SCIENCE ERRORS IN THE URANTIA BOOK
PART II: CURSE OF THE DUMMY
(Inexcusable Scientific Errors in The Urantia Book)
“The modern age will refuse to accept a religion which is inconsistent with facts . . . .”
(The Urantia Book, 195:9.5)
Introduction
We now enter a discussion on the second of three categories of scientific errors in The UB, that being those “factual” statements that were incorrect to begin with. Such errors are included as a separate category because, unlike their predecessors in Part I, they do not benefit from having once been considered favorable theories. These are not the “outdated” ideas of days gone by for which the disclaimer of “unearned science” might apply, but mistakes that are outright inexplicable if indeed they derived from supposedly super-intelligent minds. Such mental errors are without excuse, even from a human standpoint.
Deflation (Volume of Antares)
“The largest star in the [local] universe, the stellar cloud Antares, is four hundred and fifty times the diameter of your sun and is sixty million times its volume.” (41:3.2)
An “
V = (πD3)/6 where
V = volume of sphere
D = diameter of sphere
Using the information provided by our celestial astronomers, the relationship between the diameter of the Sun and that of the star Antares can be expressed as follows:
DA = 450DS where
DA = diameter of Antares
DS = diameter of Sun
If we plug this relationship into the calculation for finding the volume of Antares, we will get the following:
VA = (πDA3)/6 = [π(450DS)3]/6 = 4503VS = 91,125,000VS
where
VA = volume of Antares
VS = volume of Sun
As the reader can plainly see, the volume of Antares is some 91 million times the volume of the sun, not the mere 60 million times that is reported by our alleged celestial expositors. This gross error amounts to an underestimate of over 33 percent, which cannot be easily explained away.
There are actually two concurrent problems with the UB passage on Antares. And the cause of the problems can be traced to the human source from which the “celestial” author pilfered the information. Sir James Jeans gives the same value for the diameter of Antares (450 times the diameter of Earth) in his 1929 book The Universe around Us and in his 1934 book Through Space and Time. The latter puts it this way:
“Indeed the largest [star] yet known (Antares) has a diameter 450 times that of the sun—or about 400 million miles. We could pack about 60 million suns inside it, and there would still be room to spare.”[1]
The UB authors, in paraphrasing this statement, misinterpreted the information provided. On page 257 of Jean’s Universe, we find this interesting (and very pertinent) fact: “Antares, for instance occupies 90,000,000 times as much space as the sun . . . .”[2] The number Jeans gives for equivalent volumes is a close approximation of the number we got above (91,000,000). The 64,000 dollar question becomes obvious: Why did Jeans use the 60 million figure in Through Space and Time and not the 90 million he used in his previous book? More importantly, why did the celestial astronomers misappropriate the 60 million figure? Is Jeans (or his publisher) guilty of inserting a typographical error in the subsequent text, after getting it right the first time? Recall that Jeans’ Universe states that if 60 million suns were packed into Antares, there would still be “room to spare.” Although Jeans left some “wiggle room” for himself, the UB authors apparently clipped off Jeans’ “room to spare” qualification, implying equivalent volumes. Did the revelators know what they were doing? The confusion these questions bring out will be cleared up with a little more math.
The statement by Jeans that 60 million Suns could be “packed” into the volume of Antares is not the same as saying the volume of Antares is 60 million times the volume of the Sun. The issue is not finding equivalent volumes, but of packing smaller spheres into the shell of a larger one. In other words, in his 1934 book Through Space and Time, Jeans was providing the answer to the question, “How many spheres the size of our Sun could be packed into a spherical shell the size of Antares?” A similar question would be, “How many earths could fit inside Jupiter?” or “How many marbles could fit inside a beach ball?”
