Saturday, September 20, 2014

Why you want a physicist to speak at your funeral.

My choice to give my eulogy.
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. 

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever. 

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives. 

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen. 

-Aaron Freeman.

In my most humble opinion this is so very much more beautiful and filled with hope than the words uttered by priests and ministers at funerals.

They make promises that most of us know to be false, while the physicist can tell us the truth in the most inspiring way imaginable.

(Source.)

19 comments:

  1. Leland2:33 AM

    To this I can only say:

    Amen! Truly and Forever.

    I have saved this for my future, to be read then as my last words to my love of thirty one (so far) years.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3:09 AM

    Keep it simple:

    "Sometimes enough is enough."

    RJ in Brownbackistan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Caroll Thompson3:22 AM

    Amen Brother G. And let us raise a glass to the time space continuum and my favorite equation E=Mc2.

    Study mathematics kids and you will find truth.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5:08 AM

    Gryphen, you need to read Roach's book SPOOK.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maybe, but the physicists I know are no where near that eloquent and you may be struggling to hear some mumbled equations. Unless you can get NdGT (I would have chosen Richard Feynman myself), I'd say bad idea.
    -physicsgramma

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous7:19 AM

    Posts like this are the main reason this blog is my favorite. Sure, the Palin stuff is fun as hell, but posts like this really make my day. Thanks for searching the webs for relevant and interesting material. I saved this one.

    rp

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  7. "According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly."

    I've been wondering how to put into words the sense or feeling that my late husband doesn't really feel gone, at times...

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  8. Anonymous8:12 AM

    Thank you Gryphen.

    ReplyDelete
  9. hedgewytch8:56 AM

    And that's why I am a scientific pantheist - believe that EVERYTHING in the universe is sacred.

    And I'd love to have NDT come to my funeral - but I'd rather sit down and have some tea and dessert with him while I'm still in this compressed form.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous8:56 AM

    If I were grieving at my loved one's funeral and someone came up to me delivering a science lecture, I think I'd be tempted to, as our model of grace under pressure, Bristol, opines: punch him in the neck. I wouldn't want my loved one's energy, I'd want the living person. This is just religion in another guise. Don't believe in God. Do believe in photons. Sheesh.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:03 AM

      Agreed..... this would do nothing for me to relieve my feeling of loss of the CONSCIOUSNESS of the person. Anybody with an ounce of science in their background already knows that the photons live on.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous4:20 PM

      God or no god. We still lose the consciousness of our loved ones when they go.

      We lose the time spent with them, their personalities, their role in our lives.

      It's a BIG loss.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous9:20 AM

    The man can do no wrong. God on the other hand...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous9:41 AM

    Since I just lost a loved one, this helped me very much. I thank you for posting this. Sometimes it really helps to be reminded of the facts that we know but somehow they just get pushed aside in our grief.

    TexasMel

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  13. Randall3:20 PM

    "According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly."

    Man, that is SO much better than "oooogeddy boooogetty holy this, holy that, ugggetty bugggeddy praise this, praise that."

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  14. Anonymous4:17 PM

    ,,,you're just less orderly. Amen.

    I'm in BIG Trouble! Ha. Ha. Ha.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anita Winecooler5:04 PM

    I would LOVE to have him at my eulogy. I've attended services and "life celebrations" where the person that was being eulogized as a "saint" wasn't present in any form, and everyone knew it.
    Later, it was explained to me that "Funerals are for the living".
    This post gave me a degree of comfort remembering a friend we lost way too soon.

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  16. Anonymous9:25 PM

    youre a good guy gryphen, thanks for the read.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous4:18 AM

    I LOVE this. Thank you.
    M in WA.

    ReplyDelete

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