The Big Bang.. Theories reveal the secrets of the first minutes of the universe's life
Here he is, the last of the remaining stars taking their last breath now to release their last glowing sighs, and with them the last ray of light floating in the darkness of the universe emerges, and with its demise, the universe will sink with its greatness into a dark darkness and a lonely silence will apply to it, and thus we have touched upon one of the scenarios of the end of the universe that It is assumed by astrophysicists, according to what the second law of thermodynamics predicts, which is the scenario of the thermal death of the universe.
The second law of entropy states that any closed physical system automatically tends to increase its thermal inertia until it reaches a state of equal heat spread across all its parts. (ink and water).
Likewise, the universe, despite its vastness, remains a closed system in which heat continues to spread until the thermal inertia in it reaches its maximum levels, then no processes of heat transfer or heat exchange occur, and thus the universe enters into stagnation and cold death.
This is only one hypothesis of several hypotheses put forward by a number of physicists in their research in understanding the nature of the universe’s work, and because the universe is governed by each other, and trying to see the future requires understanding the past and searching for clues that lead us to the starting point; The Big Bang theory provides adequate explanations for several visible physical phenomena, based on a number of tangible evidence that came as a result of years of joint and non-joint work by scientists and researchers around the world.
The Big Bang Theory... Decisive Moments That Made the Universe's Great Powers
Despite the existence of several theories dealing with the origin of the universe, the Big Bang theory is the most established and accepted among the public of scientists today, and it is due to three fundamental discoveries that paved the way for the adoption of its model, namely: Edwin Hubble's discovery of the expansion of the universe at the beginning of the last century, and then the discovery of The image of the microwave background of the universe, and then the discovery made by the British scientist "Fred Hoyle" in the mechanism of the emergence of heavy elements.
The Big Bang theory, which explained the origin and expansion of the universe, is the most powerful theory to date
In the book "The First Three Minutes" by the American theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with the worlds "Muhammad Abdeslam" and "Sheldon Glashaw", the writer says, describing - according to his estimates - the event of the Big Bang that in the beginning was There is an explosion, not like any explosion we are familiar with on Earth, but it was a moment in which matter interacted with each other, and each particle ran away from the other in a very narrow space, then the universe began expanding from this spot in all directions. We stand here in front of two possibilities; Either the universe is not finite and extends to eternity, or the universe will contain itself at some point, neither of which can be easily demonstrated.
At about a hundredth of a second (centiseconds) after the moment of the explosion, which is the highest point we can stand and speak with some confidence in, the temperature of the universe was approximately 100 thousand million degrees Celsius. It is a hotter temperature than any star in the universe, and it is capable of dismantling the bonds of any substance, molecule, or atom, and even the nuclei of atoms, as they lose their ability to merge. Instead, matter repels each other in its simplest form that we know, which are elementary particles such as electrons, quarks, and others. 1
Then, the temperature began to drop dramatically so that subatomic particles could form, such as the proton and neutron, during the next three minutes, and the same nuclei of atoms would later form, such as hydrogen and helium atoms. It then took another 300,000 years for the electron to join and orbit these nuclei. Thanks to the huge amount of these atoms formed huge cosmic clouds merged together under the influence of the force of gravity, and since then began the era of star formation and galaxies, and the universe became transparent to release the first ray of light.
Before those crucial moments in the formation of subatomic particles, scientists base their predictions on a scenario that fulfills the emergence of 3 prominent events that contributed to drawing the timeline of the universe: the Planck era, the Great Autistic Era, and the era of cosmic inflation. All of these events occurred in successive periods, separated by a period of time less than a femtosecond (one thousand trillionth of a second).
The era of autism...the unity of the great natural forces
After the moment of the Big Bang, time and space began at zero time, and the wheel of time began to rotate until it reached the second, which is known as "Planck time", during which the appearance of the first era of the universe was disrupted at this brief moment, as the temperature and density were at their highest levels, and all The four known forces in a unified framework before the force of gravity separated from the others at the end of the epoch.
The universe is expanding due to the dark energy that gave it the initial impetus for the expansion, and there is dark matter yet unknown fate
Immediately after that, the universe entered the next stage, the Great Autism Era, and it lasted until the second, and during this era, three of the four natural forces were united together, namely: electromagnetism (electrical and magnetic), weak nuclear, and strong nuclear, under the name of (electronuclear) force. ). Once again, there is a new disconnect in the natural forces in favor of the strong nuclear forces. 2
Fortunately, diligent work resulted in accurate mathematical knowledge of all the mathematical laws that cover these forces, their mechanism of action and interaction, and even the identification of their patterns and the extent of their impact.
