The Missing Pages of History and the Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe

April 14, 1229

Nearly 800 years ago, a monk cleaned several old parchment sheets, erased the existing script written on them, and used the material to create a new prayer book. At that time, such reuse of manuscripts was a common practice.

Eight centuries later, this book surfaced in what is now Turkey, where it came into the possession of a Danish scientist named Johan Ludvig. A careful microscopic examination astonished him: beneath the visible text were faint impressions of erased letters, strongly suggesting that the manuscript had origins in ancient Greece.

Using multispectral imaging and X-ray technology, researchers discovered that the erased text was, in fact, a work on the fundamental concepts of calculus, written nearly 2,000 years ago by the great Greek scientist Archimedes.

Had that monk not erased the original text, could calculus have been discovered centuries before Newton? Might humanity have advanced further in science and knowledge far earlier? These questions cannot be answered with certainty. What is certain, however, is that some misfortunes are unavoidable—perhaps the loss of certain pages of history is simply part of destiny.

Today, the size of the universe is continuously expanding. In every region spanning one million light-years, approximately 22 kilometers of new space is added every second. At present, with the help of telescopes, we can observe the universe up to a distance of 47 billion light-years in any direction. In the future, this observable boundary will expand to a maximum of 62 billion light-years. Beyond this limit, the universe will forever remain a mystery to us, because regions beyond that point are receding from us faster than the speed of light.

Everything we have learned about the universe so far comes from the countless luminous galaxies scattered across the sky. Yet a time will come when there will be nothing left to see on the cosmic horizon. Several billion years from now, the 50 galaxies of our Local Group will merge to form a single colossal galaxy, while all other galaxies will have disappeared beyond the horizon.

If a civilization were to arise at that time, it would be condemned to believe that its own galaxy is the entire universe. The emptiness of the sky would astonish them. The cosmic background radiation would puzzle them, yet its mysterious origin would remain beyond their understanding. They would never be able to unravel how the universe began. Those unfortunate beings would never know that the wheel of time had permanently erased a crucial chapter of their history.

There exists a profound cosmic puzzle that remains unsolved even today. No matter which direction we observe, the energy level of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is uniform everywhere—2.7 Kelvin.

Such uniformity in the leftover radiation from the birth of the universe is possible only if, in the distant past, all particles of light were in direct contact with one another, exchanging energy. The last time this occurred was approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang, an era known as the Recombination Epoch.

Mathematics tells us that during the Recombination Epoch, particles could only have been in direct contact within a region of about 90 million light-years. However, the size of the universe at that time was nearly three times larger—around 270 million light-years. Even if we rewind time all the way back to the birth of the universe, we never arrive at a moment when all particles were close enough for this uniformity to occur naturally.

This paradox can be resolved if we accept the Inflation Theory, which proposes that immediately after the universe came into existence, it underwent an extremely rapid expansion—by a factor of 10²⁶—within an infinitesimally small fraction of time. In effect, the universe expanded from a point into something roughly the size of a “three-foot-tall child” almost instantaneously. This explains the observed uniformity and implies that the universe we can see is only a tiny fraction of the true cosmos. The actual universe is at least tens of billions of trillions of times larger, with no upper limit—it may well be infinite.

Yet if inflation did occur, why did it happen? If the universe was once confined to a single point, where was that point located? And what caused it to expand into galaxies, stars, planets, and ultimately, us?

Perhaps we will never know the answers. This is a page of history that has been lost forever.

Time moves inexorably.
Chance and misfortune unfold.
And some pages of time are destined to vanish forever.

Maybe some pages of history are meant to remain missing forever.

Read More on Science and Tech: https://inkindianews.com/prithvi-chandrama-sabse-satik-khagoliya-lay/

Vijay Singh Thakurai

Based in Delhi, India, the author is a dedicated Science Educator. Passionate about making science simple, logical, and relevant to everyday life, their writing bridges curiosity with clarity. Through thoughtful explanations and practical insights, the author aims to inspire learners, educators, and lifelong students to think scientifically and question deeply.