New Metric Fables, Laotzu's creation story

Laotzu's Creation Story

Laotzu believed that the world was created by Apollo, the god of music, but when it came to actually pouring the foundations he hired four giants to do the work. It should be obvious that the world was created by a god of music (look at all the proportions). But musicians are not always the handiest at carpentry so it was not altogether unexpected that the god would get some contractors. Laotzu says that when they showed up for work on the first morning there was one very big giant, two medium-sized, and one not as big as the rest whose name was Extreme Density.

The biggest of the four giants was Allfire Brightness. He appeared before Apollo at the beginning of time and he was the incredibly bright illumination of 10¹¹⁷ chi/finger². The illumination around here would look like utter darkness beside him. In direct vertical sunlight at the Earth's surface all you can ever get is a hundred chi on a square pace of ground—a hundredth of a chi on a square finger. Allfire was a glorious radiance hundrednineteen orders of magnitude greater than that most dazzling sunlight we ever see. The progress of time is from bright to dark and he, who is absolute brightness, marks time's beginning.

According to Laotzu the two medium-sized giants were the twin sisters: Allmighty Pressure and Complete Concentration. Allmighty Pressure was the wife of Allfire Brightness and her pressure was the very pressure which light of allfire brightness exerts. The force light exerts can easily be found through dividing its power by the speed of light, and in this case when you divide 10¹¹⁷ chi by 10⁹ finger per trice (which is the speed of light) you get 10¹⁰⁸ tod. So her pressure was 10¹⁰⁸ tod/finger². In Laotzu's view that is the pressure which caused this world to bud off from the untold. It was the giantess Allmighty Pressure who caused space to swell up and be.

Pressure and energy concentration are in a certain way identical, which was why the two medium-sized giants were twin sisters. The unit pressure, 1 tod/finger², turns into the unit concentration of energy, 1 todfinger/finger³, if you simply insert an extra factor of finger in the numerator and denominator. And formally that doesn't make any difference. So every pressure has an energy concentration doppelganger and Allmighty Pressure's was 10¹⁰⁸ todfinger/finger³. This was the Complete Concentration of energy that existed at the beginning of time which eventually provided material for the galaxies and all the stars.

In the beginning the world was a changeling soup. The light would not stay light but constantly changed itself into matter and the matter would not stay matter but constantly annihilated itself and became light. In those days it was too hot to have the stable distinctions we have now.

According to Laotzu, matter and light arise from each other. Matter turning into light and light into matter is especially likely to happen if the energy is as fiercely concentrated as it was in the beginning. In a cubic finger at the beginning, there was the great amount of energy: 10¹⁰⁸ todfinger. If that had all turned into matter then the matter would have a certain mass and you can find the mass from the energy if you merely divide by the square of the speed of light. The square of the speed of light is 10¹⁸ (finger/trice)². Dividing by it you get 10⁹⁰ tod trice²/finger. Or you might call it 10⁹⁰ billets, a billet being the amount of inertia that a tod shove will give finger/trice² acceleration. The Extreme Density (Planck density) associated with the beginning of the universe consists of this much mass per cubic finger. Extreme Density was Complete Concentration's husband. He was rather compact for a giant and quieter than the other three, even a bit morose compared with the cheerful Allfire Brightness.

Now when Apollo was creating the world he didn't know what size to make alpha. Alpha is just a number but it is deeply embedded in nature, in every atom, and you have to get it right for things to work. But this was definitely not a practical god. He knew about pi and liked pi a lot but he had no idea what to do about alpha. He discussed this with the giants and even ventured to mention some ideas he had had about making alpha something like pi²/60, or maybe 1/8 pi. Or 1/pi⁴. Anyway something nice and elegant.

The giants were appalled. It scandalized them that a god could be so ignorant and cavallier about serious building things. At first they just stood there shaking their heads and glancing sideways at each other. They knew that alpha has to be very close to 1/137.036. You will TOTALLY SCREW UP the world you are making if you let it be even a couple of percent bigger or smaller than that. As they saw it, there wasn't any theoretical reason alpha HAD to be 1/137. It's just that things would be a mess if alpha was different. Builders get to know things like that. Maybe it's somewhere in the building code for worlds. The giants stood there not saying anything, each one wondering if they should just ask to be paid off and leave Apollo to screw up the world however he wanted.

Finally Extreme Density spoke up. "Matter will decay if you make it that." (He was talking about one of Apollo's ideas for alpha, I don't know which.) "The atoms won't work. Nothing but hydrogen would last and maybe not even hydrogen. It has to be 1/137."

The god of music was taken aback. He looked at the three larger giants but they just nodded agreement. He tried to find out why but the giants wouldn't explain. They just stubbornly repeated that it had to be 1/137 or it wouldn't work, and they also intimated that there was another number that they were thinking about making 13.01 billion billion. Apollo threw up his hands and told them to just go ahead and make the world as they pleased. Then he went off into the untold and let the giants proceed with their work.

ORIGINALLY THIS WAS WRITTEN IN DIFFERENT UNITS, like this:

The biggest of the four giants was Allfire Brightness. He appeared before Apollo at the beginning of time and he was the incredibly bright illumination of 10¹²⁰ tondime/pace². The illumination around here would look like utter darkness beside him. In direct vertical sunlight at the Earth's surface all you can ever get is ten tondimes on a square pace of ground. Allfire was a glorious radiance hundrednineteen orders of magnitude greater than that most dazzling sunlight. The progress of time is from bright to dark and he, who is absolute brightness, marks time's beginning.

According to Laotzu the two medium-sized giants were the twin sisters: Allmighty Pressure and Complete Concentration. Allmighty Pressure was the wife of Allfire Brightness and her pressure was the very pressure which light of allfire brightness exerts. The force light exerts can easily be found through dividing its power by the speed of light, and in this case when you divide 10¹²⁰ tondimes by 10¹⁰ dimes (which is the speed of light) you get 10¹¹⁰ tons. So her pressure was 10¹¹⁰ tons/pace². In Laotzu's view that is the pressure which caused this world to bud off from the untold. It was the giantess Allmighty Pressure who caused space to swell up and be.

Pressure and energy concentration are in a certain way identical, which was why the two medium-sized giants were twin sisters. The unit pressure, 1 ton/pace², turns into the unit concentration of energy, 1 tonpace/pace³, if you simply insert pace in the numerator and denominator. And formally that doesn't make any difference. So every pressure has an energy concentration doppelganger and Allmighty Pressure's was 10¹¹⁰ tonpace/pace³. This was the Complete Concentration of energy that existed at the beginning of time which eventually provided material for the galaxies and all the stars.

According to Laotzu, matter and light arise from each other. Matter turning into light and light into matter is especially likely to happen if the energy is as fiercely concentrated as it was in the beginning. In a cubic pace at the beginning, there was the great amount of energy: 10¹¹⁰ tonpaces. If that had all turned into matter then the matter would have a certain mass and you can find the mass from the energy if you merely divide by the square of the speed of light. The square of the speed of light is 10²⁰ dime². Dividing by it you get 10⁹⁰ tonminute/dime. Or you might call it 10⁹⁰ quads, a quad being the amount of inertia that needs a tonminute shove for it to acquire dime speed. The Extreme Density (Planck density) associated with the beginning of the universe consists of this much mass per cubic pace. Expressed in this unit of inertia (in metric terms, a quad is 22 billion grams) this gigantic density is 10⁹⁰ quad per cubic pace. Extreme Density was Complete Concentration's husband. He was rather compact for a giant and quieter than the other three, even a bit morose compared with the cheerful Allfire Brightness.