The Cosmos is not fully understood as of today.
Let me explore what is. I think that we can truly say
The world exists. That fact is absolutely clear.
Were it not so we could not possibly be here.
Since it exists the world must surely have a history.
But even that, it seems, is something of a mystery.
Our universe is very old, so some folks say,
But even then our world must have begun one day.
No matter what, it’s infinite to some, world without end.
We can’t be sure of that, some say, believing it must still expand.
Some see a universe that comes and goes. Some think
That it will stop expanding, then will cool and shrink.
This wide, wide universe may seem to be a lonely one,
But probably it’s not at all the only one.
Why should it be unique, some ask. as sure as any
There could be plural universes, even many.
Another question is: how big a world, how far
Is it from galaxy to galaxy, from star to star?
In early days we thought in terms of miles, by millions.
Today we count in light years which add up to trillions.
Some stars we think are helium that’s very, very hot.
There is much hydrogen around, but water surely not.
What swirls between the stars, some say, is nothingness and just
The right amount of rock and ice and dust.
An older theory proposed a stuff called ether.
Seems there is no such thing. It’s different all together.
We talk of protons, neutrons, electrons, and things,
Of energy in particles, in waves, in quanta, braids, and strings.
We hear of trillions of neutrinos, particles that have no weight,
As well as Bosons, things Professor Hicks has found of late.
Then there is stuff we cannot see, called dark and heavy matter.
New theories, alas, pop up that don’t inform us laymen any better.
How long, we ask, did all this take to come about?
More than a billion years, there can be little doubt.
Of course some still believe God made the All from dirt
In just six days. Not likely, after all we’ve heard.
In fact, some scientists now speculate the universe just always was;
No Big Bang there, and no primordial crater,
And by extension, if there’s logic, no creation, no creator.
The problem is: how can a thing just be, yet not begin, and have no end?
The Faithful have a simple out: “Why don’t we leave all that to God?”
Does that explain the riddle of infinity? To my mind, not.
(c) 2018 by Herbert H. Hoffman