E=mc2

The most iconic scientific formula of the 20th century quantifies the relationship between matter and energy. Deep inside matter, in a subatomic dimension, energy is omnipresent. In fact, matter ‘is’ energy…

Energy is present inside the smallest particle as vibrating strings. These are at the origin of literally everything in the universe: a stone, a flower, a virus, a dog, a human being, the sun… Matter is ‘petrified’ energy.

Quantum physics brought us this insight, but Buddhists were already aware of it hundreds of years earlier.

This book is researching how to visualize this phenomena in an esthetic, poetic and artistic way, leaving behind the objective playground of science. It not only explores the transition of matter into energy, but also the transition between dead and living matter. What kind of spark brings life into matter? How does dead matter change into a virus, a fly, a dog… or into ‘us’, conscious, intelligent and moral beings (or so we claim)?

No matter how intelligently we behave, we are still anchored in matter by our body, the expression of countless generations of genes. Often subconsiously, we still are mesmerized by dark and ancient rituals and very ‘bodily’ activities. In the end, emotion always wins over rationality.

Our brain is the biggest energy consumer in our body. But what exactly is it doing ? Suppressing our emotion, or leveraging it? Thinking ? Is there something beyond thinking?

Can we transcend into something even “higher” ? A next life form ?