All posts by sometimes2023

Alicia Sometimes is an Australian poet and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word and poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Her poems have been published in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems, The Age, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Westerly and more. In 2021 she completed the Boyd Garret residency for the City of Melbourne and a Virtual Writer in Residency for Manchester City of Literature and Manchester Literature Festival. In 2023 she is immersed in ANAT’s Synapse Artist Residency and has co-created an art installation for Science Gallery Melbourne’s current exhibition, Dark Matters.

Distribution

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Image by Alicia Sometimes

 

With this wonderful residency I have spoken to so many scientists. One of those I’d like to introduce you to today is:

Dr Leonardo Giani, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Physics, University of Queensland.

Leo is doing many incredible projects and I’d encourage anyone to look at a 3D modelling of Laniakea. His website offers beautiful imagery of Laniakea and explains:

‘Our galaxy, the Milky Way, belongs to a supercluster of galaxies known as Laniakea. The main goal of this project is to estimate its gravitational backreaction or, in other words, to understand how (if at all) the latter influences our Cosmological inference. We propose a toy model where Laniakea is described as a triaxially expanding homogeneous ellipsoid, with constant expansion rate along the principal axes. To build the model we use the CF4 reconstruction of the peculiar velocity field in the local Universe, and the recently update definition of Laniakea obtained from it. In this page you will find some of our results from this paper, and some supplementary material, including interactive plots, which did not fit there.’

This topic was one of many that has my creative work on a path looking at distribution: of words, galaxy clusters, shapes and how we navigate spaces in our world.

I’ve been focusing on dark energy but that is a big broad church of many, many things. Velocities, superclusters, distances, compositions, scales and so much more.

I’ve been fascinated with constants in language and the malleability of phrases and sentences. This has me asking about the cosmological constant, well, constantly.

Hope you read Leo’s work and here is a part of a long conversation we had. Leo has inspired me down many strands and tendrils of the creative cosmos.

What is one thing we know about dark energy?

Leo: I will say that it challenges any understanding we have of gravity.

To the history of the cosmological constant…

Leo: From a historical perspective, the cosmological constant was introduced by Einstein because he had a philosophical preconception about the universe, which was pretty natural, which is — the universe is very old, so it makes sense to think of it, not as an evolving thing that changes with time, but as an eternal entity which has always existed, and so it had time to grow stars and whatever else there is inside it.

So, Einstein wanted to describe a universe which is not evolving, something more or less the same, and stuff in it evolves. He was a religious person, so I guess it also made sense for him to have this sort of stability. We all try for stability in this world apparently.

And if you take his equations by hand, you see that the fundamental variable in this equation, which is the space time metric, also the space time fabric, it’s dynamical. Because these are dynamical equations, so it changes with time. And in order to not change it, you need to add something which is immutable, and a constant does the job perfectly.

That’s why the cosmological constant was introduced. It’s something that (almost) kills the dynamics within the Einstein field equation, or makes them somehow constant. And it actually does the job.

Unfortunately, this solution, this static universe that Einstein found with a cosmological constant – unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the perspective – is unstable. It means if you change even slightly the amount of stuff that is inside or perturb it somehow, the perturbation makes the solution go away from a stable universe.

The cosmological constant was Einstein’s ‘mistake’. This is how it has been introduced historically, and that’s nothing to do with the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Is Einstein’s Cosmological Constant The Same As Dark Energy? The far distant fates of the Universe offer a number of possibilities, but if dark energy is truly a … [+]NASA / GSFC
The ‘new’ cosmological constant Λ (problem)…

In cosmology, the cosmological constant problem or vacuum catastrophe is the substantial disagreement between the observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and the much larger theoretical value of zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory.

(I have read many great papers and articles on this and Ethan Siegal’s piece from Forbes is really interesting and accessible).

Leo: Then in 1999, Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess came along (they jointly received the Nobel Prize in physics in 2011 for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating). And so, people were like, okay, we need the cosmological constant again. But how big is it? It’s very small. How small compared to the Quantum Field Theory (QFT) predictions? Something between 60 and 120 orders of magnitude (smaller than a factor of ~10120). Literally like a zero with 120 zero after the comma. It’s a lot of zeros, 120. You cannot write it in a blackboard. I tried once.

And so, this is the new cosmological constant problem.

