E: ENERGY

It is probably safe to say that no mathematical equation in history ever gained pop culture status like E=mc2. For more than half a century, the western world has celebrated this simple statement relating energy to mass by the speed of light squared. Rolled out in an early formulation in 1905 by the iconic Albert Einstein, the equation has been tirelessly employed in the laboratory and the library as well in the mass production of t-shirts and plaques. (Wikipedia even sports a photo of a four-meter tall sculpture of the formula in Berlin.) The idea that matter and energy could be interconverted was not new, however. Isaac Newton (the Einstein of his classical day) had speculated that mass might be composed of captured light energy that could be converted back to light. And in my favorite wording of all, a less famous Swedish thinker named Emanuel Swedenborg in 1734 theorized that, “all matter is ultimately composed of dimensionless points of pure and total motion.” He went on to describe this pure and total motion as “being without force, direction or speed, but having the potential for force, direction and speed everywhere within it.” (Wikipedia helped me here: See the “mass-energy equivalence” article). But, still, the proliferation of classical physics, in which everything appears as separate and discrete, kept mass and energy sectioned apart in scientific thinking until Einstein cut the Gordian knot and caused the worlds of solid and “spirit” to collide! Thinkers and dreamers have been joyously colliding ever since! I love the 1734 description of energy as “pure and total motion” and the idea that it contains the “potential” for all kinds of manifestations! (I now wonder if Eastern thinkers like Deepak Chopra who are fond of calling the world of unseen reality “the realm of pure potential” have read Swedenborg’s work!) But, these descriptions only put into wordings what we intuitively sense to be true if we have sat still and let the universe unroll at our feet long enough. There is clearly something at the base of us that serves as a sort of “inner motion detector” for what is truly important in life—a yearning for more, a gravitational pull toward what is real, not what is merely rational, and a need to connect to a metanarrative that gives our personal story context and meaning! We somehow sense that there exists PURE and TOTAL motion—ENERGY—and that it is our home, our reference point, and our recharging station! Maybe that is what the writer of Ecclesiastes was capturing when he said of man, “He has placed eternity in his heart.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) Mass and energy are interconvertible by a factor of the speed of light squared! Aside from the implications and clarifications, it just makes inner sense! We always knew this physical world couldn’t possibly be as definitive as it purported to be—there had to be more! We always sensed the fast-moving (not just doubled but squared) energy component that was threaded through even the stillness! The definitive equation didn’t really close a door of years of seeking, but rather opened the portal to a world of “aha” wonder! Matter is not explainable without dealing with energy! While a thousand science fiction and fantasy writers play blissfully with the implications and a thousand other skeptics spend their time policing the science, I choose to stand with St. Augustine who said, “Let others wrangle. I will wonder.” Perhaps in our daily living we keep unconsciously altering the equation. Perhaps, when our tightly wound life clocks run down and we are painfully conscious of our need for energy to conquer our matter, we forget to add in the light factor! In our fatigue or haste, we try to live a version that states E = M alone, dropping the all-important constant that makes the relationship work! Our attempts to refuel ourselves when we have shifted heavy on the “mass” side of living will only end up frustrated if we fail to factor in the light. (And can I go as far as suggesting that c-squared might represent light from two sources? God shines—we reflect?) Jesus said things that blow the western mind, such as suggesting that a person who believed could speak to mountains and command them to be moved. There is much to say about the symbolism and purpose of his imagery, but could it be that a part of his intention was to point to an object so “MASS-ive” and boldly began to deconstruct our concept of its solidity? (Notice I didn’t say its reality—just its claim on being FINAL reality!) Energy is everywhere and mass—especially including those solid objects that are hindering our journey toward fulfillment—is not nearly as substantial as it tries to appear to our senses. There is a world of pure motion in which all mountains move. There is a world of “energy” that is dimensionless! Energy and mass are equivalent; that is, they hare “equal valence”—equally powerful to influence experience. Living somewhere in the equation is the goal. The relationship with the Light keeps us dancing on the line between the very “real” (the very mass-ive) and the “ideal” (that which cannot be pinned down in time and space.) One can only, but gloriously, enjoy the dance!