Brigham Young and the Aliens on the Sun

The title for this post is something you would expect from a cheap pulp science fiction novel rather than a serious discussion about religion. But it was a topic that I was reminded of recently. While by no means is this a common criticism against Brigham Young, or the Church in general, but it is something that is occasionally brought up in mocking comments online.

Usually these comments take the form, "Brigham Young believed people lived on the sun! That's ridiculous! It's proof he was an idiot/fool/ignorant and we can't trust anything he said."

Did Brigham Young actually believe that people lived on the sun? And if he did what are we to think of that based on our current understanding of the universe?

So did Brigham Young believe that people lived on the sun? On July 24th, 1869 Brigham Young was speaking at a Church conference and as part of his un-prepared remarks he made the following statement:

"So it is with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain."

That seem to make the case very straight forward. It's unambiguous. He said he believes it. We know from modern science that people do not live on the sun. Brigham Young was mistaken. Case closed.

Well that was a short blog post.

Except, as my favorite comedy troupe once said, context is everything.

If we are to consider the context we must first look at the general scientific context in which Brigham Young made that statement, and second consider the context within the rest of his discourse. Both contexts are very illuminating.

So what was the scientific context at the time? If you went to an "expert" or and "authority" during the mid 1800's and asked them if the sun, moon, and all the planets were inhabited what answer would you get?

The idea that the planets of the solar system are inhabited, referred to as the "plurality of worlds", is an idea that suddenly gained wide spread attention among astronomers and philosophers in the early 1700's. It had been discussed before then but it was only considered a theological question before then. But with the spread of Newtonian ideas, questions about the exact nature of other worlds suddenly became very important.

Previously the realm of the sun, moon, and stars was considered to be entirely distinct form that of the earth. The laws of nature were different "up there". The stuff that made up the heavens was just different from the stuff that made up the sphere of the earth. But the Newtonian revolution introduced the idea that the same laws that governed the earth also governed the heavens. That radically altered the way people perceived the sun, moon, planets, and stars.

New and improved telescopes helped us understand that the planets were spheres just like the earth. This precipitated the idea that not only were the sun, moon, and planets governed by the same laws, but in many ways they were just like the earth. This meant that they had oceans, seas, continents, plants, animals, intelligent beings, just like the earth.

These ideas were speculative and did not appear in any major textbook on astronomy of the time, but they were discussed and mentioned among scholars and other well read men, much in the same way the idea of wormholes and parallel universes are viewed today. They are not strictly scientific, and they do not appear in major textbooks on astronomy. But while some scholars think they do not exist, others speculate that they are possible, and they do pop up in popular literature and news.

While the concept of plurality of worlds (i.e. the sun, moon, and planets inhabited by intelligent beings) was never a major point of scientific inquiry it did show up in the writings of some influential individuals.

On April 25, 1756 John Adams wrote in his diary,

"Astronomers tell us, with good Reason, that not only all the Planets and Satellites in our Solar System, but all the unnumbered Worlds that revolve round the fixt Starrs are inhabited, as well as this Globe of Earth."

In the late 1700's the idea of the plurality of worlds was considered to be so well established by reason that Thomas Paine writing in The Age of Reason used the idea to criticize Christianity saying,

"to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air."

By the early 1800's famous astronomer William Herschel wrote:

"The sun, viewed in this light appears to be nothing else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the first, or in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our system.... Its similarity to the other globes of the solar system with regard to its solidity, its atmosphere, and its diversified surface; the rotation upon its axis, and the fall of heavy bodies, leads us on to suppose that it is most probably also inhabited, like the rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast globe. Whatever fanciful poets might say, in making the sun the abode of blessed spirits, or angry moralists devise, in pointing it out as a fit place for the punishment of the wicked, it does not appear that they had any other foundation for their assertions than mere opinion and vague surmise; but now I think myself authorized, upon astronomical principles, to propose the sun as an inhabitable world, and am persuaded that the foregoing observations, with the conclusions I have drawn from them, are fully sufficient to answer every objection that may be made against it." (Emphasis in original.)

Here we see an interesting argument from Herschel. He states that because the sun behaves just like the other planets, it must be inhabited just like the other planets. This argument, he believes, is so obvious that it is "fully sufficient to answer every objection that may be made against it." This is a good example of a logical conclusion stemming from the Newtonian revolution.

A central assumption of the new wave of science was that the same things we observe on earth can be observed in the heavens. Because the sun had many of the same characteristics as the earth it was natural to assume that the sun was inhabited just like the earth.

This idea was taken a step further in 1837 by a popularizer of science named Thomas Dick who used the population density of England to estimate the population of the Earth, the moon, the planets along with all of their moons including Saturn's rings, along with the sun. His calculations assumed that all the sun, planets and moons, including Saturn's rings, had continents and oceans. Again this was based on the assumption that because the heavens were like the earth, all things we observe on earth were in the heavens.

But how could these learned men think this? Didn't they know that the sun was a giant ball of hot gas and quite impossible of supporting life? Didn't they know that the moon had no atmosphere?

It is easy for us to look back with hundreds of years of scientific observations and incredible advancements in telescope technology and say, "Obviously...." But back then it was not so obvious. It had only been a few hundred years since astronomers realized that there were mountains on the moon. And the discovery of mountains on the moon confirmed the growing assumption that the heavens were just like the Earth. Hence the "seas" (Mare) on the moon. It was not until the end of the 1800's that telescopes were advanced enough to cast serious doubt about the existence of oceans and even atmosphere on the moon.

But what about the sun? Why would astronomers think that the sun could be inhabited?

While astronomers certainly worked out that any life on the sun would be subject to intense bright light, this was right when the modern study of spectroscopy was just beginning. Absorption lines were first discovered in 1814, but it was not until 1859 that these absorption lines were first associated with specific chemical elements. That is, it wasn't until 1859 that scientists could even discuss, scientifically, the composition of the sun. It was at the same time, and mostly by the same scientists, that we began to understand the concept of black body radiation. This allowed us to measure the temperature of the sun, and is to this day the exact same method we use to measure the temperature of all stars.

The Newtonian idea that the heavens were just like the Earth had only been confirmed up until then. And while this added even more evidence to the list of reasons why the heavens were just like the Earth, it was the beginning of the end for that assumption. Unfortunately for Herschel, his argument was not the final word, and his reasoning could not "answer every objection that may be made against it."

Over the next 100 years we made many more discoveries that greatly undermined the idea of the plurality of worlds. The first to go was the idea that the sun and moon were inhabited and then later the dream of men from Jupiter and Saturn. The Martians and Venusians were the last to go. But before they did they inspired a generation of science fiction writers.

While we look back on science fiction from the very late 1800's and the 1900's as quaint, simplistic, and "Obviously they got it wrong." We forget that they were not writing fantasy. They were writing science in a fictional setting. They were dealing with the possible, and not with the imaginary.

In 1952 the scientist and author Isaac Asimov began a series of books about a character named David Starr who had many adventures all over the solar system. In the books he travels to Mars and meets Martians, and travels to the oceans of Venus. Later when the books were collected into an anthology in the 1970's Asimov wrote an introduction in which he apologized for getting the science wrong. It was only after our probes to Mars, Venus, and the other planets that the idea of (current) life on the other planets of the solar system died out as a matter of science.

