God is Love

God is love, and
he who abides in love abides in God,
and God in him.
(1 John 4:16)

Listen! Love Never Fails

My favorite Christian worship song and band!

Your Love Never Fails, by Jesus Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoezWBPGRAc

The title of this song is based on the following verses from the Bible:

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)

Love

 ¹If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Law of Conservation of Energy -- and Transformation

The Law of Conservation of Energy (First Law of Thermodynamics) states that 
        energy cannot be created or destroyed,
        only transformed.


Thoughts possess energy, so I wondered what happens to thoughts?  And then I wondered about the soul.  After this law became widely accepted, how did religious leaders respond?   


I found two religious responses:
1) The Catholic Encyclopedia has a section on the Conservation of energy and the human soul, which I am still striving to understand.
2) A page from a site about Buddhism has the following:

Karma

Karma is a Sanskrit word from the root "Kri" to do or to make and simply means "action." It operates in the universe as the continuous chain reaction of cause and effect. It is not only confined to causation in the physical sense but also it has moral implications. "A good cause, a good effect; a bad cause a bad effect" is a common saying. In this sense karma is a moral law.

Now human beings are constantly giving off physical and spiritual forces in all directions. In physics we learn that no energy is ever lost; only that it changes form. This is the common law of conservation of energy [emphasis added]. Similarly, spiritual and mental action is never lost. It is transformed. Thus Karma is the law of the conservation of moral energy.

By actions, thoughts, and words, man is releasing spiritual energy to the universe and he is in turn affected by influences coming in his direction. Man is therefore the sender and receiver of all these influences. The entire circumstances surrounding him is his karma.

With each action-influence he sends out and at the same time, receives, he is changing. This changing personality and the world he lives in, constitute the totality of his karma.

Karma should not be confused with fate. Fate is the notion that man's life is preplanned for him by some external power, and he has no control over his destiny. Karma on the other hand, can be changed. Because man is a conscious being he can be aware of his karma and thus strive to change the course of events. In the Dhammapada we find the following words, "All that we are is a result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts."

What we are, then, is entirely dependent on what we think [emphasis added].  Therefore, the nobility of man's character is dependent on his"good" thoughts, actions, and words. At the same time, if he embraces degrading thoughts, those thoughts invariably influence him into negative words and actions. 

          Source: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/reincarnation.htm

Sounds of Auroras and Astral Phenomena

Annotated links to videos and sounds from auroras, 
planetary magnetospheres, and the sun.


Listening to the Northern Lights
(A Minnesota Planetarium Video: Natural Radio)
When solar flares hit the Earth's magnetic field, they create auroras, and the auroras emit low frequency electromagnetic waves, a type of natural radio that can be picked up around the globe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHvdZdsIZxg

Auroral Radio Emissions (Auroral Kilometric Radiation)
This page has the sounds of auroral radio emissions,
and an animation of how they look.
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/sounds/EarthAKR/earthakr.html

Selected Sounds of Space

from Professor Don Gurnett, NASA / University of Iowa

http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/sounds/

     My favorite sound is Earth Chorus, a recording of chorus waves in Earth's magnetosphere.  The chorus waves sound like chirping birds in a tropical rain forest!

Jupiter Sounds (So Strange!) NASA-Voyager Recording

The complex interactions of charged electromagnetic particles from solar wind and Jupiter's planetary magnetosphere create vibrating soundscapes.  Like Earth, Jupiter has auroras -- but Jupiter's auroras are bigger than our entire planet!  (See NASA Science | Science News, "Big Auroras on Jupiter," March 29, 2007).  The sounds of Jupiter can be eerie or mystical or relaxing, depending on your mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fqE01YYWs

NASA's Sounds of the Sun
This video is from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded the sounds of the sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWCJkG31h0c

The Persistence of Sound, by Charles Harper Webb

A word is dead / When it is said, / Some say.

