God in the Equation : How Einstein Became the Prophet of the New Religious Era [Hardcover]

Corey Powell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2002

Religion and science meet in a new big bang of a book. Corey Powell's riveting story explores how scientists try to explain more than the material universe. The initial idea was Einstein's 'fudge factor'. He called it his 'biggest blunder' and is known by scientists as the Greek letter Lambda. It was the first rigorous expression of this quest for something beyond the tangible. Cosmology, the attempt to explain our universe, its size, shape, beginning and end, has belonged to science for a century or so. And now it has reached a plateau, possibly its end point. There is some mopping up to be done understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy. But dark matter and dark energy are now enshrined in scientific theory. Science has at last formulated a full-blown spiritual theory, a Church of Lambda. Powell contends that there is a God, the sum of the energies scattered through the universe. This god isn't so far from what Einstein called the 'Old One,' the strict Spinozan determinist who could not intervene in worldly affairs - but is inspiring and powerful. Corey Powell introduces readers to the god in the equations of modern cosmology, giving a fascinating insight into how the spiritual has guided cosmologists since Einstein.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For thousands of years, science and religion have occupied separate rooms in the house of culture. As science writer Powell points out, though, such a separation is hardly warranted in the modern world, where a new faith that he calls sci/religion captures both the mystical and the empirical. The prophet of sci/religion, Powell claims, is Einstein, whose search for a unifying factor in his relativity theory brought together the elements of physics and metaphysics. Einstein believed that a spirit vastly superior to the spirit of man is manifest in the laws of the universe, and he named this spirit Lamda. His Lamda principle became known as the cosmological constant, a force that dominated the universe and mitigated the inward pull of gravity. In this lively story, Powell traces the rise of the scientific community's tendency to explain the workings of the universe in mystical ways, as they search for the forces dark energy, dark matter that unify and bring order to the universe. Powell argues that sci/religion offers a religion of rational hope as an alternative to what he calls old-time religion. He also contends that sci/religion can offer a theory of human consciousness rooted in the interactions of subatomic particles and fields. Powell's view of religion is decidedly outdated, as he has missed the resurgence of religion and spirituality in the late 20th century. Despite this, he convincingly shows the ways that science has molded itself into a new faith, and his book will surely generate controversy and skepticism among scientists and religionists.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American

Science writer Powell casts science as the new religion, with Einstein as god. Sci/religion, as he calls it, offers a positive and immensely appealing alternative way to look at the world, a religion of rational hope. Even if you disagree with Powell's premise, his book is a delight to read--lively, well-informed, personable. And as a bonus, it provides an unusually graceful account of the history of cosmology.

Editors of Scientific American

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 277 pages
• Publisher: The Free Press; 1ST edition (August 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684863480
• ISBN-13: 978-0684863481
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,219,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a colege student's homework, January 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: God in the Equation : How Einstein Became the Prophet of the New Religious Era (Hardcover)

I hold a degree in physics and am currently in the process to become a priest so I read this book with great interest. I was not impressed with Powell's writing. I was put off by the numerous instances of exaggeration and projecting unknown personal motivations on historical characters. Powell's argument flowed like papers I wrote in high school and college with gross shading of facts and very little honest apprasial of opposing viewpoints. I also had a hard time accepting the cumbersome sci/religion as a real word. I hope it never catches on. There are much better texts on the thrilling topic of science and religion than God in the Equation.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! A real mind-opener., April 29, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: God in the Equation : How Einstein Transformed Religion (Paperback)

I can't recall ever reading another book quite
like this one. Most of the books about science and
religion I've seen fall into one of two categories.
They either try to make the case that scientists are
secretly religious people, or else they try to argue
that science leaves no room for faith. Powell takes
the discussion in a very different, more subtle
direction, one that reminds me of some of Daniel
Dennett's ideas. In essence, Powell argues that
spirituality is an integral component of the way
humans process information about the world--even if
the people doing the processing are cosmologists who
openly describe themselves as atheists. That
perspective puts a whole new spin on Albert Einstein's often-puzzling use of the word "God" as something interchangeable with the laws of physics. It also explains why, in his later years, Einstein was so committed to the idea of a cosmic religion.