If we accept that dark energy is a cosmological constant, which is our best candidate so far, but, it’s still unclear…

Creative look at distribution and the expanse. Photo by Alicia Sometimes

There’s exciting discoveries all the time in this field. I hope to share more about my discussions and notes soon.

 

 

 

 

 

Scale

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Smarter people than me have delved deeply into the question of whether language shapes the way we think. By noticing the constitution and construction of language we have more of an insight into how people comprehend knowledge and process information.

It’s been fascinating getting into the minutiae of astrophysical language. So many words can mean so much, stand in for something else or be as precise as needed so others can communicate and understand everything written or spoken. Words like ‘fundamental’ or ‘peculiar’ can be exact, debatable or helpful.

I have also taken so many notes on the ‘accidental poetry’ that is used in the working spaces, words that colleagues will understand instantly but to an outsider, sound grand or obtuse. Language that you have to work hard at when you’re not surrounded by it every day.

There’s also been the inclusion of ‘accidental art’ at the office which is the result of stunning images arriving from interesting data.

Art by the Astro team. A picture of graphs and images with the title 'Accidental Astro Art'
Art by the Astro team. Images of things like radial velocity field, words ‘Together We Touch the Sky’ and more.

There’s also elegant art from the formulae on the whiteboards and remnants of interesting phrases or words (and for me, out of context, I start imagining so much…)

Partial equation and image on white board
Partial equation and meaningful and illustrative ‘scribble’ on whiteboard.

Even talk of how to make different styles of coffee result in casual conversations about the science behind making coffee and then —offshoots into tangential words on the universe, other interesting information and jumping boards for fascinating ideas on art.

Professor Tamara Davis at a whiteboard in the tea room drawing examples of different styles of coffees.
Professor Tamra Davis at a whiteboard in the tea room (during lunch) drawing examples of different styles of coffees. She makes even this, fascinating.

I’ve mentioned before the importance of metaphor for both the scientist and artist. Often used for different purposes.

This is from a snippet of conversation with Prof. Tamara Davis having a larger conversation about dark energy and her work.

I’ll include these as suites, as if poems. What she says is so important.

Patches of spheres…

[Prof Tamara Davis]: It’s really difficult to make observational statements about things that you can’t in principle measure. Everything beyond that essentially does have to be theoretical.

But we can sort of test global theories by looking at the observable patch of the universe. And we have no reason to expect that the universe changes just on the other side of our observable universe. There’s no indication that anything weird is happening near the boundaries. Because boundaries are just, our boundaries.

It’s our personal boundary. There’s the particle horizon and the event horizon. This is actually the particle horizon. The distance to the most distant particle you could see. So, everybody has their own personal sphere.

Say if we’re at one point with this sphere around us – which is the limit where we can see if someone’s just inside the edge of our sphere – then we’d be just inside the edge of their sphere. Because the light that our position – before we existed – emitted right at the beginning of time, would just have reached that other point now.

And the light that they emitted at the beginning of time would just have reached us. So, it’s symmetric. But it means there’s all these overlapping spheres that are different, are people’s patch of the universe. I talk about other galaxies as people, but I mean, different galaxies, patches of the universe.

So, if we existed on a different galaxy, we would see a different patch. And, there’s no reason to expect there’s anything special about our patch versus their patch.

What would you want people to know about what you study every day?

[Prof Tamara Davis]: I think the most important thing that I want people to know is just how much information we have about the stuff out there. From a professional point of view, I want people to understand that we’re not just guessing about what is happening out there. Everything – all these things we’re saying about the acceleration of the expansion of the universe and how old the universe is – these are answers where people say, how on earth can you possibly know that? And I want them to understand that we’re basing this off a huge amount of data, measuring phenomena in many different ways.

I also would love people to have more of a sense of how amazing and vast the universe is outside of their own little sphere. Because I think, for humanity, we’re very focused on…trivial, local things. Which, on the grand scale of things, are really not that important. And when you have this vastness of the universe outside that you can look at…I would love people to just step outside of their own trivial pursuits…their own ideas, their own focus on their life, and their own interactions with people and hopes, dreams and put everything in a bit more perspective and see the world around them.

****

Photo of a jellyfish, an interpretation of 'dark energy' moving.
Photo of a jellyfish, an interpretation of ‘dark energy’ moving. Photo: Alicia Sometimes


Today’s poem is inspired by listening to Tamara (and the other physicists) talk about the vastness of the universe, the sheer scale of data, galaxies, matter and energy. Tamara mentioned the invention of the telescope and microscope meant that we were able to study the very small and the very big, pushing beyond our human scales.

