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A supernova was a star, then it was transformed into something
new that is capable of taking on greater responsibility within the body of the galaxy.
Galaxies are very complex. They are not just a random collection of independent stars.
In fact, the galaxy is just as complex as your body. In biology class, we learn that each cell
in your body has very specific responsibilities. These cells are grouped together
into tissues that have their own functions. The tissues are grouped together into organs
that have more far-reaching responsibilities within the proper
functioning of the body as a whole. The same structure, or hierarchy, is present in galaxies.
The stars that we see in the sky are just one aspect of galactic intricacies. Stars are
grouped together into larger structures that were particularly shown to us by
the Planck and Herschel space telescopes. These larger structures are part of still
larger, functional regions within the full body of the galaxy. Each of these levels of organization is
doing something. None of it is pointless or random. Where does a supernova fit into this
larger perspective? For it is only with such a perspective that we can begin to understand the
nature of supernova. I did not invent the perspective. I was
lucky enough to inherit the ideas and I’m doing my best to apply them to astronomy.
I began studying supernova in the late 1980’s, collecting data about the pulsar named 1913+16.
We were looking at the spin-down rate to compare that with the theory of
general relativity. As much as we know about supernova, it will probably not come as a surprise
that we also know very little about them. We are confident that they start off as stars,
and somehow that star undergoes a very rapid transformation
which, for an instant, puts out as much energy as the entire galaxy of which it is a part.
This brief, all-encompassing flash is what we call the supernova. After that flash,
the star is gone, and we see in its place something very different.
The very center of this new creature pulses very rapidly, hundreds, even
thousands, of times a second. Each supernova remnant has a unique pulse shape.
Unique like your fingerprint or voice. Around this compact pulsing center
is a rapidly expanding, larger electric and magnetic body. Here is a little portrait gallery
of such transformed stars. What strikes me, first, is their beauty
and their individuality. There is a bit of a classification problem
for people familiar with the astrophysics. For a long time, we classified the events as Type I
and Type II. But then we found some that blended the features of the two types. Then we found
ones that were neither type. Then we found more and more that were supposed to be
impossible. I would like to change the terms of the discussion.
Let us stop describing supernovas as dead, or dying stars. Let's stop describing
them as Type I and II. Let's forget about the distinction with planetary nebula.
Let's instead, start talking about transformed stars. About stars that are reborn
onto a larger playing field. About stars that found some way to be conduits for a greater
amount of energy, and hence are able to take on greater responsibility.
Our galaxy is filled with structures like this, which became visible to us only from the Planck
and Herschel telescope data. One hundred lightyears across, composed of an
enormous variety of organic molecules. Connected into a coherent whole by
magnetic fields; electric currents flowing through the whole thing;
complex vibrations traveling up and down the whole structure.
Hundreds or thousands of stars might participate in such a structure. It has very
well-defined boundaries, membranes, actually, that are just as well
defined as your blood vessels. These plasma membranes are also, like
all the membranes of your body, semi-permeable.
At one lecture I showed this picture and a woman yelled out,
...”that looks like a Fallopian tube” which is certainly thinking in the right direction.
We really do not know what this thing is, and never will understand it without
acknowledging that it has a function. It is doing something for the
interstellar medium or for the galaxy. Supernova are connected with these sorts of larger structures.
We do not know yet which comes first: the supernova or the larger structure,
or if they arise together as part of some larger process. Now that we've spoken, very briefly, about
these cosmological miracles, let us turn the focus to a human level.
What can we learn about ourselves by studying supernova?
Supernova are extraordinary stars. Perhaps they can shed light on
extraordinary people. I've always been fascinated with how some people, like a Mahatma
Gandhi or a Saint Claire of Assisi, can affect so many people, over such a large distance
and for such a long time. I'm not talking about social media,
I think that is a different discussion. Let us keep our focus on pre-internet circumstances.
How much effect can one person have? Most of us affect only our nearest neighbors.
Yet in history, we see that some people affect whole continents. Think of Gandhi in India.