That these old conceptions of life on the moon, the planets and the sun were wrong is only obvious now, and as such are frequently put on the same shelf as fantasy. But they were once a matter of science.

While these ideas never rose to the level of "settled science" they were a matter of discussion and debate, and at the end of the 1800's they captured the imagination of a generation of authors. But with more knowledge a great portion of the speculation passed from science into fantasy.

So how does this affect our view of the past? What about those who thought that the sun, moon, and planets were inhabited just like the Earth? Does this misconception invalidate everything else they said and did?

Does Uranus some how cease to exist and do telescopes cease to function because William Herschel thought the sun was inhabited? Is all past and future work of the Royal Astronomical Society invalidated because their first president once had an idea that he thought was sound, and later was shown to be implausible? Are the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution invalid because John Adams thought the moon was inhabited? Is Washington DC somehow not the capital of the US because John Adams heard the arguments of the astronomers of his day and was convinced by them? Just because someone though something was common sense, and it later turned out not to be so, does that upend all things that we know?

A similar set of questions can be asked about Brigham Young. Was he somehow ignorant to accept the statements of astronomers of his day? Does the fact that he did not know everything somehow invalidate his work to lead the Church? Does God cease to exist because a prophet was free to exercise his own mind in trying to understand the universe? Do we expect God to remove the agency of His servants just to spare the bruised egos of a few doubting critics 150 years after the fact?

In our approach to what we know and what we do not, and how we grow in our knowledge and understanding, we must remain humble. There were certain things, the Constitution, the science of astronomy, that were not invalidated because someone connected to them once thought something that later proved to be wrong, nor are the organizations they helped found called into question because they operated on incomplete knowledge.

This realization, that men of science can be mistaken, is especially relevant because it was precisely the point of Brigham Young's talk back in 1869 when he mentioned the men in the sun. If you read it and consider the context you will find very little to criticize and perhaps more to think about.

Why the Neutron Star Collision was an Important Observation

I am going to take a moment to actually talk about astrophysics (I know, it's a shock! To actually talk about what I do).

Back on August 17th the LIGO gravity wave observatory detected gravity waves from the collision of two neutron stars. This was quickly followed by the detection of a gamma ray burst by the Fermi space telescope, and then a host of other observations from other telescopes. This event quickly became the most heavily observed single event in astronomy. There are several good general reviews of what happened that are very accessible to the average reader (NY Times, NPR, Veritasium, and one more in depth from Phys.org, there is also a whole webpage about the detection with links to many papers).

So I won't go over the basics because you can get that from other sources, but I will talk about some of the more technical implications to the detection.

First, gold. Gold is very important in astronomy because it is very heavy and hard to make. Usually astronomers ignore the different types of elements, we are usually only concerned about hydrogen and helium. There is a joke in astronomy that the astronomer's periodic table of elements is the simplest one since we only have three elements, hydrogen, helium, and "metals". We refer to everything that is not hydrogen and helium and metals (that includes decidedly non-metallic elements like nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and neon). It keeps things simple.

But when it comes to metals we are concerned with what we call metallicity, that is the relative amount of metals compared to hydrogen and helium. Because hydrogen and helium make up a combined 98% of the mass of the universe, on a cosmological scale everything else is just a rounding error. But on smaller scales (small, as in the size of a cluster of galaxies) the amount of metals becomes important. Except for a tiny amount of lithium, everything that is not hydrogen and helium was produced inside stars, one way or another.

When a star goes through its life cycle it will return a significant amount of mass back into the interstellar medium in the form of stellar winds. For a large star with an initial mass of 10-20 times the mass of the sun, the star may return 80-90% of its mass to the interstellar medium in the form of stellar winds, or a nova or even a supernova. So while a star may start out as almost entirely hydrogen and helium when it forms, the gas that returns to the interstellar medium will be slightly enriched with metals, that is, the metallicity will go up. This enriched gas that has been returned to the interstellar medium will go on to form a second generation of stars, which will still be almost entirely hydrogen and helium, but now with a tiny fraction more of metals. The process will repeat, and each time it does the gas will become more enriched with metals. In order to have enough metals that rocky planets such as the earth can form the gas must go through at least 20 star formation and enrichment cycles. To date, the highest metallicity ever observed in a star is about three times the metallicity of the sun.

Because of something called the nucleon binding energy only elements up to iron can be produced in the conventional way inside of stars. Anything heavier than iron needs to be produced in another way because it is en endothermic reaction and requires huge amounts of energy. Some heavy elements are produced in supernovas but there is a subtle problem with that. While there certainly is enough energy in a supernova explosion to produce the heavier elements, most of the mass that is blown off in a supernova is hydrogen. It would take an immense amount of energy and a string of complex, and highly improbably reactions to convert that much hydrogen into elements as heavy as gold and lead.

In nuclear physics there are two processes which can produce heavier elements, named the r-process and the s-process (unimaginatively the r and s stand for rapid and slow respectively). The s-process takes less energy and a much lower neutron flux, and can happen over long time scales. In the s-process heavy elements are built up slowly one neutron at a time, and allows for neutrons to decay into protons.

The r-process requires huge amounts of energy, and a truly astronomical neutron flux. A parent element is bombarded with a huge number of neutrons to make an extremely unstable isotope. The only thing keeping it from decaying into smaller elements is the rate at which neutrons are bombarding the nucleus. While a supernova has enough energy for the r-process, there is a distinct lack of neutrons to achieve the neutron flux necessary for the r-process to take place. It does happen, just not at a high enough rate to explain the amount of gold, lead, uranium, and other really heavy elements we observe in the universe. So while normal stellar processes can explain the carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen we see, and novas and supernovas can explain the amount of aluminum, iron, nickle, and zinc we see, neither of those can explain the amount of gold, silver, lead, and uranium we see.

This is where merging neutron stars come in. In the collision there certainly is enough energy for the nucleosynthesis to take place, and because there are two massive sources of neutrons being ripped apart, the problem of meeting the minimum neutron flux is solved. But up until now we had no hard confirmation of neutron star mergers, much less finding evidence of r-process production of heavy elements. It has been suspected for years, but only with the LIGO detection and the followup observations of the nova remnant has this been confirmed. With the detection of r-process reactions in the remnant of the merger we can now conclude that almost all of the gold, uranium and other very heavy elements come from neutron star mergers.

Below is an updated periodic table of elements that shows where each element comes from. Some come from more than one source, but you can see just how many elements were detected in the neutron star merger. The purple shows elements from neutron star mergers. It is much more than gold. This is why the detected merger was so important. It showed us where many of the heavy elements came from like gold, silver, lead, platinum, iodine, bismuth, tin, uranium, and many more.

From Wikipedia. You can see a larger version here.

For my own research this does not change what I am doing. While most very heavy elements come from neutron star mergers, most metals come from normal stellar process that are already accounted for in my models. The detection of the merger does not change the overall metallicity, but it does slightly change the relative ratios of the different metals. But this change is not significant enough to impact what I do. The overall metallicity is extremely important, but the heavy elements are still too rare to make any difference. This could be more relevant to those who work on rocky planet formation, and also nucleosynthesis in interstellar space. But my work does not get down to that level of refinement. I work on fairly large objects where individual stars, and even supernovas are below the level of my resolution. So while it is exciting, it does not affect my work directly, but at some point someone may provide a slight modification to some of the models that I use that may change a few of the minor outputs.

