1. David Jukes-Hughes 21
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“Life on Earth.”
(Paper 1: Strategic Definition: RIBA Work Stage 0.)
A paper written and published by
David G. Jukes-Hughes MA (Kingston University, UK)
Manchester, United Kingdom.
Saturday 21st
June 2014
2. David Jukes-Hughes 21
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June 2014
Project 202: “Life on Earth.”
Revision 04: 28
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April 2016
About the Author
David Jukes-Hughes has been in the practice of architectural design since 1984.
He specializes in architectural theory and its consequences.
3. David Jukes-Hughes 21
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Project 202: “Life on Earth.”
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“Life on Earth.”
(Paper 1: Strategic Definition: RIBA Work Stage 0.)
“Nature conceals her secrets by exaltedness, but not by cunning.”
Albert Einstein. April 30th
1930 AD.
(Letter to Oswald Veblen, Berlin: The Republic of Germany. See Note 1.)
Preface
The aim of this paper is to position life on the planet Earth in two spatial
dimensions, and also in two time dimensions / two “gravitational fields” at the
galactic and intergalactic scale in the form of a clock.
Acknowledgements
NASA, JPL et al / Edwin Hubble / Henrietta Swan Leavitt / Alexander Friedmann
/ Albert Einstein / Charles Darwin / Sir Isaac Newton / Descartes / Galilei Galileo /
Johannes Kepler / Tycho Brahe / Giordano Bruno / Mikolaj Kopernigk / Euclid /
Aristotle / Plato / Socrates / Pythagoras…etc.
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Contents
Page
Preface / Acknowledgements i
Introduction 1
1 The Design 1
2 The Purpose of the Clock 1
Conclusion 2
Notes iii
Glossary iv
Bibliography v
Appendix 1 vi
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Introduction
In my previous paper, Project 117 (Revision 07), I demonstrated that it was
possible to create a 24 hour geographical galactic clock in two spatial dimensions
based on a one dimensional system of time, which is to say ‘local galactic time’.
In this paper I hope to demonstrate that this space-time understanding can be
extended to include an additional time dimension, or ‘gravitational field’, which I
shall call “inter-galactic time”. Hence, the clock might be considered as a ’24 hour
four dimensional geographical galactic clock’. ie: It has two spatial coordinates
(x,y) and two time coordinates. The 4D clock design, like the original 3D clock
design, begins with the birth of the Sun and Planet Earth 4,600 million years ago,
and ends 1,000 million years from the present time.
1. The Design.
The design of the ‘24 hour geographical intergalactic clock’ is illustrated by the
Figures 1 to 4 in Appendix 1 of this paper. Figure 3 demonstrates the idea in plan
and cross section. Thus, in these illustrations we see that the ‘clock’ is a
computer animated representation projected on a vertical plane or wall which is
10800 mm in length and 2187 mm in height. Figures 1 and 2 show the
representation in elevation. Figure 4 shows the detail of the Milky-way galaxy as
viewed from the north pole of the galaxy.
2. The Purpose of the Clock.
The clock then has two time elements to it. The first is the time travelled by the
galaxy across intergalactic space from the constellation “Pegasus” toward the
constellation “Hydra”. The second is the time in which the Sun rotates about the
centre of the galaxy. In the first time dimension the galaxy travels across space
over a distance of 10.296 Mly, a time period of approximately 5,600 million Earth
years. In the second time dimension the galaxy rotates clockwise (as seen from
its north pole) about its centre once every 233,036,836 Earth years. This shows
that the Sun covers a 360 degree rotational distance of 170,816 ly during that
time period rotating about the galactic centre.
The clock is designed to a geographical scale. This scale, representing the size
of the model / clock to the size of reality, seems to be in the region of a ratio of
1:9,442 million million million. At this scale 1mm equals 1,000 ly. (See Note 2.)
In the representation the galaxy ‘travels’ from the right side of the vertical plane
to the left side over a 24 hour period. In addition the galaxy rotates once every
hour. Thus, over the duration of 24 hours the galaxy rotates 24 times, (as in the
scaled model of the galaxy / 24 hour galactic clock described in my previous
Project Paper 117). And as the galaxy rotates once every hour, it also travels a
scaled distance of 429,000 ly towards the CMB in Hydra once every hour.
(See Note 3)
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The galaxy is 100,000 ly in diameter. Therefore, the diameter of the galaxy in the
model is only 100 mm. Like the 3D design, the 4D design would use an image of
the galaxy created by Robert Hurt of Caltech in 2008. The copyright for this
image is jointly owned by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA, Caltech
and Robert Hurt. (See Note 4.)
So what is the purpose of the clock?
