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Step Outside of Time

By November 30, 2022 One Comment

What if I told you engineers know how to step outside of time?  A mathematician named Joseph Fourier discovered that you can project a function of time onto simpler functions for which the math is easier to handle.  If you sum all these simpler functions together, you end up with the original function of time.  Each of these sub-functions are akin to your shadow being projected on the pavement by the sun.  However, whereas with shadows there is no color or detail of form, these sub-functions have all the detail of the OG, but there’s a catch.  We must add them up over all times.  Past present and future disappear in this omniscient view made possible by God’s sustaining hand upholding the constancy of the laws of physics throughout the universe.  Math works because God is holding everything together.  Each “shadow” represents a small piece and, in the infinite aggregate, reconstructs the original with perfect fidelity.

If you’ve ever used an equalizer with your stereo then you have benefited from this tool engineers use.  Like the way light may be decomposed into constituent colors (think rainbow), and our monitors add up red, green, and blue light across thousands of pixels to synthesize the image we see on the screen, the music you’re hearing on Spotify may be broken down into a sum of many new functions that have special properties.  Instead of the RGB basis used in color generation, engineers use different frequency harmonics of the original sound wave.  Fourier figured out that he could project a function onto sinusoidal functions that were harmonically related.  Engineers can then selectively alter the sounds within the music by emphasizing or deemphasizing certain frequencies.  Looking at things outside of time provides insight into the very nature of how they operate.  There is no beginning or ending.  Only frequency.

This transform has another amazing property – it converts calculus to algebra.  After aspiring engineers spend a few years grinding through calculus in college, they learn Fourier analysis and discover what they learned can be done with mere algebra.  But they must leave the time domain behind.  There is no variable for time in the new domain – beginning and end have no meaning.  It is only the frequencies of the constituent sub-functions that matter.

Just as light exists outside of time, so sound processing within our ears is explained mathematically by stepping outside of time (I wrote about how our ears hear here).  Whispers of the Eternal One echo within and that still small voice is actually transcending time even as He speaks to us.

Another mathematician, Marc-Antoine Parseval, discovered that the energy in a signal could be found using this Fourier transform.  All the energy God created has never been added to or diminished – it just changes from one form to another (see more here).  Parseval discovered that to compute the energy you must step outside of time.  Energy never changes in amount and its calculation requires us to step outside of time.  God exists outside of time and never changes and with Him there is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17).

He is at work around us at all times.  Our very ears echo His transcendence of time.  You have to look at the world around you with an open mind and be willing to see the evidence for Him.  Combat your calloused and hardened heart or you will miss it!  Because since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:20).

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