Featured in today’s BBC online is this article: The weird sound from the early Universe.
Scientists figured out back in 2005 that there had been a primordial hum permeating the universe since shortly after it was born. It spread out at half the speed of light thru the plasma (ionized gas) which was all there was of the universe at the time - a deep bass note with a wave length of 450,000 light years. They were delighted and excited at their discovery.
Tom Sawyer is learning to whistle as he walks down the street, having been shown the skill by a ‘negro’ (hey this was written in 1875). He is equally delighted with his new discovery. In fact this is how Mark Twain framed it.
“Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet. No doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.”
The strange humming sound lasted only for a few hundred thousand years and then dissolved but the ripples it created in the plasma left a permanent imprint on the universe. It’s detectible today by astronomers using radio telescopes, they call it the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation or CMB. You can see a picture of it at the top of this post. It’s also detectible by the unusual occurrence of stars and galaxies found in the those ripples, the densest parts of the universe.
Tom is just starting out his adventures, this being only page 7 of the book. He hopes for, longs for deep pleasure and freedom. Swimming or loafing or mischief. That becomes the theme and the plot of the book - trying to outwit ole mean Aunt Molly, and the boring church services and the drudgerous school agenda.
I’m probably stretching the metaphor too far but these astrophysicists (who knows how they figure this stuff out) are trying to escape the stuffy confines of past ideas about the universe. That it was static (it’s not). That it was of a conceivable age (barely). They would like to know the fundamental and whole truth of it and be freed by it, basically to discover more fundamental and whole truths.
Tom and his friends, Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn, are bound to be pirates and live far away from conventional mores too. They run away from home, float over to Jackson Island on their raft and there they are, plumb in the middle of the Mississippi River, in a dark forest, having a great time playing pirates.
I don’t see that much difference between the two parties, scientists and pirates. Scientists measure the universe, Tom and Huck and Joe measured the distance to Jackson Island and headed off in the dead of night. They both made discoveries that had profound effects on those who came later. We now know alot more about what we don’t know about, astronomically speaking. Tom Sawyer is a genuine classic of American Literature that has endured for generations and been read by millions of people.
“No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is”
Tom Sawyer and the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation