The Origin of Everything

two cosmicomical tales offer new and ingenious interpretations of "genesis"

All At One Point

Through the calculations begun by Edwin P. Hubble on the galaxies' velocity of recession, we can establish the moment when all the universe's matter was concentrated in a single point, before it began to expand.

Naturally, we were all there--old Qfwfq said--where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time, either: What use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?

I say packed like sardines, using a literary image; in reality, there wasn't even space to pack us into. Every point of each of us coincided with every point of each of the others in a single point, which was where we all were. In fact, we didn't even bother one another, except for personality differences, because when space doesn't exist, having somebody unpleasant like Mr. Pbert Pberd underfoot all the time is the most irritating thing.

How many of us were there? Eh, I was never able to figure that out, not even approximately. To make a count, we would have had to move apart, at least a little; and, instead, we all occupied that same point. Contrary to what you might think, it wasn't the sort of situation that encourages sociability; I know, for example, that in other periods, neighbors called on one another; but there, because of the fact that we were all neighbors, nobody even said good morning or good evening to anybody else.

In the end, each of us associated only with a limited number of acquaintances. The ones I remember most are Mrs. Ph(i)Nko, her friend De XuaeauX, a family of immigrants by the name of Z'zu and Mr. Pbertt Pberd, whom I just mentioned. There was also a cleaning woman--"maintenance staff," she was called--only one, for the whole universe, since there was so little room. To tell the truth, she had nothing to do all day long, not even dusting--inside one point not even a grain of dust can enter--so she spent all her time gossiping and complaining.

Just with the people I've already named, we would have been overcrowded; but you have to add all the stuff we had to keep piled up in there: all the material that was to serve afterward to form the universe, now dismantled and concentrated in such a way that you weren't able to tell what was later to become part of astronomy (like the nebula of Andromeda) from what was assigned to geography (the Vosges, for example) or to chemistry (like certain beryllium isotopes). And, on top of that, we were always bumping against the Z'zu family's household goods: camp beds, mattresses, baskets; these Z'zus, if you weren't careful, with the excuse that they were a large family, would begin to act as if they were the only ones in the world: They even wanted to hang lines across our point to dry their washing.

But the others also had wronged the Z'zus, to begin with, by calling them "immigrants," on the pretext that, since the others had been there first, the Z'zus had come later. This was mere unfounded prejudice--that seems obvious to me--because neither before nor after existed, nor any place to emigrate from, but there were those who insisted that the concept of "immigrant" could be understood in the abstract, outside of space and time.

It was what you might call a narrowminded attitude, our outlook at that time, very petty. The fault of the environment in which we had been reared. An attitude that, basically, has remained in all of us, mind you: It keeps cropping up even today, if two of us happen to meet--at the bus stop, in a movie house, at an international dentists' convention--and start reminiscing about the old days. We say hello--at times somebody recognizes me, at other times I recognize somebody--and we promptly start asking about this one and that one (even if each remembers only a few of those remembered by the others), and so we start in again on the old disputes, the slanders, the denigrations. Until somebody mentions Mrs. Ph(i)Nko--every conversation finally gets around to her--and then, all of a sudden, the pettiness is put aside and we feel uplifted, filled with a blissful, generous emotion. Mrs. Ph(i)Nko, the only one that none of us has forgotten and that we all regret. Where has she ended up? I have long since stopped looking for her: Mrs. Ph(i)Nko, her bosom, her thighs, her orange dressing gown--we'll never meet her again, in this system of galaxies or in any other.

Let me make one thing clear: This theory that the universe, after having reached an extremity of rarefaction, will be condensed again has never convinced me. And yet many of us are counting only on that, continually making plans for the time when we'll all be back there again. Last month, I went into the bar here on the corner and whom did I see? Mr. Pbert Pberd. "What's new with you? How do you happen to be in this neighborhood?" I learned that he's the agent for a plastics firm, in Pavia. He's the same as ever, with his silver tooth, his loud suspenders.

"When we go back there," he said to me in a whisper, "the thing we have to make sure of is, this time, certain people remain out.... You know who I mean: those Z'zus...."

I would have liked to answer him by saying that I've heard a number of people make the same remark, concluding: "You know who I mean: Mr. Pbert Pberd...."

To avoid the subject, I hastened to say: "What about Mrs. Ph(i)Nko? Do you think we'll find her back there again?"

"Ah, yes.... She, by all means ..." he said, turning purple.

