The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1952-05-09
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment Considered or Inconsidersts


Last week, in noticing the inaccuracy of those
who regard atomic power as something man has
created, we said that man cannot create anything
There is need, however, to notice that there must
have been first creation. Man make things out
OF other things he can go to work on world that
Is here to work But there had to be first things,
and these could not have been made out of other
things for they were first First things had to be
made out of nothing. They had to be created. And
the creative power must be self-existing eternal,
infinite The Creator is the infinite God
Recently there appeared book by Professor
George Gamow of George Washington University
book called "The Creation of the Universe" This
book like others of its kind, is misnamed. 1t does
not discuss creation at all but development 1t does
not gel back to really first beginnings. And it is
no full or final explanation of a complex world to
trace back its history to time when it was less
peX. II may be worth while to trace such history
but this is not history of creation. The complexiy
and development of the universe is a marvellous
mystery, and should be glad TO have any real
light that may be shed upon it. But the outstanding
mystery is not the complexty of the universe but
the fact of the universe Upon this these so-called
creation" books shed no light at all
Professor Gamow, according to the review of his
book in current weekly, is Russian born. This fact
might lead the unWary suspect that he is going 10
claim that the Russians created the world; up to
now they seem to have claimed authorship in almost
everything else But the professor is an American
and he offers no tribute to the Russians by ascrib
ing to them the creative power. In fact he ascrbes
that power to one; he does not discuss that power
And he does wrong TO the word creation" in his
title.
Says the review: "In popular vein, aided by
his own sketchy drawings GamOw reasons that
3400000000 years ago the universe probably start
ed as bundle of condensed energy" That sentence
presents in brief space both the vagueness and the
inaccuracy of expression common to many modern
treatiseS that claim TO be scientific, especially those
that also try TO be popular" We read that the pro
fessor makes a guess cthe universe probably start
ed y and then reasons upon his guess. The re-
suit of this thought and imagination may well be
entertaining; certainly it cannot be scientific.
And the professors guess that the earth started"
bundle of condensed energy fails TO touch the
real beginning 1t will not do to say that the world
started as a world. For the original bundle of en-
ergy whatever that might mean is world already
existing. II does not explain itself. Its origin is
still in question Where did the bundle come from
and how it packed with the power and the
hue-prints to develop into what it has become in
3400 900 years?
The word energy is a common fogword II is
like the words charge of electricity" in of the
physics books. When we read that electrons are
charges OF electricity we reasonably inquire wheth
er these charges" bits of matter, whether
the books mean bits of matter charged with eec-
tfcity" They must be or the other, and in
either they material things,-iust as mater
ia as the great world around us-and call for eX-
planation loudly the whole complex universe
calls for 1t.
So ii is with energy Is the professors bundle
of condensed energy" bodily mass that has energy
or is energy itself bodily mass? The concept
OF material energy in the void, existing alone, as
the explanation Of bodily substance is really not a
concept at all but contradiction. Nor can ii claim
upto.daeness for it is very old and very stale
contradiction, going back to some of the earliest
Greek coSmogonistS.
To taste the Gamow stew further in the words
doubtless inadequatel of the review Five min
utes later 0hat is, five minutes after the
start which was 81 00000,000 years agol
the elementary particles had formed neu-
irons, proons and eleetronS AT this stage the tenn
perature hoNered al a billion degrees Centigrade
and energy vas so rife $50 says the review; yet
there nothing but energy the condensed bun
dle) that it was denser than iron. Gamow has named
this primordial soup the "ylem' pronounced eye
leml"
Let us read companion piece of science by the
famous Mr.. Booley written about fifty years ago.
We present the quotation in conventional spelling;
each reader may supply his own brogue: First il
the EARTH was mere squdge in which never a
living thing could be found This period lasted few
million years, and then the mush caked and became
building material and trees grew out of the build
ing material and fell down and became coal Then
the water came-but where il came from / dont
know for there was no God at the time-and Gov
cred the earth and then the water evaporated and
left little points of land sticking up with ready
made men and women occupying them, and at thai
moment the Bible began"