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Swann, Gardner, and The Urantia Book.
In the previous issue of Innerface, we presented an account of Stefan Tallqvist's mind-boggling disclosure of two quite amazing "prophecies" that have remained undiscovered in The Urantia Book until brought into the light of day by Stefan.
We stated our belief that this new information is inexplicable in terms of human authorship of the book, which surely must be attributed to a superhuman origin. We now examine in detail the actual human source material that was modified in order to reveal what the book terms "missing gap" information. (1110) First we compare The Urantia Book statement relating to the radius of the electron with the source work of physicist W.F.G. Swann.
From Swann in The Architecture of the Universe. (1934): "The mass of the electron is so small that if you should magnify all masses so that the electron attains a mass of one tenth of an ounce, that one tenth of an ounce would, on the same scale of magnification, become as heavy as the earth."
And from The Urantia Book: "If the mass of matter should be magnified until that of an electron equalled one tenth of an ounce, then were size to be proportionately magnified, the volume of such an electron would become as large as that of the earth." (477)
By the turn of the century, the ratio of the charge on the electron to its mass was known with a high degree of accuracy, but a similarly accurate measurement of its charge did not come until Millikan's work in 1909. Once the charge was known, the electron mass could be calculated and was found to be 9.11 x 10-28g. On checking the calculations we find that Swann has used this known figure plus the known mass of the earth to calculate the magnification factor that he used to compare the relative masses of an electron and the earth.
The revelators have changed the comparison from the known mass of the electron and the known mass of the earth to that of the unknown size of the electron and the known size of the earth. This modification permits the calculation of an electron radius and gives the value of 2 x 10-21m. Remarkably, this value is within the range of the 1990's estimates obtained with advanced technology and is a million-fold smaller than the value that prevailed during the 1930's to 1980's interval.
Following Millikan's measurement of the electron charge, in 1910 Rutherford came up with a set of measurements indicating that the dimensions of the atom were in the order of 10-14m to 10-15m. In the 1930's, two views of the dimensions of the electron and the proton held sway, one being that both were Dirac point particles hence dimensionless, the other that both would have measurable spatial dimensions. Among those who held to the latter view, some believed that the radius of the electron could be estimated from the formula, r = e2/mc2 where r is the radius of the electron, e its charge, m its mass, and c the velocity of light. The value of the radius so obtained was 3 x 10-15m. This figure was quoted in 1932 literature. Later it was refined to 2.8 x 10-15m, but by 1983, experimental data combined with the new theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), indicated that the electron was close to being a point particle with its mass and charge concentrated in a region smaller than 10-18m. (note that a true point particle should be dimensionless. However, David Bohm has pointed out that there remains an enormous relative distance between the estimates of electron radius and the Planck distance of 10-35m, a distance thought to be the smallest possible dimension for a material particle. Hence there is still ample room for the electron to have a sub-structure). The technology that enabled the new estimates of electron radius to be made is one that permits even single electrons to be trapped and manipulated for extended periods of time--three years for example.
Moving now to the revelators' estimate of proton radius, the relevant extracts from Swann and The Urantia Book follow. First from Swann: "Then we have the proton--the fundamental unit of positive charge--a thing 1800 times as heavy as the electron, but 1800 times smaller in size, so that if you should magnify it to the size of a pin's head, that pin's head would, on the same scale of magnification, attain a diameter equal to the diameter of the earth's orbit around the sun."
And from The Urantia Book: "If the volume of a proton--eighteen hundred times as heavy as an electron--should be magnified to the size of the head of a pin, then, in comparison, a pin's head would attain a diameter equal to that of the earth's orbit around the sun.
The major difference between the two is that revelators have omitted Swann's term, "eighteen hundred times smaller in size," from their description.
The statement that the proton is 1800 times smaller in size than the electron brought condemnation from Martin Gardner in his book, "Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery." Gardner comments, "Swann made a monumental error when he said the proton was 1800 times smaller than an electron..."
Closer examination shows Swann was merely using the thought of the day. In 1932, the radius of the electron was calculated from the formula previously given, r = e2/mc2. Since e2 takes the same numerical value for both the electron and proton, and the proton mass is
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