For all of us, the hope of returning to that point means, above all, the hope of being once more with Mrs. Ph(i)Nko. (This applies even to me, though I don't believe in it.) And in that bar, as always happens, we fell to talking about her and were moved; even Mr. Pbert Pberd's unpleasantness faded, in the face of that memory.

Mrs. Ph(i)Nko's great secret is that she never aroused any jealousy among us. Or any gossip, either. The fact that she went to bed with her friend, Mr. De XuaeauX, was well known. But in a point, if there's a bed, it takes up the whole point, so it isn't a question of going to bed, but of being there, because anybody in the point is also in the bed. Consequently, it was inevitable that she should be in bed also with each of us. If she had been another person, there's no telling all the things that would have been said about her. It was the cleaning woman who always started the slander, and the others didn't have to be coaxed to imitate her. On the subject of the Z'zu family--for a change--the horrible things we had to hear: father, daughters, brothers, sisters, mother, aunts; nobody showed any hesitation, even before the most sinister insinuation. But with her, it was different: The happiness I derived from her was the joy of being concealed, punctiform, in her, and of protecting her, punctiform, in me; it was at the same time vicious contemplation (thanks to the promiscuity of the punctiform convergence of us all in her) and also chastity (given her punctiform impenetrability). In short: What more could I ask?

And all of this, which was true of me, was true also for each of the others. And for her: She contained and was contained with equal happiness, and she welcomed us and loved and inhabited all equally.

We got along so well all together, so well that something extraordinary was bound to happen. It was enough for her to say, at a certain moment: "Oh, if I only had some room, how I'd like to make some noodles for you boys!" And in that moment we all thought of the space that her round arms would occupy, moving backward and forward with the rolling pin over the dough, her bosom leaning over the great mound of flour and eggs that cluttered the wide board while her arms kneaded and kneaded, white and shiny with oil up to the elbows. We thought of the space that the flour would occupy, and the wheat for the flour, and the fields to raise the wheat, and the mountains from which the water would flow to irrigate the fields, and the grazing lands for the heards of calves that would give their meat for the sauce; of the space it would take for the sun to arrive with its rays, to ripen the wheat; of the space for the sun to condense from the clouds of stellar gases and burn; of the quantities of stars and galaxies and galactic masses in flight through space that would be needed to hold suspended every galaxy, every nebula, every sun, every planet. And at the same time we thought of it, this space was inevitably being formed, at the same time that Mrs. Ph(i)Nko was uttering those words--"Ah, what noodles, boys!"--the point that contained her and all of us was expanding in a halo of distance in light-years and light-centuries and billions of light-millennia, and we were being hurled to the four corners of the universe (Mr. Pbert Pberd all the way to Pavia) and she, dissolved into I don't know what kind of energylight-heat, she, Mrs. Ph(i)Nko, she who in the midst of our closed, petty world had been capable of a generous impulse--"Boys, the noodles I would make for you!"--a true outburst of general love, initiating at the same moment the concept of space and, properly speaking, space itself, and time, and universal gravitation, and the gravitating universe, making possible billions and billions of suns, and of planets, and fields of wheat, and Mrs. Ph(i)Nkos, scattered through the continents of the planets, kneading with floury, oil-shiny, generous arms, (continued on page 179) Origin of Everything (continued from page 82) and her lost at that very moment, and us mourning her loss.

Games Without End

When the galaxies become more remote, the rarefaction of the universe is compensated for by the formation of further galaxies composed of newly created matter. To maintain a stable median density of the universe, it is sufficient to create a hydrogen atom every 250,000,000 years for 40 cubic centimeters of expanding space. (This steady-state theory, as it is known, has been opposed to the other hypothesis, that the universe was born at a precise moment as the result of a gigantic explosion.)

I was only a child, but I was already aware of it--Qfwfq narrated--I was acquainted with all the hydrogen atoms, one by one; and when a new atom cropped up, I noticed it right away. When I was a kid, the only playthings we had in the whole universe were the hydrogen atoms, and we played with them all the time, me and another youngster my age named Pfwfp.

What sort of games? That's simple enough to explain. Since space was curved, we sent the atoms rolling along its curve, like so many marbles, and the kid whose atom went farthest won the game. When you made your shot, you had to be careful, to calculate the effects, the trajectories; you had to know how to exploit the magnetic fields and the fields of gravity; otherwise, the ball left the track and was eliminated from the contest.

