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Does E = mc2 Imply Mysticism?

SADRI HASSANI

Pseudoscience is adamant about attaching itself to science. After all, maybe if it zooms in on the second half of its name repeatedly and intensively, the first half of the name will have a chance of fading away. The most popular science among pseudoscientists is no doubt physics. If they use words such as quantum, field, duality, complimentarity, and nonlocality—no matter how much they mutilate the words—they and their discipline will sound more “scientific” and will sell better to the unsuspecting public. This inimical association of pseudoscience with science ought to be vigorously and publicly rebutted.

Mystical Energy

No word has been mutilated more severely in the woo literature than energy. Positive energy, negative energy, healing energy, organic energy, mental energy, and karma energy are just a few examples of “energies” adrift in the vast ocean of pseudoscience. Mystics and mystery-mongers have abused the word so often that it has now acquired a mystical halo comparable to words such as holism, consciousness, natural, and wholesome. There appears to be a good reason for this: energy is, after all, nonmaterial, and the most famous equation in physics, E=mc2, equates it to mass, which is material. The equivalence of the nonmaterial spirit (or soul) and matter—which is at the heart of mysticism—is only one small step away! Take this example:

Since the mass of a particle increases with velocity, a particle can have any number of relativistic masses. . . . In other words, particle accelerators are misnamed. They do not increase the velocities of subatomic particles (the definition of “acceleration”) as much as they increase their mass. Particle accelerators are actually particle inlargers [sic] [massifiers?]. . . . Einstein’s formula E=mc2 says that mass is energy: energy is mass. Therefore, strictly speaking, mass is not a particular form of energy. Every form of energy is mass. Kinetic energy, for example, is mass. . . . Wherever energy goes, mass goes. (Zukav 1980, 203–204)

The first part of this quote reflects the confusion that arose in the early days of relativity, namely that mass is velocity-dependent. This confusion led to some absurd conclusions such as that a moving object exhibits two different masses (inertia) in reaction to a force, depending on whether the force is applied parallel or perpendicular to the velocity of the object! The confusion was so bothersome that Einstein, who at the beginning of relativity theory talked about a “relativistic mass,” wrote in a letter to Lincoln Barnett— an American journalist—dated June 19, 1948:

It is not good to introduce the concept of the [velocity-dependent] mass . . . of a moving body for which no clear definition can be given. It is better to introduce no other mass concept than the “rest mass” m. Instead of introducing [the velocity-dependent mass] it is better to mention the expression for the momentum and energy of a body in motion.1 (Okun 1989)

The second part of the earlier quote from Zukav’s book, which exploits the now-abandoned interpretation of mass mentioned above and emphatically equates it to energy, is a pressure sales pitch for the equivalence of soul and matter:

In the East, however, there never has been much philosophical or religious . . . confusion about matter and energy. The world of matter is a relative world, and an illusory one. . . . Perhaps this accounts for the fact that the preposterous claim that mass is only a form of energy is unexpectedly palatable [in Buddhist literature]. (Zukav 1980, 155)

But it is another purveyor of woo who takes full and personal advantage of Einstein’s energy-mass equivalence. Gary Schwartz, well known to SI readers (Hall 2008), starts his book The Energy Healing Experiments with a quote he attributes to Einstein: “We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space in which the [energy] field is extremely intense. . . . There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.” In the most egregious violation of intellectual integrity, Schwartz inserts the word energy next to “field” to completely distort the meaning of the quote and the intention of the person to whom the quote belongs.

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