© 2015
| The scribe of Damascus | Luz y Vida — No. 40 — June 2015 — Index | Rodan of Alexandria's problem-solving technique |
© 2015 Asociación Urantia de España
We live in a single Universe, a single one, not in seven universes or “superuniverses.” Something different is that our Universe has other dimensions besides the three known to us plus time (which it surely does). But the first thing to avoid is thinking that with our powerful telescopes we only see our superuniverse and there are 6 others like ours. What we are capable of seeing is already unimaginable in itself. When you see a documentary about the Universe, they are talking about the one that seems to be the only one out there, that nobody thinks of another 6 like this. The problem is one of nomenclature, of definition, and we anticipate that it is a pity that the book has used such a name so soon surpassed by science. We will see it later.
Of course, our Universe is huge, almost unimaginable, and it is very likely that we are measuring it wrong, and here The Urantia Book seems to be right.
In short, we will try to answer the following questions:
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How big is our universe according to science?
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How is it according to The Urantia Book?
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If they don’t fit (and they don’t in many respects), is there some way, some hypothesis to make them fit?
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Where does our Creator Son, Michael of Nebadon, live? Does it live close to us, perhaps in our own galaxy, or does it live much further away?
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Do we have a tool to imagine the dimensions of our galaxy and compare the place where we live in the universe with the rest?
I believe we have an answer to these questions.
What we need is a map, a map that helps us understand the enormity of the space in which we move and live.
¶ Space
¶ A) A map of our Galaxy.
It is important, because a part of our galaxy is the local universe of our Michael of Nebadon (yes, only a part of a single galaxy, ours, our Milky Way).
Our galaxy can be compared to a 100 m football field. long and 50 wide and with an average thickness of 2 m. (and 6 near the core). Depending on who is the astronomer who “measures” it, it has between 100,000 and 400,000 stars, (a variation of a factor of 4 is already surprising, although I understand that it is not easy to count so many stars). It is also said to be between 100,000 light years away (or 400,000 light years). For this reason, our soccer field is 100 m. long and 50 wide. To move through it, we need the light-year of movement or thousands of light-years, but NOT millions of light-years. Anyone who refers to an object located millions of light-years from our planet (Urantia) no longer refers to an object located in our galaxy, but in another.
If we imagine ourselves standing, on one of the penalty points, we will be where our Sun is. To fill, in an imaginary act of creation, our superuniverse of Orvonton with stars, say as many as 100,000 million stars, we would need 10,000 packets of a kilogram of sugar, imagining that each grain is a star. Even so, the actual size of each sun would be much smaller, something like 0.000095 mm, one tenth of a micron, which could represent Betelgeuse, one of the best known giant stars. We would actually need a microscope to see it. Well, we would need 15 hours spreading sugar from the 10,000 sugar packets mentioned, non-stop… hour after hour, up to 15 in total, to fill the football field with 100,000 stars. And that if we have 100,000 stars. It is necessary to multiply by 4 (that is to say 60 hours) if the stars were finally 400,000 stars. It’s hard to believe. This alone produces dizziness, and we have just begun.
With this plane, each light year is one millimeter. Well, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us, would be 4.2 millimeters away, or what is the same as 9.4 billion (European billions, not Americans)… and it would take 4 years to travel there (time for the Earth, not for the traveler).
6 meters from us would be the Crab Nebula (6,000 light-years away). It must be said that our solar system is only 10 light-hours away.
The Orion Nebula, the most studied in astronomy, is at a distance of 1,500 light years (ie 1.5 meters away) and has a dimension of 16 light years (ie 16mm).
Globular clusters are compact groups of stars with a density 1,000 times greater than the density of our neighboring solar systems. It is as if they were mini galaxies within ours, generally located in the center of our galaxy. For example, M13 in Hercules is 25 meters from the Sun (25,000 light years). In 1974 we sent a signal from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico; the message will arrive there in the year 23,026 and the answer, if it occurs, will be received on Earth in the year 48,052.
And outside of our galaxy?
At a distance of 169,000 light-years (169 meters from our Milky Way) are the Large Magellanic Cloud (size 30 m.) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (size 16 m.).
