Jack Bullock was my 6th grade teacher, the first male teacher I had. He said something one day when I was in the 6th grade that was retrieved from my past and 'inserted' into my thought at a particular point in time about 1986. What Mr. Bullock had said came into my mind, along with quite a batch of information. "What is on one side of the '=' sign is the same as what is on the+ other side, except the arrangement is different."     

          99,234,666 + 23 = 59,234,000 +  40,000,000 + 600+ 12 + 11 + 66 

There was a long string of experiences behind me when I was 54 years old and what he said one day was only one event when  one  the day (1986)  I looked at what I had just typed on my new Amstrad Word Processor:  I had paused because I had typed e = mc2 but I didn't know how to change ordinary '2' into  the mathematical form than meant '2 squared'.

Simultaneously a string of memories from my past came into my mind,  followed by a new thought about what I was looking at:  "I wonder if that means what it looks like it means?"  Somehow the words were accompanied by or 'filled out with'  other specific words  about what the equation meant, that I somehow 'read'. But this 'meaning' which was quite specific content, meant nothing to me at that moment. (I don't believe 'I' generated the new thought, I read it, observed it, watched it and remembered it afterwards. Observing what was going on in my mind was an activity that I had barely begun to identify by 1986.)

 I'd recently had tests done that showed my handedness had reversed from right to left. (I don't believe the accident had anything to do with the change at this point; it was a 'world of appearances' effect, the causes were not what I had believed.)  Seeing in reverse at that time was more or less constant although I was basically unawares of the effect overall. In this event the effect of 'seeing in reverse' was quite distinct, but in other kinds of events it took a long time and many very painful experiences to reveal that something in my mind had altered, so that I actually saw a quite different world than my familiar world, involving 'direction'. The change was (as I understood it then)  due to the effects of a terrible blow on my head.

As I  thought and looked at the famous formula , I saw it reversed, back to front (2 c m = e)!  The reversal happened so suddenly it had to be a minute fraction of a second, a real  flash of Time. A sentence I knew I'd read in a book, Rosemary's Baby came into my thought. "It's a anagram." The formula assembled into 'equals to see me'. This in itself of course makes no sense, but I was amused.

1. I'd read One, Two, Three Infinity by George Gamow in the fifties after my new husband read it. I could easily read every word but I realized that I did not get any meaning from what I read at all. I remembered only words: observer, train, speed of light and black holes. and something Einstein had said: "Nonsense. God does not play dice." Reading the book came back into my mind along with the memory of not understanding it. (In the mid 1980's I had begun to believe every word I read fell into a 'black hole' because it seemed that I did not remember anything I read but my deeply entrenched habit of reading probably drove me like a kind of motor. The material changed but the habit remained the same. )

2. A sixth grade arithmetic teacher, Jack Bullock, the first male teacher I'd had, explained to us one day that the rules of arithmetic were consistent and did not change. "What is on one side of the '=' sign is the same as what is on the other side."  He gave examples to show what he meant, in a sixth grade use of arithmetic.  

10,000 + 6 + 45 - 51 = 10,000.   25 + 200 - 300 + 600 = 525

The memory was retrieved although I had not thought of that remark after the day he said it.

3. It was accompanied by certain specific words and an idea relating vaguely to what the equation implied, that  came into my mind at that point.  3 years later I read those exact words in a book by a Seattle physician, Alan Nourse: Universe, Atoms and Physics. I read for the first time words that I'd not read in any of Paul Davies, David Bohm's book that the equation included 'me', my life and my activities. I had read several books about quantum physics but none of them had been so specific as to relate the 'matter' to the objects in my life as well as 'me' as this book.

4. The memory of  something I'd read in Rosemary's Baby: "It's an anagram." came to mind as I looked at the equation. The memory was complete with thought, which I realized I'd read in a book and I remembered the source of the words! Then I saw a mental process that re-arranged the equation only slightly: I laughed at the effect of seeing e = m c 2 turn into 'equals to see me'. I had read Einsteins' remark that God does not play dice! but at that point it seemed That was not true, that a kind of 'game' had revealed God does take risks. This was linked later to one of those coincidences I uncover periodically: my grandmothers name was Risk.

5. The equation, e = mc2  flipped into the  kind of puzzle similar to a kind  that had been a weekly feature in the newspaper when I was younger, in which the sound of a  word, a letter or number, it's  literal content stood out vividly: eye c u; URGR8; NXS etc. o

It was a habit that had been somewhat 'refreshed' recently due to the increase in personalized license plates. Fifteen years later, rock groups had taken the pattern to a whole new level.

All of this and more collapsed into  looking at the letters and symbols of e=mc² as an anagram: = 2 c me. The idea that God does play games and take risks was made clear. (My grandmother's name was Risk.)