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Light in Einstein’s Universe: The Role of Energy in Cosmology and Relativity
The tremendous progress in astronomical observations over the past sixty years has revealed a vast structured universe whose fundamental parti cles are galaxies, and clusters thereof. The interpretation of the new astronomical evidence owes much to Einstein's insights and deductions. All our knowledge of the world derives from the light, more generally the energy, which reaches us from near and far. Einstein recognised the vital role of energy as the solE~ basis of our information about the workings of nature; his Special Theory of Relativity showed how our understanding of space and time Is linked with measurements involving reflecting light signals. He further demonstrated that matter exists in two interchangeable forms - a mass form and an energy form - which interact closely at all levels. His General Theory of Relativity dealt with the nature of this interaction in the context of gravitational fields, and led to a view of the universe which was soon observationally confirmed. Einstein's methods and results form the theoretical basis of modern cosmology which has spawned many 'models' of the universe; how ever, they all deal with an Einstein-type universe and they all employ his geometric approach to describe it.
236 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 1985
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August 7, 2025
This is a challenging book. There's a lot of math and, its overarching theme - the role of energy in cosmology, beyond the obvious - was a struggle for me to grasp.
The writer seems like he’s a skeptic when it comes to the commonly accepted “truths” of modern cosmology. While he questions the big bang, black holes, Hubble expansion, Uncertainty Principle (because we’re inherently limited in what we know does not mean cause and effect does not exist), and cosmological homogeneity (at long distances, all things look the same), he does not reject them outright. He just puts forward questions that lead to some doubt that perhaps they are less certain than they are said to be. All fair, all good.
He cautions that Einstein opposed the extension of his field equations to “extreme density conditions and mathematical singularities." From here, Prokhovnik comments more generally on the problem of mathematics is cosmological theory: “Unfortunately, it is in the spirit of much of twentieth-century physical theory that mathematical models are often treated as equivalent to the real world rather than as useful idealized descriptions of a feature of the world; and it is sometimes forgotten that a mathematical model has meaning only within the range of application of its variables.” Tellingly, he also adds this: “The heavy emphasis on mathematical theories and mathematical interpretations has meant that most people cannot understand either the theories or their interpretations. Hence they are in no position to question the word of the theoretical experts. As a result modern physical theory appears obscure and esoteric to the layman.” While he removes Einstein from criticism, he does not do the same for those who have run off with Einstein in their own direction so that “he and his theories became enmeshed in the twentieth century worship of mathematics and obscurantism, a syndrome probably not unrelated to the contemporaneous rejection of nineteenth century logic and values in art, music and social attitudes.”
There are other nuggets worth noting. For Prokhovnik, the central feature, “the fundamental particles” of the cosmos are “the galaxies and clusters thereof" that, he says, come in “many shapes, sizes, and stages.” Where Hubble’s classification focused on shapes, Prokhovnik also notes “stages,” suggesting that the Hubble shapes are varied because they are at different evolutionary stages? He also suggests that quasars “fit into an evolutionary hierarchy, that they are the stormy nuclei of young galaxies.” While galaxies, in their various forms, are standard cosmological features, Prokhovnik also states that supernova explosions, pulsars, and quasars are extreme outliers.
In between galaxies, he says that high energy content is apparently present “in all interstellar and intergalactic space,” which gives some content to the oft-referenced “fabric of space,” and he refers to the “discovery that interstellar and intergalactic space is populated by a host of molecules and radicles.” (A radicle is what? A free and highly reactive radical?)
A few other tidbits: Newton’s laws of motion are consistent with his, Newton’s, need for a divine mover. In his illustration of light-energy dissipation, it seems, helpfully, like it’s a geometric explanation: light that radiates from a sphere moves outward in an ever expanding radius, thereby increasing the distance between photons. Energy moves in transverse waves - particles vibrate (energy frequency [amount?]) at right angles to the direction of their movement, and that vibration moves up and down to maintain an equilibrium state so that there’s no “net displacement.” Wavelength and frequency determine the types and characteristics of energy-radiation.” And then there’s this kicker: “We still know very little about the nature of energy. We know that it exists in a state of motion with velocity c (in vacuo) and we may take this property as its defining characteristic.”
Beyond all of this descriptive info, what is the overarching point to this book? Prokhovnik begins the book by more or less restating Einstein: Matter is primal and it comes in two forms - mass and energy; from that he says that matter converts to energy and vice versa, giving rise to all cosmological phenomena.* Here and there, he refers to “energy as a tangible form of matter.” The significance of that comment becomes apparent only at the end of the book where he discusses Waddington and others who view space as relatively empty, though populated here and there by particles (the difference between the way we see a “hard” table and the way a physicist sees the same table - as empty space). I think Prokhovnik's main point is that that “empty” space is filled with a field of energy that connects everything to everything. All particles in the cosmos are not isolated entities. Rather they are surrounded by a field of energy making it incorrect to draw a sharp distinction between energy and matter.
While the writer applies this concept to the interdependence of matter with its energy field, toward the end he seems to make the case that each cosmological system has its own laws of organization making it problematic to draw a unity between, importantly, physics and the organic world where “It is the openness of the universe which makes reducibility difficult, particularly so for living systems whose very existence depends on the active interaction with their environment.”
Here I think Prokhovnik overstates his argument about the problem with “reducibility.” In the inorganic world, there’s the action-reaction of matter and energy. I’d argue there’s teleology involved as there is movement toward equilibrium states, but no intentionality as there is for organic matter where there is a seeking of energy to counter entropy (seeking is intentionality).** What is common to both systems, though, is that action begets reaction, which begets (temporary) equilibrium states. Philosophically, this means that the dialectic is embedded in the structure of the cosmos itself: thesis, antithesis and synthesis, probably in an ever-flowing dynamic that means, in some sense, the cosmos, per Einstein’s curvature views, has to be, must be, cyclic.
