Gerald Schroeder
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Gerald Lawrence Schroeder is an
Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...
physicist, author, lecturer and teacher at College of Jewish Studies
Aish HaTorah Aish HaTorah ( he, אש התורה, lit. "Fire of the Torah") is an Orthodox Jewish educational organization and yeshiva. History Aish HaTorah was established in Jerusalem in 1974 by Rabbi Noah Weinberg, after he left the Ohr Somayach yeshiva ...
's Discovery Seminar, Essentials and Fellowships programs and Executive Learning Center, who focuses on what he perceives to be an inherent relationship between science and spirituality.


Education

Schroeder received his BSc in 1959, his MSc in 1961, and his PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences in 1965, from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT). He worked seven years on the staff of the MIT physics department. He was a member of the
United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...
.


Aliyah to Israel

After
emigrating Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
to Israel in 1971, Schroeder was employed as a researcher at the
Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...
, the Volcani Research Institute, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He currently teaches at Aish HaTorah College of Jewish Studies.


Religious views and scientific theories

His works frequently cite
Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
ic,
Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...
ic and medieval commentaries on biblical creation accounts, such as commentaries written by the Jewish philosopher Nachmanides. Among other things, Schroeder attempts to reconcile a six-day creation as described in Genesis with the scientific evidence that the world is billions of years old using the idea that the perceived flow of time for a given event in an expanding universe varies with the observer's perspective of that event. He attempts to reconcile the two perspectives numerically, calculating the effect of the stretching of space-time, based on
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's
general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
. Namely, that from the perspective of the point of origin of the Big Bang, according to Einstein's equations of the 'stretching factor', time dilates by a factor of roughly 1,000,000,000,000, meaning one trillion days on earth would appear to pass as one day from that point, due to the stretching of space. When applied to the estimated age of the universe at 13.8 billion years, from the perspective of the point of origin, the universe today would appear to have just begun its sixth day of existence, or if the universe is 15 billion years old from the perspective of earth, it would appear to have just completed its sixth day.
Antony Flew Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught a ...
, an academic philosopher who promoted atheism for most of his adult life indicated that the arguments of Gerald Schroeder had influenced his decision to become a
deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
. His theories to reconcile faith and science have drawn some criticism from both religious and non-religious scientists, and his works remain controversial in scientific circles.


Personal

Schroeder's wife Barbara Sofer is a columnist for the English language Israeli newspaper '' Jerusalem Post''. The couple have five children.


Prizes

In 2012, Schroeder was awarded the Trotter Prize by
Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...
's College of Science.Trotter Prize & Endowed Lecture Series
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Works

* ''Genesis and the Big Bang'' (1990), * ''The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom'', (1997), * ''The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth'', (2002), . * ''God According to God: A Physicist Proves We've Been Wrong About God All Along'', (2009), .


References


External links


Gerald Schroeder
(official website)
MIT Alumni Association. News and Views: Nuclear Scientist Sees No God-Science Conflict

Dr. Schroeder speaking on cosmology: a 30 min. clip from the documentary, "Has Science Discovered God?"

"The Age of the Universe"
aish.com *Critiques of Schroeder's books by Mark Perakh at the site Talk Reaso
199920052007Critique of ''Genesis & the Big Bang''
authored by Rabbi Yoram Bogacz.


Articles by Gerald L. Schroeder


God and the laws of natures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schroeder, Gerald American Orthodox Jews Jewish scientists Jewish physicists 21st-century American physicists Israeli physicists American nuclear physicists Israeli nuclear physicists Judaism and science Aish HaTorah American emigrants to Israel Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Israeli Orthodox Jews Jewish creationists Old Earth creationism Writers about religion and science MIT Department of Physics alumni