© 2004 Ken Glasziou
© 2004 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| Why is there both Error and Prophecy in the Urantia Revelation? | Volume 11 - No. 3 — Index | What fuels our Sun and other Stars? |
¶ Summary
This short excerpt from the Urantia Papers should be enough to send anyone with an elementary knowledge of high school mathematics scurrying to discover what it is these Papers have for them. For in this short article there is to be found what many would consider to be absolute proof that the authors were what they claimed to be–out of this world, off the planet. However, a word of caution. These authors brought us a unique work that could open our doorway to spiritual living, but they also denied that their revelation was ‘inspired’–meaning ‘has divine authority.’
In the 1930’s, the electron and the proton were the best known sub-atomic particles. The proton was large enough for many of its properties to be measured even at the beginning of the 1900’s. But the electron was so tiny that for most of the 20th century, it was considered by many to be a dimensionless point. The Urantia Papers include short ‘fables’ taken from a popular 1930’s physics text book that involved the radii of the electron and the proton. But prior to the 1990’s, there was no way for the reader to check these fables–which, in any case, appeared to be ridiculous.
All changed when, in the 1990"s, Nobel prize winner, Hans Dehmelt, found a way to hold a single electron in a trap. This enabled him to then measure the electron’s diameter. In its turn, the way opened for Urantia Book reader, physicist Stefan Tallqvist, to check out the book’s two fables–with the truly amazing results that, within the limits of Heisenberg uncertainty, both the radii of the electron and proton were correctly estimated.
¶ Content
In a textbook published at an American university in 1934 entitled, “The Architecture of the Universe,” physicist W.F.G. Swann wrote:
“The mass of the electron is so small that if you should magnify all masses so that the electron attains a mass of one tenth of an ounce, that one tenth of an ounce would, on the same scale of magnification, become as heavy as the earth.”
The words of Swann were reproduced in Paper 42, Section 6 but with the comparison obviously deliberately changed from mass to volume. It reads:
“If the mass of matter should be magnified until that of an electron equaled one tenth of an ounce, then were size to be proportionately magnified, the volume of such an electron would become as large as that of the earth.” (UB 42:6.8)
Taking the rest mass of the electron at 9.1 x 10-28 g, 0.1 ounce as 2.8 g, the radius of the earth as 6.4 x 106 m and putting k as the magnification constant, then: k x 9.1 x 10-28 = 2.8 (1), and so
k = 3.1 x 1027 (2)
As the radius of the expanded electron (Re) x k is said to be equal to the radius of the earth, we have:
Re x k = 6.4 x 106 (3)
And substituting for k in (3), we get the electron radius:
Re = 2 x 10-21 m (4)
At the time of receipt of the Urantia Papers and up until the 1990’s this made no sense. Many physicists treated the electron as a dimensionless point so at best its radius would be half the Planck length of 10-35 m. Others, by a process of circuitous reasoning, assigned it a radius of 5 x 10-15 m.
The Urantia Book statement remained nonsensical until the 1990’s when Nobel prize winner, Hans Dehmelt, found a way to confine a single electron to a trap semi-permanently. This achievement allowed actual measurements to be made that assigned the radius of the electron to fall into the range of 10-19 m to 10-22 m.
This estimate was noticed by physicist Stefan Talqvist, a Urantia Book student who had previously checked the calculation using the Urantia Paper’s version of Swann’s earlier work. A few years later at Dehmelt’s laboratory[^1], refining of their techniques allowed them to settle for the electron radius being in the order of 10-22 m, so even closer to the 2 x 10-21 that is calculated for the Urantia Papers’ modified version of Swann’s comparison.
There was a second part to Swann’s comparison that went:
“Then we have the proton–the fundamental unit of positive charge–a thing 1800 times as heavy as the electron, but 1800 times smaller in size, so that if you should magnify it to the size of a pin’s head, that pin’s head would, on the same scale of magnification, attain a diameter equal to that of the earth’s orbit around the sun.”
[Note: Swann’s estimate of the size of the proton as 1800 times smaller than the electron came from using r = e2/mc2, where e is the charge of the electron. The charge to mass ratio for the electron was known accurately by the early 1900 period. The charge was determined by Millikan in 1909. Its mass was then determined as 9.11 x 10-28 g.]
The Urantia Paper’s author did not use this equation, changing the comparison to:
“If the volume of a proton–eighteen hundred times as heavy as an electron–should be magnified to the size of the head of a pin, then, in comparison, a pin’s head would attain a diameter equal to that of the earth’s orbit around the sun.” (UB 42:6.8)
Stefan Talqvist was again responsible for doing the calculations and drawing attention to this remarkable piece of prophetic material in the Papers.
Taking the radius of the Earth’s orbital around the sun as 1.5 x 1014 mm and the radius of the pinhead as 1 mm, the magnification factor (k) is obtained by dividing the Earth’s orbital radius by the pinhead radius, so 1.5 x 1014 / 1.0, which is 1.5 x 1014 (k)
The radius of the proton times the magnification factor (k) is equal to the radius of the pinhead, hence:
Proton radius x 1.5 x 1014 = pinhead radius (1.0 mm), so
Proton radius = 1.0 /1.5 x 1014, which is 6.7 x 10-15 mm, or 6.7 x 10-18m.
The classical radius for the proton was given as 0.85 x 10-15m so again the Urantia Paper’s comparison looked to be nonsensical.
In later years it was realized that the proton consisted of three subunits called quarks and this component accounts for only about 50% of the proton’s measured momentum, the remainder being accounted for by virtual particles that flip in and out from the vacuum. The current estimate of what is now termed the Bohr radius, a measurement of the ‘real’ part of the proton was given in Physics Today of November 1993, as 7.7 x 10-18m.–the same order of magnitude as that for the Urantia Paper’s estimate.
When we take into consideration that Swann’s details were deliberately modified in both estimates in order that they produce these results, it becomes impossible to support the notion that this was simply a lucky guess. Any rational interpretation must surely allow that it is a most remarkable prophecy, impossible to explain as by pure chance. So what is left?
[Please note that Swann’s work, where correct, was used verbatim by the authors of the Urantia Papers. But where erroneous, it was either ignored or modified.]
¶ External links
- Article in Innerface International: https://urantia-book.org/archive/newsletters/innerface/vol11_3/page10.html
| Why is there both Error and Prophecy in the Urantia Revelation? | Volume 11 - No. 3 — Index | What fuels our Sun and other Stars? |