Aunt P looked suspiciously at the loose hydrogen atoms I’d brought back to the Void. Don’t you dare measure me with those gadgets, she said. But I was only … No ifs, ands, or buts, said my aunt. I am unmeasurable, and I aim to stay that way. Period. I don’t want some half-witted creature in some universe or other quoting my measurements. Just don’t bring those gadgets into the Void. Let them stay where they are. Amen, said Uncle.
It seemed that I was the only one who took pleasure in the new clocks and rulers.
Galaxies and Stars
Bound by causal necessities, requiring not a single touchup or tinker from me, events in Aalam-104729 proceeded on their own with an impressive inevitability. As the universe continued to expand, its material contents cooled further and further. The brilliant displays of light slowly dimmed. And the attractive force of gravity began to dominate and reshape the terrain. Whereas before, small condensations of matter would quickly evaporate under the high heat, now they grew larger and denser. Lumps of material, most of it hydrogen gas, began to condense here and there. In the past history of the universe, matter had been rather evenly spread about, but now there were ridges and valleys, arches, amorphous aggregations, all bunching themselves up into ever denser bulges as each particle of mass gravitationally attracted other particles. The smooth, almost fluid topography of matter before had been beautiful, but these architectural constructions were even more beautiful. There were linear filaments. There were sheets. There were hollowed-out spherical cavities. There were ellipsoids and spheroids and topological hyperboloids. Great clouds of hydrogen gas swirled and flattened and spun out spiral wisps and trails. And within these spinning galaxies of matter, smaller knots of gas formed, collapsed on themselves, and grew denser and hotter—in opposite fashion to the rest of the universe, which was thinning and cooling.
After 1031 ticks of the atom clocks, a wondrous new phenomenon occurred. Each knot of gas in each galaxy had reshaped itself into an almost perfect sphere, which grew hotter and hotter as it contracted under its own gravity. Eventually, the heat was so high in these globules of mass that their hydrogen atoms began to fuse with each other to make helium atoms, the next simplest element after hydrogen. In every atomic tick, trillions of these fusions occurred, releasing vast quantities of nuclear energy. Just moments before, these ubiquitous spheroids of gas had been only dark pebbles in the darkness of space. Now they were shining, bursting forth with energy. The first stars had been born.
I remember where and when I beheld the first star in the universe. Actually, I was taking a long walk in the Void with my uncle, listening to him hum his favorite piece of music, a dissonant screech of a tune, when I noticed something change inside Aalam-104729. A tiny light shone in one of the billions of dim galaxies. (Uncle has since named this particular galaxy that spawned the first star Ma’or, and the first star itself Al-Maisan.) Looking more closely, I saw that a single globule of mass, less than one-trillionth the size of the galaxy, was producing all the light. Such a tiny speck in comparison to the galaxy. Yet it was unmistakable. In the black reaches of space, this single pinprick of light could be seen. It gleamed and it pierced. The ultraviolet radiation emanating from this dollop of matter raced outward in all directions into the surrounding gas and disintegrated the nearby atoms, tearing the electrons from their protons. As the electrons reunited with the protons, cascading down to lower and lower energy levels and emitting light as they did so, a spherical cocoon of gas around the star began to glow with violets and yellows and oranges and reds. The star now appeared as a point of ultraviolet light at the center of a soft glowing cloud of many colors.
Then, one by one, other stars ignited. There. And there, and there. Now there were hundreds, thousands, millions of ultraviolet points surrounded by soft glowing clouds. And then, as I was watching, a different galaxy, a million galactic diameters away, began to light up with stars. There. Then another. Another. Billions of galaxies were sparkling with stars.
Look, Uncle, I said. Do you see what has happened in our universe? But, of course, Uncle Deva could not see into the universe, which was at that moment sitting quietly in Aunt Penelope’s lap as she rocked in her chair. From the outside, Aalam-104729 looked the same as it had before, although it continued to get larger as always. From the outside, there was no hint of the metamorphosis inside. Come, I said, I will show you. And I compressed my aunt and uncle to small dancing dots and took them into the universe and led them through space, from one galaxy to the next, a galaxy at each stride. For billions of ticks, they said nothing. They only nodded and smiled.
