Black Hills Cabin
Sept. `76
"So," Tom shot back at Sara, "you're telling me that all the stars and
galaxies are speeding away from the Earth at close to light speed.
That's really hard to believe. How do you know that anyway?"
"No," replied Sara, "I said distant galaxies are speeding away from us
at close to light speed. The stars aren't going anywhere by
themselves. They're held in place by gravitational attraction. It's
the light from the receding galaxies that tells us the universe is
expanding. Red-shifted light is like the sound of a passing train whistle.
When a train passes a stationary observer, the pitch of the whistle
drops, as the sound waves lengthen and it's the same
with receding galaxies; only it's light, not sound, that tells us the
speed and direction of the galaxy. The red wavelengths of galaxies
flying away from us are extended, and that shift in extension can be
measured."
"But you still haven't told me how you know that." replied Tom. "How
do you know red- shifted light means galaxies are moving away from us?"
"Because," said Sara, "forty or fifty years ago, the astronomer Edwin
Hubble figured out how to measure the distances. When Hubble's
distances were combined with Vesto Sipher's measurements of different
galaxies' spectral line shifts, the linear velocity distance law was
deduced. Applying that law to the known red-shifted light of distant
galaxies resulted in a perfect straight line graph of the
galaxies--the longer the red-shift, the more distant the galaxy, the
more distant the galaxy, the greater the recession velocity."
"You're going to have to do better than that to convince me," replied
Tom. "All that tells me is that when W, X, and Y come together, Z
follows. How am I supposed to know that Z is a galaxy moving away from
me at the speed of light, or close to it? Why couldn't those
red-shifts be caused by something else? In fact, Hoyle, Bondi, and
Gold, all astronomers and physicists, suggested that they might be
caused by the continuous creation of matter; matter created out of
empty space. Their theory is called the "Steady State Theory" and, in
that view, stars and galaxies are born, go through life cycles,
die out, and new stars and galaxies replace them,-- continuously.
That's why the universe looks the same today as it always did, or ever
will. According to their theory, the universe is not evolving."
"That's ridiculous!" said Sara, "matter can't be created from nothing."
"Why not?," Tom replied. "Where did the `Big Bang' come from anyway?
Where did the `exploding energy' come from? What exactly existed
before the `bang' occurred? If everything started with a `bang,'
wouldn't the distant galaxies, the oldest galaxies, be clustered
together? When they were created the universe was much younger,
smaller, and, according to your theory shouldn't first generation
galaxies be grouped together? Of course, there not. The universe is
expanding uniformly. And what about quasars? It's their red-shifts
that have made them such enigmas. If they really were that far away,
then, according to your theory, they must be emitting as much energy
as 1000 Milky Way galaxies. How can an object packaged in a body much
smaller than a galaxy emit so much energy? Those objects cannot even
be imagined, red-shifted spectral light or not. If you ask me,
Einstein should have stuck to his original cosmology. He was much
closer to the truth when he looked at his equations and saw a static,
spherical universe, a universe where moving in a straight line meant
you would eventually return to your starting point. A bunch of red
lines have kicked us out of that universe."
God, it had been a long time, way too long for me; I really missed
conversations like that—the kind of talk that, if you’re really
lucky, you might find in a bar full of university students, but hardly
anywhere else. In Deadwood, conversations with more theory than facts,
more questions than answers, just do not happen. I looked at the
steady state theory guy, Tom, and said, wasn't it Einstein who said,
"The static universe was the biggest blunder of my life?" Before Tom
could speak, Sara jumped into the conversation with the answer.
"Well, not exactly," she said. "It's true that Einstein didn't
immediately accept the idea of an expanding universe, but he was
distracted by another problem, one that kept him from pursuing the
implications contained in his own equations, implications that
supported the experimental data that Hubble had already gathered. The
problem was that Einstein was too busy to notice. The Russian
physicist, Alexander Friedmann was the one who finally concluded,
after his own investigation of Einstein's field equations, that we
were living in an expanding universe. Meanwhile, Einstein was still
pondering that other anomaly that followed from his equations, the one
that suggested there was a fifth force in nature, a force that hadn't
been discovered yet.
In addition to the four forces-- electromagnetic, nuclear, weak, and
gravity another force was needed to keep the universe from collapsing
in on itself. Newton had the same problem, as Einstein, but he solved
it with the hypothetical method. He reasoned something like this: in
an infinite universe where stars were distributed uniformly, there
would be no overall center for the universe to collapse into;
therefore there would be no collapse. But that explanation wasn't good
enough for Einstein, so he postulated a fifth force, a force that was
repulsive rather than attractive, -- a pushing force to balance the pull
of gravity. As it turned out, in an expanding universe, that force
wasn't needed because the expansion itself kept the universe from
collapsing. The fact remains, though, that Einstein's equations
suggest that there is another force in nature. Someday, maybe,
Einstein will get credit for yet another incredible discovery. If that
turns out to be the case, I suspect, as blunders go, Einstein's
preoccupation with the static universe concept won't seem so stupid."
Glancing over at C.S., I could tell I was in trouble. She was sitting
alone and I was sure she thought I was ignoring her. I told Sara and
Tom that I had to go to the bathroom, and then went to see how C.S.
was doing. By the look on her face, I could see that she was not in
the best of moods. "Can I get you a beer," I said. "I'm going for
another one."
"Yeah," came the reply, "and while you're at, why don’t you get one
for that girl you’ve been talking to. You looked like a kitten going after
mother's milk. You embarrassed both of us. Apparently, your vocabulary
lacks the word “discreet!"
"We were just talking, that's all," I said. "What did you expect? This
is a party. If it bothered you that much, why didn't you come over and
join us? You probably would have gotten bored, though. We were talking
about astronomy."
"You didn't have to tell me that," C.S. shot back, "From all the way
over here I could see the stars in your eyes. Why is it that guys
drop to their knees and become asses, especially some guys, when a new
skirt shows up? Why is that, anyway?"
"Shit! That's not fair," I said. "She, Sara, is an intelligent, not to
mention talented, girl. You know, every once in a while it's nice to
talk to someone different, especially when she knows what she's
talking about."
"What the fuck is that suppose to mean?" C.S. shouted back. "You don't like
talking to me? Or is it that talking to me doesn't make you drool.
Shit, next time we talk remind me to hold up one of your Playboy
centerfolds. The problems of the world ought to get solved with that
conversation!"
"Fuck this. Go get your own beer!" I said. "I'm going for a hike."
"Take the puppy," C.S. shot back. "Do something useful. Don't worry
about me. The party is just getting started."
Holding on to the dog, I walked past Sara who rose to get a better
look at the puppy. I was embarrassed. I told her the puppy and I were
going exploring. She nodded, and handed me her fifth of vodka, "Here,
take this," she said, "I think you need it more than I do." I thanked
her and took a swig. "Yeah, I think you're right," I replied, and then
I walked on, holding the bottle in one hand and the puppy in the
other. I never looked back.
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