The notion that science itself is based on faith is an intriguing observation. Indeed, without faith in the existence in an orderly Universe and ultimate truth we would not even attempt science. Furthermore, subjectivity, our state of knowledge, plays a key role in modern science. In the 19th century, subjectivity in the form of “entropy” entered science for the first time. In the 20th century, we learned that the quantum “state” of a system represents our state of knowledge concerning that system. This is the second time that subjectivity entered science. On the other hand, physics gives us insights into the spirit. Famous Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Pauli says it well: “There will always be two attitudes [spiritual vs. material] dwelling in the soul of man, and the one will carry the other already within it, as the seed of its opposite. . . In allowing the tension of the opposites to persist, we must also recognize that in every endeavor to know or solve we depend upon factors which are outside our control, and which religious language has always entitled ‘grace’.”

For more information, please contact the Department of Physics at (254) 710-2511.