Just How Small You Are: Part 3

A while back I put up two posts entitled "Just How Small You Are" (part 1, part 2) In those posts I referred to a picture of colliding galaxy clusters and noted just how many galaxies there were in that one picture, and each galaxy had about 200 billion stars in it (in reality the number of stars in a galaxy varies from 100 million to 20 trillion, or possibly higher). The other day I saw this image on the Astronomy Picture of the Day:

As far as I can tell there are only four (4) individual stars from our own galaxy in that picture. Every thing else is a galaxy, or stars in another galaxy. Just take a look at that picture and think about it for a while. Every smudge, every point of light, every fleck of apparently inconsequential light in that image is a mass of billions of stars. Even the smudges of light that may seem like nothing more than dust on the lens is a galaxy.

What is really cool about this image is that even though the image is dominated by the galaxy NGC 4921 you can still see galaxies behind it. Even close to the center if you check out the high resolution image you can see entire galaxies that lie beyond the galaxy in the foreground. What is interesting about those galaxies is that they are probably about the same size as the main galaxy in the image, but because they are so far away they appear to be so much smaller.

Let me highlight some of my favorites from the image.

This comes from the right side just above the center. Galaxy A is a grand design spiral similar to our own galaxy. Just like the main galaxy in the image we are viewing it face on. Based on its shape I would guess that it has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 billion stars in it. Galaxy B is another spiral galaxy. We can't tell how developed it is and because it is much, much further than either galaxy A or C. Because it is so far away it appears as just a dim smudge, but it is probably the same size as A or C. Galaxy C is much like galaxy A except that we are not viewing it face on. We see it at a slight oblique angle.

Galaxy D is another spiral galaxy that we see at a slight inclination from the plane. It is probably about the same size as A or C, just further away. Galaxy E, yes that insignificant smudge that you thought was random noise in the image, is a galaxy. It is impossible to tell how big that galaxy is from this image or how far away it is but it is a galaxy none the less.

This image comes from the bottom left corner-ish. All the marked galaxies in this image are giant ellipticals. Even though they appear to be approximately the same size as the spiral galaxies near by these ellipticals are actually much, much bigger. When I say much, much bigger I mean 100-1000 times bigger (more massive). They are also much older. The spiral galaxies (in astro-speak) are called late type galaxies. The elliptical galaxies are called early type galaxies. So of course that means that the early type galaxies are old and the late type galaxies are younger (don't ask, the naming convention is there for historical reasons, thank you Edwin Hubble).

What is interesting about galaxy A is that there appears to be a dust lane across the galaxy (either that or another galaxy in front of it). An early type galaxy with a dust lane is not really common. It was interesting to see it.

This image comes from just down from the center. What is really interesting about it is we can see galaxies beyond the main one in the foreground. Galaxy A is a spiral galaxy that we are viewing from an oblique angle. Galaxies B, C and D are viewed edge on. It is interesting that can still see them even through the veil of stars and dust in the foreground. The dark patches are regions of dust that collected after it got blown there from the center of the galaxy after a particularly intense round of star formation.

The star formation was so intense that it effectively stopped star formation in the center of the galaxy and now the only place where stars are forming is in a ring just outside of the dust lanes. The blue patches in the image are regions of star formation in the galaxy.

Try exploring the image a see if there are any other interesting galaxies that you see. I could find at least two mergers and a few other indications of galaxy mergers.

How many days has a 70 year old Greek lived? Calculating calendars and other oddities.

Last week I read a short blog post about an ancient Greek who was trying to figure out how many days a 70 year old man would have lived. In the post the author points out that for us this is a fairly straight forward calculation.

70 * 365 + (70/4) = 25,567 +/- 1 days

That is 70 years times 365 days plus approximately 17 leap days (the actual number of leap days depends on the year and date of your birth). But for the Greeks the number of days was entirely different. The Greeks had approximately 30 days in a month, with 12 months per year with an extra leap month added every two or three years depending on how they chose to do their counting. If we assume that a leap month was added every other year (i.e. every other year has 13 months) we get:

(70 * 12 + 70/2) * 30 = 26,250 +/- 30 days

Thus for a 70 year old ancient Greek (ancient in many ways) he would have lived for 26,250 days or about 71 years and 10 months (plus or minus a month depending on when he was born). So a 70 year old Greek was actually almost 72 years old by our reckoning.

But now it gets more complicated.

Here I figured a leap month added every other year, but in reality it would have been every three years instead. You see the way the ancient Greeks did their calender was they used the new moon to mark the first day of a month and the first month was always began on the first new moon after the summer solstice. The only problem is that the summer solstice happens every 365 days (~365.24 days really) but twelve lunar cycles take approximately 354 days.

Thus if the months are determined by the lunar cycles but the years are set by the sun then every year the months will drift approximately 11 days with respect to the start of the year, every year. Hence they Greeks in order to keep the same month as the first month of the year would add an extra month (of 30 days) every two or three years. It works out better if we do it every three years (i.e. they had to do less fudging of the dates), so if we now assume a leap month is added every three years and no every other year let us figure out how many days a 70 year old man would live.

(70 * 12 + 70/3) * 30 = 25,890 +/- 30 days

This is getting closer to our original count using our system of 365 days plus a leap day every 4-ish years. There is only a 323 day difference so our 70 year old Greek went from being almost 72 to being not quite 71 simply by changing how we factor in leap months.

But wait there's more! You may recall that I mentioned that for the Greeks a month begins when they see the new moon. Up until now I have assumed that this happens every 30 days, but this is not quite true. You see it takes the moon about 29.5 days to return to its relative position from our point of view. Which means that the Greeks would have measured a month to be either 29 or 30 days depending on how they determined when the new moon appeared. Over all it should average out to about 29.5 days per month (or about 354 days per lunar year). So let us go back and recalculate how many days a 70 year old Greek man would have lived.

(70 * 12 + 70/3) * 29.5 = 25,458 +/- 30 days

Wow! This turns out to be 108 days shorter than our 70 years! Thus by this reckoning a 70 year old Greek would not have quite been 70 years old according to our counting. And all of this depends on how the Greeks chose to set their calendar.

All this was of course complicated by the fact that the Greeks could choose to add a few random days here and there in order to get festivals or other special occasions to land on a certain day depending on what they decided. Plus this way of calendaring was not uniform among the Greeks themselves and neighboring kingdoms may choose their new years and other dates, such as leap months, differently. So in some cases you could walk 20 miles to a neighboring kingdom and when you cross the border your age changes! (And you thought crossing timezones was complicated.)

This is just one thing to keep in mind while reading ancient documents. Dates and things may be a little different than you would expect. It also makes it harder to calculate a date unless you are given some astronomical standard by which to calculate the date.

Science Problems in the Kolob Theorem

A number of people have asked me to expound upon my first and second reviews of the book The Kolob Theorem (KT). I am hesitant to do this because there are many things in the KT that are obviously incorrect to me, but for those who do not spend a good portion of their time studying and learning astronomy then these errors are not so obvious. Thus it may take a bit of explaining, but if you are interested then read on.

