The View From Left Field

I'm going to spitball a really wild theory just to see if it makes anyone else accept the possibility that someone knows.

Let me lay out the scenario and then we'll get into recorded belief of the local people involved. Their belief is that some et presence (or at least intervention) was involved, but we'll get to that later. Ready to go off road?

Good. The year is 1908. The place is, as you may have guessed, is Tunguska, Russia. The Earth experiences a fairly big bang. At the time, people notice the results of this blast, but it's so far from anything like civilization that it doesn't make any long term difference. There are bright skies at night that may point to the meteorite being a comet fragment rather than a rocky boulder. The gasses released by a comet fragment may well have been spread after the high altitude explosion, resulting in the materials being excited the same way they would have been in space.

Now, let's look at what we know, what we should be able to figure out, and then consider some strange 'why's.

We know approximately how high the thing was when it popped. We have a decent guess at how fast it was going. We have a really detailed survey of how big an area was flattened and what way the trees were pointing. This should let us find out the direction it was going and the angle of incidence, if we work at it. There have been studies done of the blast patterns of air burst explosions. This is really critical and we must have this nailed down in order to ask the right questions.

Now. There is a local myth(?) that calls the Tunguska area involved "the valley of death". The locals say there are seven 'upside down kettles' that they say were left there by the gods to keep things from coming down from outer space. There have been some weird happenings that may confirm this, but nothing that can be called proof has been found.

Here is the question: if the meteorite had been coming in at a shallow angle, where would it have impacted and what was there in 1908?

If anything was already at the impact site, what was it and was it something that was important to someone and if so, who? All in all, it makes for interesting conversation.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Let's get one thing straight right away- a "theory" = "it's my opinion". That's a piece of scientific language that never made it into your average dictionary. This fact has created an truly ginormous amount of fuzzy thinking and incipient chaos, simply because when people hear the term theory emitted by a scientific "authority", they assume that that person is telling them facts.

The word 'fact' is innocuous and well known. The trouble is that there are a lot fewer facts around than there are theories.

A well-known case of this is the issue of "dark matter" and "dark energy". The prevailing theory at the moment is that for galaxies and galactic-scale structures to exist, there must be dark matter to provide enough gravity to keep things from flying apart and following entropy down the nearest storm drain. Then they had to theorize dark energy in order to fit the observed fact that the universe is still expanding. GAH!

What a mountain they got out of that wormhole...I mean molehill. If you are willing to see how my theory (😄) of the universe-as-bubble fits the facts, you will note that it explains things pretty darn well without adding dark anything. The anti-matter universe is likely plugging along as it should on the negative side of space, just as devoid of "light matter" and energy. I don't have any idea how I can prove any of this. I speculate that you may have to exist outside the universe before you can begin to see what's going on. Disappointing, to say the least. Oh, yes, the anti side? On the inside of the balloon, of course. We have observed white and black holes. Points of equalizing matter inside and out. Or I should say energy. Matter being 'crystal' structures of energy.

This, then, is the ultimate roadblock. We don't have the tools to examine existence in big enough or small enough detail to find real facts. Next time you find yourself near a theoretical physicist, ask him if you can borrow a few ounces of dark matter.

No, we will have to scribble our pictures of the real world in fuzzy blobs of chalk dust on the walls of the cave we call Earth. Our entire civilization of 5 or 10 thousand years is such a ridiculously short time that it's a wonder we've gotten as far as the invention of the bicycle in that time, much less any understanding of the universe.

Good News!

No, I didn't win the lottery. It's simply that you can stop worrying: the universe isn't ending. In fact, I don't see any end. This would be a big disappointment to physicists who want to know if the universe is cyclic or steady-state. All I can tell them is No. If you insist on there being more than one universe (which I have to admit is one thing we currently have to take on faith), then consider an alternative.

One view we could take is that universes are constantly being born, like grapes on a vine. They come into being, grow, and (supposedly) die. As I've said, I theorize that our universe's load of galaxies exist on the skin of a balloon that is still inflating. Since the balloon is non-material, I don't see any need for a size limit. And would we know it if we hit the limit? Perhaps. I think the sign would be if the most distant galaxies suddenly stopped receding at faster than the speed of light. They might even stop receding at all. That hasn't happened yet. I know that some people have prophesized that our universe will eventually run out of matter to be converted to energy and there will be no more new stars. Since we currently have no handle on things like white holes, black holes, and dark matter, I just can't see any way to formulate an answer to that.

But...

I'm losing sleep again.

Darn tv keeps running programs that remind me of something I'd rather not deal with, because I don't have an answer yet. But I sure do have an unanswer!

What about gravity?

What about gravity???

Yes, it's doing all kinds of things, like sticking our butts to our chairs and holding the universe together. However, if you approach a physicist and ask him what gravity is, I'm betting you get a neatly formatted little talk about what it does and how it keeps everything together, blah... blah... blah... This is mostly because nobody has yet explained what gravity is. Hell, we can't even detect gravity! It's true and don't let them try to talk their way around it. They can't even show you a gravity detector of any kind. You can dare any one of them to show you one. You might win a free drink...

This bothers me. That's because I'm right in there with them. We can detect electricity, magnetism, and something we like to call electromagnetism. But not gravity.

So, we are really stuck. Things are as clear as the atmosphere of Jupiter. We can demonstrate electricity, I'm fairly sure. That fat spark between terminals of opposite polarities is pretty convincing. But what, then, is the big difference between electricity and magnetism? Magnetism has polarity. Oh, yes, nobody has yet shown magnetic sparks. Hmm. And the electromagnetic spectrum? Uh, does that mean we can 'tune in' different frequencies of magnetism?

I don't even want to get involved with gravity, at this point. I can certainly understand why physicists don't spend time worrying about gravity. Frankly it gives me a headache, and I've had enough of those as I dealt with the flu this winter. I will keep trying to figure out where gravity comes from and how we can get a better hold on it, but this is not going to be an overnight fix.

There is something hinky about the business where two objects of different masses are attracted at the same rate by gravity. I know that it has been demonstrated, but if their explanation of gravity is right, it shouldn't work that way. So somebody has been playing fast and loose and hoping we don't look too closely at where the coin goes when they wave the cloth.

Like I said, I'll keep working at it.