Week 2 Post 1

Expert lectures

First of all it took me a long time into the third lecture with Stephen Wolfram to understand exactly what he was saying and how it related. Then about 15 minutes in, it hit me how all of the lectures are interconnected. In the first lecture with Professor Owen Gingerich of Harvard, which was definitely my favorite, he speaks of the randomness of the universe. He talks especially about the non-existent atom with the atomic weight of five. I think that what he is trying to show here is that there is a God because it is this omission that allows for life on Earth and without it, the Earth would be a much different place. I thought that the second lecture was interesting as well. For me, Lisa Randall was really trying to put us in to the bigger picture. This was kind of a cross between the scientific side and the religious side.

The final lecture with Stephen Wolfram, I think was trying to show that nothing is really random. I really think that his mission throughout that lecture was to try and disprove the existence of God through mathematics. In a way he very much reminds me of Pythagoras in believing that everything has its own equation. I saw a very interesting progression here throughout the lectures. They went from science and religion being compatible, to the possibility of a dimension that we cannot see, or heaven, and then to a lecture about how the entire world can be solved through mathematics. I am most inclined to believe Owen Gingerich. I believe that there are certain things in this world that will never be explained, it is part of the mystery of God.