The era of cosmic inflation... a trick to avoid regression and annihilation
One of those interested in studying the chronology of the universe, the American physicist Alan Guth, noted that astronomy based on the effects of the theory of relativity developed by the scientist "Albert Einstein" requires an exponential and dramatic growth of the universe in its first age, and this assumption addressed a number of problems that were related to the state of the universe. The universe is as it is today.
Guth suggested that the universe, immediately after its creation, was nothing but a small, high-density bubble, which had a massive inflation that reached at least twice its initial size, within a very short period of time, starting at the second. This critical period in the age of the universe was called "cosmic inflation" in 1979. 3
Scientists attribute the inflation process to the universe avoiding not retracting itself again, and ending in annihilation due to the gravitational force resulting from the high-density matter concentrated in a narrow range at that time. It did not take long for the inflation process to slow down noticeably, with the universe continuing to expand as indicated by the greatest discoveries of the last century, the Hubble law of expansion of the universe.
"Edwin Hubble" .. the greatest scientific discoveries of all time
From the top of Mount Wilson in California, American astronomer Edwin Hubble was busy recording some of the astronomical observations he had just obtained with his 100-inch telescope, which eventually led him to the crowning of one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever.
What Hubble saw in his blog after studying 24 galaxies, is that the change in the redshift of the galaxies' red spectrum is directly proportional to the distance that separates them from the Earth, meaning that the farthest celestial bodies were moving at higher speeds than those near. The idea of red shift or redshift in astronomy is simply the increase in the wavelength that occurs on the electromagnetic wave due to the distance of the ray source from the observer, and vice versa. .
The two American engineers who discovered the cosmic microwave background
Accordingly, Hubble concluded in 1929 that as long as all galaxies are moving away at varying speeds from the planet Earth, or from our galaxy in a more accurate sense, this means that the universe is a balloon in a continuous state of swelling and expansion, and whether we are located inside the balloon or on its surface, we We watch everything around us move away from us.
The balloon has always been inflated, and this means only one thing, that if we return the time line of the universe back, we will reach a singularity point at which the expansion of the universe began, which is what the Belgian priest “Georges Lemaitre” threw that the universe originated from an elementary atom , Or by another name of the Big Bang. The initial "Hubble" calculations gave an estimated age of the universe of about 1.8 billion years, which confused scientists for decades because this is a shorter age than the age of the Earth, and this is not possible.
The expansion of the universe... a mysterious dark force between galaxies
According to The Astrophysical Journal, researchers have found that the universe is expanding at a rate of 73 kilometers per second per million parsecs. In other words, if you were observing an object at a distance of one million parsecs, it would move away from you at a speed of 73 kilometers every second. The parsec is an astronomical unit for measuring vast cosmic distances, and it is estimated at 3.26 light-years. 4
Scientists believe that the reason behind this continuous expansion of the universe is the presence of a mysterious and dark force that permeates between galaxies and works to push them apart. The best explanations or assumptions for this force is what is known as dark energy, in addition to dark matter (Dark Matter), and it is estimated that they make up 95% of the universe, and it is difficult to deal with them in the laboratory or detect them because they do not interact with the electromagnetic force, which means that they They do not absorb, do not reflect, and do not emit any light. The remaining 5% of the universe is the physical physical world that we can observe so far, and "Einstein" was the first person to realize the incorrectness of the existence of empty space in its entirety. 5
Despite the echo achieved by the discovery of the expansion of the universe, the scientific community did not agree on a single model of the nature of the universe due to the scarcity of sufficient explanations for astronomical phenomena. One section supported the Big Bang theory, while another section favored the Steady-State Model of the universe. ) which states that the universe was, is and will be as it is, that is, it did not start at any point, and will not end at any point. For this reason, it was necessary to search for another reason that favors the Big Bang, and the next great discovery was the image of the infant universe.
"George Gamow" .. A theater to reveal the hidden secrets of the inflamed neutron ball
If some believe that the universe was not eternal, but rather originated at a point and at some point and began to expand in all directions at speeds exceeding the speed of light itself, then the attempt to lift the cover from the initial images of the universe is worthy of attention, or in other words finding a picture of the remains of the first stage of the universe’s life . In the forties of the last century, the Russian astronomer "George Gamow" focused his attention in trying to find cosmic fossils to prove the occurrence of the Big Bang.
But it was very frustrating because astronomy is not a laboratory-experimental science, but rather a science based on observation, monitoring and analysis, similar to detective stories, as the investigator tries to uncover the mysteries and threads of the crime by studying the available evidence, and the crime scene for the astronomer is the entire universe.
A graphic that places the total distribution of galaxies in the observable universe according to the cosmic microwave background
The "Gamow" theory indicated that if the Big Bang was so huge, its effect might be present today in the form of heat leftovers from the explosion scattered in the universe in a uniform haze of radiation, which is closer to being a fossil record of the Big Bang itself.