[Again a strong note: I will not speak about the theological implications of the Kolob Theorem. This is only to point out that the book uses some very shaky science to establish its claims. I will again point out that this book was not written by an astronomer. There is a reason why no LDS astronomer has written a book like this, and that is because we recognize that we do not know enough about God, or the universe for a book like this to be written.]

The main text of the KT starts on page 24 (at least in the version that I have access to, linked above). There are a few pages of introductory material before, with some pictures and I will get to those, but my analysis starts on page 25.

I will start near the bottom with the quote by Fred Hoyle. First off, Fred Hoyle was a well known astronomer in his day (he is credited with inventing the phrase "the big bang") but between the publication of his book, Frontiers of Astronomy, in 1955 and the publication of the KT in 2005, our understanding of astronomy has changed more in those 50 years than in the previous 200 years. Yes it really has changed that much. So to rely on an astronomy text book published in 1955 to establish a speculative theory in 2005 automatically places the KT on shaky ground.

Quoting Fred Hoyle Dr. Hilton states:

"The stars in the elliptical galaxies and the stars in the nuclei of the spirals are old stars like the stars in the globular clusters. In contrast, the highly luminous blue giants and super giants are young stars. Young stars are found only in the arms of the spirals."

Our theory would require such a distinction, for the stars in the nucleus must be of a celestial type created first and those of the outer regions of a terrestrial or telestial type and created later.

So the structure that Dr. Hilton sets up for his first corollary, that is central to his entire theory, requires older stars created first to be in the center of galaxy with progressively younger stars as you move out from the center. While it is true that there are many old stars in the center of the galaxy, there are also many old (and in some cases older) stars out in the disk of the galaxy away from the center. The question of where stars form, and how many and how fast they form is still a major area of research. But to illustrate the point here are two pictures of galaxies that are actively forming stars in their center regions.

NGC 3079: The center of the galaxy is an active star forming region. The star formation is actually so strong that it is pushing gas from the center out of the disk of the galaxy. Image credit: NASA and G. Cecil (UNC, Chapel Hill).

M 82: This is actually a composite of images taken from three different telescopes. The green-yellow is from the visible light, the blue is X-rays, the red is infrared. The plane of the galaxy goes from bottom left to top right, but the bright red and blue that is perpendicular to it is hot gas that has been blown out of the galaxy from recent star formation in the center. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/UofA/ESA/AURA/JHU.

As can be seen from the above images there is star formation (and A LOT of it) that happens in the center of the galaxy. Despite what Fred Hoyle states, young stars are not only found in the spiral arms of galaxies. There are plenty of young stars there, but there are even more young stars in the center of galaxies, it's just that they are packed closer together and are mixed with more older stars. As a matter of fact the oldest stars that we can track are found in Globular Clusters (such as M 80), which are most definitely not in the galactic center.

Now on to page 26! (Yes, I have only covered one page.)

Dr. Hilton quotes astronomer Joseph Ashbrook to make the case that there is a dense cluster of old stars in the center of the Milky Way. He sates:

"The core of the Milky Way Galaxy would also possess a tightly packed system of ancient, huge stars in the very heart of the galaxy".

Two things here, he quotes Ashbrook, who may have been a great astronomer (and I can detect nothing wrong with anything Dr. Ashbrook says), but the referenced paper comes from 1968, and the title of the paper refers to Andromeda as a "nebula", not a galaxy. I will get to that in a moment. But the main problem here is that Dr. Hilton is confusing the fact that there is a high amount of stellar mass in the center of the galaxy with there being very massive ("huge") stars in the center of the galaxy. At about this point I probably lost about 98% of my readers and your eyes are glazing over. Stay with me.

So what is the difference between a high amount of stellar mass and a high number of massive stars. Let me explain it like this. Consider two groups of people, groups A and B. In group A the total mass of the group is 20,000 lbs. In group B the total mass is 15,000 lbs. Which group is "bigger". Depends on what you mean by "bigger". It turns out that group A is a group of 300 elementary school students, group B is a NFL football team. Which group is "bigger" now that you know that? Overall the school kids are "more massive" than the football players, but taken individually the football players are 2-8 times more massive than the children. So just because there is a lot of mass in a group of people doesn't mean that the individual people are massive. It means that there could be a lot of them.

The same thing with stars. Just because there is a lot of stellar mass (Dr. Hilton quotes the figure of 10% of the total mass of the galaxy) in the center of the Milky Way, doesn't mean that the individual stars are "huge". As a matter of fact, having "huge" stars would actually be detrimental to his theory, because it turns out that the youngest, most recently formed stars are the most massive, while the oldest, slowest burning stars are the smallest. It seems counterintuitive, but this is precisely the type of mistake that Dr. Hilton makes again and again that undermines his theory. So the "ancient" stars cannot be "huge". In fact the oldest stars would probably be about the same size as our sun, just a lot older.

Next Dr. Hilton moves into a black hole and never makes it out. He gives a definition of a black hole as:

"A black hole is defined as a compact energy source of enormous strength of the order of a billion solar masses".

How can I explain how this definition sounds to a professional astronomer. Assume you had had just finished reading an article about an election in England and read that a new prime minister had been appointed. You turn to me and ask, "What does that mean, 'to be appointed prime minister'?" And I respond, "That is when the Pope comes and crowns the prime minster and puts him on the throne of England." There happens to be a British citizen who over hears this who promptly goes into convulsions and runs screaming from the room, yelling something about "Ignorant Americans". As ridiculous as my statement that a prime minister is "appointed" by being crowned by the Pope is, Dr. Hilton's definition of a black hole is just as ridiculous. It's the kind of thing that keeps astronomy professors up at night fearing that their students may go out into the world and give definitions like that. If you want to know what a black hole is try Wikipedia.

When it comes to black holes there are two types. Stellar black holes that have a mass approximately equal to that of the sun, and super massive black holes that have a mass ranging from 1,000,000 to 10,000,000,000 times the mass of the sun (1e6-1e10 M_sun). Stellar mass black holes are all over the place, while super massive black holes are slightly more rare. It is assumed that at the heart of every galaxy, dwarf galaxy, galaxy remnant, compact dwarf galaxy, and ultra compact dwarf galaxy is a super massive black hole. Dr. Hilton later wonders if it is possible that there is a super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Well he doesn't have to wonder since we have already found it! In fact we found it in 1974! (For someone who uses out of date materials he sure missed this one.)

Here is a plot of the orbits of the stars surrounding the Milky Way's central black hole (know as Sagittarius A*):

Source: Wikipedia.

So continuing on, Dr. Hilton tries to tie in the motion of the stars around the central black hole to "rotation" (a key word from the Book of Abraham, he is trying so hard to make the connection, but this isn't going to do it despite his best efforts). He states:

"One measurement of the radial velocities near the nucleus of Galaxy M 84, in the area of Virgo, shows a speed of rotation of 400 kilometers per second at a distance of only 25 light years from the center."