The purpose of the clock is simply to illustrate the history, future and present
reality, in a scaled geographical space, of life on the planet Earth at the inter-
galactic scale of space-time. Thus, the 24 hour clock times of significant events
in the history of life on Earth in the 4D design are exactly the same as those in
the 3D design. (These will be included in drawings at the detailed design stage
for the project, should the project get sufficient funding from future stakeholders.)
Conclusion
In this paper I have described the idea of a geographical intergalactic clock
designed to a fixed spatial scale as well a fixed time scale.
I hope that by seeing this particular type of clock ordinary people will obtain a
greater understanding of our common human experience of life on Earth, and all
it actually amounts to, in a larger scaled picture of reality.
Thus, we now seem to know that modern humans (Homo sapiens) have been in
existence for the last 250,000 years. In both the 3D design and the 4D design
this is equivalent to 3.625 seconds of 24 hour clock time, which is equivalent to
0.3625 degrees of the circumference of the galaxy. At the intergalactic level this
is equivalent to a galactic travel distance of 0.432 mm, at the intergalactic level,
in the model of the 4D design. (Thus, since the birth of modern humans, the
galaxy has traveled towards the CMB a distance of 431.375 ly, which is
equivalent to 27,226,319 AU or 4,084 million million km.)
The clock time in both the 3D design and the 4D design begins with the birth of
the Sun and the birth of planet Earth, 4,600 million years ago. It ends at midnight
in the model, which is equivalent to 1,000 million years from the present time.
And this is believed by scientists to be a point in time when all life on the planet
Earth will be unsustainable. (The Sun is heating up as it transforms its Hydrogen
content to Helium. This will eventually evaporate all the Earth’s water into outer
space.) Will humanity see that day? It would seem very unlikely. Indeed some
scientists today, such as James Lovelock, believe that our species will not live
much more than another 100,000 years. If that is true then humanity will not even
complete a distance of 1 mm on the clock, at the intergalactic level. (See Note 5.)
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But even if H. sapiens were to exist for a total of 1,500,000 years (like H. erectus,
which is believed to be the longest lived of all ten previous (and extinct) human
species known to us so far), or more, would the species not evolve, genetically,
into something that was unrecognizable to ourselves? Would our species not
become, perhaps, a new species altogether in say 5 million years? And what is 5
million years on the clock? The answer to that is only a distance of 9.2 mm at the
intergalactic level. This is only 1 minute and 17 seconds of time in the model (out
of a total period of 24 hours).
As Carolyn Collins Peterson has described modern human beings in her book on
the Hubble Telescope, “Hubble Vision” (1998), “We are a short-lived species”.
(See Note 6.)
Finis
Postscript.
In 1897 AD, Paul Gauguin painted an unusual picture of Polynesian life entitled,
“Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (Oil on
canvas 57 ¾ x 147 ½ ins: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA.) Astronomy can,
perhaps, provide some of the answers, if presented in an easily comprehensible
format for the understanding of non-astronomers like myself. It cannot provide a
complete picture of the Creation and our place within it however. Gauguin’s work
is testament to the mystery of it, we will never understand it completely I think. It
is just too much to suspend in ones minds-eye in a single thought for the limited
capacity of our brains. However, I hope this ‘clock’ design goes some way to
answering Paul Gauguin’s questions, had he but lived long enough to see the
‘clock’. (See Note 7.)
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Notes:
Note 1: Quotation is from: Fölsing, Albrecht. “Albert Einstein”, Penguin Books, UK, 1998. p.503.
(First published in 1993.)
Note 2: As noted the scale in the 4D clock design is equivalent to 1 mm to 1,000 ly. This is
different to the scale of the 3D clock design described in my previous paper. In that case the
scale was 1 mm to 50 ly. This new clock design is also 2.509 times faster at the intergalactic
level, though it operates at the same velocity as the original 3D clock design at the ‘galactic’ level.
In the 3D design the velocity of the galactic rotation is 449,194,000,000,000 km/s. And if one
multiplies this figure by 2.509 this gives a velocity of 1,127,027,746,000,000 km/s, which is
3,756,759,153 times faster than the velocity of light. This sort of figure is totally unimaginable.
That said, any observer of the 4D clock will be hard pressed to notice such velocities at work. I
suspect. When I look at my watch…I think the minute hand hardly seems to move at all.
Note 3: Thus, in 1 hour the galaxy travels 429 mm in the model. In 1 minute the galaxy travels
7.15 mm in the model, which is equivalent to 7,146 ly. And in 1 second the galaxy travels
0.11916666 mm in the model, which is equivalent to 119 ly. (1 mm length in the model is
equivalent to 543,209 Earth years.) It should be noted that in reality, as the astronomers
understand it, the Local Galaxy rotates about a centre of gravity somewhere between it and the
galaxy of Andromeda (M31), thus the ‘clock / model’ is an ‘unwrapped’ representation, as it were.
