I want a physicist to speak at my funeral!

My friend, Heather, posted this commentary on her Facebook a long time back and I saved it - it's been a bookmark on my web browser for a year plus.

The Circle of Life, give or take a few steps.

I am entirely science-minded and like having solid backing to the wonders of the world. Science dictates that, in the circle of life, we are created, we live, we die, and we are broken down into the tiniest of biological and mineral components to be re-used for the next guy. Science has additionally agreed upon the concept that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that it may only change forms. I don't know what I believe about where my mind and spirit and soul and whatever other non-tactile part of me will go when I die, but I like what this guy has to say about it. I find it comforting to think about, too, when I stress about someone close to me and their imminent end. Here is a physicist's take (via a black Jewish comedian's commentary on National Public Radio) on the passing of your best friend, your father, your wife, your child:

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 

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, not even yours. It just changes from one form to another.

(You can find the audio at the linked website at the very beginning of this post, but for the record, the actual transcript of the eulogy speech is the part that got me. I honestly didn't even listen to the audio until today, and I didn't even get halfway through it because it sounds so tacky and kind of like he's building up to sell you on a pyramid scheme. I'd personally like it if anyone except for this man could recite this at my funeral (no offense, Aaron Freeman, I think you're brilliant.) Maybe Morgan Freeman could do it instead?)