What is Space?

by Richard Peacock

Greetings Amateur Scientist fans! You may recognize me as Richard Peacock, contributing editor to the Amateur Scientist blog, and all around nice guy. And until very recently, I was Brian Thompson's co-host on the Amateur Scientist podcast. Some may be wondering what I did to Brian to make him fire me, but I'm afraid I can't confirm or deny the rumors that I "seduced" his "father."

At any rate, I will now be splashing my entertainment on your face in regular installments, in the form of science poetry! Doesn't that sound fun-- hey, wait, where are you going?

In this first episode of my science poetry series, called The Multiverse, I've decided to look at the strangeness of space. It's this weird substance with no mass, yet it's flexible like a fabric and has unforeseen properties. Wouldn't you like to hear a poem all about it?

"What is Space?"

What a strange place, this outer space,
Lacking form, yet retaining grace
As it bends and expands, Yet stays in place.

Einstein suggested theoretically
That space will curve with gravity,
And both space and time are intertwined
And can't be thought of separately.

So therefore when a planet moves
Through space it actually carves a groove,
And were it to stand completely still
Time itself would halt as well.



But if you travel really fast
You'll find you are attaining mass!
And at the speed of light you'll see
Your mass has reached infinity!

And then there isn't any force
That can push you faster. Of course
This is why astronomers agree
There's nothing faster than light speed.

But here's a fact that's hard to believe:
Space itself can break this speed.
It was Edwin Hubble who first described
How this appears with galaxies.

We now know from observation
That outer space prefers inflation.
Every point in space pushes away
From all the rest at a constant rate.

And at great distances we realize
The universe is expanding in size!
The speed at which is relative
To how far away our reference is.



Space in close proximity
Expands at rates infinitesimally,
But billions of light years from our galaxy
It's swifter than light, surprisingly!

So what is space? This strange material
We cannot taste or touch or feel?
What about gravity causes it to bend?
And why does space want to expand?

Does this expansion go on and on,
Or one day will the expansion end?
What a very strange place, this outer space.
Perhaps too strange to understand.
I'm just happy to simply call it my friend.

The Multiverse is written by Richard Peacock, who generally doesn't know what he's talking about, and will gladly sacrifice scientific accuracy for the sake of a rhyme. Send rhyming complaints to richard@amateurscientist.org