"Imagine a time when the entire universe froze. According to a new model for dark energy, that is essentially what happened about 11.5 billion years ago, when the universe was a quarter of the size it is today." Science Daily, May 11, 2009 (via their blog article here)
A frozen universe. An intergalactic popsicle. What a concept!
And, according to the article, "A cosmological phase transition — similar to freezing — is one of the distinctive aspects of this latest effort to account for dark energy — the mysterious negative force that cosmologists now think makes up more than 70 percent of all the energy and matter in the universe and is pushing the universe apart at an ever-faster rate."
Now there's a bit of fun! I can't help but see such an event as a cosmological milestone that would affect the primal (and heretofore unquestioned in the sense of things that are (generally, ignoring quantum physics or gross features beyond our human senses) immutable, even inscrutible.)
How, for example, would time function before vs. after The Big Popsicle Event (TBPE)? What if the observed activities of time are reversed from their previous state? What if before TBPE time runs backwards from where we are now? Obviously it would appear to run forward to creatures then; but it wouldn't necessarily to us. And what if time travel were possible, but only could truly run backwards from our perspective if we jumped back 11.5 billion years so we were 'going forward' by going backwards? I can imagine a few scenes from that.
So there's one idea to play with. We can ask questions about gravity--what if gravity didn't exist before TBPE? Or the polarity of atoms. Say the electron was positive, the proton negative? Or what if the reason some really weird effect, such as the photon being neither a particle nor a wave, are different in the pre-TBPE? Essentially: What If physical laws were different, and how would the clash of pre-TBPE and post-TBPE matter interact? Could the secret of wormholes be the remnants of TBPE harnessed, or a recreation on a small scale of its precursor. Could attempts at insterstellar FTL travel initiate a new Big Popsicle Event?
I'm not up enough on the new quantum physics to let my imagination roam to more exotic locales than what you see here; but if you read up on bosons, quarks and what not you might find some interesting ideas blooming in the quantum realm, as well. Of course, they need to create big effects in the gross world of man before you can use them in a novel. But an interesting What If session nevertheless.
Now, happy writing you guys!
as long as it's an orange popsicle, i'm all for it ;) lol
Posted by: laughingwolf | May 11, 2009 at 04:44 PM