Sounds never die, some scientists say.
They fade from hearing, but keep rolling up
and down -- smaller and smaller waves -- forever.
Churchill orating, "We will never surrender,"
Nixon whining, "I am not a crook,"
Caruso singing Vesti la giubba,
Savanarola screaming "I want a hat
of blood!" -- the right machine might amplify
the air-squiggles their voices made,
pluck them like worms from a wriggling pot.

I'd love to hear my dad ask Mom to marry him.
What did they sound like, conceiving me?
(Dad yelled, Mom whimpered, is my guess;
I'd love to be surprised.) I'd love to hear
Demosthenes's Greek, and the first Indo-European,
and what those Caucasians spoke
who left their perfect mummies in Xianping.
Anthropologists could hear the first human
step onto North America and know,
by plotting sound-decay, exactly when.

The air could prove a treasure trove dwarfing
Pompeii (Vesuvius still thundering;
Romans shrieking, buried alive.) Still, I hope
some sounds didn't survive: You poison me!
I picture Kevin when I come with you!
Maybe sound slops up and down just briefly,
then is cancelled out.  Otherwise,
someday we'll buy tapes of Jurassic birds,
of trees toppling in forests with no one to hear,
the crash retained in air the way a gold
bracelet torn by a Viking off an Irish
arm and melted down, retains traces
of serpent form, and the soft freckled skin
that warmed it, that the girl passed down to me --
the way a pterosaur's atoms (returned
to earth, re-used over and over) retain
in their vibrations every fish it ate, the squawks
it made feeding its young, the splash
when its heart -- so like mine -- stopped
and dropped into the undulating sea.

(Source: Verse & Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics, Edited by Kurt Brown, 1998)

Good Vibrations: The Healing Power of Sounds & Music

"Practice creative listening.  Get quiet so that insights can come through your mind." -  from the entry for September 22 in Positive Thinking Every Day, by Norman Vincent Peale

The book The Mozart Effect by Don Campbell (1997) explains how sounds and music can help heal people, and even accelerate learning and creativity.

[This post is incomplete, as of 11:30pm, PST, Sept. 22, 2010]

Sound Creates Form (Let there be sound!)

In the beginning, God said, "Let there be light."  But before there was light, there was sound -- because God spoke.

Let there be sound!

In my last post, I discussed the power of positive thoughts.
Now, I am researching sound waves (words and music).

Here are some links:

Seeing Sound Waves

[Caution: Do not listen to this with earphones]

This video shows the geometric forms created by increasing sound frequencies, or sound waves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9GBf8y0lY0

Water, Consciousness & Intent: Dr. Masaru Emoto
Dr. Emoto has shown that water is affected by sound vibrations and thoughts.  This video includes a lengthy explanation of Dr. Emoto's research.  [The book The Secret Life of Plants has scientific evidence that plants are also affected by sound vibrations.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAvzsjcBtx8

NASA Sound of the Sun Exposed to Water (Experiment by David Sereda and Saida Medvedeva)

This experiment builds upon work done by Dr. Masaru Emoto.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0aLUJscQnM

Sound Vibration Creates Form (David Icke)
Mr. Icke talks about sounds at the molecular level (how they affect our health), as well as the cosmic level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCmGjD9j9bU

[This post is not complete, as of 10pm PST, September 24, 2010.  More will be added later....]

"With Our Thoughts, We Create the World" - Buddha

Thoughts have power.
Thoughts have might.
Thoughts have energy.
Thoughts have light.
Thoughts cause words & actions --
good and bad.
Bad thoughts can make us sick.
Bad thoughts spoken out can simmer,
because words, like toothpaste all squeezed out,
can't be put back -- bad words just linger
in the atmosphere, like a haze [-in a maze-].
So think thoughts of power.
Think thoughts of might.
Think thoughts of LOVE,
and LOVE day and night.
-AuroraGirl

The Power of Positive Thinking

The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale, was written in 1952.  It is still relevant for today, and is written in a style that is very easy to understand and apply.  The book applies scientific methods or techniques to the practice of Christian principles.  For example, the chapter "Try Prayer Power" includes a list of 10 techniques for effective prayer.