This reminds me of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot (A photo taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 looks back from the fringes of our solar system, 6.4 billion kilometres away from home. Earth is only a tiny point of light in this picture, 0.12 pixels in size, a miniscule blue smudge amongst scattered rays of light emanating from our sun.)

An image from Voyager. Carl Sagan's famous Pale Blue Dot.
Pale Blue Dot, NASA/JPL-Caltech, 1990-02-14T08:00:00-08:00. A photograph of Earth taken by NASA’s Voyager 1.


Sagan begins: ‘Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.’ He ends the passage with ‘There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.’

Or it reminds me of the Earthrise photo from Apollo 8.

Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and part of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission.
Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and part of the Moon’s surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission.


In the early stages of the flight, with the earth receding, James Lovell noticed how he could put out his thumb and little finger to demonstrate the span of the Atlantic Ocean. Frank Borman said, ‘Tell the people in Tierra del Fuego to put their raincoats on, looks like a storm…’

After 68 hours of traveling they reached the moon for their lunar orbits. When their spacecraft came out from behind the moon for its fourth pass, for the first time in human history, the crew witnessed first-hand the stunning earthrise. William Anders took a black and white shot then asked Lovell for some colour film and captured the earth, half hidden in the shadow of the sun. It was later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.

The universe is so, so large and we are so, so small.

My poem this week:


Scale

We are not static — space— between space
is accelerating. Georges Lemaître understood —
our universe is unfastening. Edwin Hubble spying
galaxies relocating from our reach. Reverberation—
the cosmic microwave background radiation rumbling
hums of electrons & protons moulding hydrogen atoms
the lilt & swing & tempo of countless quarks swimming
in the strong force, infrared imprints of life’s hatchlings
                we are transforming & moving
                we are in space & we are in time
What we do resonates out. When we are our best, we support
each other. We are not fixed, the universe, expanding into itself
Gravity pulling objects in —we endure splits — our resolve
torn. Dilating like promise, giving freely of ourselves, considering
inward as much as outward. Allowing hope in. Our chest enlarges
with possibility, our compassion swells, our intrepid luminescence
unending — our capacity increasing with every transient moment
                   we are born into a universe unable to sit still
                   we are the lines of persistent motion —
                   malleable accordions of change
When gravitationally unbound, we withdraw from each other
at rate, our light redshifts to those in the distance racing away
space—not spreading into anything else
                  we calculate the emotional span between us
                  we are more imminent than we think we are





Visiting the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland

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The last words in my extremely full notebook are: no matter how many questions come up, within those answers, more questions come up.

So many questions! Professor Tamara Davis and the team at the School of Mathematics and Physics could not be more fascinating, supportive and other endless superlatives that mean ‘incredibly engaging and kind’ and I still have a whole world of questions.

I was lucky enough to spend ten days on campus with many of the team studying the foundations of the history of the universe, what we see today and where we could be heading. Their hard work and dedication means there is a great deal of richness, curiosity and variety in what they are examining. My head was dizzy each day with so much new information (for me) which is why I coped the way I always cope. By writing galaxies of notes. And recording voices.

Building with the sign, 'Physics'
University of Queensland ‘Physics’ building
Sign says 'Welcome to Astrohub'
Welcome to Astrohub

 
The scientists are asking the biggest questions. They are looking at light curves, our accelerating cosmos, peculiar velocities of galaxies, hierarchy of stars, emerging phenomena, various distributions, spheres, oscillations, extrasolar planets, mountains of data and so much more. What is dark energy? What is dark matter? What are all the puzzles in between? Many have said this before about scientists: they are so often detectives, rifling through numbers, images, equations and findings to work out patterns, points of illumination and finally, answers.

I’m delving into the many captivating concepts, ideas and studies the team are immersing themselves in, but I am also investigating words and phrases. In and out of context, there’s so much poetry in them:

a ripple in the metric (like snapping a blanket)
splashback radius
supercluster dispersions
local structure
(of a particular equation) it was puffy
muscles of the binary system

and words that have different/bendable/interesting meanings in this field to what we might be used to:

exotic
stochastic
tightness
smoothness
flow-path
tension
scalar
resonance
eccentricities

This is just the very tip of the word-web. I’m patching together a lot of the research and keep getting side tracked by writing poems (the cheek!). I can’t stop being inspired to create.

