What is this world made up of?

Our five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are our gateways to perceiving this world. They tell us that this world is made up of matter or objects in various forms, shapes, colors and qualities. We see ourselves living in a three dimensional world fundamentally made up of the five basic elements – earth, water, fire, air and space. We see all the objects in this world undergoing change with time. They all undergo creation, sustenance and dissolution with the passage of time.

Classical physics tells us that matter is governed by the laws of physics like the three laws of motion, the law of gravity, the laws of fluid dynamics and so on. All objects are considered to be made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which in turn are made of three types of particles – protons, neutrons and electrons. We learned all these fundamental things in school. But according to modern science, the world is not fundamentally made up of matter. The fundamental particles are not protons, neutrons and electrons.

Modern science says matter itself is actually energy! The scientist Albert Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2 (where E is energy, m is mass of the object and c is the speed of light) proves the equivalence of matter and energy. I was reading a very recent article, also published in the US Journal Science , on a research that proved Einstein’s equation. The fundamental particles in the nucleus themselves are considered to be made of smaller particles called quarks, which are bound by gluons. The surprising thing is the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. The study says, the missing 95 percent comes from the energy of the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons. So, energy and mass are equivalent.

This truth discovered by science a few decades ago, was declared by the Eastern rishis in the Upanishads, the essence of the vedic knowledge. The very first line of the IshaVasya Upanishad, written thousands of years ago, declares, Isa vasyam idam sarvam or all that exists is energy!

Today, we are in the age of the quantum world. We talk of quantum physics, quantum leaps and quantum thinking. What exactly is meant by the word ‘quantum’?

Quantum simply means a jump from one state to another state without going through any of the intermediate states. Today, no one has the time to go through intermediate states. We want instant results in everything. We want quantum results! We want quantum results in everything!

Coming back to the topic, we learned in physics that an atom is made up of a nucleus with electrons orbiting at specific distances from the nucleus. We learned that the electron usually remains in its orbit (its regular circular path of motion). But if it is excited by means of heat or some chemical reaction, it absorbs energy and jumps to the higher orbit. If it releases energy, it jumps to the lower orbit. The important point to note is that when the electron jumps from one orbit to another, it makes the jump without moving through the space in between. One moment it is seen in one orbit, and the next moment it is seen in the other orbit! This is called a quantum jump. A quantum jump is a change from one state to another without passing through anything in between.

source: Living Enlightenment