Word: unknowns
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Easter eggs? Not the real ones, of course, but rather mischievous mini-programs tucked away by stealthy programmers inside millions of lines of software code, often unknown to the company whose name is stamped on the box. The result: treats for big kids in office cubicles around the world--if they have the courage and imagination to go after what this particular Easter bunny has sown...
...unknown has to do with inflation--the theory that the universe began as a bubble of empty space that initially expanded at a velocity much faster than that of light (see "Will We Discover Another Universe?", in this issue). Cosmologists take inflation seriously because it resolves problems that bedeviled older versions of the Big Bang, but inflation also has implications for the study of cosmic destiny. Among them is that the force that drove the inflationary spasm, sometimes tagged with the Greek letter lambda after its designation in Einstein's general-relativity equations, might not have subsided altogether back when...
Perhaps the most intriguing unknown, however, concerns the cosmic role played by intelligent life itself. As the physicist Freeman Dyson notes, "It is impossible to calculate in detail the long-range future of the universe without including the effects of life and intelligence." Much of the earth has been transformed, for better and worse, by the presence here of an intelligent species capable of manipulating its environment for its own benefit...
...have enough fuel to travel more than 25 years or so into the future. But our guides are patient and remarkably lucid. We come back excited by how much can be foretold--about cloning, evolution, earthquakes and space travel--and humbled by how much is yet unknown...
...mixed reactions. For the most part, the third-floories found it funny. Since these relationships were common knowledge, the detailed connections came at no surprise. But for obvious reasons, the proctor didn't frame it and nail it to any walls. But the whereabouts of the chart are now unknown. An irate individual allegedly took it down and doubt remains as to whether or not the chart made it safely into a fireplace. Thankfully however, for Harvard's viewing pleasure, Jane took precautionary measures and scanned the scheming masterpiece...