True to Science Sci-Fi: Pocket Universes
How Gregory Benford Integrates Real Physics into 'Cosm'
Sep 18, 2008
In the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons™ a pocket universe resides within the tiny Bag-of-Holding, and allows for an object of any size to be carried and retrieved easily. In Marvel's X-Men comics, a little boy created a pocket universe which is a twin of our own, which he carried a portal to in a little blue ball. In Cosm, Gregory Benford doesn’t focus on the use of his pocket universe, but instead he builds a science fiction novel based around the creation, life, and death of one.
Theoretical Physicist Alan Guth’s Inflationary Universe is Basis for Cosm
The concept in Cosm is based around theoretical physicist Alan Guth’s theory of an Inflationary Universe. The main character, Alicia, births a mini-Universe as an unexpected result of a uranium experiment in her university physics lab. She names it Cosm and watches as Cosm mirrors the theoretical evolution of our own Universe. Benford does incredibly well in explaining what is scientifically happening to the Cosm and how it is similar to our own Universe.
Baby Universe: From Big Bang to Death
In accordance with the Inflationary Universe theory, the Cosm starts with a ‘big bang’. The mysterious explosion in the lab is a clue to the fact that this universe begins with the same big bang as our own. Within a fraction of a second, the incredibly hot and dense universe super cools and then super expands from very teensy to much larger. All this happens too fast to notice during Alicia’s uranium experiment, and it isn’t until the smoke clears and the debris settles that she even notices the new universe.
Cosm on Logarithmic Scale Mirrors Our Universe
Similar to our own Universe, the Cosm soon has its own recombination line, in which the mush of particles come together to form nuclei, as elections and protons find each other. This process results in a burst of photons for a young Universe, which in the novel results in the death of a character. This process is thought to have occurred in our Universe at around 400,000 years after the Big Bang. When the time is adjusted for its exponential scale, this is about the same time this happens in the Cosm.
False Vacuum to Create a Pocket Universe
Guth’s theory allows for the creation of such pocket universes as the Cosm though a process known as a false vacuum. A false vacuum is a low energy state that isn’t actually a vacuum but is nonetheless very stable. How a false vacuum could be created as the unlikely side effect of a uranium collision experiment is something unexplored by Benford. He does, however, explain that some kind of quantum-tunneling must have occurred, with energy near the Planck scale of 1.22 GeV. This process yields a quark-gluon plasma, out of which a pocket universe could theoretically birth.
Benford’s Creative Liberties Keep in Sci-Fi
A pocket universe created in such a quark-gluon plasma should> only exist for a fraction a second before it explodes and disappears. A tiny black hole is also possible. What would unlikely appear is a shiny bowling ball object like the Cosm, that is able to ‘held’ and measured by scientists. At this point, Benford employs the idea of negative energy density struts to hold open the universe. While negative energy is a viable theory on its own, it hasn’t really been explored by Guth or other universe specialists as a way to ‘hold open’ a universe. It is, however, a nod to String Theory, which allows for such odd situations as negative density due to extra-spatial dimensions. Benford uses this theory as a more abstract plot device, however scientifically accurate the stand-alone theory may be.
Miracle struts and uranium collisions aside, Benford’s depiction of a baby universe’s life complete with hydrogen recombination, background radiation, stars, galaxies, matter jets and infinite expansion serve to show the public the beauty and wonder of our universe’s history.
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