I look forward to spending more time in person with the team later this month and in November.

I was also fortunate enough to conduct a poetry workshop where everyone in the room was not only a physicist but, I argue, a poet as well. Many of the attendees wrote about their work with passionate clarity and creativity.

Workshop with the physics team
Poetry workshop with Professor Tamara Davis and team writing poems

Andrea Rassell (alumni of ANAT’s Synapse residency and all round superstar) also joined me to talk about her work, data sonification and science-art. I’m hoping we can join forces to work on a collaboration as well.

Pic of Andrea Rassell, Tamara Davis and Alicia Sometimes
Pic of Andrea Rassell, Tamara Davis and Alicia Sometimes

I’ll leave you with Tamara’s poem she wrote in the workshop. Is there anything she can’t do?

An Empty Spec in the Infinite Future
Tamara Davis

The empty spec is made of loneliness
It screams into the void, silent
Eternity is quiet, still, poised for nothing
The memory of touch is vaporous
It feels heartbreak.
For what it forgets, what it knew
The youthful energy squandered
The bitter taste of solitude
As it races to infinity
Thinking
I am the final life in a dead cosmos.

Astro-Poetic Compositions: Mapping Dark Energy through poetic experimentation

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Hello!

This is my first diary post for the ANAT Synapse Artist Residency but I have been researching and speaking with the wonderful astrophysicist Professor Tamara Davis and her incredible astro/cosmo team at the University of Queensland for the last couple of months. Tamara is an expert in astrophysics, cosmology, supernovae, dark energy, vacuum energy, quantum gravity, physics, universe, dark matter, astronomy and so much more. I am spending an extended period with the team in Queensland this month and am excited to share more news regularly.

I have always been interested in every aspect of the universe Tamara is immersed in, but as a writer and artist, these subject matters have been at times abstract, elusive and full of concepts not always easy to grasp. Tamara and the team are making the cosmos come to life and are introducing me to so many new ideas. I am particularly interested in the ‘dark’ things: dark energy and dark matter.

The mysterious ‘dark energy’ affects the acceleration of the universe and of course, has so many unknowns. Tamara leads the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES) ­— working with the international Dark Energy Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project (DESI). The DESI project aims to build the world’s largest three-dimensional map of the universe.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument drawing with telescopes and a cartoon dog barking.
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Taken from https://noirlab.edu website.

Dark energy (and dark matter) use narratives about networks, movement and locations. With galaxy formations, scientists speak of the cosmic web environment with voids, walls and intergalactic hot-gas filaments. These filaments have been described as ‘umbilical chords’ attached to ‘nexus’ points throughout the universe. There are a plethora of stories, images and metaphoric themes used to describe astrophysical phenomena. I am finding out more about the way words, symbols and language can be used in this context. There are so many new words to discover.

This collaboration will explore distance, mapping, composition and the measurement of the universe through the practices of language and symbolism.

When describing the language of classical physics in regards to atomic models, physicist Niels Bohr is reported to have said to Werner Heisenberg, ‘We must be clear that when it comes toatoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.’ A better understanding of physics may be possible through the utilisation of literary and linguistic tools—as well as through creative, collaborative and iterative models. Also, by directly engaging with physics, poetry can be enhanced and use alternative structures and experimental or mathematical forms.

I will post more about the process soon. Thank you ANAT for this wonderful opportunity!

Here’s one of my first poems after meeting Tamara and the team:

 

Black Tar Dream

 

only when you disappear

from your inky-dim dread

 

at the swoop of dark energy

escaping right into yourself

 

will space disclose its own

rousing untangling narratives

 

the universe, a perched raven

as light ricochets off matter

 

while imperceptible objects:

near-infrared ringlets of gas

 

gamma ray, ultraviolet –

unmask if closely observed

 

we are waves, we are particles

excitations of a quantum field

 

a quintessence of divergences

branching when you reappear

 

you apprehend our position

everything else is backdrop

 

 

Tamara writing down 'Big Ideas' on a blackboard as she talks to the astro team
Tamara writing down ‘Big Ideas’ on a blackboard as she talks to the astro team

Sign saying: University of Queensland Australia, St Lucia Campus
University of Queensland Australia, St Lucia Campus