The mass (or weight) of the object while at rest is called, in technical terms, its rest mass."  

Mr Aamer wrote the following comment: 

In technical terms mass and weight are not the same.  

Mr. Aamer is correct but the statement in the book is not wrong either. The mass (m) refers to the amount of matter contained in an object while the term weight (w) refers to a force exerted on that object under the influence of acceleration due to gravity. The weight is given by the equation, w = mg, where g is the acceleration due to gravity. For a given frame of reference, the mass and the weight are the same. However, if we change the location the two may not be the same. Since, weight is a force and has a direction associated with it, it is a vector quantity, while mass is considered to be a scalar quantity In ordinary, every discussion, we can always take the two entities as the same. Here are a few examples from authoritative documents:

American NIST says, (copied below):

And here is what CSA says:

The National Standard of Canada, CAN/CSA-Z234.1-89 Canadian Metric Practice Guide, January 1989:

International Bureau of Weights and Measures keeps a standard sample of 1 kgm, made of platinum-iridium at Sevres, France as a world standard. The reference for the standard has to be taken at Sevres due to both gravitational and earth's spin components variations at different places.  

As far as the term rest mass is concerned, it only refers to be at rest with reference to a defined frame of reference. Again, in our every day life, we will not be able to move any thing so fast that mass (or weight) is going be affected due to relativistic considerations. For example, consider this: a metric ton (2200 lb), if moved at (earth's) escape velocity, which is 11.18 m/s, we are going to see a change of only 0.7 mg.  

Mr. Aamer has also commented on couple of equations from the book he has cited. For convenience I have copied a section below (blue font) and numbered the equations 1, 2 and 3 for convenience:  

In his book "The Hidden Face of God", which Antony Flew is particularly smitten by, Gerald Schroeder derives the following equation

hf = mc²           (1)

Schroeder has derived the equation from following two equations

E = hf (Planck's equation)    and              (2)

E = mc² (Einstein's famous equation)           (3)

Since I have not seen the book I do not know what the author had in mind and why he lumped equations 2 and 3 to arrive at 1. Obviously, I cannot say too much on that but I will comment on Mr. Aamer's descriptions and explanations that he has provided.

First of all, equation (2) is not called Planck's equation, (Mr. Aamer has decided to call it that for some reason) this is also, Einstein's equation that he used to explain the photoelectric effect in 1905. In fact the relationship: (E is proportional to f )   was discovered by Philip Lenard. Here f  is the frequency of the incident electromagnetic wave, or the photon to be more precise, and E is the energy of the incident wave. The two quantities were connected together by Einstein, using a constant of proportionality, h, called Planck's constant ( h = 6.626 x 10 ^-34 J.s). Planck had come up with this constant while working on Black Body radiation 4-5 years earlier.

[For general interest, let me add some historical facts: Philip Lenard was a physics professor and the leader of the gang that opposed Einstein's theory of relativity. Einstein received the Nobel prize for his explanation of photoelectric effect in 1921. His theories of relativity were still highly controversial at that time. Philip Lenard, who was also the leader of the Jew haters in Germany, wanted to keep the German physics pure of Jewish or even English influences]

Einstein explained the photoelectric effect with the following relationship:

                        E_i   = hf  =  (hf₀  +  E_k) ……..   …….   (a)           

where E_i  is the energy of the incident wave, f₀  is the threshold frequency of the photon (minimum frequency required to knock off an electron) and E _k  is the maximum kinetic energy of the electrons released from the metal receiving the photon, f  is frequency of the incident photon.

In his criticism of the treatment in the book, Mr. Aamer wrote (copied below in blue):

E in Planck's equation is variable energy of moving particle and in Einstein's equation it denotes constant rest energy of a particle so the Schroeder's derivation is actually saying that constant rest energy of a particle is equal to its variable energy while it moves with whatever the momentum.