I never saw anything like this, said Aunt P. I … I never saw anything like this. I would like some of these things in the Void. Can you bring them back home to the Void? I am not sure that is a good idea, dear, said Uncle Deva. Why is it not a good idea? Because, said Uncle, the Void has its own essence. And this universe has its own essence. These beautiful lights should stay here, where they belong. We can visit. Oh, it is such a beautiful, beautiful thing you have created, Nephew. I did nothing but make a few organizational principles, I said. I am tired of your modesty, said Aunt P. For once, can you not admit that you are a genius? You are an artist of the highest rank. And a mathematician of the highest rank, said Uncle Deva. And a physicist. All of those things, said my aunt. We have genius in our family, I have always known that. Wait, said Uncle Deva. I can hear something. Listen. Do you hear it? I hear it, said Aunt P. It is music, lovely, like in the Void, but different. It is the music of the galaxies, said my uncle.
Planets
While Uncle Deva, Aunt Penelope, and I were striding between the galaxies, the largest stars underwent yet another transformation. With almost all of their hydrogen fused into helium, these stars could no longer generate sufficient heat to fight against the inward pull of gravity, and they began contracting again. The collapse picked up speed. As the gaseous material crashed inwards upon itself, the center of each star grew denser and denser, and the temperatures mounted and mounted to a much greater degree than before. Eventually, the temperature was so high that the helium atoms began fusing together, to make beryllium. Then the beryllium atoms, too, began fusing to form boron and carbon and oxygen. As the collapse continued, the temperatures increased still more, and heavier and heavier chemical elements were synthesized: fluorine and neon, sodium and magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorous, gallium, yttrium, molybdenum, palladium, cesium, barium, tungsten and osmium and iridium and radium. All of these complex atoms I had contemplated as theoretical possibilities, but it was a pleasure to see them actually created by inevitable events at the centers of stars, without any intervention by me. Cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect. On and on and on, the atomic nuclei rushed into one another and joined and produced heavier and heavier nuclei, bigger and bigger atoms. The energy release was enormous. Of course, we all understood—Aunt P and Uncle D and I, as we watched in amazement—that no material entity could withstand such colossal energy without breaking apart. Sure enough, each star soon exploded, spewing all the new chemical elements it had manufactured into space. Each detonation reverberated far into the surrounding nebulae, hurling out fragments of new matter and flaming with the luminosity of an entire galaxy. The cosmos flared and crackled and boomed, there were billions upon billions of such explosions. One by one, the beautiful stars were destroying themselves, starting with the most massive stars. Each left behind a rapidly spinning dark core and a cloud of faintly glowing debris.
At this juncture—I was counting the ticks of the atomic clocks, and it was now about 2 x 1031 ticks since the formation of the first atoms—the material that floated about in the galaxies consisted not only of hydrogen gas, but also of lumps of iron and carbon and silicon and other chemical elements forged in the stars. This enriched material did not so much float as it swirled in eddies, here and there, imparted with rotational motions from the lopsided explosions of the stars. In each galaxy, many beaconing lights remained, the lower-mass stars tha
t had not exploded but were quietly burning down to dim nubs.
But the cosmos was not quiet for long. Under the relentless force of gravity, the cold swirling matter again began to pull itself together, to compactify, and to collapse. Soon the enriched material had again formed gaseous spheres, which were growing hotter and hotter as they contracted. In another 1031 atomic ticks or so, the gaseous spheres formed a second generation of stars. I must say that whereas I had been oblivious to time before the first clocks, now I found myself almost obsessed with time. Against my better judgment, I kept looking at the hydrogen clocks, ruminating on how much time passed between events. Another 1031 atomic ticks. Then another.
