Small tidbits and Sparks of wisdom

1. The Visible World Is Not the Entire Reality

Human beings naturally understand the world through their senses. We see objects, people, planets, stars, animals, buildings and movement. Because almost everything in ordinary experience has mass and occupies space, we instinctively associate reality with physical substance.

If something cannot be seen, touched or weighed, it becomes difficult for the human mind to imagine how it could be real, much less influence the physical world.

Modern physics has shown that this intuition is incomplete.

2. Beneath the World We See

What appears to us as solid matter is only the visible level of a much deeper physical structure.

Modern physics describes reality in terms of particles, quantum fields, energy, momentum and interactions. Many of these cannot be directly perceived by the human senses. We know of them because of the measurable effects they produce.

The universe we see is therefore not a complete description even of the physical reality that physics itself describes.

The visible world is real, but it is not the whole picture.

3. The Higgs Field

One remarkable example is the Higgs field.

According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs field exists throughout space. Certain elementary particles interact with this field, and through that interaction they acquire rest mass.

The Higgs boson is an excitation of this field, and its discovery provided experimental confirmation of an essential part of this theory.

The important philosophical point is that something we do not see as an ordinary physical object can nevertheless be fundamental to the properties of the matter that we do see.

The Higgs field itself is not a spiritual force, and it should not be confused with one. But it gives a modern person an important lesson: reality can operate through structures that are completely invisible to ordinary human perception.

4. Not Everything That Exists Has Rest Mass — What Does That Mean?

When physicists say that a particle has no rest mass, what does that actually mean in ordinary language?

Mass is one of the properties we normally associate with matter. A rock, a person, a planet, an electron and a proton all have mass.

Very roughly, mass is connected to an object’s inertia, meaning its resistance to having its motion changed. In ordinary life, mass is also connected to what we experience as weight when gravity acts upon an object.

A larger mass generally requires more force to produce the same acceleration.

But physics discovered that not every particle has rest mass.

The clearest example is the photon, the particle associated with light.

A photon has zero rest mass.

In simple terms, there is no situation in which you could bring a photon to rest, place it on a scale and weigh it as you would a stone or an electron. In a vacuum, light always travels at the speed of light.

But this does not mean the photon is nothing.

It does not mean it is imaginary.

It does not mean it has no energy.

And it certainly does not mean it cannot affect matter.

A photon carries energy and momentum. When photons interact with matter, they can transfer that energy and momentum to particles that do have mass.

Sunlight provides an ordinary example. The photons arriving from the Sun have zero rest mass, yet sunlight warms your skin, heats the earth, drives photosynthesis in plants, can generate electricity in solar panels, and can exert a tiny physical pressure on an object.

So we have something remarkable:

A particle with zero rest mass can produce measurable changes in an object that has mass.

Mass, energy, momentum, existence and the ability to interact are not the same thing.

Something does not cease to be physically real simply because its rest mass is zero.

5. Something Without Rest Mass Can Affect Something With Mass

This is perhaps the most important point.

Something need not possess rest mass in order to influence something that does.

Photons have no rest mass, yet they interact with matter. Light can transfer energy to electrons, heat physical objects, initiate chemical reactions, change electronic states within atoms and molecules, and transfer momentum to matter.

The object receiving the influence may possess mass even though the particle transmitting the energy and momentum has zero rest mass.

This means that the statement, “If something has no mass, it cannot affect matter,” is simply not correct.

6. Light Can Literally Push Matter

This is not merely philosophical language.

Electromagnetic radiation can exert pressure.

When photons interact with an object, momentum can be transferred to that object. The effect of ordinary light is usually extremely small, but it is physically measurable.

This principle can even be used in the idea of a solar sail.

A large reflective sail in space can gradually accelerate because radiation from the Sun transfers momentum to it.

The sail has mass.

The photons have zero rest mass.

Yet the massless radiation contributes to the movement of the massive object.

The thing doing the influencing does not itself need rest mass in order to produce a physical effect on something that does.

7. Reality Is Not Made of Billiard Balls

Our everyday intuition comes from objects colliding with other objects.

A hammer strikes a nail. A hand pushes a door. One billiard ball hits another.

From these experiences, we develop the idea that physical influence requires one solid massive object physically pushing another.

At the fundamental level, nature is considerably more subtle.

Modern physics describes interactions through particles and quantum fields. Whether one thing can influence another depends upon the laws governing their interaction, not simply upon whether both possess rest mass.

Mass, energy, momentum and interaction are related concepts, but they are not identical.

