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Friday, January 8, 2021

Do You Live in an Open Universe?

"One of the best gifts you can give to someone is a wider perspective.  It's also one of the best gifts you can receive." ~ C. JoyBell C.

There were often two paths to studying Computer Science as an undergraduate when the career was relatively young.  This was true where I went to school.  I took a rather meandering route to becoming a Computer Scientist, as I actually started out at another college altogether (where this wouldn't have been an option) studying Humanities.

I won't tell that entire story today since I got a late start on this blog tonight.  I had two choices.  I could be in the Engineering College and take the path through Electrical Engineering (a very stark route, I felt - even worse, you were very limited in the other courses you could take outside of engineering).  The second path was to get a degree in Mathematics, and then you would be in the College of Arts and Sciences, with total freedom.  The choice was obvious to me.

I had always liked astronomy, and I took a series of classes in Astrophysics because I enjoyed the topic so much.  Because I had free choices in the College of Arts and Sciences, this path was open to me.  One of the lessons I have often pondered had to do with whether the Universe was open or closed.  An open Universe keeps expanding.  A closed Universe expands and then collapses.  And there was even a model of a bouncing Universe which could go open up, collapse, then open up again, then collapse, then open up, continually.  I read recently this has become even more nuanced, what could happen, in a Multiversal model, and I can't quite recall now what that was well enough to explain it, but I sense I will revisit this topic again.

The point of this post is a question.  We always have a choice.   Open or closed? 

 

 

Waves photo by Susan Larison Danz. 

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