Out of Chaos
Well, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, he predicted that when two galaxies are in different positions say one nearer to us relative to the other galaxy being further away, much like beads on a string, its gravitational field will bend the light path of the farther one and therefore create a ring around the first one. This is called “gravitational lensing.” It is nature's equivalent to having a giant magnifying glass in space that bends and amplifies the light of more distant objects. Light from a distant galaxy can be deflected by an intervening galaxy to create an arc or multiple separate images. When both galaxies are exactly lined up, the light forms a bulls-eye pattern -- the Einstein ring -- around the foreground galaxy. Now astronomers can precisely measure the mass of the closer galaxy by studying these rings! Beautiful, right? Well, how does all this relate to the original question? The key word is "dark matter." This is an invisible form of matter that cannot be seen, but its existence can be inferred by measuring its gravitational influence. Dark matter makes up most of the matter in the universe; and galaxies can be formed from either collision or through merging of smaller galaxies. One can then put forward the proposition that, in the beginning, it was not Chaos but dark matter that existed. Then, the skeptic would say, what is the difference? Oh! There is a big difference, I say. For one, Order does exist and you do not need Divine Intervention to create one. In addition, if one looks at the nature of dark matter, invisible but measurable, one can simulate its existence in the laboratory. That is what scientists are looking for, among other things, under the earth in the big Hadron particle collider in Switzerland, the CERN project. Guess what;
For me, it also started when I was a child looking up in the sky and wondering how all this was created. It is still a real mystery to me how the eyes are awakened and then relate to this material world. If Eisenberg is correct, there exists this “principle of uncertainty”, you cannot fix the position of an electron, spinning around its own nucleus, since there are infinite possibilities on its whereabouts. The moment you try to freeze its trajectory, that devil is somewhere else! Reality is based on electrons spinning around their nucleus, what we call matter. So how can we be sure about reality? Are all we see, feel and touch real or illusions, like Einstein’s rings? Are we living in a world of conventions? We agree that we exist and, therefore, we do exist? If light has dual existence, being both matter and electromagnetic wave, why we cannot have dual existence? Can we be both real and ethereal? A proof for this can be in our dreams sometimes they are so damn real! You can swear that you have felt being in that place in your dream, you have smelled that scent in the environment and certainly your body has reacted the same way it would have reacted in the “real” world; and yet it is a dream.
Convention, my fellow thinkers, is the basic principle of our existence. We have agreed between us that the trees are green because they absorb all other wave frequencies of the light hitting upon them and they emanate only the frequency belonging to the green spectrum as measured by instruments that we have built to test the validity of our hypotheses. But, do we all “see” the same “green” as defined exactly by the instruments-the independent observer? If you ask me and another person to describe this color, would we agree on its hue, intensity or appearance? And yet we agree that it is green. Throughout the ages, several philosophers have put forward the proposition that we really do not exist, neither any of the elements we call the universe, the planets, earth or its critters. That is, we have made an agreement between us, so as not to go crazy, that the things we see around us and the things we do not see but “know” they are there do exist. Very much the same way that we have agreed that the exchange rate for the dollar against the euro today is such but it can change based on some conventional rules the big shots in Wall Street have invented, irrespective of whether they are real or imaginary. They always say that Markets react to psychology, but that is based on emotion and cannot be objectively gauged. Yet, many of us play that game, no questions asked.
Conventions also guide human behavior. We agree that killing each other is bad, and indeed it is as we have only one chance to play in this game; we have even invented the Ten Commandments to guide us through this. And yet, vanity prevails. We are so vain, always looking for ways to be unique, whether this is manifested by an expensive lifestyle or the pursuit of higher education or even the place we most desire to live or inhabit, that we forget those conventions, we bypass them. Tell me, is there a person on this earth that although he or she strongly defends some ideals, whether these concern religious, political or scientific, still acts differently according to the occasion, thinks that it is OK for once to bypass the premises each ideal holds so as he or she can have that one gratifying experience? And then this behavior so quickly becomes habitual doesn’t it?
All I am saying is that we all are the product of chance collisions, like those particles in the supercollider only “living” for relatively somewhat longer periods, and what we will eventually leave behind is dark matter. The matter and energy in the Universe is thus preserved.
But people, I also put forward the proposition, irrespective of whether we exist or not, whether everything around us is real or an illusion that we fall in love with each other and act accordingly. Not simply love each other, like the prophet Jesus promulgated, but truly fall in love with each other. Would you do any harm to your lover? Wouldn’t you sacrifice some part of yourself in order to give it to your lover and wouldn’t you succumb to his or her wishes in order to cherish your moments together?
What the heck, what do you have to lose?
Zoras.
November, 2010
"Einstein Telescope": Search for Dark Matter and the Future of the Universe
