The holocaust, that terrible carnage that claimed the lives of an estimated six million Jews in Hitler's oven's and concentration camps never really took place; and nobody perished in the nuclear blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Likewise, nobody actually died when the Titanic sank after striking a glacier. Similarly, the huge human toll exacted by natural disasters like the 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia, and the more recent earthquake in Haiti, never happened. All that really occurred were insignificant energy conversions.
The same applies to all deaths on Earth since the emergence of man.
Indeed, in the mind-boggling vastness of the universe, even the death of our solar system or even the entire Milky Way galaxy would be less than an energy flicker. Going further, in a multiverse of endless universes science now boldly thinks of, the very death of our particular cosmos would also be an unnoticeable and meaningless event.
These and other insights are all children of Albert Einstein's famed equation, E=mc2. It is a turbulent, bewildering universe of ceaseless energy movements and transformations from you and me, to the stars. It is also a universe without a personal God that is moved by prayer and intervenes in human affairs.
Why did the greatest mind the human race ever produced think this way? Let us turn back the pages of history to get a clearer picture.
Einstein's views on God could be briefly summarized in his memorable, often-quoted words: "God does not play dice with the universe."
Einstein believed that the dynamics of the universe, from the large bodies of Newton to the sub-atomic realm of quantum mechanics are governed by the deterministic laws of causality. That our tendency to perceive of 'uncertainty' and randomness' in quantum particles is due to our lack of predictive knowledge (epistemological) and does not invalidate causality at that level (ontological). In short, "God does not play dice with the universe."
The great scientist also publicly stated his agreement with 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza's ideas about God, nature, and reality. Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who had the deepest influence on his world view. In a widely reported telegram response, to a query, whether he believed in God, his answer was that he believed in "Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
Spinoza had a pantheistic, deterministic view of God, equating God with Nature, that bore a family likeness with Einstein's belief in an impersonal God.
Furthermore, Einstein thought man's limited intellect could never comprehend God but could only have glimpses of the universe' master architect through the prism and language of science.
He could not imagine a God who rewards and punishes the children of his creation, whose morality and purposes are modeled after our own--a God, who is but a mirror of human weakness. Neither could he I believe that the individual survives bodily death, "although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
When Einstein came up with his astonishing view of the workings of nature in special theory of relativity in 1905, physics was in clueless, disarray. For two centuries, the world had been mesmerized and content with Newton's static, unchanging universe. But the mechanistic, clock-like universe of Newton had a major drawback. It had no answer to the mysterious movements of radioactive, x-ray, and electron particles scientists began to observe in nature at the start of the 20th century.
Into this daunting, bewildering realm of invisible matter that flustered the greatest physicists of that era entered a brash, ingenious young man who saw nature through powerful, radically different eyes. When he was done with his work, our astounded world was changed forever.
LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE COMES FROM E=mc2
Einstein's profound, breakthrough insight about the workings of the universe was the key that opened the door to a true understanding of nature, existence, and reality. It was 'mystical,' born of intuition--but within the ambit of reason and therefore verifiable by empirical means.
His elegant equation E=mc2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared), meant that mass and energy throughout the universe are interchanging forms of the same thing: energy is transformed mass; mass is potential energy. Einstein's view that mass can be converted into pure energy was a huge boost to our understanding of the tremendous and enduring power of stars, like our Sun. It also led to the harnessing of the mighty atom in countless applications the modern world cannot do without.
In thermodynamic perspective, this formula meant the sum total of energy in the universe always remained constant and can be altered or transformed but never created or destroyed.
The simple, elegant formula distills in four figures the workings of radioactivity in the entire universe. Nowadays we know radioactivity to be a property harbored by some unstable elements, such as isotopes of plutonium or uranium of spontaneously radiating particles as their atomic nuclei crumble. They are utilizing and transforming mass into energy all the time, governed by Einstein's equation.
Einstein's equation is so familiar in modern times that High School students are routinely taught that stars (like our Sun) and all elements they bestowed on the Earth, including all life forms such as us, are virtually inexhaustible energy sources or endless E=mc2 wombs.
Everything using nuclear energy, such as modern submarines, aircraft carriers, nuclear plants and atomic weapons are products of Einstein's equation. E=mc2 explains the invisible electromagnetic radioactivity in cell phones, radio, television, personal computers, x-ray scanners at airports, PET/CT scans in hospitals and our very origin, the Big Bang.
We modern humans are all immensely indebted to Einstein for explaining how all things in the universe work. Of course there are critics. There always are.
When a good friend warned Einstein that his deterministic universe brought down humankind's carefully built moral edifice that was premised on free will, Einstein purportedly winked and said although he deeply believes in determinism, he must be practical because he must function in world that does not.
