I’m taking a little break from writing for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t want to leave you with nothing to read, so for ten posts, I’ll share with you my Top 10 Ponderings of the Universe. Is the order meaningful?
Your guess is as good as mine. Today: Perhaps not always expanding.
Prepare yourself for a very casual, very unscientific discussion, because if you’re looking for great physics content, I am not your writer. I’m not even good for mediocre physics content.
But we’re doing things I ponder and this is among them, even if it’s in a very rudimentary way. They say the universe is expanding, a concept I always find as nebulous as pinning down ghosts. Expanding into what?
What is beyond the universe?
Probably a Starbucks. I mean they’re everywhere.
But it is accepted, scientifically, that galaxies are spreading out, increasing their distance from other galaxies. Does that go on forever?
Well there is a theory that it won’t, called the “Big Crunch” in contrast, I suppose to the Big Bang. It is, as it sounds, the idea that at some point the expansion ends and contraction begins, and everything reduces, ready, once again, for another Big Bang.
And on and on and on it can go, over scales of time that are not for mere mortals–not that any life would survive it, of course–expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting.
I find it both terrifying and oddly reassuring.
As though permanence really doesn’t exist in any form in the universe, which means change is not only possible, but always inevitable.
Chance after chance after chance for something different.
Or maybe it is all the same, every single time. We’ll never know.
And with that, we shall call it a Wednesday. Have a wonderful day.
A Bit to Read 
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