God in the Equation: How Einstein Transformed Religion

He wanted to know where our world comes from and where it was going.

He wanted to understand how the remote stillness of the heavens relates to the erratic, ever-changing events here on earth.

Above all, he wanted to know if the answers to these questions would bring him closer to a higher authority.

So Einstein put God in the Equation

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science," Albert Einstein once said, "becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man." This mysterious component, which Einstein called a "cosmological constant," would eventually work its way into his world-shattering theory of relativity. In this way, explains acclaimed science writer Corey S. Powell, Einstein was creating a formula for a new kind of "sci/religion," one in which God was a factor, denoted by the Greek letter Lambda, and one that would pave the way for an entirely new gnostic era in the history of human spirituality.

He wanted to know where our world comes from and where it was going.

He wanted to understand how the remote stillness of the heavens relates to the erratic, ever-changing events here on earth.

Above all, he wanted to know if the answers to these questions would bring him closer to a higher authority.

So Einstein put God in the Equation

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science," Albert Einstein once said, "becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man." This mysterious component, which Einstein called a "cosmological constant," would eventually work its way into his world-shattering theory of relativity. In this way, explains acclaimed science writer Corey S. Powell, Einstein was creating a formula for a new kind of "sci/religion," one in which God was a factor, denoted by the Greek letter Lambda, and one that would pave the way for an entirely new gnostic era in the history of human spirituality.

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. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Corey S. Powell is an editor at Discover magazine and also a regular contributor. He has written for a variety of other publications, including Scientific American and Newsday. An adjunct professor of science writing at New York University, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.