Tom Rudelius
10 min read ⭑
“Just as I have faith that God will someday bring dead bones to life, so too do I have faith that God will somehow use even the frustrating moments of my work to bring about something greater.”
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
I lived in Northern Virginia for most of my childhood, but both of my parents are from Minnesota, and every summer and winter break we would travel there to visit family. One of my uncles is from France, and when I was young, he was the head chef at a French restaurant in Minneapolis called the Minneapolis Cafe. Whenever we came to town, my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents would gather at the Cafe, where we’d laugh at old family stories, lament the latest failure of the Minnesota sports teams and share a delicious meal. My uncle would spoil me with steak frites served exactly to my liking, along with a sarcastic comment about how I might as well eat a hockey puck if I was going to order a steak “medium well.” Sadly, the Minneapolis Cafe closed many years ago, but to this day it holds some of my most cherished family memories and gustatory experiences.
Samuel Girven; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
When people find out that I am a physicist, they often assume that I spend my free time watching sci-fi movies, playing Dungeons & Dragons or frequenting comic book conventions. In reality, though, my free time has always centered around sports. From T-ball as a five-year-old to intramural flag football as a grad student, with about a million games of playground basketball and backyard baseball and street hockey in between, my leisure time has always revolved around the thrill of athletic competition.
That’s not to say that I can’t nerd out with the best of them, but even my nerding out is typically based around sports and athletics. On a typical day, you might find me lifting weights at the gym while listening to a podcast about NFL free agency and checking the MLB wins above replacement leaders between sets.
I like to think that my love of math — which eventually turned into a career in mathematical physics — really began when I realized how math could help me understand the world of sports in a new way. Even now, on days when my research is lagging, I sometimes find myself staring wistfully out the window and wondering if I could just leave the world of academia and pursue a career in sports journalism instead.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
The summer before I started fourth grade, my mom came into my room one day to tell me that my twin brother, Steve, had been placed in the “gifted and talented” class at our elementary school, while I was to be in the “general education” program.
I was furious. “I’m way smarter than he is!” I told her, and from that day I more or less made it my mission in life to prove that I was not only smarter than my twin brother, but everyone else as well.
In some ways, I am thankful for the competitive drive that my upbringing instilled in me, which has led me to strive for excellence in all that I do. But my unwillingness to accept defeat and failure has also made me insufferable at times, and my desire to be praised has led me to boast about my talents when I really should have just kept quiet. I cringe when I think back to the day in high school when I took a math test in crayon just to show how easy it was for me, yet even today I sometimes find myself getting infuriated over a lost game of cards.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
My research focuses on string theory, which is an elegant but mysterious attempt to combine two of the most successful paradigms in modern physics: general relativity (Einstein’s theory of gravity) and quantum mechanics.
The need for a quantum theory of general relativity (also known as “quantum gravity”) that has long been appreciated, and by now there is overwhelming mathematical evidence that string theory is a mathematically consistent theory of quantum gravity. The big question left is: Is string theory the correct theory of quantum gravity for the universe we live in?
This question is incredibly difficult to answer because the energies needed to probe string theory experimentally are vastly beyond our present technological capabilities. In contrast to most areas of science, our knowledge of string theory comes almost exclusively from mathematical calculations as opposed to experimental data.
String theory does have one advantage in this regard: Mathematics alone can tell us much more about string theory than it can about most theories of science (good luck finding a mathematical proof that doughnuts are bad for your health!). But still, the situation isn’t ideal: We’d really like some way to test string theory experimentally.
This is where my research comes in: my goal is to extract information from string theory that will (hopefully) lead to predictions for future experiments. My research spans distance scales smaller than an atom to distances larger than the observable universe, and it seeks to understand one of the deepest questions we could ask: what are the fundamental laws of nature?
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
The transition from classes to research is one of the most difficult in the career path of an academic. College classes can be difficult, of course, but the problems you’re working on never take more than a week, they have been solved thousands of times before, and you can always ask the TA or the professor for help if you need it.
Research is a different animal entirely. The problems you work on have never been solved before, even by brilliant faculty who have decades of experience under their belts. My first project took me over a year to complete, after a number of other projects I worked on didn’t go anywhere.
In those moments when progress was slow and my work felt tedious and boring, I’d sometimes turn to the plaque on my desk that a Christian mentor of mine gave me, with a quote from C. T. Studd: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” My faith offers me a different perspective on work: it’s not something that I do just for my own immediate gratification, but rather (in ways I can’t necessarily fathom) it’s something that God is using to help renew and restore the world.
At the moment, I see only glimpses of how my work has impacted others for good, and I don’t often recognize the Holy Spirit working in real time. But just as I have faith that God will someday bring dead bones to life, so too do I have faith that God will somehow use even the frustrating moments of my work to bring about something greater.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it: Which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?