The solution is found by determining the optimal packing density of identical spheres—that is, determining how tightly spheres of the same volume can be arranged for packing into an empty container. We must first determine the most efficient use of space when packing spheres in a cube by calculating the packing density, or the fraction of the cube’s volume that is occupied by spheres. The packing density (P) is thus defined by
P = Vsphere/Vcube
where Vsphere is the total volume of the spheres in a cube and Vcube is the total volume of the cube. In 1831, Gauss determined the densest packing configuration of spheres in three dimensions.[3] Using Gauss’s configuration, the packing density is calculated to be P =0.7405.[4]
Getting back to the case under study, the number of Suns that can be packed into Antares is:
n = 91,000,000 x 0.74 = 67,000,000 Suns
Thus, Jeans was
right on both counts. The equivalent
volume of Antares is that of about 90 million of our Suns, and about 60 million
Suns could be packed into the volume of Antares, with room to spare. Unfortunately, the “
A third problem is that the current estimate of the diameter of Antares is about 700 times the diameter of the Sun, based on direct parallax measurements taken from a satellite, a technique that was not available until the late 1990s.[5] The equivalent volume of Antares is therefore 700 to the third power or 340 million times the volume of the Sun, while about 250 million Suns could be packed into Antares. It seems both Jeans and the celestials require revisions of their estimates in this case. While we cannot blame Jeans for his lack of foresight in this matter, it behooves us to question the intellectual integrity of those who claim to have proximal access to Antares and other celestial orbs.
Critical Mass (Sun’s Density)
“The mass of your sun is slightly greater than the estimate of your physicists, who have reckoned it as about two octillion (2 x 1027) tons. It now exists about halfway between the most dense and the most diffuse stars, having about one and one-half times the density of water.” (41:4.1)
“One of your near-by suns, which started life with about the same mass as yours, has now contracted almost to the size of Urantia, having become forty thousand times as dense as your sun.” (41:4.4)
Because the average diameter of the Earth is not provided by the celestial authors, we can safely assume that they concur with our scientists’ measurement of about 7,913 miles, which was deduced in 1909 by geodesist John Fillmore Hayford.[6] The density of water at standard pressure and temperature (the assumed conditions to which the celestials defer) is precisely one gram per cubic centimeter (1.0 g/cm3). Therefore, by their estimate, our Sun’s density is about 1.5 g/cm3 (human astrophysicists estimate it to be 1.4 g/cm3, which we can call close enough for the sake of this demonstration). Now, if the hypothetical sun whose original mass was about the same as ours had shrunk to the size of Urantia (Earth), then its density would be determined as follows:
Find volume of Earth: VE = π[(7913 mi.) x (5280 ft./mi.) x (12 in./ft.) x (2.54 cm./in.)]3/6
= 1.08 x 1027 cm3
Convert mass of Sun: MS = (2 x 1027 tons) x 2000 lb/ton x 16 oz/lb x 28 g/oz
= 1.79 x 1033 g
Calculate density of (hypothetical) sun: ρs = MS/VE = (1.79 x 1033 g)/(1.08 x 1027 cm3)
= 1.66 x 106 g/cm3
The ratio of the hypothetical sun’s density to that of our Sun is therefore (1.66 x 106)/(1.5) or about one million times the density of our Sun, not the mere 40,000 times as reported by the alleged celestial authors. From this and the previous example, we can se that the authors of Paper 41 are not very adept at number-crunching.
Mind Your Digits (Angular Velocity of Electrons)
“The agility of this acrobatic calcium electron is indicated by the fact that, when tossed by the temperature-X-ray solar forces to the circle of the higher orbit, it only remains in that orbit for about one one-millionth of a second; but before the electric-gravity power of the atomic nucleus pulls it back into its old orbit, it is able to complete one million revolutions about the atomic center.” (41:6.5)
The above passage tells us that the angular velocity of an electron orbiting the outer shell of a calcium atom is “about” one million times one million, or one trillion (1 x 1012) cycles per second. Once again, let us check the celestial collaborators’ math on this one.
The angular momentum (L) of an electron that is orbiting its atomic nucleus is given by the Bohr equation:
L = mvr = nh/2π
where m = mass of electron = 9.11 x 10-31 kilogram
v = velocity of electron
r = electron orbital radius = 1.94 x 10-10 meters (2+ ion)
n = period or quantum number = 4
h = Plank’s constant = 6.63 x 10-34 joule-seconds
The value for the quantum number (n) for calcium is 4 because calcium is in the fourth row of the periodic chart of the elements.
