Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemism, energy, and matter are—in origin, nature, and destiny—one and the same thing, together with other material realities as yet undiscovered on Urantia.
We do not fully comprehend the almost endless changes to which physical energy may be subject. In one universe it appears as light, in another as light plus heat, in another as forms of energy unknown on Urantia; in untold millions of years it may reappear as some form of restless, surging electrical energy or magnetic power; and still later on it may again appear in a subsequent universe as some form of variable matter going through a series of metamorphoses, to be followed by its outward physical disappearance in some great cataclysm of the realms. And then, after countless ages and almost endless wandering through numberless universes, again may this same energy re-emerge and many times change its form and potential; and so do these transformations continue through successive ages and throughout countless realms. Thus matter sweeps on, undergoing the transmutations of time but swinging ever true to the circle of eternity; even if long prevented from returning to its source, it is ever responsive thereto, and it ever proceeds in the path ordained by the Infinite Personality who sent it forth.
The power centers and their associates are much concerned in the work of transmuting the ultimaton into the circuits and revolutions of the electron. These unique beings control and compound power by their skillful manipulation of the basic units of materialized energy, the ultimatons. They are masters of energy as it circulates in this primitive state. In liaison with the physical controllers they are able to effectively control and direct energy even after it has transmuted to the electrical level, the so-called electronic stage. But their range of action is enormously curtailed when electronically organized energy swings into the whirls of the atomic systems. Upon such materialization, these energies fall under the complete grasp of the drawing power of linear gravity.
Gravity acts positively on the power lanes and energy channels of the power centers and the physical controllers, but these beings have only a negative relation to gravity—the exercise of their antigravity endowments.
Throughout all space, cold and other influences are at work creatively organizing ultimatons into electrons. Heat is the measurement of electronic activity, while cold merely signifies absence of heat—comparative energy rest—the status of the universal force-charge of space provided neither emergent energy nor organized matter were present and responding to gravity.
Gravity presence and action is what prevents the appearance of the theoretical absolute zero, for interstellar space does not have the temperature of absolute zero. Throughout all organized space there are gravity-responding energy currents, power circuits, and ultimatonic activities, as well as organizing electronic energies. Practically speaking, space is not empty. Even the atmosphere of Urantia thins out increasingly until at about three thousand miles it begins to shade off into the average space matter in this section of the universe. The most nearly empty space known in Nebadon would yield about one hundred ultimatons—the equivalent of one electron—in each cubic inch. Such scarcity of matter is regarded as practically empty space.
Temperature—heat and cold—is secondary only to gravity in the realms of energy and matter evolution. Ultimatons are humbly obedient to temperature extremes. Low temperatures favor certain forms of electronic construction and atomic assembly, while high temperatures facilitate all sorts of atomic breakup and material disintegration.
When subjected to the heat and pressure of certain internal solar states, all but the most primitive associations of matter may be broken up. Heat can thus largely overcome gravity stability. But no known solar heat or pressure can convert ultimatons back into puissant energy.
The blazing suns can transform matter into various forms of energy, but the dark worlds and all outer space can slow down electronic and ultimatonic activity to the point of converting these energies into the matter of the realms. Certain electronic associations of a close nature, as well as many of the basic associations of nuclear matter, are formed in the exceedingly low temperatures of open space, being later augmented by association with larger accretions of materializing energy.
Throughout all of this never-ending metamorphosis of energy and matter we must reckon with the influence of gravity pressure and with the antigravity behavior of the ultimatonic energies under certain conditions of temperature, velocity, and revolution. Temperature, energy currents, distance, and the presence of the living force organizers and the power directors also have a bearing on all transmutation phenomena of energy and matter.
The increase of mass in matter is equal to the increase of energy divided by the square of the velocity of light. In a dynamic sense the work which resting matter can perform is equal to the energy expended in bringing its parts together from Paradise minus the resistance of the forces overcome in transit and the attraction exerted by the parts of matter on one another.
The existence of pre-electronic forms of matter is indicated by the two atomic weights of lead. The lead of original formation weighs slightly more than that produced through uranium disintegration by way of radium emanations; and this difference in atomic weight represents the actual loss of energy in the atomic breakup.
The relative integrity of matter is assured by the fact that energy can be absorbed or released only in those exact amounts which Urantia scientists have designated quanta. This wise provision in the material realms serves to maintain the universes as going concerns.
The quantity of energy taken in or given out when electronic or other positions are shifted is always a “quantum” or some multiple thereof, but the vibratory or wavelike behavior of such units of energy is wholly determined by the dimensions of the material structures concerned. Such wavelike energy ripples are 860 times the diameters of the ultimatons, electrons, atoms, or other units thus performing. The never-ending confusion attending the observation of the wave mechanics of quantum behavior is due to the superimposition of energy waves: Two crests can combine to make a double-height crest, while a crest and a trough may combine, thus producing mutual cancellation.