Greybeard |
25-10-2011 04:56 AM |
Origin of the Universe
13,700,000,000 years ago there was absolutely Nothing. Then Nothing blew up, and created Space and Time, Matter and Light.
The original infinitely tiny point of pure amorphous unstructured Energy burst and created Everything. There were no primeval forces and no laws governing them. But in an instant gravity came into being, and the destiny of the Universe was decided. Interestingly, if the force of gravity is too low, everything flies apart too fast and galaxies can't form; if gravity is too strong, everything ends up in black holes. The Big Bang got gravity just right and here we are looking at our universe.
Energy alone led to the creation of matter in the first fraction of a second following the initial explosion. First Nothing, out of Nothing energy, out of energy matter. And anti-matter... Matter and anti-matter, when they meet, destroy each other and revert to energy. But for some reason, in the early universe there were one billion and one particles of matter for every billion particles of anti-matter. The one survived, while the billion perished. All of the matter in our present universe is composed of these lone survivors. This gargantuan battle between matter and anti-matter was fought and won in the first second after the initial explosion.
By the time 3 minutes had passed, the nuclei of atoms of hydrogen, helium and lithium had formed. The levels of energy and heat were still too great, however, for electrons to bond to the nuclei. Therefore, light could not move across the universe, and it had the appearance of a glowing milky cloud. After 380,000 years the universe had cooled sufficiently for electrons to bond with nuclei and atoms were formed. The universe became transparent. Satellite observatories have obtained "heat-maps" of the universe at this stage in its development. Now, vast clouds of hydrogen and helium swirl through space.
Two hundred million years later, the first stars began to form out of these clouds. One billion years after the Big Bang, the first galaxies began to take form. Nine billion years later, our own Sun and its system of planets coalesces out of a spinning cloud of gas and dust; the Earth is formed.
Things which have a beginning must also have an end. No one knows how the universe will end; whether in a great contraction and a repeat of the Big Bang, or just a slow dissipation and dying out. Although the future is not yet known, the brief history presented here is now established fact. It is the story of how we came to be.
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