Our amazing and expanding universe
by Jon Worley

Last week in Washington D.C., a number of scientists presented the first conclusive proof that the universe will continue to expand and grow forever. In other words, our universe, which is already pretty damned big, will continue to create space and sprawl out into the anti-matter hinterlands for an infinite eternity.

I confirmed this theory myself Friday afternoon when I purchased a new pair of jeans. Once again, my waistline has expanded, this time to 32 inches. Time ot throw out all those 29 and 30-inch jeans from high school and accept reality.

Neither of these developments is much of a milestone in my life. I've kept reasonably abreast of the latest trends in astrophysics (for a layperson, anyway), and even if our universe could, at some point, begin collapsing back upon itself, that sorta thing wouldn't affect the Earth whatsover. The earliest timetable for such a theoretical cosmic crunch is 10 to 15 billion years from now, and any fool could tell you that our sun is scheduled to run out of gas about five billion years from now. THAT is the real cosmic disaster problem facing our top scientists.

As for the jeans, I've been meaning to buy a new pair for a couple years, but since I'm rather picky the process is long, involved and extremely painful. My wife refuses to help. Since my feet had grown a half-size when I recently bought my first new pair of tennis shoes in three years, I figured I'd be in for a change in jeans size as well. And I'm happy to be wearing 32x34s. That's an easy size to find. 31x34s? Killer. Almost impossible. Those days at the gym have made my clothes shopping so much easier.

It's also easier to laugh at apocalyptic preachers, now that I'm armed with an infinitely sprawling infinite universe. I mean, now I know for a fact that Galaxy X-31 isn't about to come crashing into my living room, thus ending life as we know it. Alright, so some comet may intrude upon our stellar path, but last time I checked, there wasn't a god named Kohoutek or Hammacker-Schlemmer or whatever. Oh. Wait. I forgot about those bald folks in southern California.

Never mind. This notion of eternal expansion is playing itself out right in my backyard. Indeed, I am within an afternoon's walk of the Baltimore suburbs (and downtown Baltimore is 60 miles away). The Philly suburbs are less than an hour's drive off (not using an interstate, even), and New York suburbs now extend well into Pennsylvania as well. Down the pike in Jefferson, Penn., a developer wants to double the size of the town with a planned community featuring houses of the neo-ranch hell period. Needless to say, all those entrenched white geezers aren't too excited about the prospect of yuppie scum (and their broods) as neighbors. Can't say I blame them much.

That's one cool thing about outer space. If you don't like where you are, just keep going. Unlike the Earth, the universe is able to create something out of nothing, bringing light to places that don't even have a word for light. And yes, it's all good.

So maybe the astronomers really have found God (literally) in that infrared background radiation that is said to be table scraps from the big bang. And if the universe is God's creation, and it just keeps going and going and going, then two things become plain: We should be worshipping the Energizer Bunny as a prophet, and all my railing against whitebread land and the expansion of suburbs is, indeed heretical. Manifest Destiny really was ordained by God. Not to mention other stuff too scary to contemplate.

I think, however, my logic circuits have thrown a track, and I'm simply reading way too much into all this. Time to go wash the jeans again.

Jon Worley wears Levi's 501 jeans and nothing else ever since a certain blood-letting incident with a jeans zipper when he was 15.

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