vol 2: Synopsis
part II: A brief history of dynamics
page 9: Dynamics
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
Dynamics
Dynamics tries to explain why things behave as they do. It is as old as the need for survival. Dynamics is founded on revelation. The world reveals itself every time it moves. Hunters, farmers and all living creatures study these revelations, looking for paths to a better life. Theology studies the dynamics of the whole with a view to giving overall guidance to human activity.
The writer is a a builder. My daily routine is a series of moves calculated to complete the structure I have contracted to erect. From an abstract point of view, building does not differ from dancing, the work of a computer or any other motion.
Two important features of the world are that some things move more quickly than others, and that big moves can be broken down into small moves. These features give us windows into the world. We can explain slow things in terms of their faster parts, and vice versa. We can understand big things through their smaller parts, and vice versa.
This structure in the world is reflected in our language. Some words point to relatively enduring entities like horses, trees and rocks. These words are called nouns. Other words point to activities, like sleeping, eating or painting, and are called verbs.
From a more physical point of view, the distinction between nouns and verbs is somewhat blurred. The world is rarely still. All words become verbs, differing only in the lifetime of the event to which they refer. So a sheep is an event, like a road accident, to which we can ascribe a beginning, a middle and an end. The difference is that while a sheep takes many years, a road accident can be over in a few seconds.
Big events are sets of smaller events. For me the biggest event is my life. I know that my life rests on a complex web of biological and physical events. Each of these may be analyzed down to quantum events. Quantum theories tell us that even though these fundamental events are almost infinitesimally small, their complexity may be infinite or even transfinite, and they are all unique.
The formally distinguishable parts of the universe are many, yet in motion they are one. Everything contributes to one overall system, the unbounded life of God. My life is an event in the life of god, consequent upon some events, causing others, relatively irrelevant to others.
Theology studies the dynamics of the whole. By definition, there is nothing outside the whole. The only constraints on its behaviour lie within it. The fundamental internal constraint is consistency, or integrity. The consistency in a situation may be far from obvious, Part of the excitement of science is learning how apparently inconsistent parts work together.
Theology and physics are unified by the observation that the dynamics of the world is similar at all scales. Following this similarity, the history of dynamics opens up broader and broader perspectives until, standing on the shoulders of history, we can gain a glimpse of god
The foundations of modern dynamics are quantum field theory and general relativity. Zee The mathematical structure of quantum field theory, even though it was first developed to deal with microscopic events, can be applied at any scale. This idea, modelled as the dynamics of communication networks, is the backbone of this site.
(revised 24 March 2006)
Further reading
Books
| Collins, Paul, Papal Power: A Proposal for Change in the Catholicism's Third Millennium, HarperCollinsReligious 1997 Jacket: 'The papacy of the Roman Catholic Church is the world's oldest continuous institution. Paul Collins, historian and inveterate Vatican watcher, has looked beyond the details of this astonishing parade of over 260 popes to uncover the dynamics of papal power. ... He traces the developments in theory and reality that have led to a modern papacy that exercises virtually sole and total rule over the world's largest religious community. Collins' provocative ... study proposes a new model in the Catholic Church as it enters its third millennium - one that would allow all Catholics to participate in the work and decision-making of the Church.' Amazon back |
| Davis, Martin, Computability and Unsolvability, Dover 1982 Preface: 'This book is an introduction to the theory of computability and non-computability ususally referred to as the theory of recursive functions. The subject is concerned with the existence of purely mechanical procedures for solving problems. ... The existence of absolutely unsolvable problems and the Goedel incompleteness theorem are among the results in the theory of computability that have philosophical significance.' Amazon back |
| Galilei, Galileo, and Stillman Drake (translator), Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo: Including the Starry Messenger (1610 Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina) , Doubleday Anchor 1957 Amazon: 'Although the introductory sections are a bit dated, this book contains some of the best translations available of Galileo's works in English. It includes a broad range of his theories (both those we recognize as "correct" and those in which he was "in error"). Both types indicate his creativity. The reproductions of his sketches of the moons of Jupiter (in "The Starry Messenger") are accurate enough to match to modern computer programs which show the positions of the moons for any date in history. The appendix with a chronological summary of Galileo's life is very useful in placing the readings in context.' A Reader. Amazon back |
| Jammer, Max, Concepts of Force: A Study in the Foundations of Dynamics, Dover 1999 Reprint of the classic Harvard University Press edition of 1957 Amazon back |
| Lussier, Mark, Romantic Dynamics: The Poetics of Physicality (Romanticism in Perspective), MacMillan 'Romantic Dynamics creatively confronts Romantic poetry with a wide range of exotic concepts associated with the new physics of relativity and quantum to uncover their shared concerns for indeterminacy, uncertainty, relativity, and complexity in a chaoticuniverse. This interdisciplinary work traces the elaboration of dynamical models of cosmos and consciousness in works by Blake, Byron, Coleridge, the Shelleys, andWordsworth, finding in those works an exploration of the interpenetration of psyche and phenomena.' Amazon back |
| Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. ... this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity).' Amazon back |
| Newton, Isaac, and Julia Budenz, I. Bernard Cohen, Anne Whitman (Translators) , The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy , University of California Press 1999 This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. ... The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students. Amazon back |
| Yourgrau, Wolfgang, and Stanley Mandelstam, Variational Principles in Dynamics and Quantum Theory, Dover 1979 Variational principles serve as filters for parititioning the set of dynamic possibilities of a system into a high probability and a low probability set. The method derives from De Maupertuis (1698-1759) who formulated the principle of least action, which states that physical laws include a rule of economy, the principle of least action. This principle states that in a mathematically described dynamic system will move so as to minimise action. Yourgrau and andelstam explains the application of this principle to a variety of physical systems. Amazon back |
| Zee, Anthony, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Princeton University Press 2003 Amazon book description: 'An esteemed researcher and acclaimed popular author takes up the challenge of providing a clear, relatively brief, and fully up-to-date introduction to one of the most vital but notoriously difficult subjects in theoretical physics. A quantum field theory text for the twenty-first century, this book makes the essential tool of modern theoretical physics available to any student who has completed a course on quantum mechanics and is eager to go on. Quantum field theory was invented to deal simultaneously with special relativity and quantum mechanics, the two greatest discoveries of early twentieth-century physics, but it has become increasingly important to many areas of physics. These days, physicists turn to quantum field theory to describe a multitude of phenomena. Stressing critical ideas and insights, Zee uses numerous examples to lead students to a true conceptual understanding of quantum field theory--what it means and what it can do. He covers an unusually diverse range of topics, including various contemporary developments,while guiding readers through thoughtfully designed problems. In contrast to previous texts, Zee incorporates gravity from the outset and discusses the innovative use of quantum field theory in modern condensed matter theory. Without a solid understanding of quantum field theory, no student can claim to have mastered contemporary theoretical physics. Offering a remarkably accessible conceptual introduction, this text will be widely welcomed and used. Amazon back |
Papers
| Watts, Duncan J, Steven H Strogatz, "Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks", Nature, 393, , 4 June 1998, page 440. 'Networks of coupled dynamical systems have been used to model ... many ... self organising systems. Ordinarily, the connection topology is assumed to be either completely regular or completely random. But many biological, technological and social networks lie somewhere between these two extremes. Here we explore simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground. ... We call them 'small world' networks by analogy with the small-world phenomenon (popularly known as six degrees of separation). ... Models of dynamical systems with small-world coupling display enhanced aignal-propagation seed, computational power, and synchonizability. ...'. back |
| Huberman, Bernardo A, Lada A Adamic, "Growth dynamics of the World-Wide Web", Nature, 401, 6749, 9 September 1999, page 131. 'The exponential growth of the World Wide Web has transformed it into n ecology of knowledge in which highly diverse information is linked in an extremely complex and arbitrary manner. But even so, as we show here, there is order hidden in the web. We find that web pages are distributed among sites according to a universal power law: may sites have only a few pages, whereas very few sites have hundreds of thousands of pages. Thjis universal distribution can be explained by using a simple stochastic dynamical gowth model.' . back |
Links
| Solar System Dynamics Group JPL Solar System Dynamics 'JPL's solar system dynamics WWW site provides information related to all known bodies in orbit around the sun. This site is maintained by the Solar System Dynamics Group of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ' back |
| Steve Nawojczyk The Coroner's Report - Gangwar.com - Main Menu Steve's Press Bio:Steve Nawojczyk (nuh VOY check) began his public service career thirty (30) years ago when he was named as the youngest director of one of the first municipally operated ambulance services in the state of Arkansas, a position he held for seven (7) years. During this tenure, the ambulance service received the highest honors available for patient care and operations by the Department of Health. He was elected to serve as the coroner in two of Arkansas' most populated counties and served two years as the director of the Arkansas State Crime Lab, having been appointed by Governor Bill Clinton. He has over 20 years of death investigation experience and routinely instructed at the state and local police academies on the topics of investigation and non-traditional juvenile groups. ... ' back |
| William Rowan Hamilton General Method in Dynamics 'Hamilton's first paper on dynamics is entitled `On a General Method in Dynamics; by which the Study of the Motions of all free Systems of attracting or repelling Points is reduced to the Search and Differentiation of one central Relation, or characteristic Function'. This was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (part II for 1834, pp. 247-308). This paper is available in the following formats: Plain TeX DVI PostScript PDF' back |
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