p. 4 | Power Is Eternal

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 19, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 45.

Power Is Eternal

“For from the creation of the world His invisible things, even His eternal power and divinity, are plainly seen, being perceived by means of the things that are made: so that they are without excuse.” Rom. 1:20, Dean Alford’s Translation.

UR text affirms that power is eternal. “Even His eternal power,” are the words of the scripture. Two thousand years ago God, through the apostle Paul, in the words of the text, taught the doctrine of the eternity of power.

Power does not waste. Power does not fail. Without suffering from fatigue, it moves on through the wide stretches of space from world to world, moving with a speed almost incredible, and that never slackens or fails. No power is ever lost. It is active forever. Power is eternal.

Such is the view given in the scripture. Does science confirm the words of this wonderful text? Science that tends to act independent of all restraint; science that holds as its adherents men of all forms of faith and many of no faith at all; science that views only a small fence corner, so to speak, of God’s wide domains; science that studies wholly the material world, and that will not receive the Word of inspiration as its guide,—what says science on this important question?

Take a few simple illustrations. If you rub your finger briskly to and fro upon any surface, say of cloth or wood, you will feel a sensation of warmth. The muscular energy has been changed into heat energy.

If you rub briskly over a cloth or wooden surface a smooth, light piece of metal, such as a button or a thin key, it will soon become warm and even quite hot to the touch. This is another example of muscular energy of motion being changed into heat energy.

Place a lump of lead upon an anvil and strike a blow with a heavy hammer. The lump will be crushed out of shape, and you will find, on picking it up, that it is quite warm. Motion has thus been changed into heat. Not all the energy has been thus transformed, it is true; for part remains in the rebounding hammer, and part is transferred to the anvil, setting it in slight motion. And some of the energy is changed also into the energy of vibration, called sound.

We often speak of some of these forms of energy as being wasted or lost; but strictly this is not true. It is merely unavailable or lost to the purpose in view. Examples of unavailable energy are quite common.

A saw used to cut wood or metal becomes warm or even hot; a drill or gimlet may become so heated while in use as to destroy the temper; a file heats when cutting a piece of metal. An axle must be oiled to prevent this “loss” of energy which is in the form of unavailable heat.

To show that this heat is not lost, it is necessary to show the distinction between kinetic and potential energy.

Place a stone on the floor before you. It is devoid of energy, powerless to do work. Now take the stone from the floor and place it on a shelf near the ceiling. Looking at it lying motionless on the shelf, it seems as devoid of energy as when it lay upon the floor. But is it as powerless as it was before? Let us see.

Attach one end of a cord to it, and, passing the cord over a pulley, wind it around the shaft connected with a coffee-mill, sewing-machine, or other convenient machine. Suddenly push the stone from the shelf. As it falls, it sets in motion the machinery, and you thus do work with the power given to the machinery by the stone.

Thus we see that the work done upon the stone in raising it to the shelf was not lost; the stone pays it back while descending. In this we find an important difference between the stone when on the floor and when on the shelf. In the first place, it is powerless to do work; in the second, it can do work. In both places it is motionless; but when on the shelf, it has an advantage, and this advantage it gets through its position. But it secured this advantage by having work done upon it when you raised it to the shelf. In the stone lying motionless on the shelf, there exists a power to do work as real as that in the stone when falling.

From this fact, we perceive that energy may exist as actual motion, as when the stone was falling; or it may exist in a stored up condition when lying on the shelf. In the first place it is called kinetic, or moving, energy; and in the second case it is called potential, or possible, energy, or energy of position.

We are all accustomed to forming potential, or stored up, energy. It is as much a habit with us as it is to store up vegetables in the fall. We store up energy—that is, form potential energy—when we wind up the spring or weight of a watch or clock, to be given out slowly as kinetic energy in the movements of the machinery. We store potential energy when we bend the bow, and the flying arrow is an example of kinetic energy.

Take, as further example, a lump of coal. A certain amount of potential energy resides in this mass of black coal, called the force of chemical affinity, or briefly, chemism. Burn the coal. The carbon and hydrogen of the coal unite with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and the chemism of the coal is satisfied, but the energy appears as heat and light.

If the coal has been burned beneath a steam-boiler, the heat passes to the water and expands it, converting it into steam, and the potential energy of the coal is thus converted into the expansive power of steam. The steam, expanding, forces itself into the cylinder of the engine and against the piston-head. Under this pressure, the piston is driven forward, causing the wheel of the locomotive to revolve. Thus the potential energy of the coal is, through the expansive power of the steam, made manifest in the motion of the train.

