Rico Penguin

  People often ask the question of “Why are we here?” Which I believe I’ve touched on before but most recently it popped a similar thought into my head. To be succinct “Why Not?” Of the massive number of possible formula’s for universes that could possibly exist each has the same chance of existing as every other universe.

  Mathematics, Physics, Biology, and every other science that I don’t fully understand are based specifically within our own universe. It is one of those tautological “It is because it is.” kind of situations. So we are no more special than any other possible universe, sure we have life as we know it, but that is a self fulfilling setup. Anytime we find life it’ll be life as we know it because we have found it and thus we know it.

  Life as we know it has changed over the entire span of human existence and was different before we existed. Life as we know it will continue to change and if we discovered another universe (or even another planet) with different life following rules that we do not fully understand we will now have a new understanding of life as we know it.

  All that separates life in this universe from another universe that may or may not exist from being under our oh so wonderful “life as we know it” tag is us finding it.

  Because of this I see nothing special about this universe which makes me wonder. So it isn’t a question of why we are here, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be here. Not all why questions are necessarily ones that have an actual answer. Just like “Why do people generate more energy than the sun.” I can’t take credit for that revelation, Richard Dawkins had a similar one “Why are Unicorns Hollow.” Just because you can ask it doesn’t necessarily mean it is a valid or important question.

  My question isn’t necessarily better. I realize the irony or hypocrisy in me asking it, but I am finding it odd to assume that life shouldn’t be here. There is no better chance of any other universe than this one, and everything that makes it special is only special because it involves us in some manner or another.

  As a point of clarification before closing this little thought, I don’t hate our reality, in fact I find it very awesome, but I don’t need some unanswerable question to justify that feeling. Since we exist I see reason enough.

[ Index ]
Part 1 – The Introduction
Part 2 – From Universe to Solar System
Part 3 – From Solar System to Earth

  So when last we met (if memory serves) we were discussing the first life on Earth. Tiny tiny little organisms that one cannot see with their naked eye (unless you squint really really hard…ok you still can’t). Slowly the organisms become more complex, initially it was a matter of symbiosis for at least some. Small organisms began fusing to one another (see mitochondria) to create more complex and indeed more efficient systems. With the noticeably copious amounts of space in the sea and the development of an Atmosphere there was not much to worry about but taking in energy, via eating or sunlight, and reproducing like you had nothing left to do.

  Some organisms split like a particularly tasty banana in your ice cream, others mated. As time passed and the bigger is better mentality started to pick up we begin to see visible formations in the sea. Eventually plants will dominate the sea and spread out onto land. With the introduction of a nice firm atmosphere (firm my way of saying effective) to protect their cells from the ultraviolet sunlight there was little reason to stay bound to the sea. The first’ ‘animals’ would be completely secluded to the sea and would spread quite well. Considering the absolutely massive nature of the ocean and its ability to reduce gravity’s effect on organisms it makes surviving and growing much easier than on land (at least initially, these days you get eaten by many crazy animals in the sea).

  Once the surface land is absolutely covered in plants (maybe sooner) there is a revelation, as always, a copious amount of food leads to the introduction of something that’ll eat it. Indeed someday there will be a bacteria that absolutely engorges itself on our plastic waste, it is just a matter of waiting. As the first animals move to land they bring a second source of food to the land, that being them. Carnivores would soon fill that gap as well. I often wonder if the copious levels of land carnivores are what lead some animals to return to the sea. Indeed all sea mammals are incidents of animals that were initially land mammals and moved to the sea. The motion of a dolphin is hauntingly similar to the motion of a gazelle, and in some cases you can find the remains of what once were legs in whale corpses and other sea mammals as they move ever closer to lose all evidence of their previous adventures on land.

   Somewhere in here you have dinosaurs rise. They have a pretty long and successful run (I believe there was a mass extinction or two) until the drop of a meteor that I’ve read was large enough to fill the rose bowl (or some football stadium). It impacted somewhere in the gulf of Mexico and utterly dominated the planet. Basically all life on Earth died. Before this point there were tiny little mice like animals, which might not be accurate, so just imagine a cute little mammal of your choice. Essentially before Dinosaurs were extinguished this was the pinnacle of our particular class in the animal kingdom. After dinosaurs mammals popped out and started to show their talents. It would be some many millions of years but eventually a particularly successful class of apes came to be the most dominant of all animal species (relative to land mass covered…and I suppose not counting insects).