10 Ways to Achieve Powerful Prayer
1. Set aside a few minutes every day.  Do not say anything.  Simply practice thinking about God.  This will make your mind spiritually receptive.
2. Then pray orally, using simple, natural words.  Tell God anything that is on your mind.  Do not think you must use stereotyped pious phrases.  Talk to God in your own language.  He understands it.
3. Pray as you go about the business of the day, on the subway or bus or at your desk.  Utilize minute prayers by closing your eyes to shut out the world and concentrating briefly on God's presence.
4. Do not always ask when your pray, but instead affirm that God's blessings are being given, and spend most of your prayers giving thanks.
5. Pray with the belief that sincere prayers can reach out and surround your loved ones with God's love and protection.
6. Never use a negative thought in prayer. [emphasis added] Only positive thoughts get results.
7. Always express a willingness to accept God's will.  Ask for what you want, but be willing to take what God gives you.  It may be better than what you asked for.
8. Practice the attitude of putting everything in God's hands.  Ask for the ability to do your best and leave the results confidently to God.
9. Pray for people you do not like or who have mistreated you.  Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power.
10. Make a list of people for whom to pray.  The more you pray for other people, especially those not connected with you, the more prayer results will come back to you.

After reading The Power of Positive Thinking, I came up with a slogan,
and put it where I will see it every day:

Believe it
to
Achieve it!

Fractals*, by Diana Der-Hovanessian

Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare - Edna St. Vincent Millay

Euclid alone began to formulate
the relation of circle, plane and sphere
in equations making it quite clear
it was symmetry that we must contemplate.

He left the jagged convoluted form,
rambling rivers, wind turbulence and rain;
ignored clouds, coastline and storms,
and the whorl of tree, skin and terrain,

to map the triangle, cone and square.
Euclid measured order and left the knot
of chaos to be unraveled by Mandelbrot
who found truth in the course of blood and air.
Euclid looked on beauty stark and bare,
but Mandelbrot appraised her everywhere.

* [Fractal geometry was] invented in 1975 by Benoit Mandelbrot to find order in chaotic shapes and processes

(Source: Verse & Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics, Edited by Kurt Brown, 1998)

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line. —Mandelbrot, in his introduction to The Fractal Geometry of Nature

In 1982, Mandelbrot updated and expanded fractal geometry in The Fractal Geometry of Nature.  For more on Mandelbrot -- including pictures of fractals -- see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoît_Mandelbrot

Wonderous Folk Beliefs about Aurora

(This list does not include beliefs from people who were scared by auroras.)


Many Japanese tourists visit Yellowknife, Alaska.  Do they visit because they believe that going to the Northern Lights will make unborn children smarter? (Also see the next video) Ice Road Truckers: Aurora Borealis. (2010). The History Channel website. Retrieved 12:52, September 17, 2010, from http://www.history.com/videos/ice-road-truckers-aurora-borealis.

Many Japanese people trek it out to the rough Alaskan terrain to see Aurora Borealis.  One woman claims that Japanese tourists go to the Northern Lights in the belief that it will bring them closer to the spirits of their ancestors [I am still doing research to try to confirm or disprove this claim].   

Tougher in Alaska: Flocking to the Arora. (2010). The History Channel website. Retrieved 12:44, September 17, 2010, from http://www.history.com/videos/tougher-in-alaska-flocking-to-the-arora.

