Have already posted about the puppies but wanted to write about a couple of other things which, considering the importance attached to the dog and people reunion, needed a separate post.
A while ago I commented about a program I'd seen on the future of the universe, how the universe would wind down, the stars would go out and everything would revert to this amorphous nothingness in which not one atom would exist, not even a photon. That program depressed me. There is something intangibly holy about the fact of Life, whether it's a one-celled diatom or a multi-brained octopus. There's also something miraculous and holy about the mind. It is beyond the scope of words, and I refuse to use the word, 'awesome', that we can make a picture in our mind and then bring that image into reality, whether it's a macaroni and cheese dinner or a Mona Lisa. First it's not there and then it is. If that's not brilliance than what is? So this idea that all ideas just wink out at the end of time didn't sit well, nor did it 'feel' true.
Well, last night I kept my weary eyes open to watch a program about what we DON'T know about the universe. There are some anomalies in the cosmology which don't fit, the first of which is the Inflation Theory of the Big Bang. This, as I understand it, postulates that after the initial bang, in less than a second, there was a hesitation while all the 'stuff' heated evenly. Normally in an explosion the spreading out of material is lumpy, ditto the temperature variants which are significant. So to make the Big Bang theory work, a mathematical theory was constructed which allows that during inflation it all kind of hesitated while everything had a chance to heat evenly before carrying on in a more or less normal manner. Hmmm.
Then there are The Darks; Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Dark Flow. In our normal solar system the graviational pull is such that planets closest to the sun orbit faster than planets further out. This gravitational law should be true for galaxies as well. But it isn't. Cosmologists found that stars on the outer edges of galaxies orbited at the same rate as stars closer to the center. To account for this there had to be 'dark matter' which had a heavier mass than normal matter, 5kg of dark matter for every 2kg of normal matter in fact. The odd thing is, although it works mathematically to account for the weird orbiting of stars and galaxies, it can't be found. Not with the most sensitive expensive instruments although theoretically dark matter is streaming through us and the planet continuously.
Now the best part, Dark Energy. After the initial explosion of the Big Bang, with all that energy and force, the universe should eventually start to slow down its rate of expansion. But it isn't. It's speeding up! To account for this theorists have come up with Dark Energy. They don't know how it works or what it is and they, to a scientist, wish it would go away but in order for their BB theory to hold together they have to write it into their mathematical theory.
"It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe." http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/
Doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart? It does me. With more answers come even more mysterious questions.
And finally we have Dark Flow, another gate crasher who has to be catered to despite its uncouth and uncivilized manner. A scientist noticed that some galaxies were trotting along faster than their neighbours. Galaxies should all be moving at the same rate. Why are some galaxies bucking the trend and dancing to a different drummer? Dark Flow of course.
"The dark flow is controversial because the distribution of matter in the observed universe cannot account for it. Its existence suggests that some structure beyond the visible universe -- outside our "horizon" -- is pulling on matter in our vicinity." (ScienceDaily March 11, 2010).
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
And Thank the Universe for that!
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