The Reluctant Universe: Dialogue IV — On Cosmic Expansion

Characters:

Professor Quillibrace

Mr Blottisham

Miss Elowen Stray

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Blottisham:

The universe is expanding! Flying apart like a runaway balloon! Surely all matter will scatter into oblivion!

Quillibrace:

Not scattering in panic, Mr Blottisham. Expansion is a relational scaling of space itself.

Elowen Stray:

So galaxies aren’t hurtling through space…

Quillibrace:

Exactly. They’re mostly at rest relative to their local geometry; the distances between large structures increase.

Blottisham:

But the Big Bang! A singularity? A cosmic explosion?

Quillibrace:

Not an explosion in space. A growth of space. The metaphor misleads more than it illuminates.

Elowen Stray:

So the “bang” is more like stretching a fabric than a detonation?

Quillibrace:

Precisely. Space itself grows. Objects follow its polite cues.

Blottisham:

And dark energy? Is that what’s accelerating the expansion?

Quillibrace:

It’s a name for an observed relational effect: the tendency of distant structures to recede faster than expected.

Blottisham:

Tendency? So we don’t actually know what it is?

Quillibrace:

We know its effect. The ontology does not demand a mechanism beyond the relational description.

Elowen Stray:

So the trouble with cosmic expansion…

Quillibrace:

…is that metaphors outrun mathematics, and imagination outruns patience.

Blottisham:

Then the universe is polite, but I feel so alarmed anyway.

Quillibrace:

Alarm is a human luxury. Physics remains unperturbed.

Elowen Stray:

And yet, seeing distances grow makes it almost tangible…

Quillibrace:

Yes. Tangible in observation, not melodrama.

Blottisham:

Very well. I shall try to admire expansion quietly, without imagining fireworks.

(Blottisham takes a deep breath; Elowen smiles at the orderly elegance of the cosmos, Quillibrace sips his tea serenely.)