“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.”