What is Light
Frozen
Light
The
Radiance of Being
by Todd
F. Eklof (08-31-03)
According to the western religious
tradition, the story of Creation begins with the words, “Let there be light,”
implying that light is the first principle of creation; that nothing else can
come into being until light permeates the universe. According to the findings
of modern science, this notion doesn’t seem entirely inaccurate. It tells us,
for instance, the universe began with an enormous explosion of light, commonly
referred to as the Big Bang. This term, however is a little misleading since
sound requires atmosphere to occur. To be sure, the universe was born in
silence during an explosion of light, not of sound. If this spectacular
explosion could have been witnessed, it would have appeared more like the quiet
unfolding of a brilliant flower than like a bomb going off. As Matthew Fox
writes, “In today’s creation story from science we learn that the universe
began with a fireball that grew from a compressed light smaller than a pinprick
to an expanding fire over 750,000 years.”1 In fact, since physicists have
recently discovered the universe is still expanding, we might even say we
ourselves are part of its blossoming in the continuing process of luminous
creation.
But to say the universe needed light before
anything else could come into existence may seem overstated, unless, like any
of us, the Creator simply needed to turn on the lights before getting to work.
But light does much more than merely illuminate matter. It does more than just
shed a little light on the subject, it is the subject! This concept is
difficult to understand because we tend to think of light as energy and
experience matter as something much more tangible. Yet Einstein showed us, with
his famous formula, E=mc2, that matter and energy are the same and can easily
be converted into each other the way fire turns wood into heat. E=mc2 is simply
shorthand for saying energy is equal to matter when matter is multiplied by the
speed of light squared. Physicist David Bohm once went so far as to say all
matter is really “frozen light.”2 Despite the weight these names carry,
however, the idea that matter, including our own bodies, is slow moving light
is difficult for us to truly appreciate because we know light moves nearly
300,000 kilometers per second, and wonder how it could possibly slow down
enough to become solid.
In response to this, the speed of light, as
Einstein noted, does appear to be the only constant in the universe. However,
it is only constant when traveling through a vacuum. When passing through
certain translucent materials, the speed of light is often slowed down.
According to a recent article in Scientific America, “Water, for instance,
slows light to about 75 percent of its velocity in a vacuum.”3 The article was
written by Dr. Lene Hau, a Harvard physics professor whose research team began
successfully slowing down the speed of light in March of 1998. By July of the
same year they had it down to airplane speed, and a month later the group
dropped the speed of light to 60 kilometers per hour, slower than a bicyclist.
As if this isn’t remarkable enough, late last year they were able to completely
stop light in its tracks!
The group, at the Rowland Institute for
Science, accomplished this amazing feat by trapping light inside a cigar shaped
cloud of sodium atoms cooled to within one-billionth of a degree of absolute
zero. The cloud was held in place with a powerful electromagnet inside a vacuum
chamber. Slowing and stopping light in this way has many potential
applications. The most immediate is information storage. Light can carry
enormous amounts of information. By suspending its movement, the information
inside it becomes stored. This could lead to the development of quantum
computers faster at making computations than anything we can currently imagine.
This technology may also give scientists a way to reproduce the affects black
holes have on light by mimicking them in the laboratory. Just as black holes
prevent light from leaving their gravitational pull, scientists can now prevent
light from going anywhere. Perhaps the most intriguing potential application,
and certainly the most far-fetched at this point, is the possibility of using
this technology for teleportation.
Like something out of Star Trek, it may
become possible to imprint the electromagnetic field of an object into the
memory of frozen light, then send it at its normal speed of 300,000 kilometers
per second to another location where the object is reconstructed. Imagine if it
becomes possible to copy this sort of information and send it to several
locations at once! It may even become possible for people to duplicate
themselves and send carbon copies all over the galaxy.
Right now, however, much of this still
seems highly unlikely, if not down right impossible. But if we accept the
premise that all matter is really slow moving light, then the possibility of
slowing light down long enough for us to climb aboard and catch a ride may one
day be as common as catching a subway or train is today. More important than
traveling at the speed of light, however, is the realization that light can be
slowed down, even stopped, and, as physics is saying, we ourselves might be
made out of such slow moving light. Our very cells, after all, are comprised of
molecules made of atoms comprised of electrons, neutrons and protons. We are
energy! Some physicists are even suggesting the atoms we are made of are mostly
empty space filled with light that sometimes acts as matter, the same way it
sometimes acts as waves, and sometimes as particles. We also know, through
biofeedback experiments, that the brain emits electrical pulses. In addition,
DNA, the program of life, emits a constant low frequency photon emission. In
other words, life emits light. Life radiates!
Matthew Fox reminds us that there are a
billion particles of light for every particle of matter in the universe, making
us very unique forms of light. “...we are amazed to learn how special matter
is,” he writes, “what a rare gift it is to be flesh or matter, that is,
slow-moving light. This is not just true of human flesh, but of all flesh, the
oranges we eat and the tea we drink, the grasses and the animals, the birds and
the stars¾are all slow moving light. Matter is light. It is very special
light.”4 Author David Talbot writes similarly, “every cubic centimeter of empty
space contains more energy than the total energy of all matter in the known
universe!”5 Perhaps the pervasiveness of light is the reason so many of the
world’s spiritual traditions intuit its sacredness. The ancient Egyptians
worshipped Ra, the Sun god. In Jewish mysticism we have the Zohar, a sacred
text whose name means, “radiance.” They also speak of Shekinah, the glory of
God, which shines like a light on those who experience it. Christianity calls
Christ “the light of the world.” The Eastern traditions seek enlightenment. In
philosophy, wisdom is seen as light. Even in our ordinary language we often
speak of ideas as brilliant and illuminating. We see the light and have light
bulbs going off in our heads.
Perhaps this reverence we have for light is
more than just metaphor. Perhaps, as beings of light, with bodies of light, we
realize, on some level, that light is everywhere in the universe and is itself
responsible for all the forms creation takes. We also know that light sustains
life by providing chemical energy to plants through photosynthesis, which, in
turn, provides energy to other creatures. By connecting to our own role and
responsibilities as beings of light, we may also learn the importance of
harnessing the energy of light, through solar power, in order to operate our
machines and technologies in a green clean manner. Again, as Fox suggests,
“This is the practical application of solar awareness. Only sun energies are
renewable and sustainable¾the time when humans ran their enterprises on fossil
fuels is rapidly coming to a close. We must rediscover light or perish.”6
The difference between our spiritual
traditions and quantum physics, however, is that the latter doesn’t ask us to
pursue enlightenment, it simply reminds us we are already illuminated beings.
We don’t need to do anything but recognize it. As the Tao Te Ching says, “Use
your own light and return to the source of light. This is called practicing
eternity.”7 This is reminiscent of David Bohm’s theory that “the brain is a
hologram enfolded in a holographic universe.”8 Holograms, of course, are
created with light. To say the whole universe is holographic is only slightly
different than saying it is made of light. In addition, just as each piece of a
holographic plate contains the entire image, it may be, as beings of light in a
holographic universe, each one of us is the complete image of the entire
universe¾the whole contained within the gram. Therefore, none of us really need
to become illuminated because we are already luminous beings. We don’t need
enlightenment because we are light itself. Perhaps all we really need is to
learn to radiate!
