by Kedrick Brown
Discover how research investigating the vastness of the universe helped inspire Kedrick Brown’s latest story, “Bereti’s Spiral,” from our [March/April issue, on sale now!]
In “Bereti’s Spiral,” my second Analog story, I try to convey my sense of wonder about the universe and reflect on the challenges and triumphs that accompany scientific progress.
I find that it is very difficult to appreciate the complexity of the universe by thinking about numbers alone. For example, what do estimates [1] that the universe has about 100 billion to 2 trillion galaxies actually mean? Assuming a 365.25-day year and the ability to count one galaxy per second, it would take roughly 3 to 63 millennia to count this many galaxies. So, it is neither simple nor practical to try to comprehend the number of galaxies in the universe this way. To appreciate why this is true, consider how your comprehension of the universe would change if the precise number of galaxies in it turned out to be 300 billion versus 400 billion.
Carl Sagan used a different approach when he said that “the total number of stars in the universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.” [2] Of course, even though it’s somewhat possible to visualize all the grains in a handful of sand, it’s more difficult to do that for all the grains of sand on a beach, and a lot more difficult to do that for all the grains of sand on all the Earth’s beaches. The jump from the stellar to the universal scale, even when imagining each star as a grain of sand, is simply too large to be comprehensible. To appreciate why this is true once again, consider how your comprehension of the universe would change if the number of stars in the universe was equal to half the grains of sand on Earth’s beaches versus two-thirds of those grains.
I find that it is very difficult to appreciate the complexity of the universe by thinking about numbers alone. For example, what do estimates [1] that the universe has about 100 billion to 2 trillion galaxies actually mean?
As such, I have found that images of the stars themselves, and particularly of individual galaxies, do the best job of conveying the wonder of the universe as a whole. A prime example is the Hubble Telescope’s 2015 “High-Definition Panoramic View of the Andromeda Galaxy” [3], which shows only part of our neighboring galaxy. Although a tremendous number of individual stars can be seen in this photo, the density of stars near the galactic center is so high that more light than darkness is visible. Understanding when seeing this that Andromeda is only one of the incredibly high number of galaxies discussed above makes the jump from stellar to universal scale slightly more comprehensible for me. Although it’s still very difficult to understand what 300 billion galaxies really means, taking the time to appreciate only one is a moving experience.
In “Bereti’s Spiral” I thus chose to focus on the research of a scientist studying one galaxy and then allow the reader to extrapolate the scientist’s insights to the broader universe. I hope that the result helps to convey a sense of wonder about the universe in a relatable way.
My story is greatly influenced by the work of physicist Robert Foot of the University of Melbourne, who has published extensively on “mirror matter,” [4] one potential form of dark matter. I explore the idea of mirror matter as an answer to the Fermi paradox and the concept of a universe in which stars that are invisible to humanity’s best telescopes are staggeringly abundant.
Beyond all of this, I also explore some of the challenges and triumphs that accompany scientific progress. These include the role of bureaucracies in prioritizing research directions, the role of collaboration in advancing research, and the influence of a scientist’s predecessors (whether famous or not) in the scientist’s contributions to a field. My purpose in all of this is to illustrate that there can be both value and joy in scientific research even when the value of that research may not be immediately apparent.
If you find the topics in this post as interesting as I do, I invite you to read “Bereti’s Spiral” and imagine where science guided by a sense of wonder about nature may one day take our world.
References:
[1] https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe (Access date February 7, 2024)
[2] Quote from Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” (S1 E8, “Journeys in Space and Time,” aired November 16, 1980)
[3] https://esahubble.org/images/heic1502a/ (Access date February 7, 2024)
[4] As examples: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0207175, (Access date February 7, 2024), https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0309330 (Access date February 7, 2024)
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