This past week 3rd – 10th March 2007 I saw 2 interesting documentaries. One was “The Secret “ (Thanks to Bill) the other was a program for children called “Scope”. Scope is a science program. The program I watched dealt with “The law of Buoyancy”. What is The law of buoyancy? This concept, perhaps the oldest stated principle in fluid mechanics, was first put forward by Archimedes in the third century B.C.
The principle that the net fluid force on a body submerged (or floating) in a stationary fluid is an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body.
So I got to thinking about the laws that are at work in this world and the next one I looked at was energy
Energy exists in many forms, such as heat, light, chemical energy, and electrical energy. Energy is the ability to bring about change or to do work. Thermodynamics is the study of energy.
The first Law of Thermodynamics states: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another. The First Law of Thermodynamics (Conservation) states that energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed. In essence, energy can be converted from one form into another.
The second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also commonly referred to as entropy. A watch spring-driven watch will run until the potential energy in the spring is converted, and not again until energy is reapplied to the spring to rewind it. A car that has run out of petrol will not run again until you walk 10 kilometres to a petrol station and refuel the car. Once the potential energy locked in carbohydrates is converted into kinetic energy (energy in use or motion), the organism will get no more until energy is input again. In the process of energy transfer, some energy will dissipate as heat. Entropy is a measure of disorder: cells are NOT disordered and so have low entropy. The flow of energy maintains order and life. Entropy wins when organisms cease to take in energy and die.
Did you get all that? Finally I looked at Gravity.
The Law of universal gravity is: Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centres for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.
That’s when I thought. “Enough is enough”. Simply put that little bit of rhetoric on gravity (Universal) explains why the moon hasn’t crashed into the earth yet. We understand gravity to mean anything we drop whilst wearing thongs will hit our toes. Or is that Murphy’s law? Anyway if we fall off a building we don’t stop until we hit the ground. That is gravity.
I don’t think that any of you reading this will argue that the above is true. (Except the Murphy’s thing)
We accept gravity yet most of us don’t understand it. We accept buoyancy yet most of us couldn’t explain the formula. Most of us have heard about the 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics but, if the Simpson’s are on tonight well, what chance has it got? We accept them because they are the laws that God put into place and they work. Now think. Is God there when you are standing on a chair changing a light globe and you step back and find empty space under your foot? Yes he might be there but does he change the law so that you will float gently down and not get hurt? No he doesn’t. That’s why it’s a law. The law of gravity says you step back on to fresh air and you will fall.
When was the last time you said “I don’t think we give God enough credit for gravity”. When you were explaining the laws of buoyancy to your children did you say. “Well it’s really God not buoyancy. Yes it’s God that keeps the Queen Mary 2nd afloat not buoyancy”. God created the laws of buoyancy, he doesn’t have to be there every-time something or someone wants to float.
How many times a day is the law of gravity used? You’re using it now just by being on the earth. Do you think God is walking along side every person on this planet , keeping them from floating off? God created a law. Break the law and we suffer the consequence.
I believe that God set in motion thousands of laws (I’ve no idea how many). So that we could live on this planet in safety. God made the laws predictable. Imagine how we would cope if the law of gravity was intermittent, some days it was there some days it wasn’t. This whole universe is so predictable that we can set our clocks by it. God set those laws in motion.
Yet, when I showed some people “The Secret “ which explains one of those laws they said to me that. A. It wasn’t true. B. God wasn’t given enough credit. C. They only believed one side of the law. D. Where does prayer fit.
The law I speak about is the law of attraction. Without giving too much away and then having to explain a whole lot more than I want to, let me say this: Do you know anyone who seems to attract bad luck to themselves? Have you ever climbed out of bed in the morning just knowing it’s going to be a bad day and it is? Everyone I spoke to said yes to those questions and only a minority said that one could attract good things to themselves.
But by far the most popular statement was God wasn’t given enough credit. The Secret is about the law that God set in place sometime in the ages gone by. The Secret is not about God (Although God is given credit). It is about the law of attraction. The Secret is not about Christianity or any other religion or even about atheism. It’s about one of the laws that God set to work for us. The law of attraction. Now some might say I don’t believe it can work. It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Try living on this planet and not believing in gravity. Gravity doesn’t need your permission to work. God set it to work so work it does. God set the law of attraction to work and work it does.
Email terrypickles@bigpond.com