I fail to follow what exactly Mr. Aamer calls variable energy? If the energy is given by the products of  h  and  f . We know h is a constant by definition, f  is constant if the light color (frequency) is kept the same. In case it varies, who cares, the above equation (a) has to be satisfied to cause photoelectric effect. This is simple as that.

Mr. Aamer's statement above, the portion that I have italicized, is making no sense to me at all. He will have to help me to understand it.

Now, about equating the two equations, (2) and (3) as has been reported by Mr. Aamer.

In order to cause the photoelectric emission, we need energy as described by equation (a), above. To achieve that, one can use a flash light, a 100 watt lamp or utilize a nuclear explosion – that will surely produce plenty of light.

Now, for the sake of discussion, suppose one decides to create energy such that it satisfies the expression [mc²]. This kind of reaction will no doubt have all kinds of energies including electromagnetic, sound, thermal, mechanical (compression) etc. If this energy is employed as  E _i , the incident energy, then no doubt, it will cause the photoelectric effect and much more. Hence we can write (a) as:

mc²  =  E_i   =  hf      ……   (b)

Although I see no practical application of equation (b) that we have just derived, but mathematically it is correct and does not violate any physics rules either. But the question is what was the intent of such manipulation in the book in question?  Mr. Aamer did not explain that.

I must stop and ask myself a question, what exactly am I doing here? Am I trying to establish the credibility of this Dr. Schroeder in order to establish the credibility of Mr. Flew? Would that make the article in question more palatable to our atheist friends? No, I do not think so!

Would it not make sense if we go straight to the real issue? Not that we have not discussed it before, but let us try it one more time, perhaps the last time.  

We have approached the creation of universe from classical cosmological view as well as from the modern astro-physics point of view. Also, we have discussed the creation of life from the biological point of view. In the former case the problem arose when the discussion reached a point where a supernatural entity entered the equation to complete the story. In the latter case, we diverged again due to the same difficulty – the need of a supernatural entity to put life into lifeless matter. But, since the theory of evolution assumes that the life was already there and picks up the story from that point on – how convenient. But, is it intelligent and rational to support such a notion? Is this the intelligence and reason that the Atheists never stop talking about?  

The Atheists need to see and feel the supernatural power with their usual five senses before they can acknowledge its existence. They want to see this entity the way they see the president of a country whose pictures appear every day in the newspapers and the reporters ask questions and some times even shake his hand. Unfortunately, the supernatural being is not going to appear in person to say hello to us. 

If it was possible to present this entity in person, would we need any intelligence or a  rational mind to acknowledge its existence? An intelligent mind is required to accept the challenge in order to recognize the supernatural entity through reason just as we have explored and identified millions of other things such as, for example, sub atomic particles without being able to see them or touch them. We have identified these particles through theoretical models, then checking the empirically observed characteristics against the theoretically hypothesized predictions.  

Since He is not going to show Himself in person, how about looking at some of His signs? Can we take some hints to confirm His existence? Here are a few statements from the book and possible explanations:  

The book states: 

Statement 1: The embryo in its early stages resembles a leech-like mass.

Statement 2: The death of the earth and other heavenly bodies at the end of a pre-determined life span.

Statement 3: Pharaoh's body would be preserved for a lesson in history.

Statement 4: The universe did not always exist, it was created at a certain time.

Statement 5:  Not only earth and moon revolve, so does the sun in its orbit. 

Possible Explanations: 

1. The book was not written 1400 years ago or it has been altered recently.
2. The author had a hidden laboratory which was at least 1300 years ahead of its time in various scientific disciplines. The laboratory  and its sophisticated equipment was destroyed after the completion of the book.
3. The author had a magical crystal ball to predict what was to be explored in future.
4. It is just a series of coincidences or a lucky guesses.
5. The book got written by itself, no explanation is available just as there is no explanation for the life to start all by itself from inanimate matter.
6. A supernatural entity, the Creator of all things provided the guidance for the book.