Wow! 400 km/s that sounds fast! For comparison the sun is doing a positively leisurely 220 km/s in its gentle stroll around the Milky Way. But just a second, where did this 400 km/s number come from. These velocities were measured in M84 (also known as NGC 4374) which is about 60 million light years away, i.e. too far to resolve individual stars. So this velocity is more likely a velocity dispersion, that is a difference in velocities averaged over many thousands of stars, this is not the actual velocity of the stars. The max velocity of an individual star is about half of that, so about 200 km/s, which is about how fast the sun is moving. He tries to make something of this much later (chapter 5), but the motions of stars gets very complex, and I'm not going to get into that. Let's just say that you have to distinguish between the motion of individual stars and the motion of the overall galaxy, and sometimes that can be a very tricky thing. Think of the difference between the motion of individual water molecules and the motion of ocean waves. They are not necessarily the same thing.

On page 26 he mentions "Galaxy 87" I assume he means M87, or Messier 87. Messier was the name of an astronomer who spent his time looking at the stars and made a catalog off all the interesting things he saw in his telescope that weren't stars or planets. He made a list 110 "Messier objects" in 1771 that kept interfering with his hunt for comments. Little did he know that he made one of the most important astronomical object catalogs that would define observational astronomy for the next 200 years.

Wow, we are only 3 pages into the text and I already want to quit. I'll mention one more thing.

On page 27 he mentions a star 3000 times the size of the sun. He uses the word size, but fails to understand the fine distinctions he just ran rough shod over. The "3000 times the size of the sun" here obviously refers to physical size, meaning radius, and not mass. There are no stars out there with a mass 3000 times the mass of the sun. Some astrophysicists think that you can get up to 70 or 80 times the mass of the sun, but generally upper cut off value is 40 times the mass of the sun, and those stars are very few and far between. So to have a star that is "3000 times the size of the sun" must refer to physical size, or radius. With stars, it is very tricky to match physical size with mass. They don't always correlate the way you would think. This is another case as I mentioned previously where this is precisely the type of mistake that Dr. Hilton makes again and again that undermines his theory. You see, black holes are the smallest things out there. The vast majority of them are smaller than the earth, and are even smaller than Pluto. It's just that they have a lot of mass in a very small space.

OK to finish off I'll just leave my remaining notes in their raw format. I only got to page 33 (starting on 24) before I gave up and decided that if I went on this post would be way too long.

p. 28 J Ruben Clark quote (concept of galaxy has changed since then, other galaxies were known as extragalactic nebula, other galaxies were still known as extragalactic nebulae until the mid 1950's, and there are even a few references to them in the 1960's. concept of galaxy not pinned down until 1960's.)

p. 29 A galaxy is self gravitating. It's a concept that has it's finer issues.

p. 33 Fred Hoyle again, yes there is dust in the center! Star formation! Lot's of it. Need dust to form stars. No dust, no new stars, it's that simple. Where ever there is dust there are stars forming. Where ever stars are forming there is dust. Dust in the galaxy is a very complex issue. It is no where near as simple as he makes it out to be. There are entire books written on dust in the Interstellar Medium.

Andromeda--How the picture was made--mention false coloring
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040718.html
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Page.html
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Pagegrey.html

Link to false coloring of images.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/

In the end the science issues are so dense and numerous that it is impossible to extract them from the book and from his theory. The only thing to do is to scrap the whole thing and do something else.

References

Joseph Ashbrook, The Nucleus of the Andromeda Nebula, Sky and Telescope, February 1968
Bok and Bok, The Milky Way 5th Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981
Fred Hoyle, Frontiers of Astronomy, New York, Harpers, 1955

Yes I have been neglecting my blog

It is true, I have been neglecting my blog. I have plans for brief reviews of ancient astronomy in the Book of Abraham, more posts about names in the Book of Mormon, and ancient rituals of conversion detailed in the Book of Mormon. But right now my time has been consumed with getting my code to work for my research. The other day I cleaned up two files that I had been working on for some time and I removed all the lines of code that I didn't need. All together I think I removed over 4,000 lines of code. It took me a few days to work through it and determine what I need and what I don't need.

In the meantime I uploaded a video of one of my simulations that I did as a proof of concept. I did this simulation to show my advisor that my fixes to the code are working and that more time should be devoted to the approach that I have been taking. He was impressed.

Here is the description that goes along with the video:

This is a short video that I made of a simulation that was done as a proof of concept. It shows a fractal distribution of density in the center of a star forming galaxy. This simulation is done using the MHD code Athena. The box size covers 1 kpc in each dimension and has a grid size of 128 in each dimension. The star forming region injects mass and energy into the center region of the simulation.

The proof of concept is for a flux fixer that allows the code to handle high kinetic energy situations where the total kinetic energy is a significant fraction of the total energy.

The visualization was done using Paraview.

Revisiting the Kolob Theorem

Almost two years ago I wrote a review of the book The Kolob Theorem by Dr. Lynn Hilton. At the time there were very few reviews of the book online, and I could only find one review written by someone with any level of expertise in astronomy. Two years ago most of the sites I visited that had a discussion about the book were most decidedly anti-Mormon and were exceptionally critical of the book (though their criticism was more an expression of a general hatred of all things Mormon and of religion in general, and not really a rational criticism of the book). There was only one review that discussed the actual scientific merits of the book when I wrote my review.

Originally I had no intention of writing a review of the book, but after coming across a few references to it, and having at least one person ask me about it I wrote a rather harsh and not very charitable review of the book. After a few comments from readers I returned and wrote a revised review of the book, which is at the moment the most popular post on my blog. It regularly gets about four times as many hits as any other post that I have written (which let's face it, isn't saying much, but still it does bring a number of people to my blog). When I wrote the review I had no idea that it would end up being my most popular post, and that even now, if you do a Google search for "Kolob Theorem" my review is generally the first or second link that comes up.

Now, two years after my initial review I felt that I should return and write something about the most common responses to the book and my review of it.

Here I will give my response to a few common comments about The Kolob Theorem. I will also respond to a few specific comments that were left on my blog and also comments made on other sites that I feel need to be addressed.

1. "Fascinating theory. Made me think." or "Interesting and thought-provoking."

Response: Yes it is interesting. There is a reason why The Kolob Theorem is such a draw. It talks about things that most people have never thought about before. Even for lifelong members of the Church Dr. Hilton talks about aspects of our theology that are never touch on in Sunday School, Sacrament Meeting or in Priesthood and Relief Society (though maybe occasionally in some random seminary or Elder's quorum meeting). In these cases the book is something refreshing and different and it makes them think about what is only mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants and in The Pearl of Great Price.

There are some real implications to those passages in the scriptures that Dr. Hilton uses as the basis of The Kolob Theorem and I think that those passages of scripture are wonderful to think about. We would all benefit by understanding those passages to a greater degree (such as Abraham 3:2-3). They are definitely a major aspect of my faith and also why I chose the profession that I did.

But before we all run off and say what a wonderful thing The Kolob Theorem is, here is your obligatory grain of salt:

A "grain" of salt.

I am only slightly exaggerating with that picture. I am not opposed to speculative books that "make people think" and are "thought-provoking". I am very much in favor of books like that. The only problem with The Kolob Theorem is that there are some fundamental flaws to the science side of the argument (Note: I am only talking about flaws in the science he uses, I have not, and will not  critique any of his theology). These fundamental flaws are not the kind where you can say, "Oh well, it's obvious that he would get some things wrong."

These flaws are so pronounced that they really undermine his entire book. Some people may respond and say that "at least it gets the conversation started." The only problem is that it starts the conversation off on such a bad footing that it is better to just chuck the book and start over. It would take more time and effort to correct all the mistakes than to write a new book.

