DARK MATTER

by Lavinia Kumar

The early Universe was a strange place. Early in its history—in the first quintillionth of a second—the entire cosmos was nothing more than a stunningly hot plasma. And, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), this soup of quarks and gluons was accompanied by the formation of weird little primordial black holes (PHBs). It’s entirely possible that these long-vanished PHBs could have been the root of dark matter. MIT’s David Kaiser and graduate student Elba Alonso-Monsalve suggest that such early super-charged black holes were very likely a new state of matter that we don’t see in the modern cosmos. “Even though these short-lived, exotic creatures are not around today, they could have affected cosmic history in ways that could show up in subtle signals today,” Kaiser said. “Within the idea that all dark matter could be accounted for by black holes, this gives us new things to look for.” That means a new way to search for the origins of dark matter. (Graphic: Depiction of a primordial black hole forming amid a sea of hot, color-charged quarks and gluons, a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang.) —Universe Today, June 17, 2024

The British gentry are old hands at dark matter,

invisible behind those large gates,

lengthy curved lanes lined by trees

that lead to rumors of manors, 

over-trimmed gardens, and shootable 

deer, duck, and pheasant.

 

A lesser Brit, Stephen Hawking, created

a jigsaw of calculations, found 

what he thought must be the dark matter

in those hidden places—hiding thirty percent

of universe’s riches in those exotic 

out-of-the-way spaces.

 

But now, two scientists agree with him,

have found the hidden more interesting 

than plebian places, like village houses,

like quarks glued together by gluons.  

And, as is proper for dukes, princes, and lords,

each dark piece is far away from another,

with much space between.

 

But, alas, other nosy scientists, stars 

in our universe, are now spying on this matter, 

to find why, how, such riches were achieved.  

And who wouldn’t?   Will it lead to equality?

Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is a reprinting of her short book Beauty. Salon. Art. 

PRESENCE IN THE ABSENCE

by Mary K O'Melveny

Illustration by Andy Gilmore for The New York Times, October 4, 2018. Stephen Hawking said that particles that fall into a black hole “can’t just emerge when the black hole disappears.” Instead, “the particles that come out of a black hole seem to be completely random and bear no relation to what fell in. It appears that the information about what fell in is lost, apart from the total amount of mass and the amount of rotation. If determinism breaks down, we can’t be sure of our past history either,”  Hawking said. “The history books and our memories could just be illusions. It is the past that tells us who we are. Without it, we lose our identity. Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science fiction writers, but they are clearly matters of science fact.” —NWO Report, April 24, 2016

Black holes have our attention
once again. We still know little
or nothing. They are consummate
known unknowns, as Rumsfeld once said.

An image haunts us as we guess
at portraits of bending space, our
breath catches mid-inhale, as we
ruminate on combustion.

Or collapse. I had a lover
once who made me feel I could do
both at the same time—plummet from
heat to nothingness in seconds.

How I gravitated to flame
and then to black ice still amazes
all these light years later even
when my days now rotate with sun.

Perhaps we are obsessed with past
lives when they become places of
no return. Where memories curve
inward, leave us to read between lines.

That is why we hunger for things
we don’t know or can’t remember.
Why, even though ignorance may
devour us, shadows of faith adhere.


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press.

A SINGLE SPECK OF STARDUST

by David James Olsen

inspired by the film The Theory of Everything and dedicated to Stephen Hawking ... "who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed." (Allen Ginsberg, "Howl")

what twists and turns create the burn that makes the heart’s intones?

what organizing force infuses courage in our bones?

what questions help us quest to truths of how we do exist?

what answers satisfy the dark allowing light, sun-kissed?

a single speck of stardust that comprised him from the start

gave Hawking humble genius-sparks endorsing his own chart

of new galactic concepts none before had dared to breach,

of how the seasons stretch in space defying standard speech.

and facing such a fatal future from an early age,

he forced himself to move his mind to think outside the cage

impounding human theories bound by knowledge found on Earth.

he broke the mold of sanctioned mass, thus causing a rebirth

inside the field of physics where professors marveled more

at how his bright endurance conquered paralyzing odds

than at his hot hypotheses that came at last to bore

through scientific lenses lacking stabilized tripods.

deteriorating muscle strength could hardly stop his flow

of fiery radiation-thoughts and populated spheres

outside our milky, wayward mindsets curbed by what we know,

of places past the brink of time, beyond our pointless fears.

determined, clear persistence reigned till, sev’nty-six, he passed,

his focus never quitting quantum gravity at all,

his wit most sharp, intact until his heartbeat played its last.

study his work for ages so his star shall never fall.

Author’s Note: This elegy is specifically structured with seven rhythmic feet per line and six stanzas so as to represent the awe-inspiring age of 76 to which Hawking lived.

David James Olsen’s iconoclastic and encrypted poetry has been published in various sources including Instigatorzine, The South Townsville micro poetry journal, and three previous times here on TheNewVerse.News. A New Yorker juggling myriad passions, he is currently most focused on intensive poetic study and writing while gracefully diving into increasing vegan activism.

TO JOE BIDEN AND BEYOND

by Ed Plunkett

I want to go to the Moon with you, Joe Biden
The adventures we would have with Wall-E, Doctor Who,
Joy from Inside Out and the Abominable Snowman will be incredible
We’d quickly cure cancer, the mission President Obama sent you on
Get that out of the way
Then the party would start
Space 2016 will be a blast off
John Glenn will drive our Moon Rover
Matt Damon will engineer it so we can shoot off into space!
Stephen Hawking can make sure the steering works
We’d find new comets and name them after your favorite
amusement park rides
Because you’re Joe Biden, in space!
Decked out in our matching flight suits and aviator sunglasses
we will rule the galaxies
So badass we’ll run laps around both Voyagers
Plant the American flag on the moons of Neptune
Make you King of interstellar space
Because you, Joe Biden
Are the true Emperor of the universe
and all undiscovered countries
You and I will leave trails of smoke bombs and firecrackers
on asteroids
Send spam emails to alien tribal leaders
Giggle like children as Neil Degrasse Tyson
puts potatoes in the exhaust pipes of Tie Fighters
For science!
Please make us all find our lost youth,
Mr. Lame Duck Vice President
Allow me to take your picture
flipping off the First Order with impunity as we
Do donuts with gravitational pull
Joe Biden, it will be an honor to ride shotgun, with you


Ed Plunkett is from Columbus, Ohio. He has represented his city at the Individual World Poetry Slam and was Chairman of the Word is Art Committee of the Columbus Arts Festival. He has published the chapbook Nobody’s Poet, the CD I'm Not From Here and has been published in the journal The Legendary, The New Verse News, The Uppagus, the anthology Buzzkill: Apocalypse and Columbus 614 Magazine. One of Ed’s life goals is to read in all of Ohio's 88 counties. He has a long way to go