Energy and Matter

When thinking about the times I had written of us as beings of energy, I wanted to go further with this in terms of what I meant. It's not so much a spiritual way of thinking as a physical one. We are not what we appear to be; so I asked Farm Boss to give me some of what he knows about it from the science perspective.

Incidentally, this is what passes for pillow talk in our home as we often, if we both wake up in the middle of the night, end up discussing politics, cultural issues, farm problems, spiritual questions, his work, or the blog world.

Basically as a scientist, he's seen things I can only imagine. They do relate though how it works for us as humans... or so I believe when I say we aren't as simple as we think for how we are put together.

So the following are some of the things he described which I found interesting. It's all about energy which can be taken on a very flat plane or go soaring off into who knows where.

Farm Boss's (photo is of him January 30 at the Oregon Coast) comments are in blue.

An interesting place to start talking about this is with a science experiment for kids called the beating heart of mercury. You place a drop of mercury in a glass fill it with a small amount of acidic material (diluted battery acid, or something similar), and add a small amount of hydrogen peroxide and the tip of an iron nail or a small piece of iron wire. Do not touch the mercury with the wire-- yet.

Mercury is a shiny metal that makes a nice ball in the solution. When the wire is moved close to the mercury with say a q-tip, the mercury starts to vibrate. And if the size and shape of the glass are right, the mercury will suddenly move toward the iron and then jump back. [YouTube]

So what is the magic force that you cannot see that causes that to happen. It's a study of electrical charge and balancing of surface energies. It is the balance of energy that drives the whole universe. In this case, the mercury surface will oxidize. The iron will become oxidized, which means it will give up an electron to the mercury when it touches it. The mercury surface energy is restored and the ball returns.

Another experiment to show nothing is as solid as you think is a phenomena called Rutherford Scattering. This is where you can see the structure of the nuclei of the atoms in a gold sheet. If alpha particles which are similar to helium atoms are discharged from radioactive materials can go through the gold sheet, why? The gold is a conductor. What Rutherford found was that while most go through, some are deflected. In this case, in a very specific pattern. That pattern is the stacking of atoms within the sheet; therefore most of the space between the nuclei is empty space. Yet we see it as a solid.

Now in fact, everything is bound together by a cloud of electrons around those nuclei. But what you see is a solid and the physical properties ...hardness, strength, etc. are determined by how strongly the atomic structures are bounded together. Yet all that 'bonding' is a 'distance'.. you can still shoot alpha particles or electrons between the atoms.

Other interesting places to start looking are in the areas of transmission and scanning electron-microscopy. LINKS>>>

You know where this is going and why it matters. It's that we see in scientific experiments how energy works to not only hold things together but to change them. We are beings of energy and even though we are used to thinking of our bodies as solid, we are actually made up of moving atoms and molecules. We are held together by energy.

Auras, which the New Age community discusses, are ridiculed by ones who see this life as physical wanting it on the level they can see, are nothing more than the energy around us which is measurable. We don't stop right at our skin for our energy zone.

If we are energy beings, than the Eastern methods of medicine aren't as mystical as some would make them. They aren't about a witchdoctor saying a spell, they are part of the energy network and healing it when it is broken.

Years back Bill Moyers did a series on healing, the gist of which was looking at western and eastern medicine and making the point that we have one treat us for one thing and the other for another. Neither are the only answer for what works. There are things that western medicine doesn't treat well that eastern with acupuncture, yoga, meditation, and acupressure deal with more effectively than surgery or pills. With all medicine, it's letting the body heal and getting what is blocking it out of the way.

So if this is how it is with our bodies and everything we would call physical, then what about the rest? That's what I am thinking about-- the stuff some would call woo-woo but is it? Or is it taking advantage of our actual physical make up and using it? How do we use that? That's the rub, isn't it.

More on this coming next.