  People often wonder why Humans made that jump mentally. As I’ve stated before I think it was a case of substantial amounts of food. Evolutionarily there is no real advantage to being exceedingly smarter than your prey, it doesn’t take much to catch a Gazelle, strength and big teeth will do it more often than not. However with a single mutation of the brain taking it just far enough above the average level of ape intelligence it would become, much like the original organisms spreading across the planet, a snowball effect. With every evolutionary generation the human brain would grow larger, at one time even there was more than one type of human. However, for reasons I don’t know personally, one particular answer I’ve heard was the mistake by the now extinct humanoids to let their opponents spread into Europe and across to Asia, this essentially locked them into a small area and they died off. But again take that with a grain of salt.

  So slowly but surely, this ever increasing effect, like the pull of a black hole growing with each uncontrollable growth we move on to modern day. Which is where we will stop for now. Tomorrow may indeed be the final episode of this little collection. It’ll be about what is to come (in the most general of senses) and the ‘end’…as well as a bit of philosophy that I hope someday to get clarified.

[ Index ]
Part 1 – The Introduction
Part 2 – From Universe to Solar System

  So where were we? Well science is not my strong point, I’m more about the philosophy of things using science as backup. That being said if you catch any scientific inaccuracies in here don’t be all too surprised. The general idea should be close enough for Jazz however.

  Generally speaking the further away from a star you are the larger you are. I’m not entirely sure why but I’ve read a few times that it has to do with the lower temperatures. As planets are forming there was probably an issue with certain matter being burned away from inner planets (like say Ice) which didn’t burn off on the outer planets. This would give them much more mass to pull in even more matter until they hit whatever limit (that is before they’d start hitting those uncomfortably large star sizes).

  While there are other planets in our Solar System and I’m sure with a good drink and a weekend you could get to know any of them and find them to be quite friendly folks. However there is one that is substantially more important at the moment. That would be Earth, which in the beginning like all other matter was in a fairly hot state. This molten sphere was spinning quite merrily, getting belted by frozen comets and meteor rocks and probably a unicorn or two (okay likely not the latter).

  According to a report I read (and subsequently watched on FORA.tv, again you all should check it out), the Moon was formed from a rather large impact during the early days of the Earth. A massive object smashed into the Earth launching a fairly large, dare I say moon sized, chunk of rock into the atmosphere. Interestingly as the video notes the composition of the moon fits quite nicely with this theory and frankly I see little reason not to believe it, I imagine otherwise it would be quite hard for something the size of the moon to be flying by and get stuck in our orbit.

  About 4 billion years ago, which frankly isn’t all that long when thinking about non-living things, the first life sprouted up. The presence of water on Earth is not exactly all that surprising. I’d be willing to bet that any planet in the relative range that we are from our star (that is further if their star is larger or closer if their star is smaller) would find quite a lot of water on them. Comets which were, amongst other things, pretty icy were pummeling anything they could get attracted to. Those planets too close to stars would have it subsequently evaporate and those further would have it freeze (special exceptions aside). However for your average planet in this area like that of ours found themselves covered in water. This is helpful because, generally speaking, you are going to be hard pressed to find water and not find life in it. Even extremely toxic, extremely hot, or extremely cold (see ice) water can have life either living merrily or at least being in stasis within them.

  I personally wonder if Virus’s were not the first ‘life’ on the Earth. An in-between stage moving from the many non-living (see incapable or acting on own) things to the living. They have very simple processes and a very simple goal. Simply to sustain their existence through whatever means possible. There is and likely never will be any evidence of this and it is merely a thought. However what I can say is that once the acidity of the Oceans (volcanic activity is hell on a PH balance) were friendly enough the bacteria that sprung forth was quite happy to do so.

  It seems almost silly to imagine hundreds of millions of years, in which every fraction of a second there is a reaction of chemicals and elements across an almost unfathomably large space would not return some sort of unusual side effect. It’s a very good side effect because without it we wouldn’t have chicken…oh or us. I keep forgetting you need to exist before you eat chicken.

  The fact that life is so happy in water makes much sense. Ultraviolet light and other radiations that do well to destroy the genetic makeup that comprises life have relative difficulty permeating water as easily as other substances (exceptions like Lead aside). Unlike Lead and rock, Water is also easy to move through which is a very helpful addition. Though even without water I’m sure that some sort of extreme bacteria would live quite happily in a mercury rich cave dining on the walls.

