December 1994

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

     A few days ago NASA released photos to the press taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These were photos of galaxies taken from further out in space (that final frontier) than ever before. We're not talking about your normal spiral shaped galaxies you remember from Nova and Star Trek. These are weird and odd shaped fuzzies on film.

     Apparently they make your average astronomer rush to the bathroom and freak out like that guy in "The Crying Game," but not for the same reason. These space monkeys believe... (hold on to your horses)... they believe that the reason these things look so different is that we are looking back into the beginning of time. I'll wait while that sinks in.

    

     Are you back from the bathroom? Okay. So what they are saying is that because the light from the stars takes so long to get here for us to see, we are seeing stuff as it was... the past. And it follows... the further out you can see, the further back you can see... see? I have no problem with this. It's this BEGINNING OF TIME thing that gets me.

     Their theory is that we (I'm sure this is the "royal" we) are seeing back to the BIG BANG!!!!! As if that's supposed to be it! The beginning of time... bah, Humbug! Even I, with my little compact imagination can say, "If at one 'time' everything in the universe were compacted down into the size of a maraschino cherry (without the stem), then what happened BEFORE that? I mean, there are a few theories that "guess" that before that was another universe... that we (royal) are a universe that will go on expanding until we've reached the end of the "rubber band" and re-collapse down to a cherry and then BANG-O!!! There we go again... New Improved Universe, with the non-stick coating.     

     But wait! There's more! They (people with nothing better to do) also say that this has been going on, over and over and over. Is this some sort of sick joke or what? I don't like the idea that I'm on some "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" that doesn't end. Do you? Of course you don't.

     I have my own theory... would you like to hear it? I knew you would.

     If, the further out we look, the further back we look in time, then it's possible, just possible that what we'll (royal again) eventually see is a gender non-specific, age neutral, deity type that goes by many names, and is wearing a New York Yankees uniform and is smashing the hell outta that cherry! There that's it. I'd like to say more, but I'm out of time and space.

-dougg williams