behind the horizon
In the first instants of the Big Bang the universe inflated at a rate far exceeding the speed of light in a vacuum. For this reason we cannot see most of the megaverse - we see only to the edge of the tiny bit that is within the 13-15 thousand million years since the light from the bang began its journey towards us. By far the bulk of the mass and the energy of the place we live in is beyond the edge of the visible universe - behind the cosmic horizon.
Some recent theories (including string theory) imply an immense broth of possibilities for the laws of nature. Some physicists and cosmologists think that these possibilities might be expressed elsewhere in the megaverse. They imagine a vast frothy megaverse in which the bubbles (the tiny fragment we can see is a bit of one bubble in this model) could and do have their own local laws. The brothy megaverse would be full of utterly alien environments, most of which would not give rise to life - at least, not to life as we know it.
But it is not of any consequence to me that life beyond the horizon is strange beyond comprehension. Life on Earth is strange enough and delicate and wonderful enough for us to look at it, every now and then, with a new sense of wonder and puzzlement.
This representation of a living thing is deliberately enigmatic. Sea animal? Plant? How big is it? What colour?
behind the horizon
In the first instants of the Big Bang the universe inflated at a rate far exceeding the speed of light in a vacuum. For this reason we cannot see most of the megaverse - we see only to the edge of the tiny bit that is within the 13-15 thousand million years since the light from the bang began its journey towards us. By far the bulk of the mass and the energy of the place we live in is beyond the edge of the visible universe - behind the cosmic horizon.
Some recent theories (including string theory) imply an immense broth of possibilities for the laws of nature. Some physicists and cosmologists think that these possibilities might be expressed elsewhere in the megaverse. They imagine a vast frothy megaverse in which the bubbles (the tiny fragment we can see is a bit of one bubble in this model) could and do have their own local laws. The brothy megaverse would be full of utterly alien environments, most of which would not give rise to life - at least, not to life as we know it.
But it is not of any consequence to me that life beyond the horizon is strange beyond comprehension. Life on Earth is strange enough and delicate and wonderful enough for us to look at it, every now and then, with a new sense of wonder and puzzlement.
This representation of a living thing is deliberately enigmatic. Sea animal? Plant? How big is it? What colour?