The Hawking Effect

O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge—by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.

(1 Timothy 6:20-21) NKJV

One of our favorite books is “A Brief History of Time,” by Stephen Hawking. In this and his other books Hawking expands use of the scientific method as an inductive tool. He opened up the realm of plausibility. In so doing he redefined the term “scientific knowledge.”

Scientific knowledge: anecdotal evidence combined with probability means it’s a reasonable assumption.

– a definition for the post-Hawking mainstream science Trekkie generation (SciPop)

Einstein showed us that an inductive approach was perfect for rationalizing scientific experiments that fit a desired premise, because the experiments were designed within the paradigm which gave rise to the premise. Unfortunately, no one bothered to prove the paradigm. Hawking took it a step further to no longer need experiments or a premise, all we have to do is sound plausible.

Hawking gathered up all of the loose ends of physics from the last 100 years or so and wove them into a narrative, the reason for our existence, which sounded plausible. It’s conclusion was that no creative act was required, and since it incorporated all of the varied and fragmentary work of the great minds of history it was a best seller. Hawking wove it so seamlessly together that he made it seem as if his conclusion was obvious. Of course that was what happened. What else would it have been?

This has had a profound effect on the scientific method as employed by Trekkie scientists.

The Scientific Method Post Hawking

• If it’s plausible it’s possible.
• If it’s possible it happened.
• It has to have happened because we exist.
• The chances of us existing are so remotely tiny that our existence proves our hypothesis (whatever it is).

The universe isn’t expanding. There’s a source of gravitational attraction on the edge of space holding the cosmos in its current stable state. The firmament. We can’t see it because its inner surface is black. However SciPop has detected quasars which are a rather remarkable phenomenon. Here’s some inductive rationalization about quasars:

Quasar, definition

A quasar (/ˈkweɪzɑːr/) (also quasi-stellar object or QSO) is an active galactic nucleus of very high luminosity. A quasar consists of a supermassive black hole surrounded by an orbiting accretion disk of gas. As gas in the accretion disk falls toward the black hole, energy is released in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Quasars emit energy across the electromagnetic spectrum and can be observed at radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray wavelengths. The most powerful quasars have luminosities exceeding 10⁴¹ W, thousands of times greater than the luminosity of a large galaxy such as the Milky Way.

– Wikipedia

This is the Hawking Effect, where science jargon is used to validate ideas from the Star Trek universe. Since there aren’t any distant galaxies there can’t be any active galactic nuclei. There aren’t black holes either so there can’t be one at the heart of each quasar. A quasar looks like a star which is both much larger than any of the others and much further away. The geometry of the SciPop paradigm causes these to be outrageously huge, which is why the universe ought to be collapsing.

On the other hand, considering what we know of the firmament as a rigid sphere of brightly shining crystal on the edge of space, above which is (or was) a body of water, we can deduce something about quasars. If the windows of heaven are channels in the firmament through which water flowed in the time of Noah, then these may be places where the black covering on the inner surface of the firmament is absent.

The SciPop cosmological model is a ridiculously massive bubble which should collapse but hasn’t, and no one knows why. Theoretically it’s as substantial as breaking wind but people love Star Trek, so peer review signed off on it.

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