Cosmic Reality Check

The probes findings have provided a few salient new notions about the nature of cosmic reality. For starters, the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Unlike previous figures, this is not a rough estimate; the margin of error is about 1 percent. In addition, the universe is flat. Forget all that mind-boggling space-time-is-curved stuff. Euclid was right all along. And the space-time pancake will expand infinitely. Theres no such thing as an end to this particular universe.Now heres the really wacky part: Everything were made of or can measure - from atoms to energy - is only 4 percent of the whole shebang. The rest is dark matter (about 23 percent) and, best of all, dark energy (73 percent).Although it has been overlooked amid the recent military ruckus, the Wilkinson probe has given the 21st century a brand-new cosmology. Such intellectual upgrades nearly always begin by debunking humans in some obscure but potent way. The Copernican revolution revealed that Earth was not the center of the cosmos. Newtonian physics proved that the planets move according to lifeless clockwork rules instead of majestic divine will. Einsteinian relativity showed us that the cosmos lacks absolute values; it all depends on how things are measured, by whom, and under what circumstances.The new cosmology is very much of that order. Everything we can see or touch, everything material and physical, is mere fat in the cosmic milk. Everything we thought was important is a tiny fraction of whats really going on.
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