These new stars were different from their forebears. First, they contained a mélange of chemical elements and not simply pure hydrogen. Second, each of these stars was surrounded by a revolving disk of gas and debris, accented here and there with lumps of solid, compacted material. The lumps, however, were too small to ignite nuclear reactions at their centers. Instead, they collapsed to form inert solid balls. Having condensed out of a rotating disk, revolving about a central star, these solid balls also orbited the central star. These were the first planets. Planets. As with stars, I was fascinated by the effortless appearance of such distinct objects in space. In fact, planets orbited the majority of second-generation stars. There were far more planets than stars. Some solar systems contained only a single planet orbiting its central star, like a hydrogen atom. Other stars harbored as many as a hundred planets.
And what an extraordinary assortment of planets they were! Some were so close to their central star that they melted into spheres of molten sulfur and silicon and iron. Others were sufficiently far that they froze. Some were at intermediate distances, such that atoms and molecules covered their surfaces in liquid oceans, neither too hot to evaporate nor too cold to freeze. For example, there were planets of liquid water, of liquid ammonia and methane, of liquid bromine, of liquid mercury. The liquid oceans were particularly beautiful. Jostled by winds, their surfaces rippled with liquid waves. These glided across the surfaces, crest to trough to crest, glittering with starlight and reflecting the colored atmospheres above. Some liquid waves were so delicate and slight that they dissipated after traveling a short distance, barely leaving a memory of their presence. Others, fierce and rough, rose up to great heights and pushed a quarter way round the whole planet. I believe that the ocean waves were music in material form.
Interesting little contraptions, said Aunt Penelope, the little balls flying about the beautiful lights. What are they good for, Nephew? I don’t know yet, I said. Do I have to know everything straight off? Well then, said Aunt, why did you make them? What did you have in mind? OK, OK, I said. They made themselves. Gravity made them. They’re not as pretty as the lights, Aunt P said, and she reached up and flicked off a lump of potassium that had gotten tangled in her hair. Not everything has to be pretty, said Uncle Deva. These things will have some eventual use, I am sure of it. And look how nicely they whirl about at different speeds.
Following the inexorable laws of gravity, the planets closest to their central stars completed each orbit relatively quickly, while those far away required much more time. Indeed, in some extreme solar systems, an inner planet could make thousands of orbits about the central star in the time it took an outer planet to make one orbit, so that a year on the second planet would equal ten thousand years on the first. Other variations existed. Some planets were so small that they were irregularly shaped, with mountains nearly as tall as the diameter of the planet. Others were so big that they could almost ignite nuclear reactions within their interiors and become stars. Many of the new planets had magnetic fields, which looped out into space in pretty dipole patterns and funneled electrically charged particles in their vicinity.
In addition to orbiting its central star, almost every planet spun about its own axis. This spinning was again a consequence of the rotational motion of the primordial disk—which was, in turn, a consequence of the lopsided explosions of the first generation of stars. Cause and effect, cause and effect. It was almost mundane, these rigid chains of events, but the visual phenomena were far too interesting and new to be mundane. Even Aunt Penelope was amused by the spinning of the planets. From one solar system to the next, she poked at the rotating worlds, as she did with fleeting folds of the Void, until Uncle D stopped her.
The spin of the planets produced a charming effect. From any fixed vantage point on a planet, the sunlight was not constant, but varied in time. While your position faced your central star, you would be bathed in light. Somewhat later, when your planet had spun a half turn around, you would experience almost complete darkness. Thus, on each planet, a day of light was followed by a night of darkness, followed by a day, and a night, and so on, in a regular and periodic fashion. Described in other terms, the spinning of the planets naturally produced a separation of darkness and light, and this separation varied from one planet to the next. As there were billions upon billions of planets, all spinning at different rates, the length of the day varied enormously, being on some planets as short as 1019 atomic ticks, while on others as long as 1021 ticks. In short, there were trillions of different days (and nights) throughout Aalam-104729.
