Time. Space. There’s an awful lot of it. The two are a married couple, together for eternity, destined to rule everyone’s ultimate fate but perhaps their own. What is all that out there, anyway, and how did it begin?
As I drove to work yesterday, whiteness blanketed every surface, including the river I travel along. The snow disguised every surface, shrouding shapes. It almost became difficult to see where the river and its banks met. Where did one begin and the other ended. For one reason or another, my mind drifted to the endless void of space. You know, the one that’s situated where our planet and its eight companions hang out.
Sure, there’s loads of theories detailing how the Big Bang began it all. But what prompted it? And where, exactly, did that bang occur? What was the situation, the circumstance, the one moment where conditions were correct to unleash a tide of matter and send it forth for eons? Say, now’s a good time to create…everything…
Again, there are theories about all of this. Tracing the creation of the universe to that Big Bang is pretty much where it stops. My curiosity lies with What Came Before.
In my opinion, some matter had to be gathered together initially to agitate enough to explode. What created that matter and how much was there of it to launch forth an entire universe of galaxies, novas, quasars and planets? What created the void wherein the matter floats and drifts? And like any explosion, the shock waves fly out until they dissipate or crash against a solid surface. Will the shock waves act as ones that dissipate or like a string on a yo-yo, reaching a limit and then curl back?
It’s a lot to ponder as one’s listening to the band Viet Cong play “Silhouette” on the car radio, driving past a white ribbon of frozen river.
Just to perplex myself even further while I crossed over a bridge, I thought about the time it took to accomplish all of this. No, not the kind of time-bending that Einstein and the movie “Interstellar” explored. Just a simple answer. You know, like 30 billion years. Or so. And how long did that void exists before it decided to make a universe? What came before that? And that?
I arrived at my destination: a small museum that I run. Out of time, I pulled into a space and parked the car. Slipping the key into the door and turning off the alarm, I turned my attention to the matters that awaited me at work, taking satisfaction that there were few mysteries there. Nothing I couldn’t solve, anyway.
Moon, Stars and Beyond 