The scientific method requires that to be called truth, theory be confirmed through experiment and yield quantifiable and replicable results. Without such, theory will simply remain theory and will fade into obscurity.
When it comes to quantum mechanics (dealing with the very smallest forms of “matter” or fields) and cosmology (dealing with the largest matter or fields) many theories cannot be tested at all. In observing the very smallest bits, the difficulty rests with the absence of observational tools tiny enough to use, and the side effects of observation itself. The largest matter or fields of deep space involve distances so enormous that while science can observe, it cannot induce an experiment intended to generate a response; by the time an answer arrives we will all be gone. Thus, quantum and cosmological theories are rather metaphysical, involving probability of outcome instead of direct observation. Despite these limitations, over the centuries, science has nonetheless settled upon immutable physical “laws” that are consistent and apply universally.
One of these laws is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Another is that measurable interaction is reduced as the distance between massive objects increases. Ironically, two highly verifiable and replicable experiments generate results that run counter to these scientific truths.
A photon is an elementary “particle” associated with electromagnetism. The light and heat we enjoy from the sun is made up of photons and makes life possible on earth. Like other electromagnetic wave/particles, photons travel at the speed of light, 186,282 miles per second. Moreover, photons have a measurable property physicist’s call “spin” which is detectable and modifiable. When a photon is experimentally “split” in two, sending each “twin” photon traveling in the opposite direction at the speed of light, a remarkable and non-explainable effect occurs. When one of the twin photons is caused to change its spin, the other twin changes its spin as well. In other words, though traveling at the speed of light in the opposite direction, the split photons remain linked and in a way not understood, continue to remain in “sync.” This means (a) that some form of “communication” is happening faster than the speed of light, or (b) that some other as yet mysterious and unknown interdependent force is at play.
The other experiment involves a pendulum. When a pendulum is set in motion oriented in a straight line towards a celestial object like the sun, over time, (taking into consideration the rotation of the earth) the orienting object can be observed to have moved its position in relation to the pendulum. Remarkably, celestial objects that do not seem to move in relation to the pendulum are in fact those that are most distant from it. Since we know that all objects in space are in motion, the paradox of “Foucault’s Pendulum” is that the most distant objects appear to have a local stabilizing effect on the pendulum, an eerie interrelatedness that defies explanation.
These two experiments point to the profound and ever-present interdependence of all things, a unity that belies the “separateness” of our sensory observations and mental constructs. Most spiritual traditions speak of the truth of this unity. Ironically, as it delves ever more deeply into the true nature of things, modern science encounters a paradoxical truth that is precisely the same.
