The universe is abuzz.
I’ll understand if you want this to mean that there’s some all-encompassing web keeping us connected or some deep spiritual flow between beings, but I don’t pretend to understand anything like that. What I mean is much more literal and physical. There’s an electromagnetic hum that permeates the fabric of all space.
We explored this in class the other day, simply trying to figure out how to describe the geometry of the universe. We imagined a circle, something that you can travel around forever without coming to an edge but still having measurable size. A circle could get bigger and the inhabitants riding its circumference wouldn’t notice the expansion except that their circle friends would be gradually more distant.
While challenging to create a mental image of the universe, our metaphor is pretty close to the grand space we occupy. One piece of evidence for this is that we see distant galaxies getting ever more distant. Another surprisingly useful piece is that it’s dark at night. A lack of visible light tells us something fundamental about the universe’s size, shape and age — something to linger on when you can’t sleep. Another component to all of this is that, while it’s all dark to our eyes, there is this glow in the background that permeates everything in all directions. In essence, this creates a curtain that is the backdrop to everything else we know.
This is the buzz I’m talking about. Known as the cosmic microwave background, you have almost certainly detected this. An antenna catching froths of static on the radio or on a TV has at least some flashes from the ancient archives of space. If you look up the “CMB,” your search will almost certainly provide the image of a flattened, oval-looking map of a globe of space around us. Translating all that invisible light into light the eyes can see, the map looks like a smush of blue, green and orange.
This is where we were in class the other day, considering the diversity of these energies represented by these colors. That’s what prompted a question from the back of the room. Why, if this background is so universal, should there be different amounts of energy represented by the different colors? We were expecting to see a perfectly uniform glow.
This is a great question.
I was attempting to explain when, mid-sentence, I spotted through the back window of the class an astronomer walking by, looking back at us and the screen displaying the impressionistic canvas of CMB smatterings. “There’s an astronomer!” I exclaimed, and I ran out to the hall and invited her in. Delighted, Rachel McClure explained in more detail and with more knowledge how this ember of the universe, while granular like sand on the beach, is overall more perfectly smooth than any mirrored surface we could ever discern. What’s amazing is that we can detect these variations at all.
My first point to this entire story is that this interaction represents one of the things I love about my job and a feature of our campus I think you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. It’s a large part of what science is all about. We do this work not in the vacuum of space, but in the vibrant interactions between humans. We can only do this where we make concentrated spaces for it.
Physics attempts to figure out the very nature of space, along with time, matter and energy. In large part, we’re trying to figure out who and what we are. We often promote science programs as paths to get a job in aeronautics or dentistry, but I think that’s overrated, secondary. Give me, instead, a sense of who I am, what I’m made of and my place in the grand scheme of space.
Ultimately, this gives a sense of who we are collectively. That’s what this physics lesson helped me realize. There’s the scatter of this background that ultimately seeded galaxies, the assemblies of stars and the churn and regeneration of matter that become us. That is, looking at the CMB is a look into ourselves, our roots. And those origins, that hum, makes it possible to share the rare moment where we can collectively learn something more about who we are, how we are so dependent on one another and in this together.
Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.
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