Alas, Einstein was an idealist and I'm afraid Powell
may be too. His dream that science can reform religion
of its more destructive impulses looks just like
that--a dream. Religion seems to be doing just fine in
the Middle East, not to mention in Mel Gibson's bank
account. But Powell's analysis of how the scientific
process works is both original and eye-opening. I also
really enjoyed his sweeping history of cosmology, full
of clear explanations and surprising details. The
section on the early history of the big bang, in
particular, covers territory that I've never head
about before. (The father of the big bang was an
obscure Russian meteorologist--who knew?) This book
does an amazing job explaining what we know about the
universe and how we know it. If it also helps advance Einstein's pacifist agenda, so much the better. Truly inspirational.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What Does the Fat Lady Sing? (Or when?), August 30, 2006

By 

Doug A. Aerie "Simplicio" (Upstate NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God in the Equation : How Einstein Transformed Religion (Paperback)

Corey S Powell has written an excellent popular account of a major scientific discovery.

One that if confirmed promises to open up new vistas of investigation and deepen our theoretical understanding of the universe.

To properly tell his story, Powell first backs up a little, and sketches a brief account of the history of observational astronomy and its interplay with theoretical physics - the celestial mechanics of Newton. He then moves forward to the genesis of a new cosmology.

Some readers may be put off by the title. or, more specifically, take issue with the author for introducing "God" into what should be a scientific discussion.

I admit that at times I found Powell's "sci/rel" trope occasionally cloying; e.g., his description of Cecelia Payne-Goposchkin as a "sort of Mary Magdalene in the shadows of the sci/religious miracles" of two cosmological advances affecting first Arthur Eddington, then, later Harlow Shapley (p119).

Nonetheless, I feel that Powell has endeavored to heal a kind of psycho-linguistic breach in our language - and consciousness.

Cosmology had fractured into (a) scientific cosmo-genesis, and into a religious nullity.

The latter having perhaps mythological or "poetic" significance, but otherwise empty of scientific content.

Even if the premises upon which the book is based - the interpretation of the Mauna Kea data, introduced at the start of the book - are shown to be erroneous, the idea of creation - and, our place in it - re-emerges in Powell's book from the obscurity of a secularism that occasionally over-reaches.

The main burden of the text is to lay out the science behind the work of principally two teams of scientific collaborators studying Type Ia supernovae.

The significance of their work was announced in Science's "Biggest Breakthroughs of 1998"
(18 Dec issue).

Powell's careful preparation gently leads the reader to a heightened understanding of the theoretical issues involved. In so doing, he neither tarries too long, nor plunges heedlessly ahead of the lay reader.

One wishes that the author had provided a "further reading" reference to magnetic monopoles directed to a general audience (something along the lines of Scientifc American Frontiers).

Also Powell misconstrues the force of the weak anthropic principle. The latter serves as a simplifying assumption. In that sense it may serve to guide research. It is a crude heuristic - a tool.

Even in its strong "participatory" form it does not (indeed, cannot) "brush aside the flatness problem, the horizon problem, and [questions about] the origin of structure in the universe," as the author suggests on p.193.

Just before picking up "God In the Equation" I happened to read de Santillanna's Crime of Galileo.

Powell alludes briefly to Pius XII's somewhat embarrassing sally into the sci/religious controversy.

When, November 1951, the Pope burbled about the Big Bang, he trespassed onto the reservation of 1893, which officially validated Galileo's assertion that it would be impious to suppose that God
"may have laid pitfalls for men by establishing contradictory [scientific and religious] truths."

Is Mr. Powell himself likewise guilty of trespassing - in this case, onto the religious reservation -
when he talks about the Church of Einstein?

This begs a question: Is knowing the universe the same as knowing God?

Note that this is distinct from the matter of faith.

We take on faith the veracity of "things unseen."

But it is also faith that sees the creation (as it is; as "given") as at once exemplar and indicative
of divinity.

As sublime.

Powell strays perilously close to religious revisionism.
(A revisionism without apologetics, however.)

The author seems to exhibit a mixed mind.
And it may be that this ought not be condemned.

I found myself moved when he wrote about the "spiritual power of Einstein's equations."

And untroubled.