THE ANTI UNIVERSE

 Longtime and careful readers of this blog know our fondness for cosmology. (True story. Waiting for a hearing many years ago we were reading a book -before kindle's existed, and a judge walked by in robes and stopped to chat. Judge:  "What are you reading? " Rumpole: "A book on cosmology." Dumb Judge:  "Hmm... never thought you would be interested in makeup and nails. Do you own a beauty parlor?" ... Rumpole: "Yeah, something like that."), 

There may well be an anti-universe.

To understand what that means, it is important to understand a few cosmological questions like, what happened before and just after the Big Bang and what is dark matter made of besides the oft speculated "full and complete discovery in a federal criminal case" ?

A new paper published recently in the Annals of Physics attempts to answer those questions in a simple and elegant way. 

Currently, physicists think there was a period of rapid expansion after the initial moments (well less than a second) of the Big Bang when all the matter in the universe rapidly expanded.* It took some time for that expansion to cool off and slow down, and that's all well and good except we are now fairly certain that the expansion will never stop. The universe will continue to slowly expand for eternity (or until Bill Belichick- the evil genuis-  retires, whichever comes first) making everything in the Universe farther and farther away from each other, which has ominous implications for our morning Starbucks run a few billion years from now. 

But what if, the new paper theorizes, there was not a rapid expansion/inflation period? What if from the moment of inception the universe just uniformly expanded and is continuing on it's merry way like a County Court Judge denying continuances at a calendar call? 

 If that was the case, then the existence of an "Anti-Universe" would help explain matters. Imagine at the moment of the Big Bang the formation of two universes... ours and one the complete opposite, running backward in time. In order to contemplate this, imagine jumping on a trampoline. The first time you land and the trampoline goes down and then up is the big bang. And you going up is our universe expanding. But the after effects on the trampoline as you leave it and go up is the Anti-Universe. 

The Anti-Universe would help explain the existence of dark matter. Dark matter would be made up of right-handed neutrinos, which are the counterpart to a new left-handed neutrino that would exist in the backward running universe. It would create a more elegant beginning to our universe. It's existence would be the opposite and equal reaction to the Big Bang. 

An Anti-Universe where time runs backward. Admittedly, it is kind of difficult to think about and comprehend until you remember this.....

Hialeah!

Then it all makes perfect sense. 

Proof of the Anti-Universe:

* It is a fundamental concept that at the moment of the big bang all matter in the universe existed. Which means at that moment, the building blocks for what would become Gangham Style by Psy existed. Not to mention Sarah Palin and Pete Davidson and every designated hitter. It's a deeply troubling thought. 

NFL WEEK 10 2019 /UNIVERSE IS IN CRISIS EDITION

The Magnificent Seven of the award wining REGJB Survivor Pool sprint into week ten of the NFL season, all of them confident a win is on the horizon. Messrs. Markus and Gonzalez hold their very valuable week pass, much like a lawyer with one extra preemptory challenge and only a handful of jurors left in the venire (jury panel for the judges reading the blog today). 

Indy is the pick for most of the Survivors- with Mr. Markus, Lucy Lew, Juan Gonzalez and Peter Sautter picking against Miami's Fins who roar into town riding a winning streak. Don't be too sure about this Madam and Gents. Miami has tasted the sweet wine from the winners cup. Their Coach is feeling the thrill of victory and the hunt is on against a Colts team that has some questions at QB.  
Mr. Fake Michaels, as is the nature of his doppelganger, goes off the reservation with an outlier pick of the Giants over the Jets, while Judge Faber likes the Sa8nts and Mr. Tischler exercises his right to hold his cards close to his vest and waits to pick.  

CRISES IN THE STARS?
No it's not the impeachment of POTUS. Cosmology cares little for the comings and goings of earthlings in the blink of a cosmological second. We are that small and insignificant, in case you needed some cheering up on this blustery (mid 80's) Miami day. 
Since astronomer Carl Hubble determined almost a hundred years ago that the universe is expanding, the question has always been, much like a Hialeah traffic cop holding a radar gun fixed with duct-tape for accuracy, just how fast? That number (cosmologically, not traffic wise) is called the Hubble Constant. 

Right now, what number is the Hubble Constant is in question, giving rise to multiple discussions (that Rumpole eagerly contributes to in a small way) about a "Hubble Constant Tension". Which is a gentler way of saying Cosmologists, who spend most of their lives secreted in dark rooms pondering the impenetrable are now shooting off emails to each other with the message equivalent of "Dude! You are so wrong about that!" and "Duh" in quick witted replies to responses.  Of course the actual emails look something like this: "v=HoD", where V is recessional velocity, Ho is the Hubble Constant, and D is the delta or change of observable distance in mega parsecs (MPcs). 

Different ways of measuring the HC yields different results which is never acceptable in science (except in breath testing machines for DUIs as the NY Times exposed here). 

