by Neha Rajesh, I B.Sc. Physics
When the theme of this month's issue of Stellaeidoscope edition was decided, I saw joyful reactions and overexcited writers and poets, but what I felt within myself, I didn't see in anyone else.
If you're wondering what I felt...it's fear.
Yes, you read that right.
F.E.A.R.
No, wait! I'm not afraid of stars or of nebulae or even aliens. It's the infiniteness of space that terrifies me. To explain it better, here's an illustration --
Imagine space to be a desert. Imagine getting stuck in the middle of the desert. There's no one one around you, only dunes and dunes, stretching wide. You can't decide which direction to go because you aren't even sure if there's an end to the desert. Soon you'll be tired and alone. You're sure of it. Everything is indeterminate.
Well, I hope that gave you a little insight into this quite stupid fear.
Now the roots of this fear started when I was a kid and would have nightmares about getting lost in space and never being found again. I mean, come on, does Space just go on and on? What's beyond it? You jump out of space, you still end up back in it.
So, I spent some time reading about the infiniteness of the universe and ended up getting confused by Einstein's theory of relativity and the 4th dimension (kinda embarrassing, considering the fact that I'm a physics student) which basically says that space and time combine to form a single dimension.
Then, in the middle of all this comes the black hole. Think of it… If a black hole absorbs or ‘eats up’ the entire universe, what will remain? Just the black hole or an empty, infinite space with a black hole? Or will the black hole eat the emptiness up too?
Now the above questions were almost completely unscientific and based purely on imagination, because,
a) the size of black holes is much smaller than their galaxies, and
b) most matter in space is very far away from the absorbing field (event horizon) of the black hole.
Well, now that we know that we're safe from the black hole, let's decide on a boundary for space. Is space within an extramundane cube? Is it in a sphere? If it's within a sphere or a cube, what's outside the sphere or the cube?
However, we can all agree that reality of space is as unpredictable as the morrow (that is, unless you are Doctor strange or Nostradamus or some genius astrologer). So why not just accept Theology or Einstein and give this matter some space?