Where did the universe come from?

[KillerMuffin]

Fact: The law of conservation of matter states that nothing is created or destroyed in a chemical reaction.

Fact: All matter is a chemical element or a combination of chemical elements. Therefore all reactions are chemical reactions.

Theory 1: The Big Bang: A small compressed seething pinpoint of mass exploded and the universe has grown from there. Where did the compressed mass come from?

Theory 2: Creationism (pick a religion): God/Goddess/Gods created the universe. Where did God/Goddess/Gods come from?

Theory 3: A Giant Turtle Farted. Where did Stephen King get his ideas?

Query 1: Is there a border to the universe? What did the compressed mass exist in? How long was it compressed mass? What made it suddenly explode? Why did it exist in the first place?

Query 2: If God/Goddess/Gods made the universe, is there some other universe that these deity(ies) reside in? Why did they do it? Where do they come from? Who made them?

Query 3: If the Giant Turtle exists, who does the turtle belong to? Laurel and Manu? Where does it exist? Who made it? Why? What did it have for dinner to cause it to have such a tremendous gastrointestinal expulsion?

 

[Juspar Emvan]

Q1. Is the question where, or when? Ahhh, mmm?

Q2. I made them, they live in my basement.

Q3. Great A'tun belongs to himself. And has the permits to prove it.

 

[cymbidia]

What is the Big Bang Theory?

Theory 1: Big Bang.

Science has not been able to prove that the Big Bang theory is actually THE truth about the creation of the universe, although most scientists believe it is.

Small bit of background on the BBT:
According to most cosmologists, about 15 to 20 billion years ago the whole universe was formed in a fraction of a second in a gigantic explosion called the Big Bang.

Just before this time, everything in our universe, everything that ever was or ever will be, was squeezed into one tiny area, smaller than an atom. We call this thing the primeval atom.

When this primeval atom exploded, matter and energy erupted and raged and blasted in every direction.

The universe had begun to expand and grow.

Between 100,000 and a million years after the Big Bang, as the universe started to cool down, enormous clouds of hydrogen, and then helium, started to form.

This dense accumulation of matter (hydrogen and helium) became more dense as gravitional forces pulled loose particles toward the center.

As the clumps pulled tighter and tighter together, their cores began to heat up and they began to swirl and writhe.

Eventually, these dense swirling clouds became galaxies. Stars formed where the gases were the most dense.

These first stars were high mass stars.

These stars went supernovae really quickly.

When they exploded, they seeded the surrounding areas with metals and other heavier elements.

Later generations of stars, like our own sun, formed in these enriched areas and so contained a wide variety of elements.

Our own sun and our whole solar system formed from this stuff about 5 billion years ago.

Every atom of everything that ever has been or ever will be anywhere in the universe, anywhere on earth, is part of the original matter of the universe.

Most scientists believe that the Big Bang explosion was so strong that it is still affecting the universe today.

These scientists have taken measurements that seem to show that every single day the known universe increases in volume equal to the Milky Way Galaxy.

This means that the galaxies are moving away from each other and leaving more and more spaces with few galaxies; that is, there are fewer galaxies per unit of space

Matter in the universe is still distributed unevenly. 99.9% of all matter is still hydrogen and helium. Nebulae, galaxies, and stars are still forming. The universe is continuing to expand, perhaps without boundries or limits.

(I *teach* this subject. Aren't you sorry KM asked?)

Now, want to know how and why the universe will end? It's called the Pulsaating Universe Theory and i can tell you about that, too...

 

[KillerMuffin]

No, I'm not sorry cym. Where did the primeveal atom come from? Where did it exist while it was an atom? Why did it even exist? One wonders...

Expound away before Todd starts! Get your licks in first I always say.

 

[cymbidia]

You're a masochist, KM.

In addition to trying to find out how the universe originated and evolved, cosmologists are also interested in predicting the ultimate fate of the universe.

What will happen to the universe? they ask. Will the universe keep on expanding forever? Is there something that can stop it?

According to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which almost all scientists accept as being true, there are only two possible futures for the universe.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity: Very briefly: Einstein changed the model of the universe that was generally accepted by scientists until then. His ideas contradicted the widely-believed concept that space and time are seperate things.