The Andromeda galaxy (closest) is 2.2 kilometers away from our soccer field and it is another soccer field 130 meters long. The Urantia Book clearly says in UB 15:4.7 that Andromeda is outside the inhabited superuniverse and at a distance of one million years (in clear discrepancy with the 2.2 of our astronomy)…Well yes, it is surprising that the Galaxy closest to us is uninhabited, it is understood that, at the very least, empty of ascending intelligent living beings. So, do not imagine that when you see a photograph of said galaxy (Andromeda) there are inhabited planets, at least according to what the book says.
At a distance of 3 km from our soccer field is M33 (size 60,000 light-years) and it is another soccer field of 60 m. long.
Michael of Nebadon, our Creator Son, directs a part of our galaxy. In fact, our superuniverse is practically limited to our galaxy and does not include Andromeda (we will see later). So it seems inappropriate to call so small, so minuscule, a portion of the universe a superuniverse.
¶ B) A map of our Universe
To have a map of our universe we need something larger than a football field. We need something to work with millions of light-years. We need… the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower is 300 m high from the ground to the top (like a 100-story building). We have to imagine ourselves in the middle, 150 meters above the ground, in the middle of a 150 m sphere. radio. The farthest observed object, a quasar, is 150 m away. away, hence we have selected this tower. On this map, our galaxy has a diameter of 1 mm ($100,000 light-years = 1 mm), like a French lentil that we can put in the palm of our hand. Also in the palm of our hand, 2.2 million light-years away, that is, 2.2 cm from our French lentil that represented our galaxy, is another French lentil that is precisely the Andromeda galaxy.
Our Local Group, that is to say our galaxy, that of Andromeda, M33, and other smaller ones up to a total of 34 galaxies, represent the size of a golf ball in our hand, (3 to 4 million light-years).
The Virgo Cluster, about 1,000 life-size galaxies equivalent to 20 moons that we cannot see with our eyes, is from us and would be about the size of a grapefruit.
The Virgo Supercluster, comprising our Local Group, plus the Virgo Cluster, plus 100 galaxy families with a total size of 180 million light-years, would envelop us in a 1.8m sphere.
The Perseus Pisces cluster would be the size of a car and 3 meters from us. Beyond this are huge empty spaces with no visible light, as well as distant galaxies not bright enough to be seen by us, called VOIDS. The Great Wall (United Super Cluster) has so much gravity that everything seems to be heading towards it.
Matter, gravity, time, space, everything is interconnected, if you touch one, you change the rest (at least that’s what we think “down here”).
¶ Time
A ray of light (a photon) goes around the Earth 7.5 times through the equator in the absence of an atmosphere in one second. It is a very great speed, enormous for us… but it is nothing for a universe. Light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach us and it takes us almost 4 years to reach, at the speed of light, the closest star to us, Proxima Centauri. Is it possible to rule a universe at that speed? Would it have been possible for the Roman Empire to rule almost the entire western world known then without its fabulous roads that allowed its legions to move from one point or another of the empire in a short time?
Astronomers say that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and that the most distant galaxies are receding at increasing speeds, the faster the further away. But the book warns in UB 12:4.12 that it is an error due to wrong measurement: “But such is not the case…” “But this is not the case, you fail to recognize the present uniform moment of expansion. …etc” It leaves no room for doubt. I sincerely believe that the book is correct on this point. The expansion process of the universe (and contraction when it is like this, in a kind of respiration every 2,000 million years) does not require increasingly greater accelerations the greater the distances from our point of observation.
The book also notes that “875,000 years ago the enormous Andronover nebula number 876,926 was initiated” (UB 57:1.6). If we were to consider just this number, it would mean that the universe is at least 63 times older than our astronomers say. It makes sense, the figure given by science is very low, something like saying that our Sun only has a father, mother and grandfather as a family tree (previous suns) since it is estimated to be 4,500 or 5,000 million years old. It must be considered that all the elements on the periodic table have previously been produced in the nuclei of early suns with their enormous pressures and extremely high temperatures. The iron in the beams that support our buildings, the aluminum in our cars, the oxygen that is part of the air we breathe all formed in the cores of suns that collapsed before ours formed. Only 3 before ours? Too little!