The physical world is not simply a collection of hard objects bumping into one another.

8. The Difference Between Invisible and Nonexistent

There is a tremendous difference between saying:

“I cannot see it”

and saying:

“It does not exist.”

Human eyesight detects only a small portion of physical reality.

We cannot directly see electromagnetic fields with our eyes. We cannot see individual photons. We cannot see neutrinos. We cannot see atomic nuclei with ordinary vision. We cannot see the Higgs field.

Yet physics investigates these things through their effects.

Science itself therefore teaches caution before identifying reality with what human senses immediately perceive.

The absence of direct perception is not the same as the absence of existence.

9. The Torah Describes an Unseen Order

This creates an interesting conceptual parallel with Torah.

Torah does not describe creation as consisting exclusively of visible physical objects.

It speaks repeatedly of malachim — מלאכים — usually translated as angels, but literally meaning messengers.

A malach is not simply another humanlike physical creature hiding somewhere where we cannot see it.

It belongs to an order of creation different from ordinary human physical existence and performs the mission assigned to it by Hashem.

The physical world that human beings observe is therefore not, according to Torah, the totality of creation.

There is the visible world, and there are aspects of creation beyond ordinary physical perception.

10. The Important Parallel

The comparison must be made carefully.

A photon is not a malach.

The Higgs field is not the spiritual world.

The Higgs boson is not an angel.

Physics has not discovered malachim.

A particle accelerator cannot prove the spiritual world described by Torah.

The parallel is conceptual.

Modern physics demonstrates that something need not possess ordinary visible material form, or even rest mass, in order to produce consequences in matter.

That makes it much harder to argue philosophically that something without an ordinary material body could never influence the material world.

11. Malachim and Influence

When Torah speaks about malachim carrying out the will of Hashem within creation, the modern person may ask:

How could something that is not an ordinary physical body affect physical events?

But that question assumes that physical influence must always originate from another massive, visible body.

Physics itself tells us that this assumption is false.

Within physics, massless photons can affect massive matter, and invisible fields are fundamental to the behavior of physical systems.

This does not explain how a malach operates. Torah and physics are discussing different categories of reality.

But it does show that the statement, “If it has no physical body like mine, it cannot affect my world,” is not a logical necessity.

It is only a habit of thought based on ordinary human experience.

12. The Visible Effect and the Unseen Cause

A person may observe only the final physical event.

Something moved.

An electron changed state.

Matter heated.

A chemical reaction occurred.

A plant grew.

Light struck a surface.

From ordinary observation, we see the result.

Physics investigates deeper and identifies particles, fields and interactions behind that result.

Torah takes the human being to another level of understanding.

Physical causation itself does not exhaust the meaning or structure of creation.

Behind creation stands the will of Hashem, and Torah describes malachim as messengers carrying out particular missions within that creation.

13. Faith, Free Choice, and the Limits of Human Understanding

Science and Torah ask different questions. Physics asks what particles are present, what fields interact, how energy and momentum are transferred, and what mathematical laws describe an event. Torah asks the deeper questions: Who created this system? What is its purpose? What is man’s obligation within it? How does Hashem govern His creation?

I believe that one of man’s greatest challenges is accepting with simple faith that the world was created by a Being completely beyond the limits of human comprehension. Hashem gave man the extraordinary gift of intelligence and free choice. But that very gift can also become man’s test.

Because man can reason, discover and create, he may begin to believe that everything must be understandable according to his own mind. He may try to rationalize creation until he concludes that the universe somehow created itself, or he may begin to see himself as the creator of his own destiny.

Yet the deeper science goes, the more reason there is for intellectual humility.

The Higgs concept does not prove Torah, but viewed from the right perspective it reminds us how limited human comprehension really is. Human beings once naturally associated physical influence with physical mass: one solid object pushes another solid object. Yet physics revealed a reality far more subtle than that.

A photon has zero rest mass and still carries energy, momentum and information. It can cross enormous distances and then interact with massive matter. It can heat matter, alter electrons and transfer momentum. Something without rest mass can therefore carry a message and produce a physical consequence.

That is a remarkable concept.

It means that even within the physical universe, the visible and massive are not the only things participating in cause and effect. There are invisible fields and massless particles whose existence and influence are known through what they do.

This should at least open the human mind to the possibility that creation contains further hidden layers beyond those presently accessible to us.

Torah takes that concept to another level. Torah teaches that the visible physical universe is not independent and self-governing. Behind it stands the will of Hashem, and Torah describes an unseen order of creation through which His will is carried out.

