The Big Bang Theory: Birth of the Cosmos

   13.7 billion years ago, there was nothing. Nothing to happen and nothing to have happen to. Then, at the instant of something we now call the big bang, space, time, energy, matter, and antimatter burst forth from a singularity that had infinite temperature, infinite curvature (meaning it had zero dimension, a literal dot), and infinite density. The singularity was something of a cosmic egg. After this initial bang, the early universe expanded to a phenomenal volume in just 1/10^35 seconds. Imagine something the size of a grapefruit exploding to the size of the Milky Way galaxy (100,000 light years) almost instantaneously. This explosion of space-time is now known as inflation. The early universe was white hot. Of course it follows that if all the matter in the universe is squeezed into such a relatively small volume, the temperature must be beyond extreme, hotter than the hottest star core.

   After the universe was born, energy went into creating matter and its evil twin, antimatter. Antimatter has the curious property of annihilating with normal matter. So the early universe was filled with a war between these two. You cannot have equal matter and antimatter or there will be no type of matter to form galaxies, stars, planets, and eventually people. So there was a small imbalance (thought to be one particle in a billion) between the two and matter won the battle between antimatter. This is due to a complex interaction between a particle called an X boson and energy. But we won't go into that now. We have now ventured one millionth of a second into the universe's life.

   After about three minutes, it was beginning to cool down enough for energy to form particles that combined into the first atomic nuclei. The universe was filled at first with hydrogen, helium, and lithium. This all took about 300,000 years and the end dropped the veil of energy so the universe became transparent (space became black). For over 100 million years afterward, the universe was silently cooling down as matter started to coalesce in the darkness. After another 100 million years, stars formed, but it would be another 200 million years before galaxies would form.

   This has been a very simplified view of creation, it is just an outline of the big bang theory. After I have delved into quantum mechanics and the forces of nature, this topic will be returned to and given very special attention. If anybody has any questions on what I have layed out so far, please comment with your question and I'll be happy to explain. I'm still not sure about my next post, but I'll get it in as quick as possible. Until then, salutations!

Expansion of the Cosmos

   For about the first two decades of the 20th century, the universe was believed to consist of the Milky Way galaxy. The other galaxies observed at the time were believed to be nebulae, vast clouds of hydrogen and helium and other elements aglow from nearby stars and the protostars forming within. This was a long way off from the heliocentric model, and an even farther contrast to the geocentric universe. But the view of our universe changed when Edwin Hubble, for which the Hubble Space Telescope is now named, provided evidence that many of the nebulae discovered were actually galaxies like ours, or "island universes". Suddenly, the Triangulum nebula and the Andromeda nebula gained galactic status in the eyes of humanity, as well as many other nebulae. But this was only the beginning.

   The Doppler Effect is a well-known scientific principle to most people. To use a common example, it is demonstrated when an ambulance or some other vehicle with an activated siren passes you. As the vehicle moves towards you, its sound waves come at you in a manner where they are closer together, whereas when it travels away, the sound waves are stretched because their source emits the waves at a farther and farther distance away. Basically the relative motion of the emitter changes the apparent frequency of the sound waves, so an object getting closer appears to increase in frequency, reaches its peak when closest to you, and decreases in frequency when moving away. This concept is illustrated below:

The sound of the motorbike decreases as it moves away from the woman and increases as it moves towards the man

  The same principle is applicable for light. Light emitted from an object moving towards you increases in frequency, resulting in it being shifted to the blue end of the visible spectrum. The light emitted from an object moving away decreases in frequency, so the light is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. This shift is largely imperceptible in everyday objects, but measurable for things moving very fast. Hubble applied this experiment to the newly discovered galaxies. When Hubble measured the light from these galaxies, he found that nearly all were red-shifted. This meant that galaxies were moving away from us, but not only moving away, but the farther they were away, the faster their rate of retreat. This lead to the conclusion that either our galaxy was somehow the center of a universal retreat from galaxies, or far more likely, the space itself between galaxies was expanding. Hubble measured this rate of expansion, now called Hubble's Constant. 

