I recall reading a paperback SF novel many years ago entitled, The Girl in the Atom (not a classic). Goofy science, but a fun read. The idea was that an atom was analogous to a solar system (nucleus=star, electrons=planets), and our stalwart heroes, instead of journeying outward, journeyed inward (using a process something like that used in the movie "Fantastic Voyage," only moreso) and had all kinds of space opera-type adventures. Of course, the implication was that if we could similarly increase in size, we might find that our own Earth is a mere electron in some unimaginably huge creature's cheese sandwich. There were other stories along this line: notably Henry Hasse's He Who Shrank, published in the August 1936 issue of "Amazing Stories" (I read it in an anthology), and the movie, "The Incredible Shrinking Man."

The idea that The Universe, which we always assume is singular, might be just that—the inside of a singularity—sounds immensely reasonable to me. Isn't it possible that that the Big Bang came as a result of a large star in another Universe somewhere/somewhen else (but completely subsuming everything) going supernova? And isn't it possible that every time a star in our universe goes supernova and a black hole is formed, another universe is born somewhere/somewhen, completely subsumed by our universe?

Perhaps all of Creation (or "Happenstance," if you will) is like matryoshka, Russian nesting dolls. Universes within universes within universes, each universe periodically spawning other universes ad infinitum.

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
                      —Augustus de Morgan, in A budget of Paradoxes

But then again, maybe they're not nested; maybe they're all parallel. Or some unimaginable combination of both. [I'm getting dizzy!]

Great fodder for science fiction. By the way, how do the folks in "Star Gate" know they're winding up on other planets? Might the thing not be transporting them to other universes? [I know, I know. "uni-" indicates only one. But you know what I mean.]

When I was a wee sprat, I was fascinated by the "Buck Rogers" comic strip. At the age of about eight, I did a thought experiment: I contemplated the possibility of getting into a rocket ship and going as far as I could possibly go. What would I encounter? A brick wall? A steel wall studded with rivets, like the drawings in the comic strip? If so, then that raises the question, "What is beyond that wall?"

For a few seconds I had an almost visceral grasp of the concept of infinity.

Don Firth

P.S. Kinda makes politics seem sorta trivial, doesn't it?