This year, for the third or fourth time, I’m working on a “Bible in a year” plan. In the past, I’ve always read the Bible in written form, but for the first time this year I’m listening to an audio recording of the Bible through the Bible app. Every morning I’ll wake up and before I do anything else, I’ll hit the play button and listen to the soothing voice of Max McLean read through the Psalms, the New Testament and the Old Testament.
I’m going to be honest: Whenever I’ve done a Bible in a year plan, whether written or spoken, I’ve often found my brain going on autopilot and not fully comprehending the words I’m reading. Someday, I’d like to really do a deep dive on each of the Old Testament prophets in turn, where I really zoom in on the book, its message and its historical context, because even after reading a book like Nahum three-to-four times in my life, I still don’t think I could tell you very much about it.
But even so, I think that consistent reading of scripture has helped me learn and grow, even if just through osmosis. Reading scripture has been a bit like listening to music for me, where if I hear a song enough times, I’ll somehow find that I know all the words, even if I never made the conscious effort to learn them. Likewise, I’ll sometimes have bits of scripture come to me at just the right time, even if I never sought out to memorize them.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are three resources that have impacted you?
It's too hard for me to narrow down my list to just three, so I'm going to give you five instead.
1) “Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father’s Questions about Christianity” by Gregory and Edward Boyd was the book that introduced me to Christianity back before I came to faith. The book is a real correspondence between Gregory (a pastor) and Edward (his skeptical father). As a skeptic myself, I really resonated with Edward’s objections, and yet I was surprised at the thoughtfulness of Gregory’s responses, which made me wonder if there might be more to Christianity than I’d given it credit for.
2) “Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism” by philosopher Alvin Plantinga helped shape the way I thought about the relationship between science and religion as a young grad student. Plantinga’s thesis is that there is superficial conflict but deep concord between theism and science, and superficial concord but deep conflict between atheism and science.
3) “One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow” by Scot McKnight opened my eyes to the richness of the Gospel and the importance of the Kingdom of God, and it showed me how Jesus’ teachings ought to shape my calling and purpose in life.
4) “Undivided Looking” is a blog by my friend and fellow theoretical physicist Aron Wall. Aron brings his analytical mind to just about every theological topic you could imagine, from miracles to consciousness to the historical reliability of scripture. When I have a question about Christianity, Aron’s blog is usually the first resource I’ll consult.
5) Tim Keller's book “The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith” is the resource I come back to again and again. I reread that book or relisten to his sermon series on the Prodigal Son once every year or two.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season — and tell us what it’s done for you.
I’ve struggled throughout my life as a Christian with seasons of anxiety, doubt, fear and depressive symptoms. In the difficult times, one resource that I’ve consistently found hope in is “The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name” by Sally Lloyd-Jones, with illustrations by Jago.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that “The Jesus Storybook Bible” is a picture book: It’s not just for kids. Lloyd-Jones’s summaries of Biblical passages are pure poetry, and the way she connects the Old Testament with the New Testament helps bring the Story of scripture alive in new ways.
More than anything, “The Jesus Storybook Bible” helps me to get beyond my usual academic approach to faith so that I may sit at the feet of Jesus and appreciate his beauty. Reading it, I can’t help but think of the words of Jesus: “Anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
My first book is coming out on August 8! It’s a memoir called “Chasing Proof, Finding Faith” and is about my journey to faith in college and my subsequent experience as a Christian and a scientist.
At some point, I’m hoping to write another book that’s focused on science: What is science and how does it relate to religious faith? In a sentence, it strikes me that a lot of people tend to view science and religion as two distinct and incompatible approaches to the same questions, but I would contend that science and theology (when each is done properly) actually follow very similar approaches to two very different questions.
In the meantime, I’ve been posting some of my thoughts on science and faith on my blog, https://veritaschristoetecclesiae.wordpress.com/. At present, I’m in the middle of a series of posts on Bayes’ Theorem and its implications for theological debates.
Within the realm of theoretical physics, I’ve been thinking lately about infinite-distance limits in moduli spaces of five-dimensional supergravities. But that’s a topic for another day. :)
Apologetics certainly has value — using logic, science and history to convince others (or ourselves) of biblical truth. Paul himself stood in the temple courts day after day, using Scripture to prove to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah (see Acts 17:2-3).
But evidence can only go so far. As the author of Hebrews writes: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, NIV).
The question is: Does our faith rest solely on external evidence and personal experience? This week, why not ask God for more opportunities to learn to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV)?
Tom Rudelius is a postdoctoral researcher in theoretical physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and his research focuses on string theory, quantum field theory and early universe cosmology. Tom completed his undergraduate work at Cornell, earned a doctorate in physics at Harvard, and has conducted postdoctoral research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In the fall of 2023, he will begin a faculty position at Durham University in Durham, England. Tom’s first book, a memoir called Chasing Proof, Finding Faith, will be released in August 2023.
