Four
hundred years ago, Giordano Bruno suffered an unenviable fate: his tongue gagged,
the Italian astronomer was burnt at the stake for maintaining, among other things,
that each star in the sky is a sun like our own and space is infinite. Like it or
not, modern science has proved him largely right. Our universe is of daunting size,
mysterious origin and unfathomable purpose.
The frontiers of cosmology explored in this issue lie far beyond the human scale.
Using the renowned big bang theory of creation (pp. 18-20; pp.
26-27),
scientists have deployed telescopes, mathematics and particle collisions to plunder
further through the first moments of time. Could an inconceivably fast expansion
have ballooned the early universe (p.
21)?
Might we inhabit a distorted strip of reality, unable either to observe the deep
structure of matter (pp.
22-23)
or discern the vast optical illusion that is in fact the universe (pp. 24-25)?
Yet while each new theory strives to fill a gap in our understanding, science may
be nearing its own limits. The sheer improbability of life remains unexplained (pp.
28-29),
while no cosmic theory seems free of deep metaphysical assumptions (pp. 30-31).
Centuries after being displaced from the heavenly bodies, could God once again be
the answer to our doubts (pp.
32-35)?
Or is that just a get-out clause, to be replaced by a theory of multiple recycled
universes not unlike those of Hindu myth (pp. 35-36)?
The consolations lie in awe of our ineffable and sublime origins. The cost may be
in knowing (see
the short story on p. 37)
that all we leave behind is a very faint noise. |