The Doppler Effect when applied to light

   So space was expanding. But not only was it expanding, its rate of expansion was increasing. This would lead science to a whole new understanding of our universe, an understanding that would culminate in nothing less than the very birth of our cosmos. So, next post will be about a big topic: the big bang theory. Feel free to ask questions and subscribe! Until then, salutations!

Relativity: Einstein's Greatest Achievement Part 2

   Throughout the universe, there is a perpetuating field called the fabric of space-time. For simplifying purposes, imagine the universe as a thin rubber sheet completely stretched out. In this flat space-time, Einstein proposed that objects with mass made "dents". These dents were the gravity field we feel. So if you placed, say, a bowling ball on this sheet, it would bend downward pretty far. Then toss a marble around this dent so that it is falling towards the bowling ball, but always missing and swinging around via its inertial energy. Now imagine the bowling ball as the Sun and the tiny marble is our Earth. This is a fairly accurate representation of gravity and orbits of objects, but is visualized here as being two-dimensional. Einstein found that matter does not pull objects; rather, space pushes them.

  So Einstein established the theory of curved space-time. This warp of space could be verified by measuring the bending of a light ray around an object of a sufficient gravitational field. The Sun is the nearest object with such a high mass, so an experiment was put forth to use known star positions that were behind the Sun and, during a solar eclipse, measure if the stars appeared to be around the Sun, rather than behind it as illustrated below:

   In 1919, Arthur Eddington led an expedition to a total solar eclipse at the time and found the star light to indeed be deflected from its true position. This verified general relativity and the theory became accepted by the scientific community.

   So back to E=mc². This equation meant that the amount of energy trapped in a tiny atomic nucleus is massive. By splitting an atom, the energy released in a controlled reaction could power our civilization forever. Unfortunately, this equation was weaponized and reincarnated as the atomic bomb, much to Einstein's and many modern physicists' horror. The energy contained in atoms is violently and graphically illustrated in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. But the same power responsible for the bombs is also the reason the stars in the sky shine. Nuclear fusion within the cores of stars is what causes them to light up. But that is a lesson for another post.





  

The genius behind the theory: Albert Einstein and his famous equation

   There is little doubt that relativity was Einstein's greatest achievement. It revolutionized how we view the world. No longer were space and time separate entities, they were forever united under his theories. Throughout the future posts, we will continue to go back to Einstein, but next post will be about Edwin Hubble and the expansion of the universe. I'll post soon, follow the blog and spread the word. Until then, salutations!

Relativity: Einstein's Greatest Achievement Part 1

  Space and time are related. This new view postulated by Albert Einstein formed a monumental shift in the way we see the world. Einstein worked as a poor patent office clerk where he had plenty of time to think about the principles of his theory of special relativity, published first in a paper in 1905. Einstein was big on thought experiments, he had a talent for visualizing hypothetical circumstances in his mind. He was basically a very productive day dreamer.

   To start us off, imagine traveling on the highway at sixty miles per hour (I'm American, I use the arbitrary customary system). In the next lane is a car traveling parallel to you at the exact same speed, the same sixty miles per hour. To an outside observer, perhaps standing on the side of the road, both of you are traveling at sixty MPH. In the car, say you have a radar gun, used to measure the speed of an object relative to the user. Because you are both traveling at the same speed, if you used your radar gun on the car next to you, the speed would measure 0 miles per hour. Einstein knew that speeds measured relative to the one doing the measuring would add or subtract or cancel each other out. So if a car traveling the same direction as you, but going thirty miles per hour faster, then the speed relative to you would be thirty miles per hour. But the speed measured by a road-side observer would be your speed plus the speed of the car going thirty miles per hour faster.