The thing is all this could have been prevented if Dr. Hilton had just run the book past a real astronomer before sending it off to the publisher. The only people listed as having reviewed the book before being published are a couple of medical doctors, business people and a secretary to a general authority. No one with any expertise in astronomy apparently reviewed it and offered their opinion. This does not automatically invalidate what is written in the book, but due to its obvious (obvious to people who study astronomy for a living) short comings the book and most of its ideas would have been shot down before publication if an astronomer had been asked to read it and give their honest opinion of the science behind the theorem.

So if you fall in the "Hey this book really made me think" crowd I say "GOOD!" now forget most of what you read and go figure out what is really going on, because the reality of what is taught in the D&C and The Pearl of Great Price is better than what is portrayed in The Kolob Theorem.

This is such an important point that let me say it again. The truth is much more amazing than what has been written. Go learn the truth. You will be amazed.

2. The book is "a cohesive collection of ideas about Mormon cosmology."

Response: Read Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul. He's a real astronomer. That is the book that The Kolob Theorem should have been. Read Dr. Paul's book. That's all.

3. Don't be so harsh, after all it is just a "theory".

Response: There is a strange phenomena in America where people think that by labeling something a "theory" that it somehow makes it less forceful or something that can safely be ignored. In the words of that immortal swordsman "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh but when people use the word "theory" in this context it is just a lazy cop out that accomplishes nothing but end the conversation. Nothing is actually said when we say "Oh, it's just a theory."

That's a phrase that doesn't mean anything except "I'm slightly uncomfortable with where this conversation is heading because it challenges some of my fundamental assumptions on life and so I will make a quick dash for the exit by calling it all a theory. By doing that I somehow cast doubt on everything without having to actually do any work and show anything." Saying something is "just a theory" is the conversational equivalent of telling your history teacher "and then some other stuff happened." and expecting to get an "A" on that term paper.

4. "Your blog is not as significant as I thought" and your review won't make much of an impact.

Response: I keep this blog for anyone who cares to read it (which is mostly my family, thanks Mom!) and I never really intended to "make an impact" with my review. I just wanted to write down my thoughts so that if anyone asked me directly I could tell them to read my review on my blog. In the end my review has gotten a much bigger response than I ever anticipated.

5. I really enjoyed The Kolob Theorem and it has really opened my eyes to somethings. It's like you don't want people to consider these great truths.

Response: On the contrary. These are ideas that we should consider (see #1 above), but I think that The Kolob Theorem is the exact wrong place to start. If the book is some member's only exposure to some of the great truths and ideas found in scripture then they are really missing out on the best stuff. I would suggest some alternative reading. Try the book Science, Religion and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul (mentioned in #2). If you want some general sciencey-LDS theology stuff to read about try LDS FAQ. It is a good resource to start.

6. Dr. Hilton had a "spark of inspiration [that] opened his eyes to far more than a few details of astrophysics."

Response: His "spark" was not unique. I have sat though many conversations on this very topic as an undergrad at BYU. Many such theories were proposed and just as many were shot down for being unworkable. Dr. Hilton's book was not the first place I have heard ideas like his, but most of those theories had a very short lifespan in the Physics and Astronomy Department at BYU. This is stuff that many, many undergrads (and some professors) like to speculate about.

Most of the speculation revolves (ha!) around black holes and neutron stars. About 99.95% of the theories die a very quick death under scrutiny. Some of the best ideas I have ever heard were proposed in a class on general relativity, and those ideas are light years beyond anything Dr. Hilton wrote. There is some pretty remarkable stuff talked about late at night in the physics department, but there is a reason why hardly anyone has written about it. There is too much speculation and the people involved generally realize that there is soooo much that we don't know, and that our scientific understanding changes so rapidly that it is not a good idea to put such extreme speculations into a book.

Just consider this: The thoughts and ideas that Dr. Hilton had were not unique. Many, many students at BYU have proposed just such ideas to their classmates. Some professors have even hinted at similar speculations, yet none of them chose to write The Kolob Theorem, and it is not for lack of ideas, or lack of a desire to speculate. There is plenty of that. In the end Dr. Hilton was in way over his head and didn't realize that he was writing down just about every half baked idea that was ever proposed by intro astronomy students at BYU. There is a reason why those half baked ideas never made it out of the labs and classrooms in the Eyring Science Center.

7. Do you apply the same level of criticism to the Church, its teachings, its leaders and the scriptures?

Response: Yes.

And that is why I believe.

The Original Second K.T. Post

[Update 4/17/11: Because most traffic about The Kolob Theorem was still being directed to my old post, I decided to replace my original post with this one, because this review is perhaps more informative than the original.]

Previously I had written a post entitled The Problem with "The Kolob Theorem", and in revisiting the topic I thought that I should expound on why I think The Kolob Theorem to be problematic. This post is intended to replace my previous review of The Kolob Theorem, but I will leave the other post up for anyone who cares to read it, but I will say that I wrote it in one of my less charitable moments. This post will hopefully be a little less harsh, but more instructive of why The Kolob Theorem presents a problem in LDS theology. For reference, I have recently been reading the book Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul, which has prompted me to recast my critique of The Kolob Theorem in a different light.

The first time I encountered The Kolob Theorem I was at my wife's grandparents house. Someone had loaned my wife's grandmother the book and I saw it sitting on a table and was intrigued by the title and wanted to know what it was about. I only took a quick glance through the book but it was enough to make my skin crawl. There were in fact two reasons for my seemingly severe negative reaction to the book. The first was that there were critical scientific errors in the book that effectively invalidated the whole argument, and the second was that I realized that most people would be unaware of these critical errors and thereby base their understanding of scripture on a foundation of incorrect science.

What made this second reason so problematic was that as an astronomer I would most likely be asked about it (and I was) and I would have to very carefully and politely explain that while the science was extremely off base the religious aspect of the book was not. In other words, I realized that whenever I would be asked about this book I would be faced with the dilemma of having to state quite clearly that the book was wrong, and do so without destroying someone's faith in the scriptures or causing the person to also reject all of science in the process. Essentially the dilemma is that on the one hand I want to emphasize the problems and misconceptions that went into the theorem, without causing people to react and go to the other extreme of rejecting everything that went into the theorem including both the science in general and the specifics of the revelations. This dilemma is much more difficult to deal with than people realize, and it also comes up more frequently than most people are aware of. Perhaps I am just a little more sensitive to this problem due to my being an astronomer, and therefore I become the local "go-to guy" to resolve these issues and thus I have to deal with things like this on a semi-frequent basis.

The Kolob Theorem is part of group of theological writings that are called natural theology. Strictly speaking, natural theology denotes a fundamental approach to theology as opposed to a specific theology. Thus natural theology is not confined to any one religion or church. The main trust of natural theology is to verify one's religion using arguments from the prevailing scientific theories and observations of the day. It is in effect an attempt to argue that one's religion is true based on the latest and greatest theories in science. This is problematic because if the latest and greatest theories are shown to be wrong then that automatically calls into question the theology and religion of the natural theologian.

