Mr g (14 page)

And the universe continued to age and grow old. One by one, the stars burned up their nuclear fuel. Without replenishment, their internal heat slowly leaked away. And without heat and pressure to support them against the inward pull of their own gravity, the spent stars contracted and shrank and dwindled until they were cold and dim embers floating in space.

Planets in orbit about these dead stars no longer had a ready source of energy. Consequently, their lifeforms could no longer sustain themselves. Here and there, some few civilizations had created their own energy sources, independent of their central stars, but all energy is limited, and in time these sources too were depleted. In eons past, after the first generation of stars had passed away, a second generation had formed from the contraction of great clouds of gas. Now, however, the universe had expanded and spun out to such a degree that the gas filling the vast spaces between stars was too thin and sparse, and it was completely unable to form new stars. Gravity, once the creator of stars and the creator of life, was at this point only a feeble force in the universe.

Slowly, slowly, animate matter became extinct. The tiny fraction of material in the cosmos that had been alive, the smattering of mass that existed in the form of living and breathing beings, diminished to zero. Once again, Aalam-104729 was a sphere of dead, lifeless matter. Only now, all of its energy was in unusable form. The potential for life had been utilized and exhausted. The only future for Aalam-104729 was to continue expanding, dimming, thinning, with the particles of its dead matter getting farther and farther away from one another.

There came a point in time when only a single galaxy remained that harbored life. Uncle Deva named this galaxy Nihāya. Stars in all other galaxies had faded away, but in this galaxy, a few points of light still shined. There came a point in time when only a single planet in this galaxy contained life. The intelligent beings on this planet understood that the universe was dying, that their days as a civilization were numbered. But they could not know that they were the last in the universe. They made paintings and music and books to commemorate the end of their existence, but they could not know that there would be no future beings to witness these things. The last life on this planet was, in fact, insects and plants. There came a point in time when this too passed away. And life in the universe was finished.

“Do you have regrets?” said Belhor to me. “Knowing that there would be suffering, would you make the universe again?”

“I regret that there was suffering,” I said.

“Yes, but would you do it again?”

I entered Aalam-104729, and I glided past the dim galaxies, the dim planets, the dim stars. Again I heard voices. Voices from past civilizations that dreamed of immortality.

From the outside, Aalam-104729 looked as it always had. Aunt Penelope held it up, shook it, and listened. Then she sighed. Well, Nephew, she said, what will you do for your next one? As I remember, you wanted everything bigger.

I changed my mind, I said. I’d like the next one to be the same.

As we were speaking, billions of empty universes flew through the Void, all waiting, and waiting. They hummed and sputtered and shrieked.

The next one won’t be the same, said Uncle Deva.

No, I said, it won’t. But I would not be unhappy if it was very similar.

I think we were all rather fond of the thing, said Uncle D.

Yes we were, I said. And fond of the inhabitants.

It was a lovely thing, said Aunt P.

It was a beautiful thing, said Uncle. It had beauty. And joy. And sadness.

It had all of that, I said. It had everything.

Not everything, said Aunt. It did not have immortality.

No it did not, said Uncle. But I think maybe it did have a soul after all.

A
mortal
soul? said Aunt. Sometimes I can’t tell what you are talking about, Deva.

It’s gone now, I said. That is the nature of things. But I do miss it.

There will be another one, said Deva. And another one after that.

Yes.

OK, Nephew, said Aunt P. I’m anxious to see what the next one will be like. Let’s get on with it.

Don’t rush Him, said Uncle. He needs to take His time.

Yes yes, said Aunt. And just so that both of you know, I’d like a new dress from the next universe, like the last one.

Certainly my dear, said Uncle.

Aalam is a Muslim name meaning “universe.” Belhor, also called Belial, Baalial, and Beliar, is a demon figure in the Christian and Hebrew apocrypha. Baphomet is a twelfth-century pagan deity in Christian folklore, appearing in the nineteenth century as a Satan-like figure.
Deva
is a Sanskrit word meaning “deity.”
Nihāya
is an Arabic word meaning “ending,” used to refer to the endings of Arabic stories and Sufi poetry. Ma’or is a Hebrew name meaning “star.” Al-Maisan is an Arabic name meaning “the shining one.”

The physical creation of matter and energy, galaxies, stars, and planets, and the emergence of life follow the best current data and theories in physics, astronomy, and biology. All quantitative discussion of various cosmic events is scientifically accurate. The unit of time used by Mr g, the “tick of a hydrogen clock,” is the reciprocal of the frequency of the Lyman alpha emission from the hydrogen atom, equal to about 4 x 10
^-16
seconds.

There is no reason why Mr g would use base 10 to discuss numbers, but this base has been used here because it is the number system that will be familiar to most (Earthling) readers.

Alan Lightman is the author of five previous novels, a book-length narrative poem, two collections of essays, and several books on science. His work has appeared in
The Atlantic, Granta
,
The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books
, and
Nature
, among many other publications. His novel
Einstein’s Dreams
was an international best seller and has been translated into thirty languages. His novel
The Diagnosis
was a finalist for the National Book Award. A theoretical physicist as well as a novelist, Lightman has served on the faculties of Harvard and MIT, and was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment at MIT in science and in the humanities. He is also the founding director of the Harpswell Foundation, which works to empower a new generation of women leaders in Cambodia. Lightman lives in the Boston area.

Visit Alan Lightman at
http://writing.mit.edu/people/faculty/homepage/lightman

Dance for Two
• 978-0-307-78962-4

The Diagnosis
• 978-0-375-42119-8

The Discoveries
• 978-0-307-48384-3

Einstein’s Dreams
• 978-0-307-78974-7

Ghost
• 978-0-375-42529-5

Good Benito
• 978-0-307-78863-4

Reunion
• 978-0-307-42748-9

A Sense of the Mysterious
• 978-0-375-42359-8

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Ghost

The Discoveries

A Sense of the Mysterious

Reunion

The Diagnosis

Dance for Two: Essays

Good Benito

Einstein’s Dreams

Great Ideas in Physics

Time for the Stars

Ancient Light

Origins

Song of Two Worlds