 Looking at the way background radiation is distributed yields a number of 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec. The HC when measuring light emitted from a supernova (exploding star) is 73. And just for fun, Univ. Of Chicago cosmologists have arrived at an HC of 70  based on looking at light from giant red stars. 

This is a problem. To determine the fate of our universe, the HC is an important, if not the most important number in the equation. Unlike how Federal Judges arrive at loss amounts in Guideline Calculations- a decent estimate is all that is needed  (and that one-eye-closed guesstimate is legally good enough for arriving at a number that is merely the difference between a two and ten year sentence for a non-violent offender),  estimates in cosmological equations are frowned upon. This is science after all. We should nail it. But cosmologist cannot get a consensus at this time, thus the crisis mode for bespectacled scientists who spend their time pondering the infinite. 

Stay tuned for Rumpole's explanation of the Universe and tiny bubbles, with a Don Ho reference guaranteed. 

Meanwhile our picks for week ten are thin. This is a tough week. Take our Fins who have been a real money maker for us this year, constantly covering oversized spreads. It's not the Hubble Constant-it's the Miami Constant  and we like it for +10.5 over Indy.

 Like Mr. Fake Michaels we like the Gints -2.5 over the reeling Jets (LOSS) . Under 47 Seattle and San Fran sounds good. And if you must, take the 49ers -6 over Seattle. The Hawks just got by last week and are due for the let-down while San Fran's D is real.

Bills/ Browns under 40 (WIN) in a snoozer and something, just something tells us to take the Home Dog Brownies +3 in their Dog-Pound as they aren't as bad as their 2-7 record, and the Bills aren't as good as their 6-2 total. In other words both teams revert to the mean, a stat long time and careful blog readers know we love. (DOUBLE WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER)

Rumpole hits the road this week for a roadshow of sorts, so posts may be few with expanding dark spots, like the universe, populating our week blog-wise. But there are worse ways to spend a week then in NYC, Chi-Town, and LA. 

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

In 1965 the young English mathematician Roger Penrose devoted himself to the study of black holes, and, in 1965, he proved an important theorem which showed that a gravitational collapse of a large dying star must result in a singularity, where space-time does not exist,  and classical general relativity breaks down. 
A few years later, Penrose collaborated with his Cambridge friend and colleague, Stephen Hawking and they proved that singularities are a ho-hum feature of general relativity and that black holes are not rare events. 

In 1974 Hawking Ali-liked "shocked the world" by showing that something- now called "Hawking radiation" emits from black holes. In other words, all is not lost. Black holes are not completely black, and because they emit energy, the rules of thermodynamics hold they will not last forever. They will expend their energy and disappear.

Hawking radiation is good news for the denizens of the REGJB, specifically those who deign to enter the black hole known as the clerk's office on the 9th floor. 

Cosmology was on our mind when this missive recently crossed our email from the FACDL-Listserv 

Has anyone else reached their wits end with Harvey Ruvin?
If I have to wait in another 30+ minute 9th floor line just to get a document that should be downloadable on line...
When is enough going to be enough?

So cosmologically speaking, if black holes aren't entirely black, and they do not last forever, then an attorney entering our own REGJB black hole has some hope that her entire day is not lost waiting for help:

Clerk: May I help you?

Atty: Sure, I'd like to view a file. 

Clerk: Sure! Write the case number on the paper and I'll be right back.

Atty (panicking) Nooooo....please wait....

Clerk leaves....

Time stands still... (it is relative and inside our 9th floor black hole space-time has ceased to exist as Penrose/Hawking confirmed circa 1970.)

Clerk returns (remember, the black hole is not entirely black)

Clerk: Hi! May I help you? 

Atty: Ummm...I said I wanted a case file....

Clerk: Hang on, I'll be right back...

Atty: Noooooooooooo.........

Rinse. Repeat. 

A few hours later.....

Clerk (returning from post lunch, pre-coffee, snack break)

Here's what I have learned...the file was in court yesterday, which means it's on 8 1/2.

Atty: 8 1/2??

Clerk (rolling eyes) You've read the Harry Potter books right? The train station...platform 9 3/4, duh! Same thing, except we have floor 8 1/2. 

Atty: So I need to be a wizard to see the file?

Clerk: I don't need your attitude madam. Just walk outside, go to the elevator and run as fast as you can to the buttons on the wall. You'll see. 

From Occupied America, where clerk's office tariffs might not be a bad idea, fight the power! (but be nice to the over-worked, under paid clerks or you'll never get your file). 

THIS IS GROUND CONTROL

Longtime and careful readers of the blog know that we are, at heart, cosmologists. 
No,  that does not mean we are interested in nails, make-up and hair styling  (as a Judge who once saw a book we were holding on cosmology asked us - true story.). It means we, along with the other great minds of the twenty-first century study the origins of the universe and ponder questions about time, space, the unification between quantum mechanics (the operation of very very small particles) and special relativity (the operation of spacetime (yes, that should be one word) ).  In our cosmological world we call this GUT =Grand Unification Theory. 