The rules were the usual thing: With one atom you could hit another of your atoms and send it farther ahead, or else you could knock your opponent's atom out of the way. Of course, we were careful not to throw them too hard, because when a hydrogen atom and a neutron knocked together, click!--a deuterium atom might be formed, or even a helium atom; and for the purposes of the game, such atoms were out: What's more, if one of the two belonged to your opponent, you had to give him an atom of your own to pay him back.

You know how the curve of space is shaped: A little ball would go spinning along and then one fine moment it would start off down the slope and you couldn't catch it. So, as we went on playing, the number of atoms in the game kept getting smaller, and the first to run out of atoms was the loser.

Then, right at the crucial moment, these new atoms started cropping up. Obviously, there's quite a difference between a new atom and a used one: The new atoms were shiny, bright, fresh and moist, as if with dew. We made new rules: One new was worth three old; and the new ones, as they were formed, were to be shared between us, 50-50.

In this way, our game never ended and it never became boring, either; because every time we found new atoms, it seemed as if the game were new as well, as if we were playing it for the first time.

Then, what with one thing and another, as the days went by, the game grew less exciting. There were no more new atoms to be seen: The ones we lost couldn't be replaced; our shots became weak and hesitant, because we were afraid to lose the few pieces still in the game, in that barren, even space.

Pfwfp was changed, too: He became absent-minded, wandered off and couldn't be found when it was his turn to shoot; I would call him, but there was never an answer, and then he would turn up half an hour later.

"Go on, it's your turn. Aren't you in the game anymore?"

"Of course I'm in the game. Don't rush me. I'm going to shoot now."

"Well, if you keep going off on your own, we might as well stop playing!"

"Hmph! You're only making all this fuss because you're losing."

This was true: I hadn't any atoms left, whereas Pfwfp, somehow or other, always had one in reserve. If some new atoms didn't turn up for us to share, I hadn't a hope of catching up with him.

The next time Pfwfp went off, I followed him, on tiptoe. As long as I was present, he seemed to be strolling about aimlessly, whistling; but once he was out of my sight, he started trotting through space, intent, like somebody who has a definite purpose in mind. And what this purpose of his was--this treachery, as you shall see--I soon discovered: Pfwfp knew all the places where new atoms were formed and every now and then he would take a walk, to collect them on the spot the minute they were dished up, then he would hide them. This was why he was never short of atoms to play with!

But before putting them in the game, incorrigible cheat that he was, he set about disguising them as old atoms, rubbing the film of the electrons until it was worn and dull, to make me believe this was an old atom he had had all along and had just happened to find in his pocket.

And that wasn't the whole story: I made a quick calculation of the atoms played and I realized they were only a small part of those he had stolen and hid. Was he piling up a store of hydrogen? What would he do with it? What did he have in mind? I suddenly had a suspicion: Pfwfp wanted to build a universe of his own, a brand-new universe.

From that moment on. I couldn't rest easy; I had to get even with him. I could have followed his example: Now that I knew the places. I could have gone there a little ahead of him and grabbed the new atoms the moment they were born, before he could get his hands on them! But that would have been too simple. I wanted to catch him in a trap worthy of his own perfidy. First of all, I started making fake atoms. While he was occupied with his treacherous raids. I was in a secret storeroom of mine, pounding and mixing and kneading all the material I had at my disposal. To tell you the truth, this material didn't amount to much: photoelectric radiations, scrapings from magnetic fields, a few neutrons collected in the road; but by rolling it into balls and wetting it with saliva, I managed to make it stick together. In other words. I prepared some little corpuscles that, on close inspection, were obviously not made of hydrogen or any other identifiable element, but for somebody in a hurry, like Pfwfp, who rushed past and stuck them furtively into his pocket, they looked like real hydrogen and spanking new.

So while he still didn't suspect a thing, I preceded him in his rounds. I had made a mental note of all the places.

Space is curved everywhere, but in some places it's more curved than in others: like pockets or bottlenecks or niches, where the void is crumpled up. These niches are where, every 250,000,000 years, there is a slight tinkling sound and a shiny hydrogen atom is formed like a pearl between the valves of an oyster. I walked past, pocketed the atom and set the fake atom in its place. Pfwfp didn't notice a thing: Predatory, greedy, he filled his pockets with that rubbish, as I was accumulating all the treasures that the universe cherished in its bosom.

The fortunes of our games underwent a change: I always had new atoms to shoot, while Pfwfp's regularly missed fire. Three times he tried a roll and three times the atom crumbled to bits as if crushed in space. Now Pfwfp found one excuse after another, trying to call off the game.

