My questions about the Universe as a layman
Ever thought about this?
The Universe has mystified us since the dawn of time. It has not only driven researchers but also inquisitive nerds to try and comprehend this enigmatic infinity. I have had no formal education in this field and thus, have very limited theoretical knowledge. I am just a guy with some questions that you ponder while sitting on the seat in the morning when you forget to take your phone in.
What if there is nothing? Literally, NOTHING?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in your house, office or anywhere you are while you read this. Now zoom out a little bit and imagine yourself as a part of the country you in. Zoom out more and imagine yourself on Earth. Zoom out more, you are in your solar system, then the galaxy. Keep zooming out that until you are a part of the “Universe”. What you imagine at this point is very subjective. What you see right now is your view on the Universe, your perspective of the Universe. For me, it’s a dark space with billions of galaxies with billions of stars and planets in it. But because I’ve zoomed out a lot, they all look like a cluster of white in a dark black space.
Now comes the interesting part. Just select all of that, and hit delete. Whatever Universe you had in your mind, just delete all of that, that is to say, assume that none of that exists. What do you see now?
Whatever Universe you had in your mind, just delete all of that!
For me, it’s a dark blank space again. But wait. I was supposed to delete that dark space too. It just feels impossible to imagine that bigger picture of the biggest imaginable picture of what we are a part of.
There is a famous theory that was out there on the internet. Imagine a student who prepared a model in a jar for his science project. He showed the project to his teacher, who rejected it. Dejected, he came home and put that jar in a cupboard and forgot about it. The Universe that we know of, is in that jar. Yes! That theory suggested that we are just a rejected science project of an alien student.
Now, this theory obviously sounds very absurd (even though I find it very difficult to completely ignore it), but this certainly makes you get curious. There has to be something beyond all of this. There has to be something very big and fundamental that everything that you can imagine you are a part of, is a part of.
It just feels impossible to imagine that bigger picture of the biggest imaginable picture of what we are a part of
Is the understanding of the Universe universal or relative?
Is the Universe constant for everything in it? Imagine an ant living in a big dumpster in say, Broadway, NYC. Assume that it never came out of the dumpster in its entire lifetime. A few of its fellow ants did come out, but all that they could wander was a few meters. Very few of them even went on to explore an area of a few miles. For these ants living in the dumpster, the country of America (if not the New York State) might be analogous to what the Universe is to us. Similarly, it can be that for a microbe (usually one-millionth of a meter)living in our mouth, a community of people(if not the one human body) can be analogous to what the Universe is to us.
This triggers a question. Is the understanding of the Universe the same for everything in the Universe? The way we witness the Universe might be completely different from what something else in the Universe witnesses. Is there a possibility that whatever we have tried to discover about the Universe, is just relative and might change in different scenarios. Is there a possibility that whatever we have discovered claiming that it is universal or constant throughout the Universe is actually how it looks to us i.e. is subject to relativity. Is there a possibility that our use of the phrase “this is universal”, trying to imply that something is the same throughout the Universe, is moot considering the fact that it would change if viewed from a different perspective (which is still not known to us).
Are we able to perceive the Universe in its true form?
This question continues the idea from the previous point and is inspired by the idea of Flatland by Edwin Abbott which is beautifully explained in this video by Carl Sagan, the author of the bestselling book, Cosmos.
Imagine a flatland, a land where all creatures are absolutely flat (in 2-D), that is to say, the creatures have only length and width but no height at all. A creature in a flatland can only move back and forth and side to side. It is not aware of the third dimension world and thus, cannot look or move up or down.
One day, another creature, from the 3-D world, flies over the flatland. For the sake of simplicity and better understanding, let’s call this 3-D creature, Threedee! Threedee is amused to see creatures moving only in 2-D. It hovers over the flatland and calls out to one of the creatures down there. This 2-D creature, let’s name it Twodee, is shocked because all it can hear is a voice coming from nowhere. It can not look up and therefore can not see Threedee.
Threedee then decides to drop down to the flatland. The creature now can see Threedee, but only the part that touches the ground. Threedee for fun then picks up Twodee and throws it in the air. Now, this is completely new for it. Twodee is experiencing a new dimension that it had never witnessed before. After a while, it lands back on flat land. And the fellow inhabitants are shocked. Because for them, Twodee seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
This certainly makes you think. What if we too are like the creatures from flatland? There is a possibility that we cannot witness many different aspects (if not only dimensions) of the Universe because of our incapability to perceive it, which in turn, leads to our incapability to look at the Universe in its true form.
Are we alone? Are we, the humanity, significant at all?
The question of whether we are alone in the Universe is one of the most discussed ones. There surely have been a lot of statements by famous researchers saying that there is a high possibility that we might not be alone.
For example, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the celebrity astrophysicist, remarked that it would be egocentric to think that we don’t share the universe with other life forms. He argues that we are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen-based life which are the three most common chemically active elements in the Universe. And the conditions under which the first life form evolved on Early Earth, unsurprisingly, isn’t that complex to be not found on billions of other stars in billions of other galaxies. Thus, it is highly plausible that we share our Universe with other life forms, some of them even highly intelligent than us.
It would be egocentric to think that we don’t share the universe with other life forms
But this triggers yet another question. Are we, the humanity, at all significant to this vast Universe?
Imagine you have a billion, billion dollars. But all in coins of 10 cents (a dime). Now from that very very big pile of coins, you lose one. Does that cause any harm? No.
We are part of something that is termed infinite. Something that is believed to be expanding all the time, even right now while you read this. And we, like that dime, are negligible to the vast pile that is the Universe. So if we were not to exist at all, will that make any difference?
The questions like these are never-ending and can be very overwhelming, at least for me. I am no expert but am to believe (or believe to hope) that there is something very simple out there that is waiting to be realized. Something that would just click and everything would make sense. There would be just that one fundamental, the true truth, which would derive everything else that is there to be known.
