[extropy-chat] Was the Big Bang Dodecahedral?

[Terry W. Colvin]

Forwarding permission was given by William R. Corliss.

Science Frontiers, No. 151, Jan-Feb, 2004, pp. 1 & 2
< http://www.science-frontiers.com >

ASTRONOMY

Was the Big Bang Dodecahedral?

A decade ago, in SF#93, we reported seismographical data suggesting that the
solid iron core of the earth was crystalline in nature.  It is thought that
this iron is a high-pressure phase of iron organized in close-packed
hexagonal geometry.  Now, there are data supporting the idea that the
*universe as a whole* is dodecahedral; that is, organized as a regular
12-sided figure with pentagonal faces---this being the highest order regular
solid in geometry.  If this is all verified, nature obviously prefers
orderliness on all scales.

The observations suggesting that the debris from the Big Bang explosion was
nicely geometrical came from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
One's expectation from terrestrial experience, though, is that explosions
do not produce highly organized debris patterns.

Contrary to such naive expectations, the WMAP data seem to show that the
universe's temperature correlations vanish at large scales.  In non-technical
terms, the implications are that the universe is *not* infinite and,
furthermore, *does* possess regular structure.  The geometrical shape that
best accounts for the missing long waves is a dodecahedron.  Of course, this
is still all very tentative and under review.

But we cannot refrain from mentioning two amusing effects dictated by a
dodecahedral universe.

   *Photons, spaceships, and other objects passing through decadehral[sic] space
would experience a twist.  The universe-as-a-whole would, therefore, possess
handedness.  Could this be related to the handedness (chirality) exhibited
in all terrestrial biochemistry?

   *If a spaceship crossed one of the twelve faces of the postulated
dodecahedron, it would appear *instantly* outside the opposite face of the
dodecahedron.

Sure, this is all counterintuitive, but so is quantum mechanics.

(Luminet, Jean-Pierre, et al; "Dodecahedral Space Topology as an Explanation
for Weak Wide-Angle Temperature Correlations in the Cosmic Microwave
Background," *Nature*, 425:593, 2003.  Seife, Charles; "Polyhedral Model
Gives the Universe an Unexpected Twist," *Science*, 302:209, 2003)


Some 2,500 years ago, sans WMAP, Timaeus of Locri, noting the *mystical*
correspondence between the four "elements* of nature (fire, air, earth, and
water) and the four other regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, and
icosahedron), ventured that the remaining fifth regular solid, the
dodecahedron, *must* envelope the universe.

(Giomini, Claudio; "Timaeus's Insight on the Shape of the Universe," *Nature*,
425:899, 2003)



[Science Frontiers is a bimonthly collection of digests of scientific
anomalies in the current literature.  Published by the Sourcebook Project,
P.O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057.  Annual subscription: $8.00.]


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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