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Τhe fascination of Photons
- Lemma
- H Mαγεία του Φωτονίων
- Greek, Modern (1453-)
- Delli, Eudoxie
- Natural and the supernatural - Orthodox view on technology and engineering
- 20-1-2017
- Hatzinikolaou, (Metropolitan of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki) Nikolaos [Author]. The fascination of photons
- The fascination of photons
- photons - bosons - telescope - microscope - astrophysics
- Click Here
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- <p style="text-align: justify;">Hatzinikolaou, (Metropolitan) N. [Xατζηνικολάου, {Μητροπολίτης) Ν.] (2013). <em>H Mαγεία των Φωτονίω</em>ν. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.imml.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=843:i-mageia-twn-fwtoniwn&catid=19:omilies">http://www.imml.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=843:i-mageia-twn-fwtoniwn&catid=19:omilies</a></p>
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In his short and poetic speech (offered at the National Observatory of Athens on the occasion of the restoration of the historic Newall telescope), Metropolitan Nikolaos Hatzinikolaou - inspired of his double identity as scientist and prelate - praises the beauty of the world related to the diversity of its microscopic and invisible particles (quarks, bosons, photons, gluons etc), which support the greatness and the mystery of the natural world.
Among these elementary particles, he focuses his attention mainly on the photons. Photon is ‘noble’, has no mass but yet it exists and can give birth to mass. Thanks to photons Man can enjoy the sense of view. The world appears in its entire beauty. Without the photons, we could not know what are beauty, variety and visual harmony. Photons not only give life to matter and confirm the existence of the world, but mainly reveal its beauty. In order to see this beauty, we must detect photons. And for seeing them, we have microscopes. For distant, which is also invisible, we invented the telescopes. Due to these intermediary devices we see the invisible and thanks to the photons we deal with the hidden beauty and wisdom of the natural world. They reveal the beauty of the created and suggest the presence of the uncreated. They offer visual pleasure and stimulate the intellectual inquiry. Without the stimulus of immediate, visual beauty, human thought could not be fascinated by the secret of nature. That is why photos are so precious. The beauty strengthens the quest for eternity. The telescope opens to the infinity and releases, for a moment, the essence of time. After a while the Infinite seems finite, pushing to go further. The boson makes visible the Invisible, i.e. God.
The speech closes in a personal tone with a critical and subtle allusion to CERN, by saying that it is wonderful to spend a beautiful night chasing photons in the open sky of Athens, perhaps better than searching a boson in Geneva!
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