  At some point it became apparent that there was a massive orb blasting endless levels of ultraviolet light onto the planet. Organisms began converting this matter for energy creating a seemingly endless supply of food. They began to convert the CO2 flowing through the air (and wherever else it could squeeze its deadly butt into) into Oxygen. This process would help bolster the atmosphere and probably for a bit was actually quite extreme. Anything that wasn’t prepared to process Oxygen would have found the result quite fatal.

   But whenever a massive supply of new food arises something arises to consume it. At some point in here there was surely something that noticed everything around it could produce energy if consumed. Carnivores likely arose at this point. Indeed on thinking back carnivores probably popped up before even the photosynthesis, I just get ahead of myself.

  We now had carnivores, herbivores, water, and copious levels of oxygen. However all things included in this conversation are still so small that unless there is an absolutely grotesquely large collection of them we couldn’t see them with the naked eye. Stuff that would make plankton squint…well maybe not but it would sure as hell be hard for us to see.

  Tomorrow we’ll move onto the first plants and hope that I don’t butcher too much while trying to make my various points. Who knows in a few decades I might have a nice solid little lecture out of this thing (I redo it yearly).

[ Index ]
Part 1 – The Introduction

  In the beginning of this particular Universe as likely each before it there was a point when all matter was crushed to a near 0 point. Think of it like exponential decay, you can keep going and going but you will never hit 0. Indeed that’s what happens with all the matter, it is crushed till it is absolutely as close to 0 as anything can possibly reach. This runaway series of events builds up likely the highest level of energy to ever be experienced by the universe at any given time.

  Going back to yesterdays discussion on time I imagine that there is a vast amount of compression that is done. Indeed if time moved at the same speed during this point as it does in modern time it would probably take incredibly long periods of time long outweighing a human life and easily dwarfing the entirety of human (and perhaps biological) history. However with the warping of space (again reaching a near 0 point) could quite possibly be causing this otherwise unfathomably long period of crushing to happen in a relative instant. Although to be fair either way it doesn’t matter, it’s not how quickly that it happens but that it happens.

  When the explosion first happens there is a point currently that I don’t believe is (or may ever be) understood. Now the following is how I understand it and again I may be wrong. This is the part that you should probably ask your local Astrophysicist about . Likewise I’ll be using the word explosion because it is easy to visualize, technically it was not an explosion. Disclaimers aside let us continue. The explosion created a massive amount of energy. This fantastic level of heat meant that essentially the entire Universe was plasma. As time passed a long the temperature cooled. Matter goes from a point that we can’t really simulate yet to materials that are exhibit able. You start off with very small matter and move up till you get to the familiar protons and electrons. There was during this time as well anti matter particles which is a topic that is a bit over my head. The best I could tell you for now is that when matter and anti matter connect they have some fairly explosive results. However as you’ll find in “Death by Black Hole” that Mr. Tyson feels that a universe entirely made of Anti matter would look indistinguishable of our own universe. The exception being that on contact with you it would kill you. But assuming you were anti matter it would all look and feel the same .

  Over a good chunk of time (hundreds of thousands of years or something along those lines) protons and neutrons started to act quit friendly to one another and formed the first nuclei in the universe. Electrons stroll along and we finally have the required ingredients to make quite a large collection of different elements. Essentially the cooler things are (to a point) the easier it is for molecules to combine, it makes sense when taken into context. When holding some magnetic beads you will have less trouble getting them to connect when they lightly bump one another than when they are slammed into one another. The kinetic energy can be so great that it ejects attracted items apart from on another.

  Initially the Universe was primarily Hydrogen which makes sense. It is easily the simplest element on the periodic table. Slowly as temperatures cool you will start to see other elements popping up. Gravity starts to become a noticeably dominant force collecting matter into…well for lack of a better term Colonies. These colonies began to form gas clouds, which consequently would make stars. Likewise this wonderful duo helped form Galaxies and the other stuff that anyone with a telescope and a bottle of fine wine (or cider for those of us who don’t drink) can find.

  Essentially for stars they build up tons and tons of matter. As matter builds up you start to get heat (as one would probably figure). Over time you have a very very hot and very very large object, neatly enough it produces an equilibrium of energy where the force outwards is equal to the gravitational tugging inwards. That’s why it looks like a big ball, generally speaking when you are being pressed in and pushed out in all directions with equal force you will end up with a ball for most non-stubborn matter.

  So with quite a few oversights we have gotten to a more familiar Universe (Note: These oversights are not necessarily because we don’t know, but because I haven’t read it yet which isn’t really a surprise considering the copious amounts of info available). With the next chapter I’ll try and take a stab at what I (at least think I) know about our own Solar System. For anyone interested in knowing more and more accurate information about your universe you can find some fantastic books by many talented individuals. Anyone who needs suggestions can email me, I’d be glad to give you a throng of suggestions on literature.