We see hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, being moved
physically, now here, now there. We know that by the thousands, they're
having new thoughts about themselves and their country. New hopes and wishes and that these new
thoughts and feelings will persist for decades, and will be felt in the future by people
who never met him. Well, I have to admit I do not actually know
what kind of energy can produce all that. I do know that it is orders of magnitude
beyond what you and I are capable of in our current condition. Let us bounce back and forth between the
world of supernova and the world of people, in hopes of understanding both better. A
supernova becomes instrumental in organizing matter over much larger distances than it did while
it was a star. Our star orchestrates matter over a distance of about
a hundredth of a lightyear. That means, affecting mostly only the star's nearest neighbors. By
comparison, the Crab Nebula supernova is organizing matter
over at least 20 lightyears and is connected to structures that are
hundreds, maybe thousands of lightyears across. That is a scale jump, comparable to how
Saint Claire could change the life of the religious, not only in the small town of Assisi,
but in all of Italy and then all of Europe. Claire did not yell louder to reach
more people. I'm fairly certain she was soft-spoken. Some other transformation must have taken place
in her, that allowed her to be connected to people over vastly larger distances.
Another supernova characteristic is the quantity and the quality of the new energies produced.
I've already mentioned that during its initial flare, the supernova can put out
a quantity of energy comparable to the entire galaxy. That would be like one of your cells
putting out as much energy as your entire body. The average cell would be blown to
smithereens by that much energy. The Crab Nebula continues to put out at least
a hundred thousand times the energy of our Sun. In the real world quantity is important, but also
the quality of energy is important. As a physicist, our toolbox is very limited
in distinguishing, describing, measuring different qualities of energy. Some physicists even believe
that energy cannot have different qualities. But something can exist,
even if I do not have a name for it. The best we can do with current physics is to look
at the frequency of the energy emitted. For example, the frequencies emitted by
the Crab Nebula, compared to an ordinary star. We see that for the supernova
the frequencies are shifted very much towards the higher, such as ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma-ray.
The Crab Pulsar in fact has the distinction of being the source of the
highest-frequency photons we have ever measured. Higher frequencies are more penetrating.
Think about X-rays being able to give you a photo of the inside of the body,
as opposed to the lower frequencies of visible light that can see
only the very outside of your skin. Higher frequencies can also
carry more information. Bringing this over to the human realm,
I'm not necessarily saying that Buddha emitted higher frequencies than you and me,
though he very well might have. I am saying, that the energies he worked with, were much
more penetrating and able to accomplish much more in a very short time.
In the electric cosmology viewpoint, stars are conduits for energy just as everything
is in the universe. You and I do not really create energy, we take in material around us and we
liberate that energy. Stars transform the galactic electrical energy into the
light and heat that sustain us. Stars are conduits for the liberation or the transformation
of energy. When a star goes supernova, it becomes capable of conducting
millions of times more energy than the star it came from. In the human world, I am proposing that
something comparable is possible for you and me, and was actual
for the Buddha and perhaps on a smaller scale, for someone like Dr. Martin Luther King.
Their lives and consciousness actually are more penetrating. They are working
with a different quality of energy. They found a way to conduct and transform,
both a larger quantity, and a finer quality, of energy. A third characteristic of the supernova,
is that of changing time. In the compact pulsar that we see in the center
of the growing supernova body, the gravity is so intense
that, according to general relativity, time flows hundreds or even thousands of
times slower than it does for you and me. But there's more to it than that. I can
have two events of equal energy, but the effects of one event
will dissipate and disappear very quickly, while the effects
of the second event might last for years or centuries. What makes that difference? I wonder
about that. I think it has something to do with working for myself
versus working for others. Vain glory and self-importance generally do not lead to lasting and
beneficial change. But even the worst tyrants have claimed they were working for the benefit of
others, so we must be very careful when trying to answer this one.
I do know that the soul of Martin Luther King Jr. really does reach across time to touch
people who never knew him. I know that many physicists tell us that cause and effect
only work locally, and causes cannot stretch across time. But my direct experience
tells me otherwise, and I must follow what I know. That time is flexible and has other
dimensions outside of a simple line, is actually ancient knowledge and I would daresay, a
direct experience that many of us have had. Basic principles are expressed
at all levels of the universe. The potential to really change, and become useful to
something larger, is a principle that is playing out
at every level of the universe, in cells, in people, in stars
which you can begin to see if you know to look for it. We can learn about such possibilities in
ourselves by studying the comparable phenomena outside ourselves.
Studying this possibility in the world around me, can help me work with the same in myself.
If we did not see it with our own eyes, we would not believe that stars could become supernova.
But they do. If we did not see it with our own eyes, we would not believe that caterpillars
can turn into butterflies. But they do. And that level of
transformation really is comparable to a transition latent within each of us.
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