The speed of the green car measured by the red car is twenty miles per hour   

   The speed of light had been accurately taken at the time, around 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. Einstein then applied the principle described above to light assumed that the speed of light is a constant regardless of those taking the measurements moving relative to the light beam. That means even if you are traveling ninety nine percent the speed of light next to a light beam, the speed you measure is always the same, the exact same 186,000 miles per second (in a vacuum, that is). This had remarkable implications. It meant that in order to measure this same speed, the space around you itself had to distort as well as the time flow relative to an outside observer. The faster you go, the heavier you become. The energy used to travel at such phenomenal speeds was somehow becoming mass, this mass distorted the flow of space and time. This meant that time runs slower in areas of heavier space-time distortion then in areas that are less distorted. This is famously displayed in the Twin Paradox, where twins at birth are separated at birth, one staying on Earth and the other put on a starship traveling near light speed. The twin ages less on the ship then the one on Earth, so when he returns to Earth, there is an age difference despite them being born at the same time. This lead Einstein to the famous equation you can see everywhere you go, E=mc². E meaning energy, m for mass, and c for the speed of light.    So because of the huge number represented by light speed, there is a huge amount of energy for a tiny amount of mass. Not only were space and time intrinsically related, but matter and energy were interchangeable! 

   This also meant that nothing can travel at the speed of light, the energy needed is infinite to propel matter at such a high speed. But since energy is like "liquid" matter and matter is like "solidified" energy, the energy would turn to matter and the infinite amount of matter thereby created is impossible. So the speed of light is the speed limit of the cosmos, nothing can travel faster than it. 

   We have delved into very important concepts of relativity, but due to my time limitations, I must continue this topic later. Keep checking back and feel free to ask questions below. Tell your friends about the blog and become a follower! I'll post again soon, until then, salutations!

Classical Electromagnetism

   Of the four forces of nature that have been harnessed by humans, there is little doubt that electromagnetism has had the greatest impact. It is the reason you're able to read is, the reason you can instantly communicate with your friends, the reason information is accessible instantly via internet, the reason for your lighting, the reason society has advanced so far and looks so different from 100 years ago. Humanity has mastered this force and the results of it, but how did it get started? Who first used it? Why is it caused? What is its future? This category, like the scientific revolution, will be split into several blog posts.

   As the name suggests, electricity and magnetism are different aspects of the same, intrinsically related thing. Early scientists and philosophers were familiar with magnetism when they observed materials like lodestone move certain metals. Electricity was first studied by the Greek scientist Thales when he observed how amber had certain electric qualities (in fact, the word electric comes from the Greek word for amber, elektron). In coming years, the two seemingly dissimilar forces were mostly shrouded in mystery until 1873 when James Clerk Maxwell wrote his famous Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. He showed mathematically that the interactions found between positive and negative charges (poles) were actually governed by the same  force, electromagnetism. Another physicist, Michael Faraday, a poor and relatively uneducated scientist, found the force lines we see when we place iron shavings near a magnet, now called a Faraday field or Faraday lines. These were both important steps for understanding the force and connecting the two ideas.

   Electromagnetism is essentially the interactions between electrically charged particles. Light is also an electromagnetic emission, as are radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light (color), ultraviolet light, X rays, and gamma rays. The particles of each one of these, the photon, is a massless particle that travels 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second) making it the fastest thing in the universe. The relation between electrons and their respective nuclei is explained in electromagnetism as well. And we are all familiar with the story of Benjamin Franklin discovering the relationship between lightning and electricity.

   Overall, we have barely begun to cover this extensive topic, but we will soon see much of the mystery that covers this dynamic and most useful of universal forces. I will probably return to this topic when I have elaborated on quantum mechanics so we can have a true understanding of what this force is. On a personal note, sorry guys for taking so long, moving has taken it all out of me and it has been difficult getting back into the rhythm of things, but I hope to be posting much soon, so keep checking in. Until then, salutations!