The End of Greatness

At a certain scale - a rather large scale - everything looks the same. This is referred to as "The End of Greatness."



How big? Scientifically speaking, really really really big. From what I've read the best analogy for the way the universe appears at the very largest scale is somewhere between the appearance of the brain at the cellular level and the appearance of a bathtub full of soap bubbles, except the structure of these very large objects consists of many tiny tiny points, each one being a galaxy. Where the neuron cell body is, or where the soap bubbles get smaller and more dense, is analogous to a "supercluster," Between the forms are empty bubbles analogous to vast empty areas called "voids," the axons of the neurons reaching out in a network are analogous to "filaments" (like houses clustered along a road as seen from an airplane at night, to mix metaphors), and finally, sometimes the galaxies align in long, broad "walls" like the membrane between soap bubbles.



You can see these forms in the map above, which focuses on the Virgo Supercluster in the map of the observable universe at the top. The map at top shows approximately 10,000 times more space than the map above. Note that the map at top shows only the sphere of the universe that we can observe - many cosmologists believe that the universe is infinitely large. It also shows the universe as it would appear today if we could somehow zip about at an infinite speed to make the map. I think this is hugely problematic in that it contributes to our misunderstanding. More accurate and interesting (and I've never seen a map like this) would be to show the edges as they appear to us - closer to the edge, in the early in the universe, things were more homologous - galaxies just forming, the large scale structure not as defined. Even closer, the universe is too hot for matter to have formed at all - all is burningly hot plasma and radiation, then right at the edge of the map the universe becomes opaque to light as all matter changes phase. The period of inflation is on the other side of the edge of the map, and the big bang lies off the map and all around us in a perfectly unobservable sphere.

I suppose the End of Greatness interests me as an artist who is attracted to drawing and form. At a certain scale, the whole universe is just a kind of 3D salt and pepper, a bowl full of static. If you were looking at this scale (and you don't have a microscope - that's changing scale) every part would look the same as all the other parts - essentially featureless.