Instead of a three dimensional universe - height, width, depth (things we can see and touch) - his theory proposed a four-dimensional universe, adding time to the mix.

Time can no longer be seen as something apart, but now has to be viewed as something that can be affected by motion of things. The curvature of space is the same as the curvature of the space-time continuum.

Anyway, on to the two possible futures for the universe:
(1) It will continue to expand indefinitely, at an ever-decreasing rate; just sort of drift bigger forever and forever.
(2) It will eventually stop expanding and collapse back on itself, maybe forming another primeval atom and another Big Bang. This is known as the Pulsating Universe Theory.


THE PULSATING UNIVERSE THEORY
1. If the universe is dense enough, the gravitational attraction between all its billions of parts will eventually slow down the expansion and reverse it.

2. Like this: Earth's gravity slows and reverses a handful of marbles tossed into the air.

3. Like the marbles, if this theory is true, eventually all the galaxies in the universe would slow down, stop, and hang motionless for an instant, then begin falling inward again.

4. If this happens, all matter would tumble together again in the Big Squeeze billions of years from now.

5. The Big Squeeze might form another primeval atom that might explode in another Big Bang and start the process all over again.

6. This is the Pulsating Universe Theory.

7. One trouble with the idea of a universe that forms and destroys itself in cycles is that our present universe might not be dense enough to stop the present expansion.

8. Perhaps it's true that we live in a universe that will expand away forever and simply run down, never to be reborn.


One other theory about the origin of the universe:
THE STEADY STATE THEORY

1. The universe will continue to expand indefinitely because new matter is constantly being made. New galaxies form from this new matter, replacing old galaxies which just sort of fade away.

2. There are no giant spaces that contain no galaxies because new galaxies are being formed to take the place of the old ones. There is and always will be a constant number of galaxies per unit of space.

3. Universe had no beginning and will have no end. It has always been the way it is today and will always be like this.

Any questions?

 

[cymbidia]

15 minutes, birth to death.
Is this some kinda record for fastest kill of a GB thread?

No one else thinks the cosmology of our universe is *fascinating*????

Philistines!

 

[Guru]

 

[Guru]

 

[cymbidia]

I find intellectually aroused people extraordinarily exciting.
It all starts in the brain.

 

[rambling man]

Here's a kernel of thought....

Many scientists believe that the big bang exploded from a singularity, a point of infinite mass occupying no space.

In the center of any black hole is a singularity caused by the constriction of star matter in the wake of a supernova.

Hmmmmmmmm......

 

[Texan]

Re: What is the Big Bang Theory?

Theory 1: Big Bang.

(I *teach* this subject. Aren't you sorry KM asked?)

hello cymbidia..... what grade level do you teach???

 

[Problem Child]

*Sits quietly, impressed with Cym's knowledge of the formation of the universe, waiting for Todd to show up, followed closely by Pyper*

 

[cymbidia]

Black holes and singularities

A black hole is a stellar object so dense that even light cannot escape its gravity.

Stars are born and live out their lives according to what they’re made of and how massive they are. Most of them (90% of all the visible stars in the sky), like Baby Bear's bed, are neither too big nor too small and are called Main Sequence Stars. Their lives, evolution, and deaths are predictable and known.

Red dwarfs the least massive of the Main Sequence stars.
Because of their low mass, their core temperatures are just barely hot enough to start nuclear fusion reactions.

These stars shine with a cool red light, burn up their hydrogen (the fuel thatmakes all stars shine) very slowly, and have very long lives - maybe 100 billion years or so. They evolve so slowly that even one formed in the earliest days of the universe is still burning unchanged and will continue for the entire lifetime of the universe.

Yellow stars, like our Sun, are about 10X more massive than the red dwarfs and use up their hydrogen much more rapidly. They have shorter lives, only about 10 billion years or so.

Bluish-white stars are about 35X more massive than our sun. These stars are very hot energy spendthrifts and use up their fuel supply rapidly. Their lives span only a few billion years.


VERY massive stars have a very strange fate in store: they become black holes.
1. The first black hole that science found was in about 1995, around a star called Cygnus XI.
2. Black holes have been described as an object that dug a hole, jumped in, then pulled the hole in after itself.


This is how a black hole forms:
1. When a massive burned out star shrinks to about 130 miles in diameter, it becomes very special.
2. It's so dense, and its gravity is so strong, that virtually nothing can escape from it, not even light.
3. At this time, the star disappears inside itself, and no event that happens inside the black hole can be seen from the outside.

(Bonus vocab word: EVENT HORIZON:
The point at which no event that happens inside a black hole can be seen from the outside.)

4. After the dying star contracts into a black hole, it continues to contract until it's just a tiny point called a singularity.

(Another bonus vocab word: Singularity:
The center of a black hole in which in infinitely strong gravitational field exists.)


So, if nothing, not light or any other kind of energy, can escape from a black hole, how do we find them?
1. Gases get pulled violently into black holes from nearby stars because of the immense gravity exerted on all nearby stuff by the black hole.
2. Just before this matter gets pulled over the black holes’ event horizon and disappears, it gets hot and sends out strong bursts of X-rays.
3. These X-ray bursts are our best evidence of black holes.

To date, we’ve found a lot of black holes and the work of finding them continues.

Most astronomers believe that at the center of most galaxies are black holes that are millions of times more massive than our own sun. It has been proved true for a number of galaxies. Work continues.

(When i'm teaching, Texan, i teach 7th and 8th grade science in a yearly rotating schedual of astronomy, geology, evolution, microbiology, animal biology, plant biology. Oh, yeh. Sex ed, too. )

 

[scylis]

*ahem*

the universe was created when one of the mythical space chickens farted (the big bang), and we are all it's noxious expellants...

thank you for your time

 

[Texan]

Re: Black holes and singularities

(When i'm teaching, Texan, i teach 7th and 8th grade science in a yearly rotating schedual of astronomy, geology, evolution, microbiology, animal biology, plant biology. Oh, yeh. Sex ed, too. )

cymbidia.... I enjoyed your posts. I asked the question about which grade level you teach for a reason.

I have four sons. My oldest is 20, my youngest is 8. I have read all of their science text books in an effort to know how certain subjects are being presented in schools today. I find their text books present "universal origin theories" about the same way you described them here. They are described as FACT (or assumed FACT) by most text books. When in reality, they are wildly speculative theories.

I earned my PhD in Physics (specializing in Electro-optics) from Rice University in 1982. I am a passionate reader on the subject of universal origin theory.

There exists in Physics, just as in medicine and many other fields, a small elitist group who keep coming up with new theories. They then try to garner the support of the "loudest voices" in the field (of which Carl Sagan was the loudest until his death in 1996). The current king of universal origin theory is Stephen Hawking, who is the originator of “Universal Theory”. The current rave of Hawking is “Random vs. Ordered Progressions”. All of these theories are excellent. One or more of the theories may be “true” completely or in part. The minds that conjure these theories are amazing. The problem is that each theory is only that… a theory.

The Big Bang Theory has never been even remotely proven, and some parts of Universal Theory conflict with BBT. I think each of these theories should be taught in school. However, there needs to be MUCH more emphasis put on the theoretical nature of each theory.

 

[Todd]

Todd - I beli.....

Literotica - Shut the fuck up you butt munching mythological believing asshole, right wing christian, imbecile, shit wad, bible humper Todd.

Todd -

 

[scylis]

Todd - I beli.....

Literotica - Shut the fuck up you butt munching mythological believing asshole, right wing christian, imbecile, shit wad Todd.

Todd -

*ROFLMFAO!!!*

that was absolutly the LAST thing i thought i would see you say!!!

 

[Todd]

*ROFLMFAO!!!*

that was absolutly the LAST thing i thought i would see you say!!!

Just saving everyone the time of telling me how wrong I am

 

[rambling man]

to texan

This is not an argumentative question by any stretch. A masters in history should never argue physics with a PhD in physics, it's just wrong, if not illegal.