"A story from the Northern Hebrides [in Scotland] attributes the aurora to supernatural beings called Blue Men. During an active display of the aurora the Blue Men are called the Merry Dancers, also known as na fir chlis (Gaelic for quick, nimble men). When the aurora moves rapidly, there is believed to be a battle going on between clans. The red light was attributed the the blood spilled during these battles." [1]

"The Aborigines of Australia believed the aurora australis (the southern lights) to be the dance of gods across the southern sky." [2]


"Some Salteaus, Kwakiutl and Tlingit benignly saw the aurora as dancing spirits, either human or other animals species, particularly deer, seal, salmon, or beluga." [3]


"Wonderously, the Lakota Sioux saw the light approaching and roiling in the sky to be the souls of generation yet unborn, coming toward their destination. A warm and loving account comes from the Algonquin who felt the lights were from huge fires maintained by the creator god Nanahbozho, sent to show he remembered them." [3]


"Some Eskimo of Greenland said the lights were the spirits of children who died in childbirth and could be seen dancing round and round. Other tales from neighboring tribes thought the lights were also from the realm of the dead, but anyone deceased, and signified that the passed spirits were trying to contact their living relatives." [3]


"Most elaborately, [northern] Eskimo told that there was an abyss at the edge of the world. A narrow path or bridge spanned the abyss leading the dead to a land of plenty where pain and disease no longer existed. There were spirits who guarded the path whose duties also included guiding souls to this paradise. They used hand held torches to do this, and it was these torch light which produced the aurora. When the dead spirits wished to communicate with the earthly plane they would do so by whistling thought [sic] the aurora, which is said to make such a sound. The living could answer back to the dead by respectfully whispering at the light displays. [3]


"The twisting snake-like forms of active auroral bands were often portrayed by the ancient Chinese as celestial serpents, and may have given rise to dragon legends." [2]

"The Romans called [aurora] ‘chasmata’, considering them to be the mouths of celestial caves. Some [sources] speculate that the origins of the fire breathing dragon legends of China and Europe arose from early observation of the aurora." [3]

"Russian folklore refers to the Borealis lights as ‘ognenniy zmey’, a fire dragon who comes in the night to seduce the wifes when their husbands were gone. You can almost hear the desperate pleas from the one man left in the village who did not go off to the war explain to the armed horde returning after a year’s time why all the women were pregnant, “It was the dragon, really, trust me tovarich, we all saw him, the ugly monster.”" [3]

[1] Aurora Explained Through Folklore: http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211.fall2000.web.projects/Christina%20Shaw/Folklore.html


[2]  Aurora Folklore, by Dennis L. Mammana: http://www.dennismammana.com/skyinfo/astrofacts/aurora_folklore.htm


[3]  The Folklore Surrounding the Aurora, by Craig Robertson, 365 Days of Astronomy, March 8, 2010: http://365daysofastronomy.org/2010/03/08/march-8th-the-folklore-surrounding-the-aurora/ 

Cosmic Gall, by John Updike

Every second, hundreds of billions of these neutrinos pass through each square inch of our bodies, coming from above during the day and from below at night, when the sun is shining on the other side of the earth!       From "An Explanatory Statement on Elementary Particle Physics" by M.A. Ruderman and A.H. Rosenfeld, in American Scientist.

Neutrinos, they are very small.
     They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
     To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
     Or photons through a sheet of glass.
     They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
     Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
     And, scoring barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me!  Like tall
And painless guillotines, they fall
     Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
     And pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed -- you call
     It wonderful: I call it crass.

(Source: Verse & Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics, Edited by Kurt Brown, 1998.)


Do you agree that neutrinos are crass?

I am intrigued by neutrinos.  I was just watching a series on the History Channel called The Universe (www.history.com/universe).  The show, "Magnetic Storm," was about magnetic fields in and around the sun & earth, and in atoms.  At one point, the commentator was using a fan as a way to illustrate how magnetism, or the electromagnetic force, is necessary to keep electrons spinning around an atom (much like the earth spins around the sun).  Without that magnetic force, the electrons would stop spinning, and solid things would no longer be solid.  We would fall through floors or walk through walls (just like a neutrino!).  So to illustrate that concept, the commentator showed that when the fan was not spinning, he could throw a small ball between the blades (that's like no magnetic force, when the electrons stop spinning).  But when he turned the fan on, and the blades were spinning, he was NOT able to throw a small ball through the blades.

