Archive for March, 2012

The Universe Today

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Welcome to this special edition of
The Universe Today.

In this issue we explore and explain the Big Bang Theory,
and add a whole new dimension to our existence.

(Special note: Not quite a year ago I realized that dark matter was taking an active part in the formation of our Universe. That it was literally pushing galaxies apart and had also been involved in the formation of the first galaxies. Obviously, I was very excited by this line of conjecture, and began to work things out, with the idea of committing it to paper as quickly as possible. Then, I saw something on television about some guys who were about to win the Nobel Prize for their work on this subject. I asked Charlie to look it up on the net, then I told him the direction my thoughts were moving in, how dark matter was interacting with matter-and he confirmed that that was exactly what these guys had come up with, and why they were winning the Nobel Prize. I was crestfallen, as you might well imagine.

For the last year I have isolated myself away from all print, visual, and electronic media as it pertains to astronomy and astrophysics, while I considered what follows. Because of my isolation, I have no real idea about what has been published in the previous year. But, since nobody has claimed to have solved the mystery of the Big Bang yet, then I feel safe in tossing this particular set of ideas into the ring. Read on for the bigger picture.)

 

 


Life, the Universe, and Everything


By Steven Michael Witt

So, you want to know the greatest secret of the Universe? The arcane knowledge that binds together the very fabric of reality, which explains the Big Bang, and introduces even deeper and more intriguing questions about the very nature of our existence-Is that all you want to know? Well, here it is…

In the beginning, the Universe ended. And then it began all over again. And then it ended. And then it began once more. And ended…and began…and ended…again and again and again. This process continued through countless reiterations, until our present Universe was born. And this same state of affairs will repeat itself over and over again for what we mere mortals would conceive of as Eternity.

There it is! Now you know. To gain a better understanding of exactly what it is that you know, read on.

First, we need to start with the very nature of reality itself.

Once upon a time, before I knew about dark matter/energy, I believed that Time and Space together formed what we know as reality. The Universe. On a micro scale, the current environs you occupy as you peruse this article. On a macro scale, the entire universe-the whole shebang-all that is and all that we know. Reality.

I also believed that reality was literally created by the outer most edges of the expanding universe as it, well, expanded. That beyond those outermost edges lay nothing-and I mean literally nothing. The Universe was not expanding into anything. There was no reality for it to expand into until the outer most edges of the Universe created it.

And then I learned about dark matter/energy. And I realized that our entire universe of matter must be suspended in a cloud of dark matter/energy of incalculable dimensions. And suddenly, everything made sense.

In our iteration of the Universe, first, there was the big bang. Cold matter expanded into the cloud of dark matter/energy, and was compressed by it, creating pockets of cold matter that, with the passive effect of gravity, eventually resolved themselves into galaxy sized clouds which later gave birth to the first massive stars. Understand that dark matter did not have to be present in every instance to create those first galaxies, and those first stars. Merely the pressure exerted by dark matter/energy upon the expanding cloud of dust released by the big bang was enough to nudge gravity into motion. In fact, it is those two forces in combination-humble gravity, and the massive cloud of dark matter/energy that our universe is expanding into, that created all we know.

Yet, even as these first clouds of dust were coalescing, into all the newly created empty spaces dark matter and dark energy was seeping. Because, that appears to be what dark matter and dark energy do, they expand. You would think that their mass would compress them, draw them in upon themselves to form some immense, dark anti-galaxy, but that isn’t what seems to be happening. Instead, just the opposite seems to be occurring. Which leaves us with only one logical conclusion: the greater the mass of dark matter and dark energy, the more it expands. While this seems contrary to the known laws of physics, it might be worth noting that dark matter/energy may not technically be part of the universe but may instead be an intruder from outside, which would mean that it need not be bound by the laws of our Universe.

Even as you read this, dark m/e and gravity are pushing and pulling galaxies into pools, called clusters, leaving trailing behind them glowing tendrils of errant galaxies stretching out like lifelines from each pool to all the other pools nearest to it. Like some monstrous, invisible hand, these two forces, working in tandem, are compressing all the matter that expanded from the big bang. Ultimately, these various galaxy clusters, many of which contain spiral galaxies and their attendant super massive black holes, will be pressed together, until finally only one massive spiral galaxy remains where once there was a cluster. Even this last, titanic galaxy will be compressed until it is swallowed by its own super massive black hole. And when the last of these titanic galaxies is gobbled up, then the Universe will go dark. But that won’t be the end.

Dark matter and dark energy, which, as we noted earlier, like to expand, will, using the incalculable mass of the cloud of dark m/e that lies beyond the expanding cloud of matter that we call our universe, continue to press inward, not only halting, but eventually even reversing the expansion of matter. Then, as the hundreds of billions of super massive black holes are pushed inward, these singularities will began to ingest their companions, and this process will continue until at last there is only one truly super massive black hole left. This smbh will contain the shreds of all the particles of the stars, planets, asteroids, and dust clouds that formed our known Universe. This will be an object so gravitationally massive that super just doesn’t do it justice, so let’s refer to it as an ultra massive black hole.

