The Lumpy Universe

One of the puzzles that cosmologists grapple with is the question of why the universe is lumpy. The universe has structure today – from super clusters of galaxies, to galaxies, stars and all sorts of other objects down to planets and asteroids. But the universe was much simpler earlier in its history. How did all these clumps of matter evolve from an undifferentiated soup of elementary particles and forces that existed in the early universe following the Big Bang?

A lot of very clever people have been doing a lot of hard sums for many years and have been partially successful in explaining why the universe is the way it is. There are inflationary models and there are string theories which attempt explanations. We just don’t know for sure. But the fact remains that the universe is lumpy. And we should be really grateful that it is so because its lumpiness is what makes the universe interesting. Not just interesting, it also makes us possible so that we can marvel at the nature of the universe. We should pause to consider that if the universe were uniform, it would have been sterile and we would not be here. The non-uniformity of the universe which arose for who knows what reasons is what makes for an interesting universe.
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