I’m cleaning up and sorting through paperwork, allowing my brain to contemplate the digital revolution. Remember paper? That ancient forest-based communication method our ancestors used?
So, story time. Back in my Shell days, I worked with a team providing support to various teams. One individual… let’s call her a “procurement enthusiast.” She had, over the course of her time with the company, ordered paperclips like she was preparing for a global paperclip apocalypse. We’re talking a drawer so full of paperclips, it could’ve been a metallurgic museum exhibit dedicated to “Bureaucratic Hoarding: A Modern Study.”
Fast forward to today, I’m Marie Kondo minimalizing some papers. A comical cosmic theory I’d created years ago pops into my head. My theory? Dark matter isn’t some mysterious scientific concept. It’s the universe’s junk drawer.
As you may know, Dark matter is essentially a theoretical concept that scientists use to account for the mass that appears to be missing from the universe. I’m simplifying the concept of course, yet I thought, “I wonder if Dark matter is basically the intergalactic equivalent of storage spaces we have in our homes for…stuff.” You know, that storage closet, plastic bin or junk drawer in your kitchen filled with:
- Orphaned paperclips
- Clothes hangers
- Charger cables for existing and long obsolete technology
- Tupperware without lids (or lids without Tupperware)
- Hair ties, safety pins, bobby pins, and spare change.
The universe, my friends, is just one giant, disorganized cosmic closet. And as long as no celestial Marie Kondo shows up for a universal spring cleaning, dark matter stays.