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I’ve got a confession to make. Interstellar, that little space epic that Christopher Nolan made a few years ago? The one that broke the internet with theories and left people utterly and completely bamboozled? Yeah, I had never watched it all the way through until a few nights back. I had probably tried watching it three or four times before and always either got bored or fell asleep. A few nights ago, I ended up watching it straight through and I enjoyed it. Theories of relativity, bending space and time while watching Anne Hathaway shake hands with aliens. The tesseract. Etcetera and so forth. It was a great flick.
But anyone who says they can 100% understand what the fuck was happening in this movie is full of shit. The last hour was beyond confusing. You can read Reddit fan theories all day long and sit there in a discussion thread pretending you know what you’re talking about but COME ON. Just be honest. That movie was confusing as hell. Just like space. And boy, did that movie get me thinking about the last frontier and the human species.
Some questions are better left unanswered. I’m under the firm belief that there are no absolute certainties in this life – which definitely goes double when we’re discussing outer space.
Other than what my plans will be for an upcoming weekend, nothing keeps me up and sweating at night quite like thinking about outer space. Interstellar did not help with any of those fears. The Cosmos are a terrifying place. I have nightmares sometimes about what being in space would feel like, detached from a tether to the space station that brought me up, floating effortlessly into nowhere.
I’ve watched countless documentaries and movies on the subject, and while it’d be nice to say that I understand what’s going on up there in the outer reaches of the atmosphere, I really have no idea. I don’t have the slightest clue how space works and I’m not intelligent enough to wrap my head around one question. It’s plagued me for years now. It’s a question that I cannot for the life of me seem to answer: does space ever end?
Conventional wisdom from “scientists” (whatever those are) says that outer space is infinite. That it doesn’t end. Their claim is that space stretches and expands slowly outward with each passing year. But I’ve always related outer space to something like the manufactured ocean and outer wall on the set of the movie The Truman Show.
I know that sounds stupid as hell, but honestly, the universe expanding all of the time and going on forever would sound stupid as hell too if it wasn’t the popular opinion. In that movie (which stars Jim Carrey and I highly recommend if you haven’t seen before), Truman Burbank’s entire life is documented. He unknowingly lives on a massive television set in Hollywood and the whole world is in on the joke. Regular joes the world over are enthralled with The Truman Show day in and day out.
All of Truman’s friends, family members, coworkers, and otherwise? They’re paid actors, always perfectly set up for situations to pitch advertisements and talk Truman out of ever leaving the idyllic confines of the show’s set. This, of course, proves problematic when Truman begins fixating on leaving the town he lives on to visit Fiji, an island which is in most ways, the exact opposite of the television set.
By the end of the movie, Truman begins to figure out what is going on and narrowly escapes the set after surviving a brutally manufactured storm which is egged on by the creator of the show, Cristoff (played brilliantly by Ed Harris). At the end of this ocean which Truman now knows is manmade is a staircase leading to the outside world. This brings me to my point about space having an endpoint. It definitely does. Somewhere, space ends, and there is what could be considered an “outside” to the universe. It would most likely be inconceivable for a human to understand, but there’s no way space just goes on infinitely. I just won’t accept that as fact.
What’s outside that wall? Maybe it’s Ed Harris’ real-life equivalent in a Kangol hat pulling a bunch of strings and making things happen. Maybe aliens are just watching all of us on their version of closed circuit television. I don’t know much, but I know not to blindly trust conventional wisdom from scientists paid by government agencies. The notion that space is limitless and never ends just doesn’t add up for me. You can spout off as many “facts” as you want but the truth of the matter is none of us really know.
So is my cockamamie theory about there being a wall at the end of space which leads into a control tower all that crazy when you really think about it? No, it’s not. It’s not probable, but it is possible. I mean take a look at this twitter poll I conducted last night:
Uhhh listen I know it’s 12% of the vote, but 12% is good enough for me. It just turns out that we’re woke and 88% of the votes were cast were by people with small imaginations.
Can you prove that space is infinite? Nope. It’s certainly possible, but NASA can only see so far with their telescopes and as far as I know none of you plebs have ever even been to space. Holler at me when you have some definitive proof on space going on forever. Until then, it would appear you’re just going to have to accept the fact that I could also be right..
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
Unhinged Duda, totally unhinged!
Are you high right now?
Do you ever get nervous?
Are you single?
I heard you fucked your girl is it true?
You getting money? You think them…. nope, I’m still to white to use that word.
Because you’ll be something other than white in the future?
AND I SAY HELL YEAH, HELL YEAH, HELL YEAH
If full body transplants exist in the future (or more realistically, our consciousnesses are uploaded to a computer so our skin tone is a “simple” customization) then yes, I may be something other than white in the future. This will mostly happen so I can go see Lil Wayne or Kanye at a classic rap concert in 2069 and be able to rap along to all the words.
Or you could just not be a baby and rap along like a man
Agreed.
I want to punish myself for opening and reading this article
The known universe doesn’t have an endpoint. If you find the edge where matter still exists, then go beyond that point, you’ll have extended the size of the universe as you are matter. Also, this is completely irrelevant because of the size of the universe, it’s not something where finding the endpoint will ever be relevant, we can detect stars that are over 13 billion light years away. There are trillions are stars between here and there.
In addition, we don’t know what’s beyond our known universe. Assuming this universe isn’t a simulation (more than likely it is. Just think about video games you play. Think of the number of worlds in just grand theft auto V being played on consoles. Fast forward 1000 years, with far more advanced machine learning, computers and processors. They will easily be able to simulate a full world with free-thinking NPCs. Now fast forward more, a solar system, then so on and so forth.) back to the original point. We might not be the only known universe out there. In all likelihood, there have been multiple big bangs all across the unknown universe, but none of the other instances have collided with us yet. Perhaps forces that aren’t understood (or that are like magnetism) prevent two or more from ever colliding or interacting with the other.
I’ve been to space.
I’ll tell you something, I regret almost nothing in my life. However, if I could do it all over again, I would go complete nerd and become an Astronaut. Space fascinates me. To be perfectly honest, I would have absolutely no problem going on a 1 way trip to Mars, for you know, Science or something. Matthew Mcconaughey signing up for his version of a 1 way trip in interstellar was an actual no brainer. Trip of a lifetime baby.
Only if he could do it in a Lincoln.
Never made it through Interstellar, but The Truman Show is a banger
Most underrated Jim Carrey movie in my opinion.
I get incredibly disappointed when people say they’ve never watched it. My parents still have it on VHS and my siblings and I won’t let them throw it away.
I actually needed this because now I’m going to day dream about space and dive into reddit for the last 3 hours of the day
TARS is my spirit animal, despite my existing status as an animal
Unrelated to this crap piece, but did y’all fire McGannon again?
And where is Guys Being Dudes?