Sparkle Brightly 

Liam Holt

After the girl with the green doll
and the TV signal withdrew
I gazed into the snow
and
unwittingly 
I saw
everyone I’d love
and everything I’d live for
in the cosmic background radiation
projected on the cathode ray

in this static phosphorescence
the quantum fluctuations
that sparked the instability
that made our galaxy
and a hundred million supernovae
reflected in your eyes
kaleidoscoped in our kiss

within this miracle
the only responsible
path is to sparkle brightly
to project our love
our entangled energy
into eternity

The Science

The poem initially refers to Test Card F, an image used by BBC engineers to adjust colour (cerca 1967 - 1998), before the TV signal would stop and the screen would collapse into a snow of chaotic, black and white pixels. Amazingly, one percent of that snow comes from the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). This microwave background has been crucial in the inference of the early history of the universe. Certain features of the CMB, including extreme uniformity, suggest that our universe expanded 100 septillion times (10^26) in < 10^-32 seconds (not even enough time for light to cross 1/100 of a proton). This unimaginably rapid expansion amplified quantum fluctuations (temporary energy fluctuations due to quantum mechanics) to cosmological scale density fluctuations. These slight differences in density were then amplified by gravity, clumping matter into galaxies and stars. Stars then fused atoms into the heavy elements that were distributed in supernovae explosions and made their way to our solar system to eventually form our bodies and minds; our miraculous lives and loves.

As a child, when I gazed at the snow on the TV, I was staring into the quantum chaos that now sparkles so brightly in your eyes.

The Poet

Liam Holt (he/him) is a British/American scientist and poet who lives in New York City. He is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at New York University and the editor of the science outreach project ScienceSketches.org

Next poem: Stämmersong by Norman Miller