That said, I humbly ask this. What do you make of the recent (last seven or eight years) work in microwave background radiation that seems to bolster the claims of the Big Bang people?

 

[Texan]

Re: to texan

This is not an argumentative question by any stretch. A masters in history should never argue physics with a PhD in physics, it's just wrong, if not illegal.

That said, I humbly ask this. What do you make of the recent (last seven or eight years) work in microwave background radiation that seems to bolster the claims of the Big Bang people?

hello rambling man... good question....

Let me give you my skeptic's answer first. CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation) is what SOME scientists believe is the tiny amount of radiant heat left over from the Big Bang. Until around 1965, everyone believed that space was the same temperature everywhere. A couple of scientists (can't remember their names) from Bell Labs (my sister works there) measured a tiny difference in the temperature of the sky at different locations. To date, the maximum temperature difference (called anisotropy) measured are only 0.0003 degrees Kelvin. In 1991, I worked on the NASA COBE project (Cosmic Background Explorer). That was the project that measured the greatest anisotropy to date.

NASA has another project in the works called MAP (Microwave Anisotropy Probe). I don't know much about the actual satellite, but it is intended to make more accurate measurements. The COBE satellite only had a measurement angle of 7 arc degrees, the MAP satellite is supposed to be larger.

Caltech and other places with Cosmology departments have different "balloon instrumentation" projects going on. None of them have had much results making definitive measurements.

Now with this said, it seems likely that there are slight differences in the temperature of space, but to automatically assume those differences are caused by the Big Bang, and not some solar event in this or some other solar system, is a GIANT leap. A leap of this size could only be made by a Cosmologist.

 

[Texan]

by the way...

these types of projects are great for getting government grants and foundation awards.

follow the money trail.... even in the sciences....

 

[cymbidia]

I appreciate your even-handed approach to skepticism, Texan, more than you know. I'm sure you noticed that i prefaced the very first of my posts with the info that what i was saying was a theory, not proven fact. I'm aware of the difference between the two and stress that when i'm teaching far more than you might think.

That said, sometimes there's a place for a non-scientific, rather simplistic approach to imparting scientic info. If one is too careful in how one offers technical info, it loses the spontaneity that allows non-scientist to remain interested. People that aren't interested in something, tune it out immediately. When people tune stuff out, they don't learn.

It's a real balancing act to give scientific info to a crowd like this. One wants to give good quality info without dummying it down in an insulting manner. One wants to retain an audience for the info. One wants to be correct and factual.

I tried to walk a middle ground, here.
In person, in my classes, i am far more careful in the way i present "facts" and "theories" because part of my job is to teach kids to **think** about what info is coming to them and what it's actually saying.

No Ph.D. here, but i have a Master's, a couple of B.S.'s, and a handful of teaching credentials, all in scientific fields. I subscribe to a wide variety of periodicals and journals and try to keep up with developements in my field, in particular, and science, in general. I appreciate your coments.

 

[Tabby432]

cymbidia & Texan thanks for the science lesson. Fascinating stuff.

 

[Texan]

hello cymbidia

I most definately noticed that your first line, in your first post, made mention that BB was not proven.

I am curious, since you must also read the science text books being used today, do you think those books make it clear that theories are REALLY just theories? In my opinion, most science writers (text books, science magazine articles and scientific journals) seem to be using the medium to gain stature within the scientific community.

There is a "politically correct" set of theories and beliefs, to which adherance is required, to be respected in the scientific community. Scientists who openly challenge one of the PC theories is looked down upon by the "in" crowd. This applies to the scientists who openly challenge one or more of the theories within the group of theories called evolution. (That's right folks, there are several different theories of evolution... and they conflict with each other.) I really wish the religious right would stay out of that debate for awhile, so the real science could be debated.

I just wonder, do you feel that science text books today are too politically correct?

 

[Todd]

Todd - As a memebr of the religious right I would like to say th . . .

Literotica - Look here you Damned right wing pinko commie bastard. Take your bible turn it sideways and set the sumbitch on fire and shove it up your ass sideways. We told you to shut the Fuck once already . What the hell does it take to that through your head.

Todd -