Our measurement errors occur because if the universe expands and contracts every 2 billion years, it is impossible for us to calculate the age of the universe today, unless we are told when it first did. In the same way that it would be impossible to know the age of a person if throughout his life he has had several episodes of rejuvenation instead of a slow aging. It’s pretty obvious.
The speed of light, as fast as it is, is insufficient to cover such great distances in a reasonable time. Impossible. There has to be something faster.
There is. The book explains it in UB 23:2.23 of Paper 23:
. . . The limit of velocity for most nonenseraphimed beings is 186,280 miles of your world per second of your time; the midway creatures and certain others can, often do, attain double velocity—372,560 miles per second—while the seraphim and others can traverse space at triple velocity, about 558,840 miles per second. (UB 23:2.23)
When it develops that it will require hundreds of years for a native ambassador to reach a far-distant local universe, a Solitary Messenger is often asked to proceed there immediately to act as ambassador ad interim. Solitary Messengers can go in very short order, not independently of time and space as do the Gravity Messengers, but nearly so. . . . (UB 23:2.23)
The universe is well supplied with spirits who utilize gravity for purposes of transit; they can go anywhere any time—instanter—but they are not persons. Certain other gravity traversers are personal beings, such as Gravity Messengers and Transcendental Recorders, but they are not available to the super- and the local universe administrators. The worlds teem with angels and men and other highly personal beings, but they are handicapped by time and space: The limit of velocity for most nonenseraphimed beings is 186,280 miles of your world per second of your time; the midway creatures and certain others can, often do, attain double velocity—372,560 miles per second—while the seraphim and others can traverse space at triple velocity, about 558,840 miles per second. There are, however, no transit or messenger personalities who function between the instantaneous velocities of the gravity traversers and the comparatively slow speeds of the seraphim, except the Solitary Messengers. (UB 23:3.2)
Solitary Messengers . . . are the only definitely personalized beings who can synchronize with the combined universal currents of the grand universe. Their velocity in traversing space is variable, depending on a great variety of interfering influences, but the record shows that on the journey to fulfill this mission my associate messenger proceeded at the rate of 841,621,642,000 of your miles per second of your time. (UB 23:3.3)
It is wholly beyond my ability to explain to the material type of mind how a spirit can be a real person and at the same time traverse space at such tremendous velocities. But these very Solitary Messengers actually come to, and go from, Urantia at these incomprehensible speeds; indeed, the whole economy of universal administration would be largely deprived of its personal element were this not a fact. (UB 23:3.4)
Of the myriads of beings who co-operate with us in the conduct of the affairs of the superuniverse, none are more important in practical helpfulness and timesaving assistance. In the universes of space we must reckon with the handicaps of time; hence the great service of the Solitary Messengers, who, by means of their personal prerogatives of communication, are somewhat independent of space and, by virtue of their tremendous transit velocities, are so nearly independent of time. (UB 23:3.6)
No matter how much the universe may enlarge, no more Solitary Messengers will probably ever be created. As the universes grow, the expanded work of administration must be increasingly borne by other types of spirit ministers and by those beings who take origin in these new creations, such as the creatures of the Sovereign Sons and the local universe Mother Spirits. (UB 23:3.9)
Of course, all this is perfectly compatible with the possible existence of other dimensions besides the four known to us (the three physical ones plus time). UB 130:7.6 of paper 129: “the nearer consciousness approaches the awareness of seven cosmic dimensions, the more does the concept of potential space approach ultimacy, finally the surviving mortals achieve identity in a seven-dimensional universe …” String Theory, in the formulation phase by our physicists, already has a coherent mathematical model with 7 to 11 dimensions. The existence of other spatial dimensions seems almost like common sense.
