If current scientific theories about the cosmos are anywhere near correct, then space must be stretchy, not unlike your aunt Myrtle’s girdle, which stretches in response to the Brownian movement of the various lipid molecules that compose the tightly bound, like a young Japanese girls feet, midsection of her rotund body. Referring to the possibly exotic topology of space, scientist use to speculate that we were like a microbe on Myrtle’s girdle, and thus would never be able to travel far enough to notice the curvature (i.e., the topology) of space. This did not stop optimistic scientist from speculating that the universe might have some strange topology: like a coffee cup, or a donut (I wonder why they would think of those two objects? I guess we could call it the policeman topology, or copology for short.). However, much to their disappointment, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy (WMAP) Probe’s snapshot of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has pretty much ruled out any odd topology, and for the most part confirmed that the topology of the Universe is flat, and the value of (some of which you paid for) all those hours of topology calculations and supercomputer simulations, ended up being like so many semi-completed crossword puzzles: an interesting exercise, but ultimately of little real value. In case you are wondering, a flat topology of space is generally what the average, non-topologist would imagine the shape of the universe to be: no curves, no loop-de-loops, no backdoors or trapdoors, nothing! In a word: B-o-r-I-n-g! So there was hope (among topologist) that the topology of the universe would turn out to be an even stranger place than we thought it was: like California. Of course had it turned out weird, topologist would have been up to their “3 tori,” in grant money.
Although we generally have this topology thing nailed down, we have still made no progress on the really important question; what is the fabric of space, and how do you sew a skirt from it? The problem with space is that it holds the key to gravity, and gravity holds the key to the next major advance in physics. According to Uncle Albert, gravity is what happens when you set a ‘thing of mass’ in space. This ‘thing of mass’ can be anything from a star to a toenail: the more the mass, the more the stretch, and the greater the apparent effect of gravity. To help people visualize this idea, the general metaphor that is used, is the bowling ball on a bed sheet metaphor (although a rubber bed sheet would be more accurate, but maybe to kinky or distracting for some). However, this is really not a very good metaphor to use because it has several problems. The first of which is that the reason the bowling ball weighs the sheet down is not because of its own mass effecting the bed sheet, but rather the gravity of the mass of the earth pulling down on the ball. The second problem with this metaphor is that it is a two dimensional picture of a three dimensional situation (four if you count time, but you would have to a musician to do that). This is what happens when physicists wander into the realm of poets. Einstein was a great physicist, but a lousy poet. Any decent (and here I emphasize decent, as in good at) poet realizes that one does not use just any metaphor that happens to be hanging around, this leads to very bad poetry of the type that fills overly mush books of rhyming phrases owned by little old ladies the country over (and rarely read). Mistakenly, they have this idea that because something rhymes, it must be poetry. When something rhymes it is a rhyme, not a poem: unfortunately, our educational system has taught that iambic pentameter is the equivalent of poetry for many years now (Of course this the least of our worries in our education system today. One must take care of the aneurysm before one worries about a hangnail.) So… it is very little wonder that it has not turned out a poet of sufficient virtuosity in the last one hundred years, to be able to tackle this problem of a metaphor sufficient to describe gravity.
Of course maybe the solution does not lie with poets, but rather grammarians (an even more boring area than physics or poetry). If one “looks up” the term gravity in the dictionary, one will find that it is designated as a noun. You would think that as long as General Theory of Relativity (Einstein’s theory of gravity, which governs our interaction with other astronomical bodies, to GPS systems) has been hanging around (yes, intentional) at least Webster would have gotten it right. However, I just checked the term and it is still a noun. In Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, “gravity” is an adjective: it describes a characteristic or quality of space, just as one might describe an eel as silky (sorry, I just can’t bring myself to say slippery); one describes space as gravity (yes, yes, I know this is where my brain starts hurting also). And all of this rigmarole does not even begin to approach what space is, although it must be something other than matter (just try visualizing that). Ah yes, and I almost forgot, don’t forget to mix in time: after all it is now space-time, not just space. So… what we need to do is come up with a metaphor that describes a descriptor of a quality of a thing that has no connection to anything we know, as it precesses through time. Any takers?
~Erthona ©2004
Dying by Degrees
We are dying by degrees.
Fahrenheit is slow,
Celsius, much faster,
but time gets us all,
the greedy little bastard.
Born in a hot flash,
His father is unknown,
his mother was empty space,
she chilled him to the bone.
And now he gets revenge,
on us warm bloodied creatures,
he turns us all to dust,
distorting our best features.
© Dale B. Tisdale 1998
http://www.geocities.com/erthona/degrees.html
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