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Silesian Planetaruim (not the one we went to).

I was at a planetarium this weekend with Little Satis and my family, and we watched a wonderful short presentation on dark matter narrated by the smooth-voiced Neil deGrasse Tyson. (Mrs. Satis actually dozed off because of his voice.) I’m pretty partial to anything space related, and although I didn’t learn any astounding, never-knew-that-before statistics, it re-awoke the old fascination in me about the origins of the universe, and space in general.

One of the revelations of the presentation was the fact that all of the matter and energy (stars, planets, heat, light, etc.) that we can observe represents about 5% of the total contents of the universe, calculable by the gravitational effects of dark matter on the rotation of galaxies and the expansion effects of dark energy on the universe as a whole. But things like that make me wonder, because there are a number of far-flung theories out there regarding the nature of the universe as a whole, and as an absolute lay-person I sometimes feel like I can almost piece it all together, if only I was a little brighter.

This would mean that every black hole in our universe is in fact a lower-dimension universe in and of itself…

Dak matter strings.

String theory (to my limited understanding) essentially postulates that all particles in the known universe are actually space-time representations of ‘strings’ that permeate the entire universe. What this essentially means is that this hydrogen atom that I see spinning away from me is actually part of an infinite string, pulled along by the expansion of the universe itself. If such is the case, then it makes me wonder whether ‘dark energy’ is required to explain the expansion of the universe. After all, energy is required to explain the kinetic movement of objects in a three-dimensional space. However, if the movement of objects on the largest of scales is actually the act of the universe dragging them along, no energy, as I see it, is required.

It does still raise the question of why the universe is expanding at all, but what if that expansion is purely relative? For example, it’s been calculated that as the universe expands, it cools. Therefore, it was hotter in the past than in the present. But if our existence in the universe is dependent on the relative conditions at the moment in time in which we exist, then isn’t it just as likely that earlier in the universe’s life, the relative heat was no greater than it is now? In other words, to an observer ten billion years ago, the universe was no hotter than it is now, although for that observer, the universe was still hotter in the past and cooler in the future.

Does that make any sense? If it does, it means there may be no such thing as ‘dark energy’ at all, since the movement of distant galaxies and the temperature of the universe as a whole is entirely relative to the observer.

Super neat image of a black hole (not real).

Another theory that I quite like the idea of is that the entire universe is actually the interior of a higher-dimension black hole. This is fun, because it explains the big bang as the point of creation of that singularity, and the expansion of the universe as the continued accumulation of matter and energy from that black hole’s event horizon. It could even explain the increasing rate of the universe’s expansion by the black hole going through a period of increased accretion, perhaps because it’s moving through a space of higher-density matter/energy in that higher-dimension universe.

This would also mean that every black hole in our universe is in fact a lower-dimensional universe in and of itself, which is an exciting thought. It aligns the thought that one can’t ask the question “what is outside the universe” because the universe is the entirety of existence with the thought that nothing can escape a black hole once in it in the first place. It makes me wonder what forms of life might exist inside black holes that we would never know of…

So that only leaves dark matter, which…well, I don’t have time or inclination to attack that now. This essay will have to stand as-is for the moment. Still – it’s exciting stuff. What do you think of the origins of the universe and the fate of its continued expansion?

Featured image adapated from http://kipac.stanford.edu/kipac/media.