Rearranging the above equation and solving for the electron’s orbital velocity, we get
v = nh/2πmr = [4(6.63 x 10-34)]/[2π(9.11 x 10-31)1.94 x 10-10] = 2.39 x 106 meters per second
The frequency f of an orbiting object at an orbital radius r and a velocity v can be solved by
f = v/2πr = 2.39 x 106/[2π(1.94 x 10-10)] = 1.96 x 1015 revolutions per second
We can round the solution down and call it “about” 1 x 1015 rev/sec. Because the celestial physicists tell us that the outer calcium electron orbits at a paltry one trillion (1 x 1012) cycles per second, the corroborators from on high appear to have missed the mark by three orders of magnitude, thus leaving the calcium atom, that “active and versatile” element of the cosmos, a bit fatigued.
Lights Out (Temperature of the Sun’s Surface)
The authors of Paper 41 once again grace us with their depth of knowledge pertaining to our Sun, telling us with celestial assurance that the surface temperature of our Sun is “a little less than 6,000 degrees” (41:6.7). A little later, the angelic arbiters of astronomic facts reiterate that the surface temperature of the Sun is “almost 6,000 degrees,” while the Sun’s temperature rapidly increases toward the interior until it reaches the unbelievable temperature of “about 35,000,000 degrees” at the center (41:7.2). The authors from on high then proceed to provide the following clarification: “(All of these temperatures refer to your Fahrenheit scale)” (ibid.). Modern science tells us that the interior temperature of the sun provided by the celestial authors is indeed unbelievable and also incorrect, but that is a scientific fact that can be relegated to the annals of “unearned science.” The surface temperature of the Sun is also grossly incorrect; however, this time the authors cannot get off the hook by invoking the “prime directive.” The disclaimer for unearned science simply does not apply in this case because the scientific fact in question was already known by humans, and therefore should have been correctly reported by the celestials as well. A bit of science history is in order at this juncture.
The Sun’s surface temperature can be derived by several methods that average out to about 5,760o K (5490o C or 9900o F). It is found using the radiation laws pertaining to an ideal radiator, which is very nearly how the Sun behaves. Such a body, called a blackbody, can absorb all the electromagnetic energy it receives and re-emit it at 100 percent efficiency. One of the three ways of mathematically expressing a blackbody’s radiation is called the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. In 1879 Austrian physicist Joseph Stefan found that the total radiation energy output for a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature.
One of the problems facing astronomers before the turn of the twentieth century was the lack of a comprehensible theory of radiation that would enable them to better understand the Sun and other stars. In 1893 Wilhelm Wien discovered that the wavelength of peak radiation emitted by a blackbody is inversely proportional to its absolute temperature, so as bodies become hotter their color changes progressively from red to blue. Therefore, if the color of stars could be measured or estimated accurately, their surface temperatures could be deduced. This discovery enabled a fairly accurate estimate of the Sun’s surface temperature at 6,000 K.[7] This estimate is the value found in the textbooks of the 1920s and 1930s, including Sir James Jeans’ The Universe around Us (p. 241). Note that the value is the same as that provided in The UB, but not the scale. A temperature of 6,000 K is approximately 5730 degrees Centigrade, or about 10,350 degrees Fahrenheit. The UB authors, in their “celestial” wisdom, unwittingly changed the temperature scale from Centigrade/Kelvin to Fahrenheit when reporting the surface temperature of the Sun. Were the Sun’s surface temperature a mere 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit (a mere 3,300 o C), it would not be producing the amount of energy required to sustain life on our planet. In other words, we would not exist, and the celestial government would have no cause to visit planet Urantia!
Seeing the Light (Timing of the Andromeda Supernova)
The authors of Paper 41 also describe a cosmic phenomenon we now know as a supernova. The pertinent paragraph explains what happens to large suns when their supply of hydrogen is depleted and how gravity overpowers the internal pressure, causing the escape of “tiny particles devoid of electric potential” [i.e., neutrinos] and a collapse of the giant sun in a matter of a few days:
“It was such an emigration of these ‘runaway particles’ that occasioned the collapse of the giant nova of the Andromeda nebula about fifty years ago.” (41:8.3)
However, the supernova explosion in the Andromeda galaxy was merely observed by human astronomers in 1885 (fifty years prior to the year A.D. 1935); it actually occurred more than two million years ago (or nearly one million years ago, if the reader accepts the estimate of the distance to the Andromeda galaxy provided in The UB at 15:4.7), for that is how long it took the light from said phenomenon to reach our planet.