Dr. Hilton's book is a prime example of the process, and problems, of natural theology. Starting with some basic astronomy, he moves on to make a theological argument about where God lives and where the three degrees of glory are located. As Erich Robert Paul pointed out in his book on Mormon cosmology, Joseph Smith never attempted to reconcile the knowledge of astronomy from the Book of Abraham, or the three degrees of glory with any contemporary astronomical observations. Thus Dr. Hilton is attempting what Joseph Smith never attempted. This may be very commendable and courageous, or more likely it may prove to be premature and problematic. To consider why this is problematic we need to consider other failed attempts at natural theology.

In the middle ages there was a type of world map called a T-O map that was common in the religious books at the time.

A reconstruction of a T-O map. Image from Wikipedia. Usually the map is represented with Asia (east) on top.

The purpose of the T-O map is to show the general layout of the world and how it reflects Christian theology. These maps were made to show how certain Christian doctrines are symbolically part of the world. The world is laid out in such a way that the cross of Christ is evident, with Jerusalem at the center (the cross being formed by the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile and the Don rivers). There was more symbolism in the O of the ocean surrounding the land (the complete, eternal circle of God, and water from the water and the blood). While the map may have been useful to teach certain religious doctrines, it is not very accurate when compared to an actual map of the world.

The T-O map superimposed on a modern map. Image from Wikipedia.

The way Dr. Hilton attempts to show the location and structure of the three degrees of glory only makes sense when using a very simplified map of the galaxy. Much in the same way that the T-O map of the world is only theologically useful when you assume a very simplified structure to the world. While the T-O map may be theologically instructive, it is rather useless as an actual map that may be used to get from point A to point B.

The end result is that the theological argument gets based on a very simplified, and very inaccurate, map of the world. The same happens with The Kolob Theorem. Dr. Hilton uses an excessively over simplified "map" of a galaxy to make a theological argument. The end effect of the theorem is to place the veracity of the revealed word, the scriptures, on a specific scientific theory or observation. To a natural theologian this is the desired result, but this has the unintended result of making revelation depend on something that may not be true, or that may change as our understanding changes. This is precisely the problem that plagues The Kolob Theorem.

For example, Dr. Hilton includes a quote from a famous astronomer, Fred Hoyle, to back up part of his theorem. The quote, found on page 25 of the book, comes from 1955 and at the time it expressed the current understanding of how stars formed in galaxies. But our understanding of astronomy has changed since then and parts of the view as expressed in Fred Hoyle's quote no longer reflects our understanding of star formation.

By basing part of his argument on a specific scientific theory, or insight, Dr. Hilton does himself a disservice because he places the interpretation and veracity of revealed scripture on something that can and will most likely change as we gain greater understanding of how the universe works. He is in effect setting himself up, and setting up his faith and by extension, the faith of others, to be disproven when the next largest telescope gets built and we find out more about the universe. That is, for me, a very problematic result to his theory. I would not want members of the Church to base their faith, testimony, or understanding of the scriptures on something that is already demonstratively false and will become more so as we gain new insights into the universe though our astronomical observations.

So in his attempt to make the latest and greatest astronomical observations into something "faith promoting", Dr. Hilton enters the realm of natural theology which "opens up a whole new can of worms" which may be more troublesome than Dr. Hilton realizes. Because the current astronomical observations are just that, current, they will grow old and become yesterday's observations and then last century's observations, and all the theories that they produced will have changed. This does not mean that we should reject all astronomical observations and untrue, unimportant or insignificant, but rather we should resist the temptation to base our faith on something that has proven throughout history to change. There should be a better foundation to our faith than the latest and greatest theories of science.

Also as a final note, I realize that many people are impressed with this book mostly because they have never considered the implications of what is written in the Book of Abraham and in the Doctrine and Covenants. Many of the positive comments posted on goodreads.com about the book are from people that say that the book "opened their eyes" or "made them think about their religion in a different way" and how it made "the plan of salvation more real". While I can't argue with their own personal feelings (and if the book did prompt them to investigate the scriptures more, then good I'm all for that), I do wish to temper their enthusiasm with the realization that to base our theology, faith and religion on something like The Kolob Theorem will ultimately result in a challenge to our faith and will not be "faith promoting" in the end. The truth of God is more amazing than anything that you will find in The Kolob Theorem.

I don't know where Kolob is, so stop asking.

I will just apologize up front, this post will be a rant.

In short, I don't know where Kolob is, so stop asking. Because I am an astronomer it seems like about once a month I get asked, "So, have you found Kolob yet?" Mostly when I get that question I respond with a simple, "No." But sometimes I am tempted to respond with much more, but usually that would involve technical explanations that would put my listeners to sleep long before I get to the punch line and the effect would be totally wasted. But for those who are tempted to ask their local LDS astronomer (like me) if they have "found Kolob yet" let me explain just what it is they are asking.

First, all we know about Kolob is this:

2 And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;

3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

5 And the Lord said unto me: The planet which is the lesser light, lesser than that which is to rule the day, even the night, is above or greater than that upon which thou standest in point of reckoning, for it moveth in order more slow; this is in order because it standeth above the earth upon which thou standest, therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many as to its number of days, and of months, and of years.

6 And the Lord said unto me: Now, Abraham, these two facts exist, behold thine eyes see it; it is given unto thee to know the times of reckoning, and the set time, yea, the set time of the earth upon which thou standest, and the set time of the greater light which is set to rule the day, and the set time of the lesser light which is set to rule the night.

7 Now the set time of the lesser light is a longer time as to its reckoning than the reckoning of the time of the earth upon which thou standest.

8 And where these two facts exist, there shall be another fact above them, that is, there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still;

9 And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

10 And it is given unto thee to know the set time of all the stars that are set to give light, until thou come near unto the throne of God.

11 Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made;

12 And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.

13 And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun. And he said unto me: Kokob, which is star. And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon. And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars, or all the great lights, which were in the firmament of heaven.

14 And it was in the night time when the Lord spake these words unto me: I will multiply thee, and thy seed after thee, like unto these; and if thou canst count the number of sands, so shall be the number of thy seeds.

15 And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.

16 If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore Kolob is the greatest of all the Kokaubeam that thou hast seen, because it is nearest unto me.

This comes from the Book of Abraham Chapter 3, translated by Joseph Smith from ancient Egyptian papyri. So unless we talk to the original author (Abraham), the translator (Joseph Smith) or the revelator (God), or we  happen to have access to a set of Urim and Thummin there isn't anything we can add to what we read in the Book of Abraham. That's it, that's all we have. So to "look for Kolob" we would be looking for a star (no idea what type) "nigh unto the throne of God" which we have little idea what that is either. So to "find Kolob" we are looking for a star of unknown type, somewhere in the Universe (a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very big universe, emphasis on the big), that is somewhere close to "the throne of God" which, unless you have actually seen it, we have no idea what it looks like. Thus we are looking for a star (unknown type) next to something that we don't know what it is.

So to ask me "Have you found Kolob yet?" is like asking me, "Have you found that one thing that is next to that other thing?" Of course my answer will be "No." As soon as we know what that one thing is that is next to that other thing, and what that other thing is then I will know what I am looking for and then I might just be able to begin to look for it. Until then, don't ask.

