It is a well established fact that In its youth, the universe was a marvel of efficient engineering. It expanded at the speed of light, didn’t need to sit down after walking up the stairs, and certainly didn’t accumulate a spare tyre of dark matter just by catching a whiff of a passing bakery.
Now, that spare tyre. It is most disappointing to find, as we age, that many of our more youthful capabilities become mere memories. Like running for the bus without panting like a broken steam piston. But one thing that doesn’t change, in fact becomes far worse, is the propensity to gain weight by the merest nibble on anything containing carbohydrates.
The Universe has no issue with continued expansion. It is doing so at an accelerated rate. But it has the space to do it. My trousers and t-shirts do not.
There is another element to this universal ageing dilemma.
Space-time, much like the human knee, eventually loses its factory settings. We are told that gravity is a fundamental force, but anyone over thirty-five knows it’s actually a personal vendetta.
Your joints begin to creak with the exact same existential dread as a tectonic fault line, and your metabolism—once a roaring thermonuclear furnace—now operates with the sluggish bureaucracy of a local council department. By the time you reach the stage of life where a sofa possesses a stronger gravitational pull than a medium-sized planet, you realise that cosmic ‘Heat Death’ isn’t a terrifying apocalyptic event. It’s just the universe finally getting a decent afternoon nap.
This galactic siesta is, of course, strictly regulated by the Department of Entropy, a division so dedicated to the concept of doing nothing that its employees have managed to achieve a state of pure, unadulterated non-existence. They understand that the Big Bang was all well and good for the first few billion years, but eventually, even the most ambitious super-cluster needs to put its feet up, undo its metaphorical belt, and wonder where all those energetic young hydrogen atoms went. The universe isn’t collapsing; it’s simply filling out the necessary paperwork to officially retire to a quiet corner of the void where nobody expects it to hold up any more stars.
The actual process of filing for universal retirement involves Form 42-B (Selection for Infinite Repose), a document which is currently stored in a locked filing cabinet, inside a disused lavatory, at the bottom of a black hole guarded by a sign saying ‘Beware of the Singularity’.
Even if one manages to locate the form, the required ink must be harvested from the sweat of a panicked nebula, and the only available pen has been borrowed by a passing space tourist who promised to return it just as soon as they’ve finished calculating the tip on a particularly expensive lunch at the end of time. Consequently, the universe remains in a state of permanent semi-retirement, much like a civil servant who has physically left the office but whose jacket remains draped over the back of a chair to fool the management into thinking that causality is still technically on the clock.
Ah, human ageing. It has universal issues, many of which are helped with a good strong mug of tea.