"Go on," I insisted, "if you don't shoot, the game's mine."

And he said: "It doesn't count. When an atom is ruined, the game's null and void and you start over again." This was a rule he had invented at that very moment.

I didn't give him any peace; I danced around him, leaped on his back and chanted:

"Throw it throw it throw it,If not, you lose, you know it.For every turn that you don't takeAn extra throw for me to make."

"That's enough of that," Pfwfp said. "Let's change games."

"Aha!" I said. "Why don't we play at flying galaxies?"

"Galaxies?" Pfwfp suddenly brightened with pleasure. "Suits me. But you ... you don't have a galaxy!"

"Yes, I do."

"So do I."

"Come on! Let's see who can send his highest!"

And I took all the new atoms I was hiding and flung them into space. At first they seemed to scatter, then they thickened together into a kind of light cloud, and the cloud swelled and swelled, and inside it some incandescent condensations were formed, and they whirled and whirled and at a certain point became a spiral of constellations never seen before, a spiral that poised, opening in a gust, then sped away as I held onto its tail and ran after it. But now I wasn't the one who made the galaxy fly, it was the galaxy that was lifting me aloft, clinging to its tail; I mean, there wasn't any height or depth now, but only space, widening, and the galaxy in its midst, also opening wide, and me hanging there, making faces at Pfwfp, who was already thousands of light-years away.

Pfwfp, at my first move, had promptly dug out all his hoard, hurling it with a balanced movement, as if he expected to see the coils of an endless galaxy open in the sky. But, instead, nothing happened. There was a sizzling sound of radiations, a messy flash, then everything died out.

"Is that the best you can do?" I shouted at Pfwfp, who was yelling curses at me, green with rage.

"I'll show you, Qfwfq, you pig!"

But in the meantime, my galaxy and I were flying among thousands of other galaxies and mine was the newest, the envy of the whole firmament, blazing as it was with young hydrogen and the youngest beryllium and newborn carbon. The old galaxies fled us, filled with jealousy, and we, prancing and haughty, avoided them, so antiquated and ponderous to look at. As that reciprocal flight developed, we sailed across spaces that became more and more rarefied and empty; and then I saw something appear in the midst of the void, like uncertain bursts of light. These were new galaxies, formed by matter just born, galaxies even newer than mine. Soon space became filled again and dense, like a vineyard just before vintage time, and we flew on, escaping from one another, my galaxy fleeing the younger ones as it had the older, and young and old fleeing us. And we advanced to fly through empty skies and these skies also became peopled, and so on and on.

In one of these propagations, I heard: "Qfwfq, you'll pay for this now, you traitor!" and I saw a brand-new galaxy flying on our trail, and there leaning forward from the very tip of the spiral, yelling threats and insults at me, was my old playmate Pfwfp.

The chase began. Where space rose, Pfwfp's galaxy, young and agile, gained ground; but on the descents, my heavier galaxy plunged ahead again.

In any kind of race, there's a secret: It's all in how you take the curves. Pfwfp's galaxy tended to narrow them; mine, to swing out. And as it kept broadening the curves, we were finally flung beyond the edge of space, with Pfwfp after us. We kept up the pursuit, using the system one always uses in such circumstances; that is, creating space before us as we went forward.

So there I was, with nothingness in front of me and that nasty-faced Pfwfp after me--an unpleasant sight either way. In any case, I preferred to look ahead, and what did I see? Pfwfp, whom my eyes had just left behind me, was speeding on his galaxy directly in front of me. "Ah!" I cried, "now it's my turn to chase you!"

"What?" Pfwfp said, from before me or behind me, I'm not really sure which. "I'm the one who's chasing you!"

I turned around: There was Pfwfp, still at my heels. I looked ahead again: And he was there, racing off with his back turned to me. But as I looked more closely, I saw that in front of this galaxy of his that was preceding me there was another, and that other galaxy was mine, because there I was on it, unmistakable even though seen from behind. And I turned toward the Pfwfp following me and narrowed my eyes: I saw that his galaxy was being chased by another, mine, with me on top of it, turning at that same time to look back.

And so after every Qfwfq there was a Pfwfp, and after every Pfwfp, a Qfwfq, and every Pfwfp was chasing a Qfwfq, who was pursuing him, and vice versa. Our distances grew a bit shorter or a bit longer, but now it was clear that one would never overtake the other nor the other overtake one. We had lost all pleasure in this game of chase and we weren't children anymore, for that matter, but now there was nothing else we could do.