The progression of days and nights on the planets naturally led to regular changes in temperatures, variations in the densities of atmospheres, wind movements like cyclones and hurricanes and seaborne typhoons. But there were other, more subtle artistic effects. The slow shift of the light through each day caused shadows to drift, shorten and lengthen, producing constantly changing silhouettes. The summits of mountains, which might be pink in the mornings, turned violet and amaranth in late afternoon. At certain times of the day a landscape might appear craggy and hard, and at other times the same landscape could seem delicate and soft, like evanescent veils in the Void. These phenomena could not be quantified, like temperatures and densities. Instead, they heightened one’s sensations. They seeped into one’s insides. Like music, they created a feeling that was not there before. They absorbed and reshaped the world of the imagination. With changes in light, shapes constantly changed. Air sparkled and glowed, then subsided to near invisibility. On the planets with volatile liquids, great clouds of water or ammonia evaporated into the sky, and these produced further variations in light. The days and the nights yielded not only different colorations, but also different smells and sensations and tonalities of sound.
Few of these phenomena I had predicted. See there? I said to Aunt Penelope, as if it were exactly as I had intended. And there? I waited for her response. Yes, yes, she finally said, which was as close to approval as she would allow.
At a certain moment of time, a particular planet in the universe completed its first rotation, before any other planet, the end of its first day. This was the first day in the universe. I noted when this happened, and it was good (or at least satisfying), and this was the end of the first day on that planet. Then, in another galaxy, 1029 light-atomic-ticks away, another planet completed its first rotation, its first day, and I noted when this happened, and it also was good, and this was the end of the first day on that planet. Then, 1030 light-atomic-ticks away, another planet completed its first rotation, and then another, and another. At various places and times in the universe, various planets, all with different rates of rotation, completed their first days. There, and then there, and later over there. There were billions and trillions of first days, all of them good. All in all, I was satisfied with what I had done.
The Emptiness in Somethingness
As I glided through the cosmos, I was taken with the relatively vast distances between things. Even though there was matter, the great majority of space was almost completely empty—not empty in the fashion of the Void, but possessing extremely little material. Galaxies of stars and planets and other material filled only about one-tenth of 1 percent of the volume of space. The other 99.9 percent of the universe was almost complete vacuum. Even within the galaxies, solar
systems were far apart from one another. Starting at one solar system, I often had to travel a distance equal to the size of ten thousand solar systems to get to the next solar system. If intelligent beings ever arose on a planet in Aalam-104729, they would be separated by huge distances from other planets with life and probably never know of one another. And the separations would grow only larger with time, as the universe continued to expand.
Dissatisfactions, Disagreements, and Other Unpleasantries
After watching the formation of galaxies and stars and planets, I had a sensation unlike any I’ve ever had before. It was a kind of fullness. But it was more than a fullness, it was an overfullness, because I felt as if new things had been created within Me—an odd turn of events, since it was I who had created Aalam-104729. Or more precisely, I had created the laws and organizational principles, the matter and energy, from which everything followed. One might have thought that every new thing in that universe was already inside Me. But this did not seem to be the case. As with the invention of the quantum, I felt that I had been changed. I felt that my imagination had been amplified and enlarged. I felt that I knew things I hadn’t known before, and I felt larger than before. How was it possible that something I’d created from my own being was now larger than my being? Is it possible that the created can create its creator? I was baffled and pleased at the same time, although that pleasure eventually led to certain displeasures.
It was not only Me. All of us felt that we had been changed. Our sense of ourselves had changed. Our perceptions had changed. For example, the Void now seemed even more empty than before. The Void, of course, had always been absolutely empty of all things, a perfection of absence. For eons of unmeasured time, Uncle Deva, Aunt Penelope, and I had rejoiced in the total emptiness of the Void. That emptiness, that complete nothingness, was one of the central and eternal absolutes of existence. That nothingness was the starting point of all action and thought, in fact, was the background that defined action and thought, that defined somethingness. We had all felt, without articulating the feeling, that the Void might actually be necessary for our existence. As the total emptiness of the Void was clearly an essential part of its nature, we celebrated that emptiness.