The angelic co-authors slip again when providing historic details regarding another supernova explosion:
“And all this explains the origin of many types of irregular nebulae, such as the Crab nebula, which had its origin about nine hundred years ago . . . .” (41:8.4)
Again, the Crab nebula explosion was observed and recorded in July 1054 A.D. by Chinese astronomers, the ever-expanding remains of which can be seen today in the constellation of Taurus, and which is approximately 4,000 light years distant. Therefore, the Crab nebula explosion, which was first observed and recorded by earthlings approximately 950 years ago, actually occurred nearly 5,000 years ago. One would think that an archangel has a broader perspective on celestial events than that of a gravity-bound mortal of planet Urantia.
Spin Cycle (Rotation Rate of Moon and Mercury)
A “Life Carrier” tells us that subsequent to the Solar System’s birth, the planets closest to the Sun were the first to have their orbital velocities decreased by the action of tidal friction. The gravitational influence of the Sun also acted as a brake on the protoplanets’ axial spin rate. And according to the Life Carrier author who, by the way, remains a resident visitor on planet Urantia, this phenomenon is said to cause “a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia” (57:6.2). In other words, it is because both Mercury and the Moon are said to have stopped rotating about their respective axes that one side is always facing the body they orbit. But the fact that a satellite always leaves one hemisphere facing the body it orbits means that the orbiting satellite is still rotating about its axis, at the exact rate of one axial revolution per orbital period. In the case of the Moon, it rotates about its axis once every 28 days, the same time it takes to complete an orbit around the Earth. This is precisely why we only see only one side (the “near” side) of the Moon at various phases. If the Moon were to completely stop rotating about its axis, the side facing the Earth would be constantly changing and would gradually include the “far” side, the sequence repeating once every 28 days as it rotated around the Earth. The “Life Carrier” author apparently does not grasp this simple concept. (And to think it was a corps of these “super-intelligent” extraterrestrial beings who supposedly brought life to planet Urantia!)
The case
for Mercury’s axial spin rate is a bit more convoluted (for the Life Carrier
author, that is). Mercury had been a
difficult object to observe in the past because it is always too low in the sky
when the Sun is below the horizon, and its image is consequently disturbed by
the Earth’s atmosphere. It had thus
proved impossible to see any but the vaguest of surface features with even the
best telescopes available in the nineteenth century. In about 1880, Giovanni Schiaparelli of the
Milan Observatory began studying the planet in daylight when it was well above
the horizon. He concluded in 1882 that its axial rotation period was 88 days,
which is the same as Mercury’s period of rotation about the Sun. If Schiaparelli were correct, it would mean
that Mercury kept the same face turned permanently toward the Sun, like the
Moon does to the Earth. This
configuration was not considered unreasonable at the time, because it was
thought that tidal friction of Mercury in its originally molten crust could
well have locked its axial rotation to its orbital period. Although Percival Lowell had confirmed this
88-day rotation period observationally a few years later from his observatory
at
In that
year, W. E. Howard and his colleagues at
Taken for Granite (Lava)
The same “Life Carrier” who misinformed us regarding the Moon’s and Mercury’s spin rates also tells us of this little-known geologic fact:
“The lava layers of the earth’s crust, when cooled, form granite.” (58:5.5)
But as mortals who recall their sixth-grade geology will tell you, and as the geology profession has recited for centuries, rocks on planet Earth are of three basic types: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. Igneous rocks form from hot molten rock that has cooled and solidified at or near the surface of the earth. In the case of volcanoes, the molten rock, commonly known as lava, extrudes onto the earth’s surface and solidifies relatively rapidly as basalt, andesite, or rhyolite, depending upon the chemical composition of the material in increasing concentrations of silicon and aluminum and decreasing concentrations of iron and magnesium. Volcanic rocks typically do not precipitate out mineral crystals because of the rapid cooling and the lack of pressure at the earth’s surface. Those magmas that cool beneath the Earth’s surface, on the other hand, are granted longer cooling periods and additional pressure that allow the formation of crystalline minerals such as quartz. These subsurface magmas are called intrusive or plutonic, and form the igneous rocks known as gabbro, diorite, and granite, as counterparts to the volcanic rock types mentioned above. In other words, lava, which is defined as an extrusive magma, does not form the intrusive rock type known as granite. Give the “Life Carrier” a grade of D-minus on the topic of earth science.
