In Nicolaas A. Rupke (ed.), Eminent Lives in Twentieth-Century Science-and-Religion (Peter Lang Verlag, 2007)

Columbia University physicist Michael Idvorsky Pupin (1858-1935) is usually remembered today for his discoveries of secondary x-rays and the mathematical theory of loaded transmission lines. In his own day, however, his life story was widely publicized in the United States as an example of a successful immigrant from Eastern Europe, and his many writings on science and religion were well known. As a devout Serbian Orthodox believer, Pupin's theology of nature emphasized a central idea of the Eastern Orthodox religious tradition: the presence of beauty and order in the universe as manifestations of the transcendent divine Word (the Λόγος of John's gospel) that has brought all things into being, the same divine Word who has been most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ. In addition, the special attention he gave to wave motion and other forms of energy, which he interpreted as the principal means by which the immanent God creates and maintains order in the universe, seems to reflect St. Gregory Palamas' teaching that God continues to act in the creation through the divine "energies." Finally, consistent with Orthodox worship and contemplation, he believed that scientific knowledge only enhanced the believer's ability to participate in the mystery and beauty of heaven. In short, for Pupin the whole cosmos was an icon through which the glory and wisdom of the ineffable creator could be seen.