It is the second time in a week James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) is in the news for having a theory validated by data. The first news regarding his theory of the atmosphere will upend theories of warming gasses ("greenhouse gasses" which was a bad analogy anyway) and now his equation is used to find a new and distinctive lightwave from a crystal.
Fundamentally the Bible isn't about things we can see, but about the things we can't see. We will never see the history it contains, just as all history not recorded is lost forever. We cannot, without the Bible, see the future.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:1-3)
There are many things we can observe. We might be great observers of plants and find a new plant species. We might discover a new recipe for a food which becomes popular. We might observe a unique phenomena. But none of us without the Bible could look into the things of eternity.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)
The Bible itself encourages observation of the things about us, with the greats Job and Solomon setting an example.When Yale University professor of computer science David Gelernter renounced his belief in Darwinian evolution, Melanie Phillips pointed out, The 12th-century Jewish sage Maimonides was the great exemplar of the belief that science and religion were complementary. He wrote that conflict between science and the Bible arose from either a lack of scientific knowledge or a defective understanding of the Bible.
I myself was given an opportunity to find out more. Early in my Masters research into carbon dioxide emissions, I was told by a PhD, who wasn't my supervisor, to have a very good look at the term "Greenhouse Gas". I realised it was a very poor analogy as a greenhouse isn't well understood. Glass is not good for keeping in heat on a cold day, if the sunlight is weak heat may be more lost than gained. Glass is complex. A well designed greenhouse is complex and heat flow has multiple parts. Irish greenies Michael Connolly and his son Ronan Connolly both with Doctorates building wastewater treatment & heat exchangers have been analysing publicly available American weather balloon radiosonde measurements from the University of Wyoming Engineering’s Department of Atmospheric Science’s global database. They found that above 2 miles to 25 miles the atmosphere is in thermodynamic equilibrium.
The Connolly’s used balloon-borne radiosondes to look within the atmosphere from the surface to 25 miles up. Their findings contradict the predictions of current atmospheric models, which assume the temperature profiles are strongly influenced by greenhouse gas concentrations. This result suggests that the greenhouse effect plays a much smaller role in barometric temperature profiles than previously assumed.
The Connolly’s discovered a phase change associated with the troposphere-tropopause transition, which also occurs in the lower troposphere under cold, polar winter conditions. They found that when this phase change is considered, the changes in temperature with atmospheric pressure (the barometric temperature profiles) can be described in relatively simple terms. These descriptions do not match the radiative physics-based infra-red cooling/radiative heating explanations used by current models.
The phase change is due to partial multimerization (weak bonding) of the main atmospheric gases, and therefore is a phase change which has not been considered by the current climate models. If this theory is correct, then this offers new insight into the formation of jet streams, tropical cyclones, polar vortices, and more generally, cyclonic and anti-cyclonic conditions. It also offers a new mechanism for the formation of ozone in the ozone layer, and a mechanism for radiative loss from the atmosphere which has been neglected until now.
They also identified a mechanism for mechanical energy transmission that is not considered by current atmospheric models., They call this mechanism “pervection.” They carried out laboratory experiments which reveal that pervection can be several orders of magnitude faster than the three conventional heat transmission mechanisms of conduction, convection and radiation. This could be fast enough to keep the atmosphere in thermodynamic equilibrium over the distances from the troposphere to the stratosphere, thereby contradicting the conventional assumption that the lower atmosphere is only in local, rather than nearly global, thermodynamic equilibrium.
The Connolly’s work seems consistent with that of Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell who proposed in his 1871 book “Theory of Heat” that the temperature of a planet depends only on gravity, mass of the atmosphere, and heat capacity of the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases have nothing to do with it.arizonadailyindependent.com
The existing computer Climate Models are obsolete. James Clerk Maxwell's theory, not considered in the Computer Models, is supported by evidence.
From the Connolly paper from 2014 "It can be seen from the infra-red cooling model of Figure 19 that the greenhouse effect theory predicts a strong influence from the greenhouse gases on the barometric temperature profile. Moreover, the modeled net effect of the greenhouse gases on infra-red cooling varies substantially over the entire atmospheric profile.
However, when we analysed the barometric temperature profiles of the radiosondes in this paper, we were unable to detect any influence from greenhouse gases. Instead, the profiles were very well described by the thermodynamic properties of the main atmospheric gases, i.e., N 2 and O 2 , in a gravitational field.”
While water vapour is a greenhouse gas, the effects of water vapour on the temperature profile did not appear to be related to its radiative properties, but rather its different molecular structure and the latent heat released/gained by water in its gas/liquid/solid phase changes.
