12.3.11

13.7 billion years.


The Andromeda Galaxy, seen in ultraviolet light.

NASA

The Andromeda Galaxy, seen at ultraviolet wavelengths. This mosaic covers a region 200,000 light-years wide and is made up of 330 individual images taken by NASA's Swift satellite.

The State Of The Universe Address


Will humans figure out what is fueling my fast expansion?
I love the name they gave to it, “dark energy,” as quaint as their notion of time. I hope they won’t get carried away by giving it a name and attribute to it properties it doesn’t have. They did this with space and time, these two inventions to describe distance and change. They need concepts to organize their thoughts, certainly. But to make those concepts into real things can be confusing. As when they say that space is expanding or time is ticking away and take these things literally. Nah, these are just ways to organize measurements, nothing that exists on its own. But I have confidence they will see all of this in due time. When they figure out why I’m expanding fast now and what is this thing they call dark energy, some of these mysteries will be cleared up. Only, of course, to give rise to new ones. Meanwhile, I’ll keep expanding, creating and destroying worlds, to my great enjoyment and, of course, to that of humans. After all, let me be frank. Even I am an invention of their minds. We are all in this together.


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