How Things Work: A Brief History of Reality

BOOK II: The Power of Three – "#63. E=mc2" (Part 2)

Jan 03, 2023

Be A Part of the Conversation!

Tuesday, January 3, 2022

Albert Einstein's equation, E=MC2, is considered to be a theory. Despite being one, we have been able to use it to produce the energy we need to power our cities, as well as the bombs to destroy the same.

- Author: Stephen Richards

PREFACE

Happy New Year Everybody!

The beginning of a New Year is always a good time to reflect on important things like responsibility. Einstein imposed a new kind of “moral responsibility” on the scientific community because of the potential consequences of its awesome new power. We are the current overseers of that “God-like” power. However, are human beings evolved and enlightened enough for such power?

“This modern consideration of an ancient duality appeared to offer humanity two clear options: transcendence into a new atomic age, or the ultimate destruction of humanity itself.”

The power of Einstein’s recognition and understanding regarding the relationship between energy and matter did more than just revolutionize our conception of basic scientific “truths” and “certainties,” it also brought the non-empirical concept of “morality” into a clearer focus as a critical factor in the new nuclear science. This modern consideration of an ancient duality appeared to offer humanity two clear options: transcendence into a new atomic age, or the ultimate destruction of humanity itself. Were human beings morally prepared to manage the ominous power and potential of a new Quantum Reality?

This is a question that we are still asking today.

CONSIDERATION #64 – E=mc2 (Part 2)

Einstein’s recognition that matter can be transformed into energy is the idea that made nuclear weapons possible. The energy released when transforming matter into energy is tremendous. This “nuclear energy” could be used to power a city with a nuclear power plant or destroy a city with an atomic bomb. This new knowledge, like the knowledge gained in the garden of Eden, could be used for both good and evil.

“Particle accelerators studying fundamental physics are another place where Einstein's equation becomes useful. Special relativity says that the faster something moves, the more massive it becomes. In a particle accelerator, protons are accelerated to almost the speed of light and smashed into each other. The high energy of these collisions allows the formation of new, more massive particles than protons – such as the Higgs boson – that physicists might want to study. Which particles might be formed and how much mass they have can all be calculated using Einstein's equation.
It would be nice to think that Einstein's equation became famous simply because of its fundamental importance in making us understand how different the world really is to how we perceived it a century ago. But its fame is mostly because of its association with one of the most devastating weapons produced by humans – the atomic bomb. The equation appeared in the report, prepared for the US government by physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth in 1945, on the Allied efforts to make an atomic bomb during the Manhattan project.”
Alok Jha – A Short History of Equations: Albert Einstein (The Guardian – April 5, 2014)

If there was no essential difference, other than speed, between mass and energy why doesn’t matter convert to energy more often? Why does that gap between what is physical and non-physical seem so wide if they are essentially the same thing? Fortunately, Einstein also answers that question in the Special Theory of Relativity. It turns out that it is extremely difficult, if not “impossible,” to get matter to move twice the speed of light.

“This equation also shows that mass increases with speed, which effectively puts a speed limit on how fast things can move in the universe. Simply put, the speed of light (c) is the fastest velocity at which an object can travel in a vacuum. As an object moves, its mass also increases. Near the speed of light, the mass is so high that it reaches infinity, and would require infinite energy to move it, thus capping how fast an object can move. The only reason light moves at the speed it does is because photons, the quantum particles that make up light, have a mass of zero.”
Elizabeth Howell – Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity (Space.com – March 29, 2017)

This points out another distinction between physical (matter) and nonphysical (energy) manifestations: pure energy, or light, has no mass. Ironically, mass is at its “heaviest” just prior to converting into pure energy when it then becomes “massless.” As the “infinite” mass is “squeezed” by the contracting length it become extremely “heavy.” The difference between mass (physicality) and energy (non-physicality) is never greater than just before the conversion from mass to energy occurs, then transforming instantly from infinite mass into zero mass.

POSTSCRIPT

In the simple equation “E=mc2” Einstein empowers humanity with the ability to transform or obliterate the world, or our reality. Energy inherently held the power of creation and destruction; and now, that power was in our hands. The original duality of “good and evil” had infiltrated the modern “secular” discipline of science. The rational metaphysics of mathematics and morality were now interconnected in a way never anticipated by Plato, Aristotle, or Descartes. Because Einstein’s new “scientific” revelations about Reality directly affected literally every human being on the planet, existentially.

Next week we will summarize the influence of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and introduce his second revolutionary theory related to gravity; the General Theory of Relativity!

Thank you for reading How Things Work: A Brief History of Reality. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Excerpt from Tomorrow’s Untangling the Knots of Reality – Podcast #30: “Connecting the Dots – Untangling the Fall of Rome"

1×

0:00

-1:32

This Week on “The Thread”:

•Untangling the Knots of Reality “Connecting the Dots – Untangling the Fall of Rome” (“The fall of the Roman Empire represents not one, but two collapsed Western civilizations. There would be no Roman Empire without the Greek ideas and concepts that made it possible. The connection between Greece and Rome is incontrovertible… Greek influence was so pervasive, that under Constantine, Eastern Rome was informally known as “The Empire of the Greeks.” Therefore, Greek culture survives through Roman culture; because Rome was, to a great extent, built on Greek culture.…” )
•Reality by a Thread (Discussion Thread): Preview of Book V – “A Critical Point” “We have now reached a point at which that imbalance is becoming apparent in our current experience of reality. It is critical to understand how we got to this stage of imbalance if we want to understand how we have reached this present level of “incongruent reality.” We must find a way to shift the focus of reality from seeing each other as “enemies” of each other’s reality, to realizing that we are fundamentally in a symbiotic relationship generating and maintaining our reality together through a balanced duality of Rationalism and Empiricism...”)
•FREE PDF Download of Book IV: “The Cosmic Symphony – Overtones of String Theory,” Book I “Dualism,” and my New Book “Untangling Eastern & Western Dualism” plus other discounts and benefits.