An explanation of the problem with "The Kolob Theorem"

[Update 2/13/11: I have significantly rewritten my critique of The Kolob Theorem. My first review of the book was perhaps a little too harsh and short on details. Hopefully my second post will be better at informing anyone who reads this of the fundamental problems with The Kolob Theorem.]

[Update 9/10/12: I answer some general questions about this review and also common comments that I have read about The Kolob Theorem in a new post "Revisiting the Kolob Theorem".]

[Update 9/10/13: Because people have asked I made a post that deals with specific scientific problems. I only managed to get through the first 9 pages before I gave up. There were way to many problems. Read that post by following this link.]

Previously I had written a post entitled The Problem with "The Kolob Theorem", and in revisiting the topic I thought that I should expound on why I think The Kolob Theorem to be problematic. This post is intended to replace my previous review of The Kolob Theorem, but I will leave the other post up for anyone who cares to read it, but I will say that I wrote it in one of my less charitable moments. This post will hopefully be a little less harsh, but more instructive of why The Kolob Theorem presents a problem in LDS theology. For reference, I have recently been reading the book Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul, which has prompted me to recast my critique of The Kolob Theorem in a different light.

The first time I encountered The Kolob Theorem I was at my wife's grandparents house. Someone had loaned my wife's grandmother the book and I saw it sitting on a table and was intrigued by the title and wanted to know what it was about. I only took a quick glance through the book but it was enough to make my skin crawl. There were in fact two reasons for my seemingly severe negative reaction to the book. The first was that there were critical scientific errors in the book that effectively invalidated the whole argument, and the second was that I realized that most people would be unaware of these critical errors and thereby base their understanding of scripture on a foundation of incorrect science.

What made this second reason so problematic was that as an astronomer I would most likely be asked about it (and I was) and I would have to very carefully and politely explain that while the science was extremely off base the religious aspect of the book was not. In other words, I realized that whenever I would be asked about this book I would be faced with the dilemma of having to state quite clearly that the book was wrong, and do so without destroying someone's faith in the scriptures or causing the person to also reject all of science in the process. Essentially the dilemma is that on the one hand I want to emphasize the problems and misconceptions that went into the theorem, without causing people to react and go to the other extreme of rejecting everything that went into the theorem including both the science in general and the specifics of the revelations. This dilemma is much more difficult to deal with than people realize, and it also comes up more frequently than most people are aware of. Perhaps I am just a little more sensitive to this problem due to my being an astronomer, and therefore I become the local "go-to guy" to resolve these issues and thus I have to deal with things like this on a semi-frequent basis.

The Kolob Theorem is part of group of theological writings that are called natural theology. Strictly speaking, natural theology denotes a fundamental approach to theology as opposed to a specific theology. Thus natural theology is not confined to any one religion or church. The main trust of natural theology is to verify one's religion using arguments from the prevailing scientific theories and observations of the day. It is in effect an attempt to argue that one's religion is true based on the latest and greatest theories in science. This is problematic because if the latest and greatest theories are shown to be wrong then that automatically calls into question the theology and religion of the natural theologian.

Dr. Hilton's book is a prime example of the process, and problems, of natural theology. Starting with some basic astronomy, he moves on to make a theological argument about where God lives and where the three degrees of glory are located. As Erich Robert Paul pointed out in his book on Mormon cosmology, Joseph Smith never attempted to reconcile the knowledge of astronomy from the Book of Abraham, or the three degrees of glory with any contemporary astronomical observations. Thus Dr. Hilton is attempting what Joseph Smith never attempted. This may be very commendable and courageous, or more likely it may prove to be premature and problematic. To consider why this is problematic we need to consider other failed attempts at natural theology.

In the middle ages there was a type of world map called a T-O map that was common in the religious books at the time.

A reconstruction of a T-O map. Image from Wikipedia. Usually the map is represented with Asia (east) on top.

The purpose of the T-O map is to show the general layout of the world and how it reflects Christian theology. These maps were made to show how certain Christian doctrines are symbolically part of the world. The world is laid out in such a way that the cross of Christ is evident, with Jerusalem at the center (the cross being formed by the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile and the Don rivers). There was more symbolism in the O of the ocean surrounding the land (the complete, eternal circle of God, and water from the water and the blood). While the map may have been useful to teach certain religious doctrines, it is not very accurate when compared to an actual map of the world.

The T-O map superimposed on a modern map. Image from Wikipedia.

The way Dr. Hilton attempts to show the location and structure of the three degrees of glory only makes sense when using a very simplified map of the galaxy. Much in the same way that the T-O map of the world is only theologically useful when you assume a very simplified structure to the world. While the T-O map may be theologically instructive, it is rather useless as an actual map that may be used to get from point A to point B.

The end result is that the theological argument gets based on a very simplified, and very inaccurate, map of the world. The same happens with The Kolob Theorem. Dr. Hilton uses an excessively over simplified "map" of a galaxy to make a theological argument. The end effect of the theorem is to place the veracity of the revealed word, the scriptures, on a specific scientific theory or observation. To a natural theologian this is the desired result, but this has the unintended result of making revelation depend on something that may not be true, or that may change as our understanding changes. This is precisely the problem that plagues The Kolob Theorem.

For example, Dr. Hilton includes a quote from a famous astronomer, Fred Hoyle, to back up part of his theorem. The quote, found on page 25 of the book, comes from 1955 and at the time it expressed the current understanding of how stars formed in galaxies. But our understanding of astronomy has changed since then and parts of the view as expressed in Fred Hoyle's quote no longer reflects our understanding of star formation.

By basing part of his argument on a specific scientific theory, or insight, Dr. Hilton does himself a disservice because he places the interpretation and veracity of revealed scripture on something that can and will most likely change as we gain greater understanding of how the universe works. He is in effect setting himself up, and setting up his faith and by extension, the faith of others, to be disproven when the next largest telescope gets built and we find out more about the universe. That is, for me, a very problematic result to his theory. I would not want members of the Church to base their faith, testimony, or understanding of the scriptures on something that is already demonstratively false and will become more so as we gain new insights into the universe though our astronomical observations.

So in his attempt to make the latest and greatest astronomical observations into something "faith promoting", Dr. Hilton enters the realm of natural theology which "opens up a whole new can of worms" which may be more troublesome than Dr. Hilton realizes. Because the current astronomical observations are just that, current, they will grow old and become yesterday's observations and then last century's observations, and all the theories that they produced will have changed. This does not mean that we should reject all astronomical observations and untrue, unimportant or insignificant, but rather we should resist the temptation to base our faith on something that has proven throughout history to change. There should be a better foundation to our faith than the latest and greatest theories of science.

Also as a final note, I realize that many people are impressed with this book mostly because they have never considered the implications of what is written in the Book of Abraham and in the Doctrine and Covenants. Many of the positive comments posted on goodreads.com about the book are from people that say that the book "opened their eyes" or "made them think about their religion in a different way" and how it made "the plan of salvation more real". While I can't argue with their own personal feelings (and if the book did prompt them to investigate the scriptures more, then good I'm all for that), I do wish to temper their enthusiasm with the realization that to base our theology, faith and religion on something like The Kolob Theorem will ultimately result in a challenge to our faith and will not be "faith promoting" in the end. The truth of God is more amazing than anything that you will find in The Kolob Theorem.

[Want to read some more? Try the comments below and also my new post "Revisiting the Kolob Theorem".]