M31 is located at 0 hours 44 minutes Right Ascension and 41 degrees declination. Around this
centre of gravity a larger number of smaller galaxies also rotate, coming to a total of about 54
galaxies. Together they form the ‘Local Group’ of galaxies some three million light years across.
The time it takes the Local Galaxy (and the Local Group) to complete one rotation (clockwise,
when viewed from the ‘North Pole’,) is perhaps 4,269 million years, almost as old as the Sun and
planet Earth. The Local Group also ‘rotates’ about another centre of gravity as a part of the much
larger group of galaxies called the Virgo Super-cluster. This contains up to 3,000 galaxies and is
about 110 Mly across. It ‘rotates’ about a centrepoint located in the region of the galaxy Virgo A
(M87), which is 54 Mly away from planet Earth. This is found at 12 hours 30 minutes Right
Ascension and 12 degrees declination.
Note 4: At this scale the size of the Universe would be a 92 km diameter sphere. The physical
size of the observable Universe, viewed from planet Earth, is estimated at 92,000 Mly in
diameter.
At the same scale, the Local Group of galaxies would be 3 metres across, and the Virgo Super-
cluster would be 110 metres across. In other words, the size of the Local Group might be likened
to the size of one’s kitchen, and the size of the Virgo super-cluster is the short ‘walk’ to the corner
store at the end of one’s street. Whilst a ‘trip’ to the physical limit of the observed Universe (seen
from the centrepoint of the Universe of the observer), might be likened, perhaps, to traveling by
railway train from the city of Manchester (The Museum of Science and Industry) to the city of
Liverpool, a physical distance of about 46 km, on George Stephenson’s “Rocket”, in 1829 AD.
Note 5: James Lovelock: Interviewed on BBC Radio 4 in May 2014. (If one allows 25 years to
encompass the age of one generation, 100,000 years is then equal to 4,000 generations.
Considering that most of us can only trace our ancestry back in time for just 9 or 10 generations
(beginning with the industrial revolution in 1750 AD), 100,000 years is still a considerable length
of time, in strictly human terms. Indeed, civilization, that is the development of urbanization,
agriculture and the domestication of animals, began only about 10,000 years ago. The great
pyramids of Giza in Egypt are only 4,500 years old. And the oldest existing astronomical clock in
the world, the Ancient British monument, “Stonehenge”, was begun 4,750 years ago, a period of
time which covers just 190 generations. Of course, at the galactic and intergalactic scale of time,
this is no time at all.)
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Note 6: Carolyn Collins Peterson and John C. Brandt, “Hubble Vision”, Cambridge University
Press, United Kingdom, 1998, p.9.
Note 7: See Robert Hughes, “The Shock of the New”, Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, 1991,
Figure 82. p.131.
Glossary:
AU Astronomical Unit. (1 AU =150,000,000 km)
Caltech California Institute of Technology.
CMB Cosmic Microwave Background
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
km Kilometre
km/s Kilometres per second
ly Light years (1 ly = 63,115.2 AU.)
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mly A million light years.
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Bibliography.
Astronomy:
Beatty, J. Kelly et al “The New Solar System, Fourth Edition”,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1999.
Cox, Brian and Andrew Cohen “Human Universe”, HarperCollins
Publishers Ltd, London, 2014.
Cox, Brian and Andrew Cohen “Wonders of the Universe”, HarperCollins
Publishers Ltd, London, 2011.
Kerrod, Robin “The Illustrated Guide to the Night Sky”,
Quarto Publishing plc, London, 1993 -7
Hawking, Stephen W. “A Brief History of Time”, Bantam Books,
USA, 1989.
Peterson, Carolyn Collins and
John C. Brandt
“Hubble Vision”, Cambridge University
Press, United Kingdom, 1998.
Art and Architecture:
Hughes, Robert “The Shock of the New”, Thames and
Hudson Ltd, London, 1991.
Jukes-Hughes, David G. Project 117, (Paper 1: Strategic Definition:
RIBA Work Stage 0.) Revision 07. 17th
May
2014.
Kostof, Spiro “A History of Architecture”, OUP, Oxford,
1985.
Rykwert, Joseph “The Necessity of Artifice”, Academy
Editions, London, 1982.
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Appendix 1.
Figure 1: Elevation, and scale diagram.
Figure 2: Elevation, with project assumptions from Wikipedia noted.
Figure 3: Section and Plan.
Figure 4: Detail of the Galaxy (at the present time).
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Figure 1: Elevation, and scale diagram.
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Figure 2: Elevation, with project assumptions from Wikipedia noted.
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Figure 3: Section and Plan.
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Figure 4: Detail of the Galaxy (at the present time).
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