The same applies to all deaths on Earth since the emergence of man.
Indeed, in the mind-boggling vastness of the universe, even the death of our solar system or even the entire Milky Way galaxy would be less than an energy flicker. Going further, in a multiverse of endless universes science now boldly thinks of, the very death of our particular cosmos would also be an unnoticeable and meaningless event.
These and other insights are all children of Albert Einstein's famed equation, E=mc2. It is a turbulent, bewildering universe of ceaseless energy movements and transformations from you and me, to the stars. It is also a universe without a personal God that is moved by prayer and intervenes in human affairs.
Why did the greatest mind the human race ever produced think this way? Let us turn back the pages of history to get a clearer picture.
Einstein's views on God could be briefly summarized in his memorable, often-quoted words: "God does not play dice with the universe."
Einstein believed that the dynamics of the universe, from the large bodies of Newton to the sub-atomic realm of quantum mechanics are governed by the deterministic laws of causality. That our tendency to perceive of 'uncertainty' and randomness' in quantum particles is due to our lack of predictive knowledge (epistemological) and does not invalidate causality at that level (ontological). In short, "God does not play dice with the universe."
The great scientist also publicly stated his agreement with 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza's ideas about God, nature, and reality. Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who had the deepest influence on his world view. In a widely reported telegram response, to a query, whether he believed in God, his answer was that he believed in "Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
Spinoza had a pantheistic, deterministic view of God, equating God with Nature, that bore a family likeness with Einstein's belief in an impersonal God.
Furthermore, Einstein thought man's limited intellect could never comprehend God but could only have glimpses of the universe' master architect through the prism and language of science.
He could not imagine a God who rewards and punishes the children of his creation, whose morality and purposes are modeled after our own--a God, who is but a mirror of human weakness. Neither could he I believe that the individual survives bodily death, "although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
When Einstein came up with his astonishing view of the workings of nature in special theory of relativity in 1905, physics was in clueless, disarray. For two centuries, the world had been mesmerized and content with Newton's static, unchanging universe. But the mechanistic, clock-like universe of Newton had a major drawback. It had no answer to the mysterious movements of radioactive, x-ray, and electron particles scientists began to observe in nature at the start of the 20th century.
Into this daunting, bewildering realm of invisible matter that flustered the greatest physicists of that era entered a brash, ingenious young man who saw nature through powerful, radically different eyes. When he was done with his work, our astounded world was changed forever.
LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE COMES FROM E=mc2
Einstein's profound, breakthrough insight about the workings of the universe was the key that opened the door to a true understanding of nature, existence, and reality. It was 'mystical,' born of intuition--but within the ambit of reason and therefore verifiable by empirical means.
His elegant equation E=mc2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared), meant that mass and energy throughout the universe are interchanging forms of the same thing: energy is transformed mass; mass is potential energy. Einstein's view that mass can be converted into pure energy was a huge boost to our understanding of the tremendous and enduring power of stars, like our Sun. It also led to the harnessing of the mighty atom in countless applications the modern world cannot do without.
In thermodynamic perspective, this formula meant the sum total of energy in the universe always remained constant and can be altered or transformed but never created or destroyed.
The simple, elegant formula distills in four figures the workings of radioactivity in the entire universe. Nowadays we know radioactivity to be a property harbored by some unstable elements, such as isotopes of plutonium or uranium of spontaneously radiating particles as their atomic nuclei crumble. They are utilizing and transforming mass into energy all the time, governed by Einstein's equation.
Einstein's equation is so familiar in modern times that High School students are routinely taught that stars (like our Sun) and all elements they bestowed on the Earth, including all life forms such as us, are virtually inexhaustible energy sources or endless E=mc2 wombs.
Everything using nuclear energy, such as modern submarines, aircraft carriers, nuclear plants and atomic weapons are products of Einstein's equation. E=mc2 explains the invisible electromagnetic radioactivity in cell phones, radio, television, personal computers, x-ray scanners at airports, PET/CT scans in hospitals and our very origin, the Big Bang.
We modern humans are all immensely indebted to Einstein for explaining how all things in the universe work. Of course there are critics. There always are.
When a good friend warned Einstein that his deterministic universe brought down humankind's carefully built moral edifice that was premised on free will, Einstein purportedly winked and said although he deeply believes in determinism, he must be practical because he must function in world that does not.
| This article and similar insights are expanded and elaborated upon in my book, "E=mc2, The God in Einstein and Zen," now available at Trafford.com, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and E-books (kindle and nook). The author is a retired diplomat and journalist and regularly travels to the Philippines where he is involved in humanitarian work. He received an M.A. from Georgetown University, focusing on International and Strategic Affairs. |
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