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}