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1 | Sep 1. | ||
2 | |||
3 | Today we read the story of the creation of the solar system | ||
4 | |||
5 | At the beginning of the big bang, | ||
6 | everything that can be seen -- | ||
7 | everything that makes up the earth, | ||
8 | or the sun, or the clouds, | ||
9 | or the stars in the sky | ||
10 | -- was compressed | ||
11 | -- made to fit -- | ||
12 | into a space much smaller | ||
13 | than the space taken now | ||
14 | by a human hand; | ||
15 | or even a finger; | ||
16 | or the smallest shaving | ||
17 | of a fingernail. | ||
18 | |||
19 | 14 billion years ago, | ||
20 | January 1 on the Cosmic Calendar, | ||
21 | At the stroke of midnight | ||
22 | At the beginning of the new year-- | ||
23 | |||
24 | Everything within that small space was identical everywhere. | ||
25 | There was nowhere any difference between light and dark, | ||
26 | or between full and empty; | ||
27 | but everything was full; | ||
28 | and it was as if all was dark, | ||
29 | because there was nowhere clear enough | ||
30 | for light to shine through. | ||
31 | |||
32 | And then the space expanded; | ||
33 | and there became the difference | ||
34 | between the full and the empty. | ||
35 | This was the Big Bang. | ||
36 | |||
37 | 15 minutes later on the Cosmic Calendar, | ||
38 | or 370 thousand years after the big bang: | ||
39 | |||
40 | After the Big Bang began, space kept on expanding, getting bigger | ||
41 | and bigger, so that there was more and more emptiness to surround | ||
42 | all the things that would become the stars and the sun and the | ||
43 | earth. | ||
44 | |||
45 | It took fifteen minutes | ||
46 | on the Cosmic Calendar, | ||
47 | or 370 thousand years, | ||
48 | before there was enough emptiness | ||
49 | for light to shine | ||
50 | through the universe. | ||
51 | |||
52 | Then there was light, | ||
53 | and the emptiness expanded more and more, | ||
54 | and the empty spaces became like air bubbles | ||
55 | in a watery foam, surrounded by thin layers | ||
56 | of the things that would become the galaxies | ||
57 | and the stars and the sun and the earth. | ||
58 | |||
59 | As time went on | ||
60 | and the empty voids grew bigger and bigger, | ||
61 | the full parts between them grew smaller and smaller, | ||
62 | so that all the things that would become galaxies | ||
63 | came together toward each other, collecting themselves | ||
64 | into great flocks called filaments. | ||
65 | |||
66 | [The filament Pisces–Cetus is home to our Milky Way.] | ||
67 | |||
68 | |||
69 | |||
70 | [todo look up size of universe at various times] | ||
71 | |||
72 | |||
73 | But those things were not stars until they learned | ||
74 | the very first way of making a copy | ||
75 | which is called | ||
76 | the "chain reaction" | ||
77 | |||
78 | |||
79 | The thin layers of foam | ||
80 | surrounding bubbles of empty void | ||
81 | are called galactic filaments, | ||
82 | and there is one such layer, | ||
83 | called Pisces–Cetus, | ||
84 | |||
85 | [Photograph: Cosmic | ||
86 | Microwave Background] | ||
87 | |||
88 | [As it is possible, | ||
89 | using a telescope, to | ||
90 | see backward in time; it | ||
91 | is possible today, using | ||
92 | the right telescope, | ||
93 | to see this very same | ||
94 | light: the very first | ||
95 | light that was able to | ||
96 | reach through empty | ||
97 | space.] | ||
98 | |||
99 | |||
100 | |||
101 | |||
102 | |||
103 | there was | ||
104 | no space that was empty, | ||
105 | but everything was full, | ||
106 | and there was no space | ||
107 | for light to travel. | ||
108 | |||
109 | |||
110 | |||
111 | The space taken up by the earth | ||
112 | is itself larger | ||
113 | than the human mind of an adult | ||
114 | by nature comprehends; | ||
115 | |||
116 | Yet the size of earth is nothing | ||
117 | compared to the size of even a small star | ||
118 | (which is all that the sun is: | ||
119 | a small star, | ||
120 | closer to us | ||
121 | than any other star) | ||
122 | |||
123 | and the stars themselves nothing in size | ||
124 | compared to the galaxies | ||
125 | (the skyfuls of stars | ||
126 | such as we see in our Earth sky | ||
127 | as we look out on the galaxy | ||
128 | we call the Milky Way) | ||
129 | |||
130 | |||
131 | (which are the stars of our galaxy, the milky way, and our local galactic filament, ) | ||
132 | |||
133 | on the earth and all the stars in the sky was compressed into a space smaller than a human | ||
134 | hand. The galaxy was compressed into a space smaller than a finger. | ||
135 | All of the earth was compressed into a space smaller than a shaving of | ||
136 | a fingernail. All of that which would become the stars and the sun and | ||
137 | the earth was then able to fit into a sphere with the width of a single | ||
138 | hair. And everything within that small space was identical everywhere; | ||
139 | nothing was different anywhere. | ||
140 | |||
141 | |||
142 | |||
143 | |||
144 | |||
145 | |||
146 | |||
147 | |||
148 | |||
149 | Our year begins at the time of midnight and the date of January 1. | ||
150 | On the Cosmic Calendar we count the universe along with the year. | ||
151 | At the beginning of the year, we count the beginning | ||
152 | of everything we know | ||
153 | from before us, | ||
154 | which is called the Big Bang. | ||
155 | |||
156 | At the end of the year, | ||
157 | we count our time right now, | ||
158 | which is called the present. | ||
159 | |||
160 | All along, in between, we count the days between. | ||
161 | |||
162 | In a calendar year, we count 365 days. | ||
163 | In a calendar year, each day has 24 hours. | ||
164 | In a Cosmic Calendar year, we count 365 days. | ||
165 | In a Cosmic Calendar year, each day has 38 million years. | ||