LITHIUM: THE SEEDS OF GALAXY FORMATION?

     There's a weird property of metals called "cold welding" whereby, in a vacuum, two pieces of the same metal will join together when they come into contact with each other. The description goes as follows:

The reason for this unexpected behavior is that when the atoms in contact are all of the same kind, there is no way for the atoms to “know” that they are in different pieces of copper. When there are other atoms, in the oxides and greases and more complicated thin surface layers of contaminants in between, the atoms “know” when they are not on the same part. (Richard Feynman)

    This got me wondering, one of the mysteries of the universe is how large-scale structures like galaxies came to be in the nearly uniform densities of matter produced in the Big Bang. Randomness surely played a role but I get the impression from my readings that such randomness would've been too slow for protogalactic cores to develop into the enormous superclusters of galaxies and voids present in the universe today over a mere 14 billion years.

     Dark matter is called into question as a possible attractor as the hypothesized material, while it has gravity, is only affected by gravity allowing the newly formed matter to gather around its mass whereas ordinary matter is affected by electricity, magnetism, radiation, and subject to gas properties like pressure, temperature, etc.
    The trouble is, while scientists are certain dark matter exists, no one knows what exactly it is making it kind of impossible to test this hypothesis.

     Now I have to believe something like this has been thought of before and discredited but nevertheless I'm putting it forth: what if something more mundane could've led to the creation of galaxies?

     In the first few minutes of the Big Bang, the temperatures and pressures were still sufficient to convert the newly created electrons, protons, and neutrons into the heavier nuclei of deuterium, helium, and a smidge of lithium.
     Of those three elements, lithium is a metal and when the universe became cool enough to allow the formation of atoms after 300,000 years, there would be lithium floating around amidst this ever decreasingly dense gas which I imagine would have formed vacuum-like conditions quite quickly.

     Now if like atoms of metal cold weld for the reason stated above, does it not stand to reason that even the tiny, tiny amount of lithium theorized to have formed during the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis would have, through random interactions, found one and other and welded together forming ever larger seeds to acts as attractants to the far more enormous amounts of hydrogen, deuterium, and helium out there?

     I would like to believe that over the millions of years between recombination and the first stars, there was plenty of time for atoms of lithium to make clumps of anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of atoms which would have collectively more concentrated gravity than the surrounding material which doesn't particularly enjoying interacting with one and other.
     Helium is famously unreactive and hydrogen is content once it finds a partner to bond with. Neither will naturally clump...but lithium would...and might that be enough to begin the slow process of gathering ever larger clouds of gas together to form the first stars and protogalaxies?

     I honestly don't know...but I like the idea.

NO SENSE OF BELONGING...

     Lately I've been wondering if a belief in God (or Gods)...religion basically, is tied to one's sense of belonging. Like, did I lose my faith in God and slip into nihilism because I grew up feeling like an outsider to my family and schoolmates? If I had a sense of being included, would I have not skipped out on Confirmation in 7th grade? Would I have had friends? a girlfriend? the wherewithal to remain in college and see it through to graduation? connections? a decent job resulting from those connections?

     I don't know...

     But I think about two particular groups and their stereotyped behavior: Born-Again Christians and Atheists.

     Both groups are notorious for having overly enthusiastic participants eager to get others to join or to attack when their efforts are challenged.
     It seems to me that both those groups have only recently discovered a sense of belonging and in the one sense, it delights them to realize they are no longer alone but then I also think it makes them wish to confront those who had isolated them for so long. They want to know, once and for all, who their real friends are so they proselytize and it should come as no surprise that people who already belong to another group are not particularly interested in throwing all that away.

     And the resistance of others strengthens their bond with their new friends, making them spiral inward to ever tighter and stubborn orbits. Where once they felt judged, now they are able to judge others knowing they have a community willing to back them perhaps for the first time in their lives.

     And if there's any truth to that, it makes me feel even sadder that I never even found an Atheist group to feel like a part of. Talk about isolation! And in that isolation, I sunk to the even-lower level of nihilism: a belief in the utter purposeless of everything. It was the only thing left to rationalize my existence and its suckitude: life is not unfair, because fairness and unfairness are human constructs. No, life is a selfish attempt at perpetuation and the universe is indifferent to it all. Purpose is something we create, not something which is given. You are because you were born and you will die for the same reason. You will suffer the whole way through until you can bear the burdens of living and existence no longer...and my life's burdens are not offset by its joys.

     Nihilism is the Atheist's atheist. I don't know...that made sense before I wrote.

     I write this still never feeling like I've ever belonged. I never thought I had wanted all that much and it bothers me that I can't even have that...