Eashan Kotha

Summary

A student simulates the creation and evolution of a universe, encountering initial setbacks before successfully observing the formation of galaxies, stars, and life on a planet.

Abstract

A student embarks on a virtual project to simulate the universe's expansion, starting with the Big Bang. After a rookie mistake causing a premature collapse into a singularity, the student corrects the settings and restarts the simulation. This time, the universe unfolds successfully, and the student observes the formation of galaxies, stars, and eventually life on a planet. The narrative touches on the student's curiosity about the potential future of extraterrestrial beings and the vastness of the cosmos, as well as the technical aspects of managing a simulated environment.

Opinions

The student's initial oversight in setting the time progression

Science Fiction, Short Story

Project 3A7T4

A student works on an assignment…

The student logged into the system and generated a new template. Yawning, he decided that was enough work for the day and moved to close out. When prompted with a request for a file name he paused, typing out “3A7T3” shortly after. He let the simulation run for a little while. He prepared to watch the universe expand but just as soon as he had begun to do so, it had collapsed within itself, condensing into a singularity.

Confused, he thumbed through his manual for help. Apparently, he had forgotten to change the presets in which the rate of time progression was ridiculously high. Rookie error. It was easier to start over from scratch so he deleted the project and created a new one. When prompted for a file name, the student simply wrote “Project 3A7T4”

This time when he ran the simulation he was greeted with a blinding light on his screen. The Big Bang.

He turned his volume up. He saw the starting of a new world, watched it expand and slowly take up more space within the environment. To accommodate, he changed his field of view and expanded the casing of the virtual environment. He moved his cursor around, before settling on the menu which held the speed controls. The symbols were strange and not human-like but the student simply clicked one of the options from the menu.

The simulation began to speed up. A few seconds had passed before a vast expanse of the environment was filled with galaxies and stars and cluster formations. He looked for the randomized life seed. It was located in a galaxy and he zoomed in. The life seed was placed on a now marble blue appearing rock. It had wonderful swirls of white and gray and orbited a bright star. Well, it wasn’t the only one. It was the third farthest large body orbiting the star. The rock had a large, centered mass.

The student returned the pace to normal. He prepared to take notes. Slowly, the mass began to split and drift apart. Soon enough, the darkness that would cover half the oblate sphere became speckled with tiny flecks of light. Projectiles flew out of its sides and landed on a much smaller, orbiting rock. Some projectiles continued indefinitely past the range of the large sphere’s gravitational field. The student scratched some more notes into his pad. He wondered where the beings were going. What did their future hold?