This also gives us a way of thinking about the tremendous importance Torah places upon speech, words, prayer and thought.

Even physically, a message does not require a massive object to carry it. Human speech ordinarily travels as pressure waves through air, while information can also be carried by electromagnetic radiation whose photons have zero rest mass. Radio, light and other electromagnetic signals can carry words, images and information across enormous distances and ultimately produce physical consequences when received.

Physics therefore demonstrates something important: a carrier does not need rest mass in order to carry information or influence matter.

Torah teaches something further—that words, prayer, intention and spiritual acts can have consequences far beyond the physical sound waves produced by the mouth.

Physics does not prove that a human thought by itself moves matter, nor does it scientifically explain miracles. That distinction must remain clear. But physics also gives us no basis for declaring that every possible level of causation in creation must be limited to what human beings presently understand.

When Torah tells us that Hashem split the sea, we are describing a miracle—the Creator of the laws of nature exercising authority over the nature He created. We should not claim that photons or the Higgs field explain the splitting of the sea.

The lesson is different.

If the Creator established the entire physical system, then He is not imprisoned within that system.

The laws of nature describe the regular behavior of creation. They do not place limitations upon its Creator.

The deeper idea is therefore:

The invisible can influence the visible.

Within physics, invisible fields and massless particles can influence massive matter.

Within Torah, the visible universe exists within a greater creation governed by Hashem, including dimensions beyond ordinary physical perception.

The two statements are not identical. One is a statement of physics and the other a statement of Torah and faith. But the first should make the modern person much more humble before dismissing the second simply because he cannot see or measure it.

Perhaps this is one of the gifts Hashem has allowed mankind to discover through modern physics: not a scientific proof of faith, but a demonstration of how little our ordinary senses tell us about the true depth of reality.

Man’s intelligence is a tremendous gift.

Recognizing the limits of that intelligence may be an even greater wisdom.

14. What Modern Physics Changes

The significance of modern physics is not that science has discovered the spiritual world.

It has not.

Rather, physics has destroyed the simplistic picture that reality consists only of little solid pieces of matter moving around empty space.

The physical universe itself contains a much deeper structure involving fields, particles, energy, momentum and interactions that human senses could never have discovered merely by looking at the world.

The visible world is real, but even within physics it is only the surface of a much deeper description.

15. Mass Is Not the Measure of Reality

Mass is one property of physical systems.

It is not the definition of existence.

Rest mass is also not the definition of the ability to influence something else.

A photon demonstrates this clearly.

It has zero rest mass, yet it carries energy and momentum and can produce measurable changes in massive matter.

Therefore:

No rest mass does not mean no existence.

No visible body does not mean no effect.

Invisible does not mean unreal.

Mass is not a prerequisite for influence upon matter.

16. A Framework for Understanding the Torah Concept

This gives the modern mind a useful framework for approaching the Torah’s description of malachim.

We are not saying that malachim are made of photons.

We are not saying that spiritual forces are quantum fields.

We are not saying that modern science has discovered the spiritual world.

Such claims would go beyond both physics and Torah.

Rather, we are challenging an assumption.

If a person says, “I cannot understand how something without an ordinary material body could influence physical reality,” modern physics itself gives reason for humility.

Even within the physical universe, reality behaves in ways that ordinary human intuition would never have predicted.

Why should our everyday experience of tables, stones, bodies and physical weight establish the boundaries of all possible existence?

17. What We See May Be the Result, Not the Whole Explanation

When we look at the universe, we see stars moving, light traveling, matter interacting, people acting and events unfolding.

We are looking at the observable result.

Physics tells us that beneath that observable world lies an extraordinary physical structure of fields and particles.

Torah teaches that creation has an order beyond the material description as well, and that Hashem governs all of it.

A human being sees the visible event.

He should be careful before assuming that what he sees constitutes the entire reality behind that event.

18. The Greater Lesson

The Higgs field and massless particles do not prove the existence of malachim.

That would be an improper scientific claim.

But they teach something more modest and philosophically powerful.

They teach us how limited ordinary human intuition is.

Something can be invisible yet consequential.

Something can lack rest mass yet carry energy and momentum.

Something without rest mass can influence something possessing mass.

An unseen field can be essential to the properties of visible matter.

Once we understand this within the physical universe itself, the Torah’s description of an unseen dimension of creation should not be rejected merely because our eyes cannot see it or our hands cannot touch it.

The mistake is not believing that the physical world exists.

The mistake is assuming that the physical world we immediately perceive is everything that exists.