Sasha [They/Them]

Thanks, I appreciate that a lot ❤️

I’m going through some really awful stuff at the moment, and it’s hard to feel proud of anything when I absolutely despise myself, but these are things I managed to convince myself are okay:

• Surviving this. I’m working very hard to get better, I have lots of regrets and getting better isn’t for the reason I want it to be, but I will succeed
• I helped start a transgender solidarity network, our first rally was the proudest moment of my life
• That time I tried to stop a coal ship from leaving port (it didn’t work but it did do a lot of other important things for the rest of the protest)
• I make a really mean creamed cauliflower and I always feel super proud when I get to make it and hear all these strangers say how good it is (it’s the easiest dish in the world, people are just addicted to salt)

Haha yeah EEAAO was a trip and I barely understand it either

Sorry to nitpick a bit, dark matter isn’t connected to the expansion of space (as far as we’re aware) but dark energy is probably what you meant. My answer to your question is at the end.

Full disclosure: While I have studied this, my expertise was in a tangentially related field. However a buddy of mine has a PhD in measuring this stuff so I’ve got some second hand knowledge.

It’s a confusing hurdle for any student of physics to understand that spacetime doesn’t exist inside another bigger thing into which it can expand, it just kinda exists on its own. Mathematically we don’t even treat the expansion quite like growth, it’s a bit easier to understand it as our rulers getting shorter, the labels we give to distances changes over time. Personally I like the analogy of a sheet of grid ruled paper.

If you choose two points and count the number of squares between them, divide that grid into a smaller one and then count them again, the “distance” has gone up. Those squares look smaller to us so it seems like the true distance is the same, but the universe doesn’t have an external view to make such comparisons from, all we have are the squares and physics obeys them. The point is you can cut squares up forever without running out of squares to cut up, nothing runs out this way.

In spacetime maths (general relativity aka GR) we usually start by defining distances, and when it comes to the expansion of the universe we literally just have a number in that definition that changes over time.

This kind of “our rulers and clocks are dodgy and unreliable” is unfortunately the backbone of this sort of physics. It’s a huge pain in the ass, but it’s cool af if you’re a huge maths nerd.

How does it expand?

🤷

Anyone who can tell you how dark energy works beyond “it has a negative pressure” is full of it. It’s a theoretical idea and has never been observed, we just know that if something with negative pressure existed everywhere then it would cause space to expand. Don’t quote me, but it’s kinda like the opposite of how a black hole squishes spacetime down into a singularity, dark energy pushes out on everything everywhere all at once. (Couldn’t help myself it’s a great movie go watch it)

There are a bunch of possible things that fit the bill, it could just be a number in Einstein’s field equation, it could be a specific type of quantum field that has a constant value everywhere, hell I’ve even seen models where it’s just caused by black holes existing. It’s also possible that Einstein got some stuff wrong and that expansion is just what space do. Either way, I don’t think these things require more stuff to be created, it’s just stuff that’s already there.

If I had to make a mostly uneducated guess, I’d say it’s probably just a feature of quantum gravity, for which we have no proven theories. Loop quantum gravity just demands it exists for the theory to even be useful, I’m sure string theory has it’s own crazy nonsense to explain it too. If we ever do work this out, I fully expect it’s just going to be a thing we have to accept exists without an obvious cause, much like how the universe exists but we have no idea why or why the rules it follows are those specific rules and not some others.

OP You should watch (or read if you like manga) Fire Force. The hook is that people randomly catch fire and society kinda has to deal with it, it’s a fun show.

And yeah it’s cooler than funerals, the Fire Force brings along nuns to pray for the person when they need to put them out.

I’m just being silly, but I mean that if everything can be represented as a matrix then there’s a point of view where things like complex numbers are just “names” of specific matrices and the rules that apply to those “names” are just derived from the relevant matrix operations.

Essentially I’m saying that the normal form is an abstract short hand notation of the matrix representation. The matrices are of course significantly harder and more confusing to work with, but in some cases the richness of that structure is very beautiful and insightful.

(I’m particularly in love with the fact one can derive spinors and their transforms purely from the spacetime/Lorentz transforms. It’s a really satisfying exercise and it’s some beautiful algebra/group theory.)

Matrix representations in general, if that counts?

Complex numbers, polynomials, the derivative operator, spinors etc. they’re all matrices. Numbers are just shorthand labels for certain classes of matrices, fight me.

If you suck at interviews cheat, or get lucky.

I flunked the interview for the job I wanted, did well in an interview for a different position at the same company, new boss loved me and I have no clue why. She got fired the weekend before I started and I got moved into an even better job than I’d originally wanted.

For my only other interview ever, I got in because I literally just googled answers to the coding test on my phone just out of view of the camera, not that they were watching anyway. I’m glad I did too, that company was an unethical hell hole and it’s tragic that it hasn’t folded. I left after a couple of months and got abother job with the company from the first paragraph, no interview at all, and significantly better pay (more than double lol).

I seriously have no clue how people get jobs the normal way. I’ve tried, I’ve been trying for years and can’t get another interview.

Not in the US but my perspective on this whole thing is very mixed. Obviously I’m terrified of the rise of fascism and the exterminatory rhetoric that’s now so common when trans people are mentioned in politics. I’m terrified for a number of my friends, and I can’t help them, I can’t keep them safe and I can’t get them out.

For now I’m focusing my efforts locally, we’ve largely been able to keep that sort of thing out of Australia and have had some incredible support outside of the queer community at rallies and a recent counter protest against some terfs. I think we’ll be okay, we might even make some progress down here, very exciting and it’s keeping me going despite everything else.

I’m not holding up well, but I am still standing. I really hope things turn around in the US and UK soon, my heart goes out to you all. I’d say stay strong, but honestly that’s not on you, just stay alive, it’s okay to not fight.