A Middle March Sampler of News: Good. Better. Best.

By Colleen O’Connor

Apologies to George Eliot for cribbing her classic title about life in a provincial English town.

Putting it to more contemporary use, here are three pieces of fantastic news just as relevant now, in the middle of March.

First, the good news from Live Science.  “Our universe may have a twin that runs backward in time.  An anti-universe running backwards in time could explain dark matter and cosmic inflation.”

Cosmic Good twin v. Bad twin.  Who knew?

The article continues, “If true, the new theory means that dark matter isn’t so mysterious; it’s just a new flavor of a ghostly particle….that can only exist in this kind of universe.

Thus, “there must be a mirror-image cosmos that balances out our own.”

The better twin, perhaps?

Two other twins running backwards to fly forward are the Discovery of explorer Earnest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, that sank over 100 years ago; and the unearthing of more ancient Egyptian tombs in Saqqara.

I call this “sling shot history.”  Pull back as far as possible on the strap, let go and reach maximum trajectory; a kind of escape velocity.

First, Shackleton:

“In January 1915, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, became icebound in the Antarctic. What happened next would become legend: Shackleton and his crew watched their ship slowly sink, survived a year and a half stranded on the ice, and eventually secured their own rescue with an 800-mile journey in an open lifeboat. Every member of the 28-man team survived.

“Now, 106 years later, the wreck has been found, in remarkable condition, at a depth of nearly 10,000 feet in the Weddell Sea.”

This legendary search also bore a more modern twin component….“one that focused on environmental dynamics and scientific research that Shackleton and his men likely could have never envisioned a century ago.

“The expedition team was composed of 63 people with various backgrounds and areas of expertise: engineers, geophysicists, doctors, statisticians, scientists, polar field guides, oceanographers, and beyond.”

All with equipment and challenges never dreamed of 100 years ago.

Enter Egypt.

Just last Saturday, Egypt revealed ancient tombs at a Pharaonic necropolis near Cairo.  The five tombs, date back to the Old Kingdom, a period spanning roughly from around 2700 BC to 2200 B.C.”

Finding and unearthing of ancient tombs has become a must for Egypt’s tourism, now suffering from both Ukraine’s war and the 2011 uprising that toppled President, Hosni Mubarak.

Again, seen the similarities?  Using antiquities to save the Future.

A future on, Time magazine’s March 18th cover, about a better future not being here fast enough.

The headline: “The Man Behind Ethereum Is Worried About Crypto’s Future.”  (Well worth a read).

That man, Vitalik Buterin, the 28-year old founder of Ethereum, is described as “the most influential person in crypto,” and someone who wants to alter the future to salvage democracy.  Already, creating the better twin reality.

“Buterin hopes Ethereum will become the launchpad for all sorts of sociopolitical experimentation: fairer voting systems, urban planning, universal basic income, public-works projects. Above all, he wants the platform to be a counterweight to authoritarian governments and to upend Silicon Valley’s stranglehold over our digital lives.”

He, like Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, envisions a free, accessible tool for positive change.  Berners-Lee made his idea available freely to everyone, with no patent and no royalties due.

As Buterin envisions the future crypto/blockchain version of the cosmos, “The properly authenticated decentralized blockchain world is coming, and is much closer to being here than many people think.  I see no technical reason why the future needs to look like the status quo today.”

So, he “has turned his attention to sociopolitical issues he thinks the blockchain might solve; local issues like housing, and direct democracy.

Sounds like another good twin in the cosmos.  The bad twins are obvious even to non-geeks.

Remember, Middlemarch had happy endings.