Scott Dodelson of Carnegie Mellon University, says:
“We’re not sure our current way of thinking [about the universe] is correct because it
essentially requires us to make stuff up , namely dark matter and dark energy. My bet is that we’re looking at things all wrong. Someone who’s 8 years old today is going to come around and figure out how to make sense of all the data without evoking mysterious new substances.”
Source- Astronomy, November 8, 2017.
Cosmic Kaiser's bedtime story
Once upon a time a very, very long time ago all was quiet in the World.
The World was big. It was really, really big. Much bigger than people imagine. In order to imagine just how big it was, you have to relax, don’t think about big things. Just let your mind float through all of Space forever.
This World was quiet. Not a single sound could be heard. You see, it was so long ago that Sound hadn’t been invented then.
This World was also dark, very dark. Not dark like a bedroom at night. Not even dark like a forest after midnight. Light hadn’t been invented.
The objects in this world did not know Light and Sound, but they were not frightened of the Dark. Dark was the Old Normal.
They were big and they were happy. As they moved around in Space they could feel all of their neighbours floating around in Space. It was a simple existence. They could feel the bonds between them and they called it Gravity.
Gravity was the King of Space. Gravity controlled everything. It controlled how they moved through the enormous distances of Space. Gravity also held them together, nice and tight. They were very big, but Gravity held them together.
Eventually this would change. Gravity would be the cause, but as it was the King of Space it would sort out the mess. Order would be restored, but it would take a very long time.
The old Sages who have told this story called it the Big Bang Theory. They were wise men and women who were very good with numbers and something called mathematics. They were also good at writing and wrote lots of stuff they called papers which they published in obscure things they called journals. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. All this will not happen for a very long time, for the World is still content to be moving around in Space. Each part of it, tightly held together by Gravity and feeling all the other parts as they weave their wonderful dance through Space.
All this would change. The World would become a very complicated place.
I have said that the objects which danced through Space were very big. That is not really true. They were big in the sense that they were really heavy. A cloud or a hot air balloon is big but very light so they can float in air. These were quite the opposite. They were really dense. More dense than a rock or even a lead weight. Much more dense than anything we have ever touched. The Sages, the ones who tell the Big Bang story, made up a name for them. They did not really know what they were so they called them Black Holes. Now, that was a really silly name as they were not black and they were not holes. Also, as the ones the Sages found were really small, much smaller than the ones out there in the old World, we should make up a better name for them.
Now, the Sages wrote lots of words, but as we have seen they were not very clever when it came to making up names. For instance, if they built a very big telescope, rather than calling it after their pet dog, they would call it the Very Big Telescope, VBT. Now my dog is a Very Big Greyhound called Kaiser. I don’t think VBG is a good name so I will call those big dense objects out in Space ‘Cosmic Kaisers’ or just CKs for short. Now we have a proper name for those big not-black and not-holes out in Space we can get back to the story.
Where were we? Oh yes. The big CKs are just moving around in Space and Gravity is keeping everything in order. Now sometimes a couple of CKs get close to each other. So close that Gravity pulls them together. When this happens they spin round each other for a while but eventually there is going to be a crash. There is nothing to stop this happening. Gravity may be King of Space but it only pulls things together. Who ever heard of Gravity pushing things apart? Silly nonsense.
Normally this is okay. Two little CKs grow into one bigger CK and the World goes on just fine. Occasionally though a big CK gets too big for its boots. No point in asking the Sages why this happens. They don’t know. It just does. It has happened before and it will happen again. When it does happen, that’s when the fireworks really start.
The Sages loved numbers and science at school, but not history. If they opened their history books they would know that the universe has always been bigger and older than we thought
The Sages have told the story of the Big Bang in great detail, but they only see it from the inside. It's a bit like being a bug in a tree. The bug can, if it tries hard enough, find out all about its tree. However the bug still doesn't know if there is a forest out there. If it's very clever, it can bore through the rings in the tree and work out how old it is. You still don’t know how the tree got there.
The Sages think that their CK, their universe is the only thing in the World. Just like the bug in the tree who can't see the forest. Their universe is full of light, but there is no light outside in the World which they call the Cosmos. The light show from the universe is very pretty. The Sages and their friends, the People, need this light, but sadly it will not last forever. Outside in the Cosmos, Gravity is king. Gravity is the only thing which touches everything in the Cosmos.
The Sages have learned that their universe is being pulled apart, but cannot understand how this could be happening. They should have read their history books and know that the universe has always been much bigger and older than they thought. They use their light to see what is happening in their universe. They are very clever and soon they will work out why it is being pulled apart. They have even built machines which can feel the waves of energy which Gravity sends through the Cosmos. Perhaps only then will they understand that their little universe of light is only a pretty but temporary chapter in the story of the World.
Eventually the light show will fade and peace will return to the World.
Meanwhile the big Cosmic Kaisers still weave their wonderful dance through Space.
Here Cosmic Kaiser explains the universe to Linda.
His next bedtime story explains how one of those mysterious dark things the Sages can't explain is just Cosmic Gravity.
For those who prefer a more scientific approach see Dad’s blog “A Few Loose Ends.”