I was an atheist when I was a young student majoring in physics. To me, God was a product of ignorance, invented by people without adequate scientific knowledge. If everyone understood natural laws like physicists, no one would believe the existence of God. At that time, I did not know that many great physicists believed in God, such as Newton, Kepler, Planck, Heisenberg and Einstein.

Ten years after I received a Ph.D. degree in physics, I became a Christian - not because I found any hard scientific evidence about God. Like most believers, I felt that there must be a God who had been guiding me, otherwise some events that had happened to me would not be so coincidental.

The existence of God was so real that I had been wondering: where could God be? why couldn't we see Him? how come modern technology could not detect God? Since I was trained in physics, I believed that these questions could be answered in terms of physical laws. However, I did not know where or how to find their scientific answer. It might be impossible to know the answer at all.

In 2000, almost ten years after I became a Christian, I happened to read an article about the "string theory" which is a new theory in physics. I never heard of the theory when I was a graduate student. The theory was totally unrelated to my jobs, but I had great interest in our universe - especially new concepts. The string theory just offered a completely new concept about our universe, which made me thrilled. This must be it! God must be there! He could be only a centimeter away from us without being detected. Physicists have discovered the mechanism that prevents us from seeing the Kingdom of God!

The revolutionary discovery of the string theory - now widely accepted by physicists - is that our three dimensional (3D) world is not the entire universe. It is actually embedded in a ten dimensional (10D) space, analogous to a flat TV screen embedded in a house. The string theory further shows that all matter in our 3D world cannot go to the 10D space. Even the light and other electromagnetic waves (radio waves, infrared, X-ray, etc.) should be confined in our 3D world. Therefore, If God lives in the 10D space (outside our 3D world), it is impossible for us to see Him by visible light or other electromagnetic waves. The only way to directly detect God and other spirits in the 10D space is by gravitational waves which are the ONLY thing that can go to the 10D space. However, due to the extremely weak interaction between the gravitational wave and scientific instruments, our current technology cannot detect any gravitational waves, let alone use gravitational waves to see the Kingdom of God.

Although the string theory explains why we cannot see God, it also raises a more important question: how can a dead person go to Heaven (10D space)? We know that the physical body does not go to Heaven, it is the soul that may go to Heaven. Based on the string theory, the soul must be composed of only gravitational waves because they are the only thing that can go to Heaven. The gravitational wave is a ripple in space, generated by any accelerating object. If you suddenly move your hand, the accelerated motion of your hand will generate a gravitational wave. An apple falling from a tree to the ground will also generate a gravitational wave. Then, what kind of movement can possibly create the soul?

The soul should have consciousness and carry a person's autobiographical memories (life history), for judgement at the "gate" to either Heaven or hell. The judgement would be meaningless if the soul does not know its past. In our body, the most likely place to produce such gravitational waves is the brain. I had been thinking that the soul might be created by brain activity which involves the movement of a huge number of ions across the nerve membrane. The jump of each ion across the membrane will generate a gravitational wave. Thus, the brain activity will produce a very large number of gravitational waves that could constitute the soul. The autobiographical memories can be encoded in the gravitational wave pattern, similar to the TV content encoded in the electromagnetic wave pattern. Such brain activity should be created when a person is nearly dead, because one of near-death experiences is panoramic life review, in which a person rapidly sees most of his or her life history in chronological sequence and in extreme detail (reference).

How can a dying person create the brain activity with autobiographical memories? This question had puzzled me for quite a few years. My expertise was in the molecular mechanism of brain activity (reference), but I could not think of any possible mechanism until September 2010 when I read a very crucial paper by Chawla and his colleagues.

The paper was published in a scientific journal that I never knew. I was led to the paper through Prof. Hameroff's website about quantum consciousness. His website had an article entitled "End-of-Life Brain Activity - A Sign of the Soul?" which looked very interesting to me. The "End-of-Life Brain Activity" was exactly what I was looking for. After I read the works of Chawla et al., I was fully convinced that the soul does exist. It is created during a brief surge of brain activity (30 - 180 seconds) that occurs shortly after the heart has stopped beating. Further details are given in this book.

Last updated: September 20, 2011.