* “Behavior of energy is inseparable from the distribution and behaviour of matter in all its forms….The interdependence of material bodies and energy lies at the heart of Einstein’s world-view. Einstein conceived the universe as an entity whose structure is closely linked with the gravitational property of matter, and whose energy content links and relates all parts of the cosmos.”
**In his question and comment section at the end of the book, Prokhovnik suggests that life, because it’s an open system, does not counter the cosmic law of entropy - the gradual dissipation of heat and organization (such as the latter is).
The writer seems like he’s a skeptic when it comes to the commonly accepted “truths” of modern cosmology. While he questions the big bang, black holes, Hubble expansion, Uncertainty Principle (because we’re inherently limited in what we know does not mean cause and effect does not exist), and cosmological homogeneity (at long distances, all things look the same), he does not reject them outright. He just puts forward questions that lead to some doubt that perhaps they are less certain than they are said to be. All fair, all good.
He cautions that Einstein opposed the extension of his field equations to “extreme density conditions and mathematical singularities." From here, Prokhovnik comments more generally on the problem of mathematics is cosmological theory: “Unfortunately, it is in the spirit of much of twentieth-century physical theory that mathematical models are often treated as equivalent to the real world rather than as useful idealized descriptions of a feature of the world; and it is sometimes forgotten that a mathematical model has meaning only within the range of application of its variables.” Tellingly, he also adds this: “The heavy emphasis on mathematical theories and mathematical interpretations has meant that most people cannot understand either the theories or their interpretations. Hence they are in no position to question the word of the theoretical experts. As a result modern physical theory appears obscure and esoteric to the layman.” While he removes Einstein from criticism, he does not do the same for those who have run off with Einstein in their own direction so that “he and his theories became enmeshed in the twentieth century worship of mathematics and obscurantism, a syndrome probably not unrelated to the contemporaneous rejection of nineteenth century logic and values in art, music and social attitudes.”
There are other nuggets worth noting. For Prokhovnik, the central feature, “the fundamental particles” of the cosmos are “the galaxies and clusters thereof" that, he says, come in “many shapes, sizes, and stages.” Where Hubble’s classification focused on shapes, Prokhovnik also notes “stages,” suggesting that the Hubble shapes are varied because they are at different evolutionary stages? He also suggests that quasars “fit into an evolutionary hierarchy, that they are the stormy nuclei of young galaxies.” While galaxies, in their various forms, are standard cosmological features, Prokhovnik also states that supernova explosions, pulsars, and quasars are extreme outliers.
In between galaxies, he says that high energy content is apparently present “in all interstellar and intergalactic space,” which gives some content to the oft-referenced “fabric of space,” and he refers to the “discovery that interstellar and intergalactic space is populated by a host of molecules and radicles.” (A radicle is what? A free and highly reactive radical?)
A few other tidbits: Newton’s laws of motion are consistent with his, Newton’s, need for a divine mover. In his illustration of light-energy dissipation, it seems, helpfully, like it’s a geometric explanation: light that radiates from a sphere moves outward in an ever expanding radius, thereby increasing the distance between photons. Energy moves in transverse waves - particles vibrate (energy frequency [amount?]) at right angles to the direction of their movement, and that vibration moves up and down to maintain an equilibrium state so that there’s no “net displacement.” Wavelength and frequency determine the types and characteristics of energy-radiation.” And then there’s this kicker: “We still know very little about the nature of energy. We know that it exists in a state of motion with velocity c (in vacuo) and we may take this property as its defining characteristic.”
Beyond all of this descriptive info, what is the overarching point to this book? Prokhovnik begins the book by more or less restating Einstein: Matter is primal and it comes in two forms - mass and energy; from that he says that matter converts to energy and vice versa, giving rise to all cosmological phenomena.* Here and there, he refers to “energy as a tangible form of matter.” The significance of that comment becomes apparent only at the end of the book where he discusses Waddington and others who view space as relatively empty, though populated here and there by particles (the difference between the way we see a “hard” table and the way a physicist sees the same table - as empty space). I think Prokhovnik's main point is that that “empty” space is filled with a field of energy that connects everything to everything. All particles in the cosmos are not isolated entities. Rather they are surrounded by a field of energy making it incorrect to draw a sharp distinction between energy and matter.
While the writer applies this concept to the interdependence of matter with its energy field, toward the end he seems to make the case that each cosmological system has its own laws of organization making it problematic to draw a unity between, importantly, physics and the organic world where “It is the openness of the universe which makes reducibility difficult, particularly so for living systems whose very existence depends on the active interaction with their environment.”
Here I think Prokhovnik overstates his argument about the problem with “reducibility.” In the inorganic world, there’s the action-reaction of matter and energy. I’d argue there’s teleology involved as there is movement toward equilibrium states, but no intentionality as there is for organic matter where there is a seeking of energy to counter entropy (seeking is intentionality).** What is common to both systems, though, is that action begets reaction, which begets (temporary) equilibrium states. Philosophically, this means that the dialectic is embedded in the structure of the cosmos itself: thesis, antithesis and synthesis, probably in an ever-flowing dynamic that means, in some sense, the cosmos, per Einstein’s curvature views, has to be, must be, cyclic.
* “Behavior of energy is inseparable from the distribution and behaviour of matter in all its forms….The interdependence of material bodies and energy lies at the heart of Einstein’s world-view. Einstein conceived the universe as an entity whose structure is closely linked with the gravitational property of matter, and whose energy content links and relates all parts of the cosmos.”
**In his question and comment section at the end of the book, Prokhovnik suggests that life, because it’s an open system, does not counter the cosmic law of entropy - the gradual dissipation of heat and organization (such as the latter is).
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