So I am wondering: can neutrinos pass through anything because they are not affected by magnetic forces?  Or is it just because they are so small?  And what about friction?  I mean, do they ever stop?  And is their movement random?  I like to think that nothing in the world or universe is random.  Chaos theory sounds random, but actually shows that there is a beautiful order within what appears to be a chaotic system.  One way to see the beauty within chaos is by looking at fractals -- and snowflakes.  Isn't it amazing that every single snowflake is unique?  I think that is amazing and awe-inspiring and life-affirming, and so beautiful that it makes me want to sing! (Beautiful, by Christina Aguilera)  I think that every being in the universe is unique and special, that we are all loved by God, and that our reason for being here is to learn, grow, and live in LOVE.

Related Film:
"Powers of Ten," by Charles & Ray Eames (1968), available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SpGu3LSEOw
This film travels away from Earth, at successive orders of magnitude, up into the universe, and then travels back again, going inside a body, to the subatomic universe of protons and neutrons, which are in the nucleus, or center, of an atom.

By the way, the show "Magnetic Storm" also explained more about auroras.  I will post more about that later....

The Brain Creates Itself, by Pattiann Rogers

A thread of tissues takes shape
As I first comprehend the red rock crossed twice
By the fringe-toed lizard at dusk.
A unique chain of cells becomes actual
As I identify the man beneath the white beech
And his influence on the nesting kiwi bird.

A new vein of reactions must arise
With my discovery of the dark star
On the rim of Sirius.  A split-second network
Must be brought into being as I find the African
Dung beetle's egg buried in the elephant bolus.
And for each unacknowledged aspect of the purple
Spikenard beside the marsh-elder-to-be, for each unrecognized
Function of the ogre-faced stick spider at dawn,
A potential neuron is absent in the frontal lobe.

Imagine the molecular structure I create
As I contemplate the Galapagos dragon
At the bottom of the ocean stopping his heart
At will, dying for three minutes motionless
In the suck and draw of the sea.  Imagine,
When I study his rapid zigzag swagger to the surface,
How a permanent line like silver makes its way
From the inner base of my skull to the top of my head.

And as I look at your face, following the contours
From your forehead to your chin, coming back again
To your eyes, I can almost picture the wide cranial
Web developing as my definite affection
For these particulars.

(Source: Verse & Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics, Edited by Kurt Brown, 1998)

I have more to say on this topic, but I'll post more later...

Aurora Imagined

Have you ever seen an aurora?
(Auroras are radiant emissions, such as Northern Lights or Southern Lights.)

This post will help you imagine an aurora, if you've never seen one.

One way to imagine (or get a mental picture) of auroras is to look at photographs.  But auroras also move and sometimes even dance (the Inuit in Alaska have a folk belief that auroras are the dancing spirits of their ancestors), so viewing videos of auroras will help your imagination really soar!  Another way to imagine auroras is by reading or listening to how people describe auroras.

To get a mental picture of auroras:
1. Look at the photographs in this post
2. Go to the "Aurora Videos" gadget in the top right of this blog for rotating videos from YouTube
3. Scroll down below the photographs in this post for another video I recommend
4. Read an excerpt from a poem about the Northern Lights, at the end of this post  


Aurora with the Moon [1]:

Pink and green aurora [1]:

Blue aurora [1]:

Aurora seen from above Earth [1]:

Aurora Australis, the southern belle (Southern Lights) [1]:

Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, from above Earth [3]:

Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, as seen from the International Space Station [2]:

Highlighted video (also see the "Aurora Videos" gadget):

Northern Lights of Alaska (Aurora Borealis)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoYiPul1WvI

This video, with original music, first shows an animation of solar flares becoming solar wind [4], which then causes Northern Lights.  At the end, it also shows footage of a real, silvery-white, dancing aurora.   

