The Mayflower Tree: E=MC2

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Albert Einstein was sitting in his chair staring at a page in his diary. The page had something scribbled on it which he had marked as ‘Important’.

E=mc²

Einstein closed his eyes and went into deep thoughts. Years and years of his hard work had finally yielded a result which could be summed up in just four characters…….E=mc².

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No one in the world, but only he knew the true potential of the discovery. Matter changing into energy………. A miniscule quantity of matter generating trillions of Mega joules of energy, enough for the planet’s needs for ever.

With closed eyes, Einstein started seeing an immensely prosperous world. With abundant availability of energy, all problems like hunger and disease had vanished. The mankind, with all its energy needs met easily, could concentrate on better things than struggling for energy. Availability of energy at the push of a button fulfilled all basic needs of life very well. The world was a happier place, resembling heaven, where no one craved for basic needs of life, no one was hungry, no one fought, and no one conspired for accumulating more wealth. The humans now were engaged in more constructive things like arts, philosophy, culture and of course increasing the longevity of humans, which already had crossed 300 years. The world lived in peace.

The human race was sure that even if the Sun runs out of energy, they will create their own Sun by making the Moon’s matter undergo controlled disintegration and slowly converting into energy. The Moon will serve as the new Sun for earth. After the Moon gets used up, humans could use Mars, then some other planet. Universe was the limit.

Einstein thought that such a discovery couldn’t have been only his. He started believing in God. He suspected that God only had planted this discovery and the formula E=mc² in his mind as a means of blessing the world. He felt blessed to be a carrier of God’s blessing to the world. He started imagining God. How does he look like…. Will human race ever be able to see him?

Suddenly a thought came into his mind, ‘if God exists, so must be the devil’. What if the idea was planted in my mind by the devil, and not God?”

He closed his eyes. He saw a different world now. The hands-on sources of energy did not reach to each and every human, but was hijacked by a few mighty and powerful. The discovery led to development of weapons of mass destruction. The discovery changed the methods of war.

The tiny atom, instead of playing God, had started to play devil.

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Einstein saw fighter-jets flying over countries in different continents and dropping chunks of matter, which disintegrated into energy destroying countries, and whole continents. In no time, the human race became extinct. The earth remained destructed and poisoned. This was as early as in the year 2020.

Einstein wasn't sure if the discovery was God's gift or the devil's plan.

With shaking hands, he tore of the page from his diary. With sweat on his forehead fogging his glasses he was barely able to see the letters scribbled on it ……..E=mc². He though deeply and then with shaking hands he wrote "undo" in large letters superscibing everything on the page.

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He put a cigar in his mouth and lit it with a lighter. He took a long puff, and then lit the lighter again. Holding the paper in his hand, he slowly brought it closer to the flame, till it caught fire.

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The matter in the paper quickly burnt and converted into energy. The ashes on the table were quickly cleaned up by his housekeeping help.

**********************

Year 1945. World War-II.

Japan was advancing fast. Its air force had caused heavy damage to American ships and costal installations. If not contained, soon it could invade the United States of America through the western coast.

President Hary Truman sent a strong message to his Chief of Defense Staff, “Japan must be contained.... by any means, ….at any cost. We cannot see the great nation of USA fall to tiny island nation of the East”.

The message was passed on quickly down the line. Bombing of Hiroshima was ordered.

Upon getting orders on 7^th of August 1945, Fighter pilot Pual Tibbet along with his co-pilot, quickly took to sky. Full of patriotic feelings, he flew his plane ‘Enola Gay’ towards Japan like a man possessed. Their plane reached Japanese airspace within an hour.

Hovering over Hiroshima, Tibbet released the latch precisely at 08.15 am. A bundle of mass started to fall towards the city.

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Within minutes, the bundle hit ground. Flames erupted, a small cloud of fume rose towards sky, but quickly vanished.

Paul Tibbet radioed back to Air Force One command station, “ Mission accomplished. A few Japanese fighter planes and Radars are engulfed in flames. A few of their bunkers also seem to have got hit. May be a few of their men also got killed. But the destruction is limited to Japanese defense premises only. No civil casualties expected”.

This is the best a conventional bomb could have achieved. the bomb which Tibbet dropped was no atomic weapon but a conventional bomb. No one knew if there could be a better weapon. No one knew if E was equal to mc².

World war-II did not end in 1945.

But the world too did not end in 2020.