  Anyone who has known me or read this website knows that I’m constantly attempting to decode for myself just how the universe reached the point it has currently reached. With each passing year there is new information that gets gathered into my tiny tiny brain (well I suppose compared to body size its not too shabby). So the following is, to the best of my current knowledge, how I think the universe has come to be. I’ll also discuss personal philosophies on how I feel it is best to examine the universe.

  First we need to establish my views on time. Without them it makes it somewhat difficult to grasp just where everything begins (which will soon look like the wrong term to use). To do this we introduce an item that you can replicate with a strip of paper and a strip or two of tape. It’s nice because it is easy to make a personal one for examination.

 
  A Möbius strip is a one sided object in a three dimensional world. We could argue that it does indeed have a small almost inconsequential side on its edge however that doesn’t change the point of the example. You have an object that appears to have two definitive sides and yet in actuality it only has one. If you happen to feel creative take a strip of paper and twist one of the ends a single time. Tape that end to the other end and you should have in your hands a Möbius strip. If you take a pen and press it in the middle of either side and run it along you will find that by the time your pen reaches the point you started at that you have a line on both sides of the paper and yet never had to lift the pen. You have essentially taken something that cognitively and visually appears to have two sides and proven with the wonders of a pen (or pencil) that it is merely an illusion where instead a one sided object actually stands.

  So this is important (as I imagine you hoped it would be) because essentially this is how I view two separate real world issues. The first is that of time and the second is of the origin of the Universe. Now time is a wonderful thing, without it (or at least without the phenomena we call time) most events wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. In fact no events would be interesting named because there would be absolutely no events. It would just be a paused screen for all eternity, sort of like running Crysis on the average Jo’s PC (Nerd Joke).

  I’m willing to argue that time itself has no beginning and just may end up never having an end. While with current knowledge of the Universe it does appear that eventually the Universe will stretch to such an extreme point that absolutely nothing will be moving any longer. Technically with the absence of all movement there is no longer time. Though there is a vast majority of the Universe that hasn’t currently been examined. The two prevailing arguments I have seen is that either we have goofed our calculations of Gravitation OR there is a matter that is not reactive to light. It is known as Dark Matter for a very good reason, it is literally absent of light. As far as I know nobody knows how Dark Matter reacts with all things around it or when presented with high levels of torsion. If we assume that the vast majority of the Universe is indeed Dark Matter it may indeed have a reactive property to that of a rubber band.

  Which to me seems more likely. Why? Well it would seem extremely unlikely given the nature of everything that this process would only happen once. It is entirely possible that of the infinitely many times that this has gone on through its process that we just happen to be the ones that ended up in the ever expanding and eventually final universe. I’m skeptical but I won’t rule it out.

  Time, like the Möbius strip, are examined as if they are two sided objects. In fact however I feel that Time is indeed one sided much like the adorable paper strip shown above. Time has and always will, by necessity, exist. There is little reason to believe otherwise, while this may seem naive (and I’m willing to agree it might be) it does however clear up some larger issues such as the origin of the Universe.

  As you may have surmised the previous lecture essentially explains my understanding of the Universe as of now. Unless we get into the Quantum Level (and well outside of my realm of understanding at this time) the general rule of thumb is that matter is neither created nor destroyed at any time. Even a black hole doesn’t destroy matter, it merely crushes it to a near 0 point and flicks off fantastically small bits of itself until the black hole ceases to exist. Stephen Hawkins has some wonderful literature on this topic if you get interested.

  With this fact in place it seems illogical to think that the Universe is any different (or time for that matter). Why would there be a special exception that serves absolutely no purpose. Indeed adding the special exception seems to do nothing more but support extraneous and entirely unhelpful theories about environments that the living human can never interact with (without the aid of some strong narcotics that is).

  So I think this will do it for the first part of this series. What we’ve hopefully established is that something can give the illusion of multiple dimensions while instead being a single dimensional object. Time is one of those things, it never truly began and will likely never end. At best we could argue at the zero points (when all the matter in the Universe comes as close to 0 as it possibly can just before exploding) time temporarily ceases but that is purely speculation. Secondly somewhat necessarily of the previous statement the Universe is something that has for all intents and purposes always existed, indeed there is no reason to think that it didn’t.

  Hope to see you all here for part 2 (and beyond).