A poem excerpt:

The Ballad of the Northern Lights

by Robert W. Service

http://www.robertwservice.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=66

"Oh, it was wild and weird and wan, and ever in camp o' nights
We would watch and watch the silver dance of the mystic Northern Lights.
And soft they danced from the Polar sky and swept in primrose haze;
And swift they pranced with their silver feet, and pierced with a blinding blaze.
They danced a cotillion in the sky; they were rose and silver shod;
It was not good for the eyes of man--'twas a sight for the eyes of God.
It made us mad and strange and sad, and the gold whereof we dreamed
Was all forgot, and our only thought was of the lights that gleamed."

This poem is about a man who went north looking for gold, but 

found a far greater fortune: Aurora, the Northern Lights!

~~~~~~~~~~

[1] NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/coolpics.html

[2] NASA HumanSpaceFlight images:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-6/html/iss006e18372.html

[3] Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cms/imagedb/albums/userpics/aurora_australis.jpg

[4] This page explains solar wind: http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/SolarWind.htm

{The End}

Life in an Expanding Universe, by Pattiann Rogers

It's not only all those cosmic
pinwheels with their charging solar
luminosities, the way they spin around
like the paper kind tacked to a tree trunk,
the way they expel matter and light
like fields of dandelions throwing off
waves of summer sparks in the wind,
the way they speed outward,
receding, creating new distances
simply by soaring into them.

But it's also how the noisy
crow enlarges the territory
above the landscape at dawn, making
new multiple canyon spires in the sky
by the sharp towers and ledges
of its calling; and how the bighorn
expand the alpine meadows by repeating
inside their watching eyes every foil
of columbine and bell rue, all
the stretches of sedges, the candescences
of jagged slopes and crevices existing there.

And though there isn't a method
to measure it yet, by finding
a golden-banded skipper on a buttonbush,
by seeing a blue whiptail streak
through desert scrub, by looking up
one night and imagining the fleeing
motions of the stars themselves, I know
my presence must swell one flutter-width
wider, accelerate one lizard-slip further,
descend many stellar-fathoms deeper
than it ever was before.
(Published in Verse & Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics, Edited by Kurt Brown, 1998)

After reading this, I wondered:  
Is the universe expanding or contracting?


I checked Wikipedia, and found that most scientists believe the universe is expanding.  But their conclusions are based on sketchy understandings of dark matter/energy and the density parameter: 

"The fate of the universe is determined by the density of the universe. The preponderance of evidence to date, based on measurements of the rate of expansion and the mass density, favors a universe that will continue to expand indefinitely....  However new understandings of the nature of dark matter also suggest its interactions with mass and gravity demonstrate the possibility of an oscillating universe." [1]

What is an oscillating universe?

• The most recent oscillating universe theory is the Frampton-Baum theory (2007), which states that the universe has four cycles, that the last one "happens an infinite number of times, thus eliminating any start or end of time," and that there are "an infinite number of independent universes." [2]

• This Wikipedia page explains the theory of an oscillating universe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillating_universe 

Understanding of the universe is always changing and evolving.

• In 1968, Charles & Ray Eames created "Powers of Ten," based on the 1957 book Cosmic View, by Kees Boeke.  According to one person who posted "Powers of Ten" on YouTube, "As of 2010 the known universe is estimated to be 3 powers of ten even larger than the film depicts."  The film makes me feel similar to how I imagine the author of the poem "Life in an Expanding Universe" felt, except that the film allows the viewer to imagine both the universal level AND the subatomic level.  To view "Powers of Ten," go to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SpGu3LSEOw  OR  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRFScPVVOkE

[1]  Wikipedia, Ultimate Fate of the Universe:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
[2]  "Big Bang theory gets more competition from an endless cycle universe theory," by William Atkins, ITWire, Wednesday, 31 January 2007, 22:19, http://www.itwire.com/science-news/space/9098-big-bang-theory-gets-more-competition-from-an-endless-cycle-universe-theory

{The End}