The Past in Threes
- 13.7 
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Pamphlet Physical
Biological
Pre Human
Oral History
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Chapter 1 - The Big Bang –
How it started Amazingly,
when you look out to the other galaxies, they all seem to be moving away from us
and from each other. How can every galaxy be moving away from every other? If
you blow up a balloon with dots on it, these dots get further apart because the
balloon is getting bigger - not because any specific dot is moving in any
direction. Similarly, space is expanding. Everything not held together by
gravity is moving away from everything else, without individual galaxies moving. Projecting
back to the past, all visible space was in a smaller volume. 13.7
billion years ago, space was smaller than an atom. We don’t currently know
what came before that. History
of the first instant is still speculative in comparison to other periods, but we
do have some information. The current proposal being investigated is that space
expanded faster than the speed of light to several billion light years* (called
the “Big Bang” inflation). This best fits known data about this period. Space
was originally filled primarily with energy, some of which froze into particles
like electrons and quarks. Einstein’s equation states that matter is just
frozen energy E= MC2 In
the first minute of existence space expanded and cooled, allowing quarks to form
into protons and neutrons. Occasionally a proton and neutron combined to form a
helium nucleus. Initially
this matter was spread out evenly. After 10 years sound wave pressures caused
some clumping, which formed the seeds for later star and galaxy formation. The
universe started at several trillion degrees (by comparison our sun is 14
million degrees). After 380,000 years, the universe cooled down to 3,000
degrees. This allowed electrons to join hydrogen and helium nucleus to form
atoms. This also allowed energy (photons) to separate creating the cosmic
microwave background radiation we can measure today, providing us information
about this earliest period.
Notable
Events
This chart
shows time from the beginning. A negative number indicates the number of decimal
places as fractions of a second. E.g. -6 means .000001 seconds
and -43 means 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
seconds, a very, very short time. Time
Event -43
Planck time – smallest time possible -36
Universe is smaller than a marble -35
Inflation (faster than light) to billions of light years* -34
Matter & anti Matter form as Electrons & Quarks -5
Quarks form Protons & Neutrons -4
Electrons separate from the photons -3
Quarks & Anti-quarks almost annihilate each other 1 Second Neutrinos
separate from the photons 100 seconds Thermonuclear Explosion forms Helium 10 Years Sound pressure
clumping – forms seeds of galaxies 380,000 Years Cooling
allows matter and energy to separate 13.7 Billion years
Today Time
Average Temperature of the Universe (degrees Kelvin) -43
1 followed by 32 zeroes -35
1 followed by 28 zeroes -11
10,000,000,000,000,000 (10 quadrillion) -7
20,000,000,000,000 (20 trillion) -6
6,000,000,000,000 (6 trillion) -5
2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) 100 seconds 1,000,000,000 (1 Billion) 380,000 yrs 2,700 Today
2.7
*A light year is how far light
travels in 1 year – 5.9 trillion miles By comparison, the sun is 8
light minutes away from the earth.
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Author: Paul Raynault |
