Of the Beginning...

Well, this is surprising: Mes. Ahmed Farag Ali and Saury Das have mathematically done away with the necessity for the Big Bang. 

Source: www.fromquarktoquasars.com

My understanding is, of course, inexpert, but wildly interested.  (I do have my own working theory of the universe that I formulated in the Fall of 1999, as I was taking my Intro to Astronomy class at Luther College.  That theory remains as yet, un-disproven!).

The essential problem of modern physics has been that we had a theory called gravity (just wait until Creationists and Climate Change Deniers learn that gravity is a theory!), which works fairly well in most day-to-day situations. 

As we start to think about big things (galaxies and stars in various points in their life cycles and stuff like that), gravity stops being true a lot of the time (one example of this is explained by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity).  Also, when you start to look at very small things (sub-atomic particles like quarks, Higgs-Boson particles, protons, etc.) gravity also stops being true (which we call Quantum Mechanics).  The problem we run into is that gravity turns out to be false in very different ways with regard to the big and small stuff.

One way that we accounted for these big/little discrepancies was to theorize a singularity at the beginning of time - the Big Bang (not to be confuse with the Bing Bag, a magical vessel that emits anything from crooning melodies to doddering background vocals in a David Bowie Christmas carol when you reach into it).  I'm not quite sure as to why we thought the Big Bang was mathematically necessary (would appreciate some guidance in this area, and am trying to read up on it to better understand).

But now, we have a mathematically plausible universe that doesn't start in some spectacular explosion, before which we could have no understanding or make any predictions.  Instead, it may now be the case that the universe has simply always been. 

I'm not entirely sure yet how this new revelation, if in fact true, changes my sense of the everything.  At the very least, it would expand on the fictional Mark Twain's sentiment from the ST:TNG speech, where he bemoans a universe with only human existence on earth, a "waste of space" - if this finding holds true (at least for the time being), it seems our unique human existence would also now be a waste of time as well.

Double Feature Challenge!

I'd like to issue the first ever Roman Numeral J Double Feature Challenge. 

The concept occurred to me yesterday evening as I was waiting for the bus, checking my long-lost Facebook news feed.  Jeff had posted a link to a movie imagining of moving through our solar system at light speed called "Riding Light" (by way of Huff Po).

I watched the first 10 minutes or so, loving it (though perhaps not the soundtrack), but it reminded me of something. 

Of course (once you've watched a bit of "Riding Light"), I was thinking of Michael Snow's 1967 Wavelength, which would make an excellent companion piece.  I'm not sure of the preferred order, and would accept suggestions and also highly recommend trying a side-by-side comparison.

 

SFSE

In The Chronicles of Amber, characters eat, drink, sleep, and sex more narratively thank is typical in other epic fantasies I know (perhaps the Gunslinger is an exception to this this).

Gets me thinking about our own SFSE project - I think the intro, and part of the goal will be to outline be challenge in coupling (and ultimately procreating), where your natural inclinations (I'm hungry now, tired now, etc.) get alters and affected by the needs of others. 

We label this civilization, and my writing this would cause my partner to lambast the "selfish male tendencies in me".  I think, thought, that this is just another, subtler manifestation of Social Taylorism, and why hetero-normative coupling is good for capitalism and systems of control. 

The fantasy novel that depicts a hero wandering (alone or together), and eating when he/she is hungry, sleeping, etc. is a challeng e to this (but an escapist one)


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February 2020
So, firstly, it seems clear that I was drunk while writing this...  But it still seems to make good sense to me, and I like it.

Shitting, Fucking, Sleeping, Eating (SFSE) is a book project i have proposed over the course of the past decade (several years still before this post).  I haven't worked on it enough, and felt it was a project that should be co-written by a large team.  It's a book about intimate living (in fact, i thought the title might be SFSE: A Guide to Intimate Living).  An advice book that ideally the wacky aunt would give to newlyweds, i imagined a PR blitz - moral outrage, anger at swears and a complication of what we think of as a "standard" life.

Unfortunately, our current era has become too profane, too crass, for this book to make a dent.  We are living in the obscenity not only of the Trump era, but the obscenity of massive wealth and middle class decimation.  But maybe - there is still something to be said for finding better and better ways to coexist, both in our individual homes and in the larger world...