If we are to believe uncle Albert (and why should we not?) then there is no such thing as simultaneity. Every event occurs in a relativistic context. In physics. Cosmologists seem to put a different spin on matters (and yes, I do crack myself up). They define a “rest state” relative to the Cosmic Microwave Background, a state that permits measurement of the uniform rate that the universe is expanding in all directions, and why we perceive all the other galaxies hurrying away from us as if we were the only garlic eaters on this bus.
Physicists and cosmologists alike are chary about discussing what happened at the moment of the big bang, and indeed what happened in the flash of time that preceded the moment of Planck density, a finite and describable event comprising incomprehensibly vast amounts of matter compressed into a ridiculously small space. Prior to that moment, there was–I guess–a period of unreality, when all time, mass, energy, and antimatter were balanced in a singularity the destruction of which precipitated a big bang that emerged into our reality an absurdly short time after it actually began. Those moments of singularity and displacement that preceded a physical universe with a density of 5.1 × 1096 kg/m³ are the moments where we can sort out just what it is all about. If we can hurdle the barrier of incomprehension, the limit of our understanding framed by physicists and astronomers, and vault into the realm of poets, tango dancers, and doowop singers… only then will we be able to master this matter/antimatter thing.
Will confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson help us get there? You decide, but read this first!
The sober men of science are saying the universe sprang from nothing for no reason. This is the limit test for credulity! Science is saying give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest. I’ll take mine at the end, thank you.
Having Archaic and Eating it Too
madame l,
Thank you for visiting! I’ve been puzzling over that quotation for the last few days and I remain baffled. As a sober man of science myself–and a godless socialist to boot–I can affirm that most of us are saying less than the universe sprang from nothing for no reason. Really, for all we know the universe sprang from wave forms we could call the zings and the zongs, sprang forth in some macroatomic gravitometric context for the sole purpose of generating an infinite number of Buckaroo Banzai spin-offs in Bollywood. The how and the why of things are hard to pin down. Whether we are looking back 15 billion years or forward twenty-four hours, there are event horizons that obscure our vision, singularities in our models that may imply the existence of a void, or perhaps the zings and the zongs somehow emerge dominant at either end. The challenge is to build a better inference engine to determine these things.
I never knew a person who sought just one free miracle. We mostly ask for all the cake we can eat!
Peering Brane-less through the Window Pain
In other words the universe remains queerer than we understand. And may indeed be queerer than we can understand. Whatever. Thanks for all the fish.
I read a little of the Dawn of Space and Time site. As near as I can figure out somebody fused the Journal of Almost Science with the New Age Bible and stirred in a few spare tiles from Scrabble, the Dianetics edition. Talk about torturing whimsy into fact! Frank, I was worried you were working too hard but now I’m thinking you’ve got way too much time on your hands.
I had you read that crap so I wouldn’t have to.