Tuesday 29th November

In the beginning there was nothing.  Or maybe there was something, or indeed everything.  Nobody knows.  The latest theories are just that – theories.  And theories will remain theories until some Nuclear Physicist or Mathematician disproves them and another theory becomes accepted wisdom, until some…

Currently most scientists agree that there was a big bang about 13 billion years ago where the entire known universe (more of that later) was condensed into the smallest possible space and suddenly expanded and created what we now think of as the Universe.  A bit unbelievable really, but then so were those who posited that the Earth was round rater than flat, or that the Earth revolved around the Sun, despite the evidence before everyone’s eyes.  But, so far, no Physicist has begun to explain how come all those atoms, all that matter (and there ‘ain’t half a lot of it) was condensed into such a small space, or what caused the expansion, or what was there before the Big Bang.

So, in essence we know nothing for sure.  The trouble is that everything we can see is from our own human perspective.  And we are stuck on a tiny planet surrounding a Star which is one of billions in a Galaxy which is one of billions in what may turn out to be a Universe which too is one of billions.  Yoko Ono once described the Universe as Approximately Infinite; and that’s about as good as our knowledge gets.  And maybe, because we as humans have a beginning and an end we expect all things to be the same.  Maybe there was no beginning to the Universe at all; perhaps it is just one never beginning and never ending continuum.  And its creation is a continual process, not a single event.  Where does that leave God?  Oh we needn’t worry; those who cling to Religion will rationalize everything anyway whatever science throws up.  And it may just be that despite more and more powerful telescopes and computers and space travel and all, we will never know….

It may be that the further you travel into the Universe the more the Universe unwinds and the further you will have to travel.  And this is only the beginning….

In my book ‘2066 – a personal memoir’ I described the Universe as a huge Moebius strip, winding around and inverting back on itself so that all dimensions meant nothing.  Who knows I could be right.