BREAKING NEWS....we interrupt this fascinating article to inform you that El Gordo Cafe, the new food service area in the REGJB will be opening in February...2020. And as the multitude of bureaucrats who have worked diligently (remember the promise of food trucks to tide us over?) to bring a dining establishment back to the REGJB will tell you, this is ahead of schedule. Yup, only four short years until the folks who run things give us the ability to get a salad for lunch or a pastellito for breakfast at our beloved court house. 

Back to Cosmology. 
Many of us Cosmologists are thinking lately about what was before the Big Bang? The Big Bang was the start of it all- when in a tremendous explosion of heat our universe emerged from a particle about a million-billion-billion times smaller than a single atom. 
But what was before then?

There are two theories. One is the Two Headed Time theory- that for billions of years before the big bang there was a universe shrinking with time moving backward until the universe collapsed upon itself and then ...BANG! The universe began to expand. We like to think of this as the second chance theory. Whatever we screwed up in a prior life/universe- we get to try all over again. 

Or there is the Nothing-ness theory-  that out of nothing, came something, which then caused the Big Bang.  "In the beginning..."
Genesis 2:1 : And the earth was formless and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters." 

We know that before the big bang there was nothing. But then there came something, so small and tiny, and yet imbued with the entire contents and energy of the entire universe. This subatomic particle contained all that is and all that will be forever, because special relativity recognizes the law of conservation of mass (the first law of thermodynamics): that for a closed system the mass of the system must remain constant over time. This is commonly expressed as the saying matter cannot be created nor destroyed, merely altered. 

We know  that in Quantum Mechanics there is a proven phenomenon called Q-tunneling in which a quantum particle appears out of nothing in two different places at the same time.  
But where did that particle come from? 
Or was there nothing until the spirit of the almighty moved upon the face of the void? 

What we do know is that the Big Bang did occur. We all came out of that subatomic particle. Even civil lawyers and roller derby and Hialeah and Donald Trump supporters.  

So David Bowie passed away and we've been humming "This is ground control to Major Tom" (which isn't even a great song) all day for some reason. And we've been dabbling in cosmology. 

See you in court. Yes, when it opens in 2020, El Chappo Cafe....Gordo Cafe also emerged from the big bang. (along with cronuts, cheap beer, people who like truck-pulls, bell bottoms, and plaid sports coats, and bunny rabbits and Waterworld and Sean Penn interviewing El Chapo, and the Edsel...and Kim Jong Un's Sushi Chef.....and.... ) 

INFLATION

UPDATE: On Thursday Judge Brennan, who previously sentenced the head of crime stoppers to 14 days jail, changed her sentence to....court costs and a 300 word essay!
"I will not eat paper in court....I will not eat paper in court....I will not eat paper in court."

Long time and careful readers of the blog know that among our other varied pursuits, Cosmology holds a special interest for us. 

In the realm of Cosmology, the 64 dollar question is where did the Universe come from? While that might never be answered, the question of what was going on during the first trillionths of that first second of existence has now been answered: INFLATION. Not the kind President Gerald Ford grappled with in 1974-75, but the rapid (twice the speed of light) and uniform inflation of space/time. 

In 1979 a young physicist at Stanford spent a long evening wondering where some of the particles from that first very few moments of the Universe were. He posited that if the Universe rapidly expanded in a uniform manner at twice the speed of light, that would explain the regularity of the observable universe. What could be seen of space was not jagged but uniform. If the theory was correct, then there should be ripples in the fabric of space/time which would have occurred during those first trillionths of seconds when the Universe rapidly expanded. 

Harvard and Smithsonian Astronomers at the South Pole have recently discovered those ripples in the fabric of space/time. Inflation has now been preliminarily confirmed!

Lets take one step back: we've known for some time that everywhere we look the universe has a uniform background temperature.  We also know that the Universe is about 14 billion years old. We also know that the Universe is so large that it would take light 28 billion years to travel from one side to the other. So the Universe doesn't appear to be old enough to have scattered patches of hot and cold to mix and form a uniform temperature. But Inflation solves this conundrum. Think of looking at a hot cup of coffee from a telescope a mile away. Watching the steam rise you can estimate the temperature. Now assume everywhere you look there is a hot cup of coffee with the same amount of steam rising. How could this be if you didn't have enough time to fill the cups of coffee at the same time? This is illustrative of the paradox of the constant temperature of the universe relative to its size. 

But Inflation theory assumes that all the coffee cups were filled from one large pot of coffee almost instantaneously. This solves the paradox. 

The observations from the Harvard/ Smithsonian team need to be duplicated independently and verified. But if and when that occurs, Inflation becomes a fact not a theory with a significance equal to that of special relativity. This is a big deal. 

See you in the cosmos.