Now the moving train, in forcing its way along the track, is constantly losing its moving power because of the friction and resistance it encounters. But the energy thus consumed is not lost; it is merely unavailable. If we could follow it, we should find it reappearing somewhere either as heat or as potential energy.

When the engineer opens a certain valve, some of the expansive power of the steam, through the agency of a small contrivance, causes a vibration of the air, and the result

to the ear is a shrill whistle. If the brakeman applies the brakes, the train after a few moments comes to a rest. Its motion ceases, but the energy which caused it is not lost. This motion has been transformed into heat, which has passed to the wheel and the brake, to be dissipated at last to the air.

Let us come back again to the lump of coal. This time we will apply the potential energy of the coal in a different direction. Instead of burning the coal under the boiler of a locomotive, we will heat it in a smelting-furnace in contact with roasted zinc ore.

Coal, when heated to the igniting point, has a strong affinity for oxygen; but in the furnace, the coal is shut away from the oxygen of the atmosphere. However, the zinc ore is a compound of zinc and oxygen; consequently, the coal, to satisfy its strong affinity for this gas, seizes the oxygen, and thereby sets the zinc free. The potential energy of the coal is now satisfied, and hence gone from the coal; but it is not lost. It is now potential in the zinc. That is, the potential energy of the coal is now the potential energy of the zinc.

If we dissolve the zinc in dilute sulfuric acid, the chemical affinity of the zinc for the acid will be satisfied; but if this has been done under the right conditions, we have as a result an electric current.

Coil the connected wires of this electric battery around a small bar of soft iron. We thereby cause the electric current to flow in spiral lines about the bar of iron. The energy of the zinc, which seemed to be lost, we now find in the attractive force of an electromagnet.

If next we connect with our electro-magnet appropriate machinery, we have what is popularly called a dynamo; and the energy now appears as an electric current, capable of running light machinery.

Or we may connect our zinc and sulfuric acid battery with the proper telegraphic appliances and thousands of miles of telegraph-wire, and the energy of the zinc, as an electric current, will cause the wire to throb with the impulses and emotions of a human soul. Almost annihilating time and space, we send our message of weal or wo to some far distant city. What was once but the imprisoned power of coal or zinc has become the winged power of the electric telegraph.

Thus, and in many other ways, energy may be transferred from one mass to another. By simply changing the mode of application, the power appears under entirely different manifestations, to produce a different class of phenomena.

We may test the truth of this principle by exact measurements; but we will find, in all these transfers of energy from mass to mass and from one sort of energy to another, that there has been absolutely no loss of power whatever. Scientists have found this to be a law to which there are no exceptions.

'No portion of energy is ever lost or destroyed. The total quantity of energy in the universe appears to be constant.'—Appleton's Physics.

'Energy can in no way be either created or destroyed; the total amount of energy never changes; it is always conserved. This is a fundamental principle of all science, and is known as the conservation of energy.'—Andrews and Howland's Physics.

'When one form of energy disappears, an exact equivalent of another form always takes its place, so that the sum total of energy is unchanged.'—Gage's Physics.

'All natural phenomena are the manifestations of the same omnipresent energy, which is transferred from one portion of matter to another without loss. The sum total of all the active [kinetic] and latent [potential] energies in the universe is constant and invariable. In other words, power is indestructible.'—Prof. Josiah P. Cooke.

All these statements are equivalent to saying that power is eternal. If 'power is indestructible,' if it is never lost, if 'it is always conserved,' it is manifestly, as the text says, everlasting; power is eternal.

Thus does science impartially and unintentionally confirm the truth of the Word. Men who had no idea of corroborating the Word; men who had no faith in the Word; men who worked along scientific lines all in ignorance of this truth of the Word,—these men—please note the fact—without knowing that they were doing so, confirm the Word.

Two thousand years ago, our text declared the eternity of power; and now, after years of patient toil and investigation, scientists declare with emphasis the same essential truth; and, furthermore, they have rested the whole science of physics upon this principle, making it a foundation corner-stone.

There is no mistake; God's power is eternal, and men acknowledge the fact.

Power is invisible; so is its Author.

Power is infinite; so is its Author.

Power is eternal; so is its Author.

At this point let us sum up our argument. The Word speaks of a revealed power, and the field of science shows this power forth. The Word states that this power is invisible; and science confirms the fact. The Word affirms that this power is eternal; and science supports this truth.

But the Word further declares that this invisible, eternal power is of God; and upon this point science must also present her testimony. R.