To Err is Divine?
How do UB devotees get around these blatantly obvious scientific errors? Many explanations have been forwarded. Some say that the “revelators” knew what they were doing all along, and were purposefully sabotaging their own works in an effort to avoid the mistake of foisting fundamentalism, a fate considered to be the bane of historic Christianity with its “scientifically outdated” Bible. As one sympathetic journal article puts it, “One way to ensure that [Urantia Book] fundamentalism could not for long be sustained would be to include material that is simply and obviously ridiculous—a status that much of the erroneous material has now attained.”[8] This concept was first introduced in 1991 by a group of Urantian apologists who published a 35-page pamphlet entitled The Science Content of The Urantia Book.[9] The authors refer to the idea as the “time bomb” theory, which holds that the revelators deliberately planted mistakes in The UB to prevent its veneration.
A similar tactic is to claim that, because the revelators could not reveal unearned science (as discussed in Part I of this series), it would follow that neither could they imply that any then-popular scientific theory (ca. 1930s) was in fact incorrect, as this would also convey unearned knowledge.[10] But neither of these excuses are convincing, for several reasons. First, whenever the revelators present scientific information, it is almost without exception put forth in the context of their endorsement thereof. (The only exceptions are when they are presenting their own theories regarding the mechanics of an “unknown” aspect of their contrived cosmology, referred to as the “universe of universes” [e.g., 12:1.10; 12:3.4,5,6].) The authors never introduce the information in the form of a neutral observation, such as “A theory currently popular among Urantian scientists holds that . . . .” Had they done so, then one might be able to lay claim that they were merely presenting information that may or may not be correct. Instead, the information is always presented as though the “revelators” concur wholeheartedly that said theory is indeed fact. Second, there would be no reason for the revelators to present a theory that was false, if only to place themselves in the stifling position of not being able to reveal that the theory was indeed not true. Celestial foresight (assuming they had any) would mandate that they not put themselves in such a convoluted position in the first place. Presenting scientific information that may or may not be correct would seem to be an endeavor unworthy of celestials who were attempting to build a reputation of superior knowledge and trustworthiness to their intended audience. And finally, some of the cases discussed so far are presented by the revelators as earmarks of some “sacred” cosmic principle in action, as though the cosmological principle is tangible evidence of some spiritual truth (e.g., the alleged seven-cycle periodicity of the elements and 48 human chromosomes being a multiple of 12). Scientific principles such as these cannot be relegated to deliberate “time bombs” or to unannounced false information, because if the information indeed turns out to be false (as it has), then the spiritual principle to which it alludes is also false. Havona forbid!
But
Wait, There’s Even Still More!
So far, we have tackled the vagaries of “unearned science” in Part I and the whims of factual blunder in Part II of this series. In our third and final installment that follows, we shall discover the pains of incompatible history.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
ENDNOTES
[1]. Jeans,
James, Through Space and Time (New
York: MacMillan, 1934), p. 183.
[2]. Jeans,
James, The Universe around Us (New
York: MacMillan, 1929), p. 257.
[3].
[4]. Source: www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/webmodules/spherepacking.htm.
[7]. Leverington, David, A History of Astronomy from 1890 to the Present (London, et al.: Springer-Verlag, 1995), p. 7.
[8]. Glasziou, Ken (ed.), “The Error Content,” Innerface International, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April 2002), p. 7 [http://www.urantiabook.org/archive/newsletters/innerface/vol9_2/page7.html].
[9]. Bain,
Richard et al., The Science Content of The Urantia Book;