The ultra massive black hole, which will be pulled inward by its own immense gravity, will also continue to be compressed from without by that unfathomable cloud of dark matter and dark energy which surrounds our universe. But this won’t go on forever, as the existence of our own Universe proves. Apparently, you can compress the fragments of the all particles of matter of hundreds of billions of galaxies only so far, and then, at a certain point, they push back. When that happens, then another big bang takes place. And another Universe is born.

And now you know why you know what you know, and the true nature of the Universe stands revealed. Welcome to reality.

 



But Wait, There’s More!

Until about halfway through the previous article, you probably thought the Universe was a very big place. Well, now that we’ve brought it down a notch or two, let’s bring it down by degrees.

Since there is currently no way we can accurately measure the dimensions of the cloud of dark matter and energy that surrounds the Universe, then that leaves us free to engage in unsupported speculation.

To wit, let us imagine that this region is so massive that to compare our universe to it is to compare a grain of sand to the sun. Or, we can go even further and imagine that it is infinite; extending outward in every direction, forever and ever, without end.

Now, if this is indeed the case, and if the rest of existence, like our own Universe, is based on a series of endlessly repeating fractals, then there may not be just one, not just a hundred, or even thousands, but possibly hundreds of billions of other Universes out there, and all of them in various stages of expansion or contraction. Of course, it should be noted that even the closest of those pocket universes is so far away from us that no number has yet been created that could be expressed to it’s highest power to describe the distance.

But this is all just idle speculation. The truth is that we currently lack the instrumentality needed to actually prove the existence of other universes outside our own. And, if dark m/e dampens waves of gravity over distance, or is unaffected by them, then, even with the most precise machines, we may not be able to detect other universes at all.

We could travel there, perhaps. But, with no reliable means of ascertaining the location of such extra-universal objects, we’d be shooting in the dark. (And we’d also have to have a very, very fast means of travel, if we wanted to get anywhere before our Universe ended.) Besides, what if we’re out there just blundering about and stumble into an ultra black hole? We could inadvertently contribute an infinitesimal part of our own matter to another universe.

We may not know the answers to these questions in our lifetimes, or in many lifetimes to come. We may never know. But it’s nice to think about it.

 


Thought Food

What follows are a few things to consider-some of those deeper implications that were mentioned in the first article. This piece is not presented as a coherent article, per se, but rather as a series of one or two paragraph musings. If there is any coherence at all, I hope it is in the ideas themselves. Enjoy.

While time and space may be infinite, the Universe is not. It has boundaries. Therefore, the Universe is a finite object.

Time. What meaning can time have in the face of the finite lifespan of our Universe? It may simply be impossible to determine just how many times previously that the Universe has gone through this sequence of expansion and contraction, and, if this is true, then any time scale we assign to the past, present, and future that have existed or will exist beyond the lifespan our Universe, would be, in the least, arbitrary, and, at the best, simply a good guess.

However, this does not apply to time as it is measured within the lifespan of our current Universe. Any calculations that are made within that context should bear out, or at least be as strong as the data which generated them.

And as to contiguous, uninterrupted time, it is taking place-in the cloud of dark matter and dark energy that surrounds our Universe.

While the search for the Hubble Constant may now seem a bit Quixotic, in view of what we now know (perhaps the fact that the number was 42 should have been a clue), it may still have value when combined with an even more essential one-the dark matter constant. As to the second number, it may be centuries before we can even begin to guess at it. But it is a very important number. In fact, the most important number ever calculated. You see, that’s the number that tells us at what point outward pressure from the cloud of dark matter and energy that surrounds our Universe will halt, and then reverse, the expansion of matter. Taking and combining that number with the Hubble Constant will give us the full lifespan of this Universe. This will allow us to make calculations not only about our own Universe, but all those that preceded it and all those that will follow.

It may be fruitless to search for the moment that this endless series of contractions and expansions began, because it may not exist. As humans, with a finite lifespan, we tend to view the rest of existence within those terms. As such, it is virtually impossible for us to imagine anything that exists without beginning or end. But, that simply does not mean that such a thing cannot be. The truth is that we may be caught within an infinite loop, with no beginning or end.

Life and death take on a whole new context within the broad new parameters that have been described herein. We already knew that the atoms which make up our bodies have been circulating around since the beginning of this current cycle of expansion (some 13 to 14 billions years ago). Now we also know that the fragments which first formed the sub atomic particles that gave birth to those atoms came from a previous version of this very Universe. And from how many other previous renditions, just like this one? How many times have the basest elements in your body blazed in the heart of stars, cooled on the surface of a moon, or gazed out upon some fantastic alien landscape? Each successive Universe has used, and will continue to use, the same batch of ingredients, over and over again.

Don’t believe in reincarnation? You’re living proof of it!



Well, that’s it for this special edition of Scifi Horizons
The Universe Today!
Tune in for our next full issue, coming in late Spring of ’12!!!


*

Sunday, March 25th, 2012

image