The Urantia Book tells us that Orvonton has a diameter of 500,000 light years, with 10 billion suns and 1 billion inhabited worlds (an average therefore of one inhabited planet for every 10 suns) and the Milky Way, our galaxy, is the center of Orvonton (almost everything that can be seen with the naked eye). Our registration number as a planet on Uversa and on Paradise is 5,342,482,337,666. To continue having an idea of the proportion of the things that surround us, let us remember that Paper 32 reminds us that our local universe “is the work of a Creator Son (our Michael of Nebadon or Jesus of Nazareth)…and that it consists of 100 constellations each with 100 inhabited world systems. Each system will eventually contain about a thousand inhabited spheres…at the time of the last record there were 3,840,101 inhabited planets in Nebadon…the 619 inhabited worlds are located in more than 500 different physical systems, only 5 have more than 2 inhabited worlds , of these 5 only one has 4 inhabited planets, while 46 have 2 inhabited worlds…” UB 32:2.9
To conclude, it is convenient to contrast two affirmations about the enormity of the Cosmos: the affirmation of the book contained in UB 15:6.10: «In the master universe (the entire Creation, including uninhabited outer space and in the process of creation) there are more stars that glasses of water could be taken from all the oceans on Earth“, and the statement of the well-known cosmologist Carl Sagan: ”there are more stars in the Universe than grains of sand from all the beaches in the world".
¶ Conclusions
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We live in a single Universe, which encompasses everything. Talking about 7 superuniverses is completely unnecessary and tends to confuse. The error may be due to the fact that at the time when the book was finished “writing” (not to say that it was finished “revealing”) this nuance was not relevant, because in 1935 we did not know about the distances that we now know. . In any case, the Revealers could have taken this into account, because a perfectly salvageable confusion is produced. Our wonderful book, which has been given to us to last a thousand years, has gotten a little too fair in its terminological definitions at this point too soon.
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Science gives an age of 13,700 million years for the Universe. The book gives a much greater antiquity, without specifying an initial moment for the Creation. I have no doubt that the book is right and that we are measuring wrong. The process of respiration of space (accepted as a hypothesis by some scientists) greatly complicates the calculations.
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The Andromeda galaxy is 2.2 million light years away according to science and 1 million years according to The Urantia Book. One of the two is in error, unless the distance is another, in which case both would be.
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Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is nothing more and nothing less than the Orvonton superuniverse. Our galaxy is between 100,000 and 400,000 light-years away (according to astronomy, which is not exactly nit-picking). The book gives a diameter of 500,000 light-years, much less than what it would take to encompass Andromeda. Amazing. If we add that the other six superuniverses have dimensions similar to ours, we are talking about 7 inhabited galaxies called nothing less than superuniverses. More than 200,000 million galaxies are known to science, a tiny proportion of the 7 “super” in relation to the total. It baffles me personally…it doesn’t seem reasonable to me (or whatever it should be said).
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According to science, the universe is expanding (coincides with the expansive breathing process in the book), but it is not true that the greater the distance, the greater the escape velocity. I firmly believe that the book is right on this. The Doppler effect and the redshift do not support escape or receding velocities like those claimed by astronomy.
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According to science, nothing travels faster than the speed of light. Fortunately the book says yes, and I believe it. But whoever does the math will see that at the speed of the seraphim it takes much longer than 3 days to reach the resurrection rooms (or is it “three days” for the enseraphim?) Doesn’t fit.
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According to science, there is a widespread Big Bang. Assuming that Creation must have created something similar, the book denies this fact. The microwave background radiation seems to say otherwise, however.
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Of course, it seems self-evident that there must be more than the 3 dimensions of space plus time that we know of. The book seems to favor 7 , if we are understanding what we have been told correctly.
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If there is an act of Creation, apparently the first law of thermodynamics is violated (in plain language, “energy is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transformed”), because it does seem to be created (at least) or matter or energy is destroyed. A catastrophe for physics.
We will continue little by little to shed light on this matter, now compatible between the book and science only in part. In any case, we are not really talking about science, matter and space… but about God.
In brotherhood.
Francisco Fuentes.
(Note: the data and scales used have been taken from the book “The Galaxy in a soccer field” by the Spanish astronomer F. Macarrón.)
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/
| The scribe of Damascus | Luz y Vida — No. 40 — June 2015 — Index | Rodan of Alexandria's problem-solving technique |