Physical Science

PHYSICAL SCIENCE NOTEBOOK LECTURE NOTES I

Science is using our senses to observe the physical universe. Who made the universe and continues to love and speak it into being? God. 

God is three persons in one God: the Holy Trinity. 

The three persons of the Holy Trinity are:

GOD THE FATHER

• The first person of the Holy Trinity

GOD THE SON

• The second person of the Holy Trinity

• the Word [who would later "...become flesh, and dwelt among us" as Jesus)

• the Word spoke and continues to speak the world into being

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

• the love mutually shared between God the Father and God the Son.

• also called the Paraclete, helper, counselor,  advocate

In the beginning, God loved the world into existence. God as the Word, spoke the world into existence.

Physics is all around us as the language of Creation, showing us the world as God designed it, through tiny atoms and molecules. 

As Psalm 19:1 reminds us:

 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” When we study physics, we learn more about God’s creation and the laws he established on this earth. 

The material stuff in the everyday world is made of:

1. atoms

2. parts of atoms 

3. and a few other strange particles we can’t see.

Matter is just our word for substances made of particles that:

1.  have mass 

2. take up space (have volume). 

The matter we normally encounter is made of atoms:

1. There are different ways the atoms can be arranged

2. There are also different forms matter can take, depending on how hot or cold it is: freezing point, melting point, boiling point.]

Atoms are held together by energy:

1. Nothing anywhere can happen without energy being involved, and energy itself is

what holds everything together.

2. Energy is present in nature, holding everything together and enabling everything to happen.

    a. Energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.

When groups of atoms come together, they form molecules ["bonds"]:

1. bond breaking is endothermic - energy is absorbed -  2. bond making is exothermic - energy is released

[ Borrowed from French endothermique, from endo- (“inside”) +‎ thermique (“of heat”), exo- (“outside”)both ultimately from Ancient Greek.]

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Whenever there is a change, there is at least one form of energy causing that change. We can investigate evidence of energy all around us—for example, when we flip on a light switch, feel a car start to move, or hear a phone ring.

The energy of the Sun and Earth’s gravity drives the cycling of water, going through changes of state, as it moves through multiple pathways in Earth’s hydrosphere.

The relationship between energy and change:

• energy may be observed in different forms, such as sound, light, thermal energy (heat), and electrical energy;

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•  all of these forms of energy can cause changes, such as when a high-pitched sound breaks glass or when heat melts butter; 

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• one form of energy can transform (convert) into another; and all change, in fact, is evidence of a transfer of energy or a transformation.

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• engineers use their knowledge of energy as they develop solutions to problems and build things that are useful to people.

CAUSES OF THE MATERIAL WORLD

One of the most important questions a scientist asks is "why?'

The four causes listed below can be applied by way of an analogy to everything in creation, so they offer a very powerful way of explaining the "why" of things.

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What makes something the way it is? 

1. The efficient cause.

Efficient comes from the Latin word for "making." The Efficient Cause is the agent or thing that brings something about. Its what makes the thing or the effect. For example, a carpenter makes a table out of wood. 

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Why is something the way it is? 

2. The material cause.

The material cause of a wooden table is wood. It is made out of wood. 

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How is something the way that it is? 

     3. The formal cause.

This refers somewhat to the form, design, and structure of a thing; but goes further to mean the essence or nature of a thing. It describes the very essence that makes it the kind of thing that it is.

All natural things have an "intrinsic" or internal form or essence. But some forms are "extrinsic" or outside to a thing. These are ideas, or in Latin, an "exemplar." There's a metaphysical law that every act of efficient causality is guided by some formal causality.  The carpenter made the wooden table with a design, a plan that guided him as he made the table. This idea also becomes the measure of the carpenter's work.

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What is the ultimate end or reason for a thing? 

      4. The final cause.

For example, what is the table for? If its a dining room table, it might be made for dining.

We can't really explain something unless we know what it is for. The final cause, is the intrinsic end or reason for the thing.

These four causes can be applied by way of an analogy to everything in creation, so they offer a very powerful way of explaining the "why" of things.