In 1946, Gamow set out to lay some foundations for his hypothesis, such as comparing the Big Bang to a fiery ball of neutrons, and by just calculating the heat of this ball, it is easy to reach the temperature of the universe today and the amount and nature of radiation emitted. After two years of work, he reached his goal, writing: By reading the early days of the universe to the present, we found that during the ages that passed through, the universe must have cooled to about 5 degrees above absolute zero. 6
Here, everything stopped for Gamow, who was working with his students, Ralph Alpher and Robert Hermann, to verify the results experimentally. the great explosion.
The image of the infant universe.. temporal dimensions with pinpoint accuracy for the age of the universe
In 1965, the American astronomers "Arno Bezias" and "Robert Wilson" by chance came to confirm previous predictions. physics later. Since then, several experiments have been carried out to see the radiation left over from the Big Bang.
Hubble's Law of Expansion of the Universe states that the velocity of the galaxy farther away from us increases
The most famous of these is the image taken by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe in 2001, which gave us an unprecedented map of the universe, a picture of the sky that showed amazing details of microwave radiation, which is spread almost uniformly, and some commented that it is a picture of the universe The infant, and if the universe is 80 years old, then this picture represents the universe and it is a newborn child whose age is not more than today.
Scientists were also able to extract several important points from the picture, the first of which is the correctness of “Gamu” calculations of the temperature of the universe with a very small difference, as it is in fact 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. The image also gave us temporal dimensions of the age of the universe with extreme accuracy that agreed with the scientists' estimate of 13.7 billion years. 7
Later, in 2013, the European Space Agency's "Planck" probe announced the latest update of the universe's picture of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and it was the most accurate ever.
Patterns of the universe .. theories of flatness, closure and diffraction
The general theory of relativity describes the universe as a fabric subject to convexity under the influence of masses on it, and the Russian physicist "Alexander Friedman" is credited with solving most of the equations of the theory that eluded Einstein himself. He concluded that the universe mathematically can be one of the following patterns: either flat, closed, or obtuse (open), and this depends on the density of the universe, or in other words the amount of matter in relation to the size of the universe.
If the density of the universe is high enough to allow the force of gravity to overcome the force of expansion, then the universe will take a spherical shape, which is the closed model. One of its puzzling characteristics is that this universe is final, but it has no limits, meaning that if the Arab traveler Ibn Battuta rode his spacecraft and toured the universe forever, he would not reach a limit to it.
Scientists have developed three models for the possible end of the universe, of which what is observed today is the open universe
But if the density of the universe is low and unable to stop the process of cosmic expansion, then space will twist in the opposite direction, forming an open universe that resembles a horse saddle.
The latest, most moderate and acceptable model for the majority of scientists is that the density is ideal to keep the universe flat, at the rate of 6 protons per 27 cubic feet. 8
If we talk about size, then the universe is divided into two parts: the visible universe, which we can see and observe with our lenses, and the entire universe, which is wider and far beyond that any ray or even information can reach us, because nothing in the universe moves at a speed higher than the speed of Light, which is the limit of the universe. Scientists estimate the diameter of the visible universe to be about 93 billion light-years, depending on the most distant star observed and on the age of the universe. 9
Sources:
[1] Weinberg, Stephen (1993). The first three minutes. Basic Books, New York. p 14
[2] Website editors (date unknown). The Great Era of Autism. Retrieved from: http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/webproj/211_fall_2016/Trevor_Jepsen/trevor_jepsen/Grand_unification.html
[3] Sutter, Powell (2018). How did cosmic inflation happen? And why does it matter to us? Retrieved from: https://www.space.com/42261-how-did-inflation-happen-anyway.html
[4] Dr. Carintini, Alfred (2022). How fast is the universe expanding? The Hubble telescope reveals the most accurate measurement yet. Retrieved from: https://www.iflscience.com/how-fast-is-the-universe-expanding-hubble-reveals-most-precise-measurement-yet-63764#:~:text=As%20reported%20in %20The%20Astrophysical,megaparsec%20plus%20or%20minus%201.
[5] Website editors (date unknown). Dark matter, dark energy. Retrieved from: https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy#:~:text=Universe%20Dark%20Energy%2D1%20Expanding%20Universe&text=Astronomers%20theorize%20that %20the%20faster,that%20is%20pulling%20galaxies%20apart.&text=One%20explanation%20for%20dark%20energy,empty%20space%20is%20not%20nothing.
[6] Kaku, Micho (2006). Parallel worlds. Anchor, New York. p 57
[7] Same source. p. 8
[8] Cotter, Cody (2021). What is the shape of the universe? Retrieved from: https://astronomy.com/news/2021/02/what-shape-is-the-universe
[9] Tillman, Nola (2022). What is the size of the universe? Retrieved from: https://www.space.com/24073-how-big-is-the-universe.html
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