 Although
I did arrive at this mystery independently and entirely on my own, I'm
not the first man ever to have done so. A very brief bit of research
led me to Bertil Lindblad. His concerns were identical to mine.
| The
pioneer of studies of the rotation of the Galaxy and the formation of the
spiral arms was Bertil Lindblad in 1925. He realized that the idea
of stars arranged permanently in a spiral shape was untenable. Since
the angular speed of rotation of the galactic disk varies with distance
from the centre of the galaxy (via a standard solar system type of gravitational
model), a radial arm (like a spoke) would quickly become curved as the
galaxy rotates. The arm would, after a few galactic rotations, become
increasingly curved and wind around the galaxy ever tighter. This
is called the winding problem. Measurements in the late 1960s showed
that the orbital velocity of stars in spiral galaxies with respect to their
distance from the galactic center is indeed higher than expected from Newtonian
dynamics but still cannot explain the stability of the spiral structure.
—Wikipedia, Spiral galaxy
|
I,
and presumably Lindblad as well, accepted the idea that if a thing exists,
then the thing must be possible, however improbable it might seem.
Furthermore, if the thing is plentiful, then it must be more than possible.
It must be probable. There are a lot of spiral galaxies.
Actually,
the simple solar system type of gravitational model is inapplicable to
a galaxy. That simple model relies on the assumption that orbiting
masses can be approximated as point sources of gravity. Also, a planet
doesn't orbit about a sun. They both orbit about their common center
of mass. With three bodies, it gets more complicated. The location
of the common center of mass, relative to any one of the three bodies,
continues to change with their relative positions. The center of
mass of a galaxy is probably a lot easier to locate, at least as an average.
The problem with a galaxy is the point source assumption. A star
near the center of a galaxy will receive almost no net gravitational force
because the source is widely distributed. The gravitational force
doesn't come from a point. It comes from all of the surrounding stars.
Near the center, the vectors cancel, at least approximately. Stars
near the center of a galaxy might not be orbiting at all. They might
just be "floating" in a region of near zero net gravitational force.
All
of that aside, the problem of the spirals remains unresolved. Wikipedia
presents theories and more references than anybody is ever likely to read.
I didn't even try to read them because I was already considering a theory
of my own. I call it The Really Scary Theory because it's
a really scary theory. I don't necessarily believe it but it is interesting,
in addition to being really scary. Also, speculation comes easily
to me. Here's the speculation.
One
way that I can imagine that a spiral galaxy could exist is if it started
out with the stars arranged as spokes, extending straight from the galactic
center to the galactic rim. If such a galaxy existed, then within
a short time the rotation of the galaxy would stretch the spokes into spirals.
It's an interesting speculation about a possible starting configuration
for a spiral galaxy. How could such a thing happen? Here's
The
really Scary Theory.
Suppose
that all of the stars in our galaxy appeared at the same instant, arranged
as spokes extending from the galactic center to the galactic rim, all at
their proper distances from the galactic center, all moving in their correct
directions, and all moving at their correct speeds. After spinning
for a while, our galaxy would have spirals which, indeed, it does.
Suppose
further that all of the other stars that we can see, throughout all of
the universe that's visible to us, appeared at the same instant, each in
its proper location, each moving in the correct direction, each moving
at the correct speed, and each at its proper age in the lifetime sequence
of stars.
Suppose
finally that all of the light that's traveling across the part of the universe
that we can see appeared at the same instant, each bit of it moving in
the correct direction and at the right location, as if it had spent the
past millions of years travelling, so that we could see the distant stars,
so recently arrived upon the scene, as if they'd existed for millions of
years.
If
such a thing was done correctly, if it was done with infinite skill, then
how could we know the difference? The universe would appear the same
to us, either way. Maybe that's what really happened, and the spirals
are a clue. As I mentioned previously, this is a really scary theory
but it does explain the spirals. Maybe, just maybe, God really did
create the universe in its entirety, all in a single instant, a mere 4,000
years ago. Thus, the spirals. 
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