dark matter

Leave a comment September 11, 2016 Steve A. Wiggins

In the last couple of weeks two large-scale news items caught my attention. One describes how a newly discovered galaxy is made up of mostly dark matter. The other tells how a new fossil find in Greenland may push the origins of life on earth back to 3.7 billion years ago. If you read my blog, you know that I’m a frustrated scientist. I’ve always tried to follow the developments in the field and even considered it as a profession until I ran into the wall of mathematics. Ran into the wall, banged up the car beyond repair, and was barely able to walk away. That’s the breaks in a world where ambition and ability aren’t the same thing. So I have to take my science like baby-food, mashed and strained before it makes its way to my brain. I know I’m not alone in this—the whole field of “humanities” proves that. (Originally science (astronomy) was one of the humanities, but oh how we’ve grown!)

Such frightening things as mathematics aside, these are exciting stories. I’ve been looking around this galaxy quite a bit, and I can believe dark matter outweighs light matter and I’ve never even been off the earth. The story is encouraging because it shows just how much we have yet to learn. Nothing could be more exciting for an erstwhile educator. The opportunity to stretch one’s mind should never be taken lightly. At the same time as dark matter is growing, so is the age of life on earth. I have to admit that I’ve not even been to Greenland, but the idea that life began so soon after the earth formed has cosmic implications. If we were such fast starters, doesn’t that suggest that elsewhere in the universe the same may be true? Ironically, here on earth uniformitarianism is considered a foundation of science. But once you get off earth scientists are reluctant to say the same processes could have happened elsewhere. But what do I know? I’m still trying to figure out trigonometry.

Earthbound I may be. Humble humanities specialist from start to finish. Nevertheless it is an amazing time to be alive. Once we’ve figured out that human brains—products of evolution that they are—aren’t capable of ultimate comprehension, we’ll be able to bask in the light of billions and billions of suns and raise a glass with our cosmic neighbors, made of light matter or dark, and proudly say that we’ve made some real advances at last.

1 Comment October 14, 2011 Steve A. Wiggins

If you’re one of those people who has trouble finding your car keys, it looks like things are only going to get worse. We all knew the universe was expanding, but now that the smoke has cleared from this year’s Nobel Prizes (there was smoke, wasn’t there?) it is now common knowledge that instead of slowing down, the expansion is actually accelerating. Kind of makes you wonder who’s driving. Being somewhat of a science news junkie, I already knew of the increasing rate of expansion, but seeing it in the news again made me ponder the theological implications of it all (despite not being a theologian). Where do we locate Heaven in a rapidly expanding universe that is ripping itself apart? Why didn’t the prophets in the Bible see this coming? What is anybody doing about it?

Physicists have had to postulate a new culprit in this unexpected scenario. Dark energy must be driving the expansion and the universe most be mostly composed of dark matter. Besides apparently being the substance between the ears of Tea Partiers and certain public officials, nobody really knows what dark matter is. The darkness of the name here is to be understood as “unknown.” We can’t see it or sense it, but it can be weighed—at least on a universal scale. Not only are we not the center of God’s universe, we are vastly outnumbered by something that we can’t even see.

Of course, it will only be a matter of time before some religious specialist suggests that God is the dark matter or the dark energy of the universe. Classic god-of-the-gaps thinking. If we can’t explain it, it must be God. That God, however, suffers the embarrassing phenomenon of shrinkage. At one time that Gog (God-o’gaps) was in control of the weather, until NOAA came along. At one time that deity held the nucleus of atoms together, until the strong and weak nuclear forces were discovered. At one time that God knocked off the dinosaurs. Well, maybe the jury’s still out on that one. The danger of conflating God with science is the inevitable effacement of divinity. Our universe has proven unfriendly to deities. Depending on how medieval we’d like to get, we might suggest that dark matter must be all those angels dancing on the heads of pins. While you ponder that one, I’m going to look for my car keys while I still can.