All Matter Will Have Returned to Energy: Preposterous Delusion?

Year 2005 was birth centenary of 1905, Annus Mirabilis for physics.

BRIAN GREENE a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia wrote a memorable essay: “That Famous Equation and You” (NYT September 30, 2005)

He said: “…In the far, far future, essentially all matter will have returned to energy. But because of the enormous expansion of space, this energy will be spread so thinly that it will hardly ever convert back to even the lightest particles of matter. Instead, a faint mist of light will fall for eternity through an ever colder and quieter cosmos.

The guiding hand of Einstein's E = mc² will have finally come to rest.”

"Preposterous Delusion", Calvin may put it as in the picture below?

Maybe.

But physics has always provided great solace to me. Particularly after my mother’s death.

Roger Penrose:

“…I think there is a positive side to this picture of space and time being laid out there as 4 dimensions, because it tells you that all times are there once and it can affect the way one thinks about people who have died.

I mean, I remember thinking in this kind of way when my mother died. In some sense she was still there because her existence is still out there in space/time although in our time she is not alive. A colleague of mine had a son who died in tragic circumstances and I presented this idea to him and it helped his understanding also.

This was before I heard that Einstein had a colleague died and he wrote to the man's wife that Bessa was still out there, and that somehow this was reassuring. I certainly think this way often, that space/time is laid out and that things in the past and things in the future are out there still…”


Artist: Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

(double click on the picture to get a larger view)