For this reason, our results suggest that the magnitude of the greenhouse effect is very small, perhaps negligible. At any rate, its magnitude appears to be too small to be detected from the archived radiosonde data.”
Open Peer Rev. J., 2014; 19 (Atm. Sci.), Ver. 0.1 oprj.net/articles/atmospheric-science/19
Water is a very interesting thing... its phase change is rather wonderful. Water is gas, liquid, crystal and solid in the atmosphere. Hail and snow are quite different.. Let us wonder at and love Creation!
Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? (Job 38:29)
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,(Job 38:22)
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: (Psalm 148:7-8)
It was reported also this week that,
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown type of lightwave.. Equations developed by pioneering 19th-century Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell have been used to reveal how crystals can be manipulated to produce a distinctive type of light wave..
“The phenomena – recently named Dyakonov-Voigt waves – could have a range of useful applications, such as improving biosensors used to screen blood samples or developing fibre optic circuits that transfer data more efficiently,” www.foxnews.com/science/scientists-make-new-discovery-using-19th-century-physicists-theories
James Clerk Maxwell was a man of faith. His faith allowed him to investigate:
Now my great plan, which was conceived of old, ... is to let nothing be wilfully left unexamined. Nothing is to be holy ground consecrated to Stationary Faith, whether positive or negative. All fallow land is to be ploughed up and a regular system of rotation followed. ... Never hide anything, be it weed or no, nor seem to wish it hidden. ... Again I assert the Right of Trespass on any plot of Holy Ground which any man has set apart. ... Now I am convinced that no one but a Christian can actually purge his land of these holy spots. ... I do not say that no Christians have enclosed places of this sort. Many have a great deal, and every one has some. But there are extensive and important tracts in the territory of the Scoffer, the Pantheist, the Quietist, Formalist, Dogmatist, Sensualist, and the rest, which are openly and solemnly Tabooed. ...
Christianity - that is, the religion of the Bible - is the only scheme or form of belief which disavows any possessions on such a tenure. Here alone all is free. You may fly to the ends of the world and find no God but the Author of Salvation. You may search the Scriptures and not find a text to stop you in your explorations. ...
The Old Testament and the Mosaic Law and Judaism are commonly supposed to be "Tabooed" by the orthodox. Sceptics pretend to have read them, and have found certain witty objections ... which too many of the orthodox unread admit, and shut up the subject as haunted. But a Candle is coming to drive out all Ghosts and Bugbears. Let us follow the light.
It was the freedom from a good understanding of the Bible to seek truth and only truth, to throw of the shackles of human thinking, that allowed Clerk-Maxwell to see things only now being validated.
In science he found a thing to help his redemption,
I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me, and ... if I escape, it is only by God's grace helping me to get rid of myself, partially in science, more completely in society, - but not perfectly except by committing myself to God ...
Clerk-Maxwell preferred the Bible to be preached simply, with knowledge,
There is in this street a Baptist, who knows his Bible, and preaches as near it as he can, and does what he can to let the statements in the Bible be understood by his hearers. We generally go to him when in London, though we believe ourselves baptized already.
When it comes to science and the Bible Clerk-Maxwell has the answer which is still valid:
there is a statement printed in most commentaries that the fact of light being created before the sun is in striking agreement with the last results of science.
I have often wished to ascertain the date of the original appearance of this statement, as this would be the only way of finding what "last result of science" it referred to. It is certainly older than the time when any notions of the undulatory theory became prevalent...
If it were necessary to provide an interpretation of the text in accordance with the science of 1876 (which may not agree with that of 1896), it would be very tempting to say that the light of the first day means the all-embracing aether... But I cannot suppose that this was the very idea meant to be conveyed by the original author to those for whom he was writing.
But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis ... The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten.
At the same time I think that each individual man should do all he can to impress his own mind with the extent, the order, and the unity of the universe, and should carry these ideas with him as he reads such passages as the 1st Chap. of the Ep. to Colossians (see Lightfoot on Colossians, p.182), just as enlarged conceptions of the extent and unity of the world of life may be of service to us in reading Psalm viii, Heb ii 6, etc. silas.psfc.mit
In simple terms science in the matter of theory was, and is, changing so much, we should not make it define how we understand the Bible. On the other hand we ought not let the Bible be our only horizon, to prevent us from observing the world. Let us know well the Bible, then we will see even more clearly the things of the earth. The Bible is about the things unseen: science can by definition only be about things seen. Furthermore science is only about things seen regularly.
Let us end with Maxwell's thought about enlarging our thinking:
But one in a certain place testified, saying, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Hebrews 2:6)
What is it that we may know from the Bible? Then what may we further know in addition by observing the heavens?
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? (Psalm 8:3-4)
