The Big Bang

1. The Big Bang By Ashley Jones

2. The Big Bang Theory • Quite possibly one of the most controversial subjects, The Big Bang is a theory explaining the greatest mystery of existence and man’s most asked question: Where do we come from? In my power point presentation I will cover the following: • What “banged”? Explaining what came before the Big Bang, what is was, who discovered evidence of the phenomenon, and further evidence and science to support this theory. • Planck time: the way scientists measure the time the Big Bang took to happen • The first force to emerge: Gravity • First matter in the Universe: subatomic particles • Antimatter • Building the Universe • Lastly, as it is and has always been, the Universe had a beginning and it will also have an end.

3. What Banged? • What exactly came before the big bang? The quick answer is nothing. The laws of physics allow for something to be created out of complete nothingness. • The Universe and everything in it was contained in an infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitely small spec. • In the instant that the Big Bang happened, all the forces we have come to live by began to take shape. The fate of the Universe, it’s size, structure and everything in it was decided in these first few seconds. • In 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies aren’t suspended in space, rather they are moving away from each other at very high speeds. The Universe is expanding. Objects two x’s the distance out are moving two x’s faster, at three x’s out three times faster and so on. This is the first evidence of the Big Bang. • A source of light one million miles away from Earth takes one million years for it to reach Earth. If that star died, we wouldn’t know it for one million years meaning we could still see it, even though it was no longer there. This is how we see the beginning of the Universe, even though it happened 14 billion years ago.

4. Edwin Hubble Discovered evidence that the Universe is expanding.

5. Planck-time: A different unit of time • All of space expanded in less than a millionth, of a millionth, of a millionth, of a millionth of a second-faster than the speed of light. • It is basic knowledge that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so how can this be possible? • The loop-hole is that NOTHING can go faster than the speed of light. Nothing= Space. • This phenomenon is so mind boggling, astronomers had to create a new unit of time so that they could begin to understand just how quickly the Universe expanded. Thus Planck time was born. • A time scale so small that all human intuition goes out of the window. • There are more units of planck time in one second than there are seconds since the Big Bang.

6. Gravity: The First Force of the Universe • One of the most fascinating things about the existence of the Universe, and even Earth, is that conditions must be just right. Too little gravity and particles fly around aimlessly. Too much gravity and the Universe would be one gigantic black hole. Both extremes result in a failed universe. • Isaac Newton’s explanation of gravity is that it is the force that draws objects together. Without this force we would not have stars, gas giants, asteroids, or even our beloved planet Earth. • Albert Einstein’s theory is that of the curvature of space-time. • It’s these two theories that are most accepted and well-known in the world. (www.science.howstuffworks.com)

7. Gravity according to Newton • According to legend, in the 1600’s, Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell onto his head. • This sparked the question of why the apple falls to the ground? Why doesn’t it fall upwards, sideways, etc.? • In the 1680’s Newton publicized his theory of Universal Gravitation which states that gravity is a force, and it acts on all matter within the universe. It is a function of both mass and distance. • Basically, one particle of matter attracts another particle of matter. A good example is the matter of Earth attracts the matter of people, “with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.”(-howstuffworks.com) • The standard formula for gravity is: • Gravitational force = (G * m1 * m2) / (d2) • Gravitational force = (G * m1 * m2) / (d2) • where G is the gravitational constant • m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects for which you are calculating the force • and d is the distance between the centers of gravity of the two masses (howstuffworks.com)

8. Isaac Newton Formulated one of the two most accepted theories on gravity used today.

9. Gravity according to Einstein • Part of his famous Theory of Relativity, Einstein came up with an alternative to Newton’s Universal Gravitation. • Einstein did not buy that gravity was a force. Instead he stated that it was a distortion in the shape of space-time, also known as “The Fourth Dimension”. • My favorite example to use to describe his theory is asteroids and Jupiter. An asteroid make become knocked out of the Kuiper Belt or wherever it originates from and it travels in a perfectly straight line. Once it reaches the distortion in space from Jupiter’s mass it begins to curve. In other words, it changes track- it is no longer traveling in a straight line as it is now orbiting Jupiter. From there, it may become a part of one of Jupiter’s many moons or be swallowed up by the giant jovian planet.

10. Albert Einstein One of the most influential geniuses of all time.

11. The First Matter in the Universe • E=MC2 • We’ve all heard of “E equals M C squared”, but do we truly appreciate it’s magnificent significance? • Predicted by Albert Einstein in 1905, E=MC2 explains how matter and energy interact subsequently resulting in the atomic bomb. • It relates to the Big Bang because if all the Universe was created as pure energy, and energy can be converted into matter, and vice versa, you can get all of the stuff you see in the Universe from this one huge energetic event. • Therefore, energy alone can lead to the creation of a universe. • This is how subatomic particles behave.

12. Subatomic Particles • The early universe was one of extreme conditions. This is when subatomic particles -particles moving at exceedingly high speeds- dominated our universe. • Subatomic particles are smaller than an atom. • By the force of gravity, these particles are brought together by collisions. • They are energetically charged and are what made up the first atoms in the universe.

13. AntiMatter • Everything in the Universe is made up of matter. All the matter that exists in the Universe was created in the Big Bang • Antimatter has a negative charge and is basically a mirror image of matter. • If there is the same amount of matter in the Universe as anti-matter, they will cancel each other out resulting in empty vast space.There would be no planets, stars, or any life. • Luckily for us, and the rest of all things that exist in the Universe, there was one billion and one matter particles to one billion antimatter particles. There was enough left over to create everything that we see in the Universe. • All matter today is what was left over.

14. An artists depiction of Antimatter

15. Time to build the Universe! • Remember that the Universe expanded faster than the speed of light.At one second old atoms had not yet been formed. • As the Universe expanded, temperatures decreased allowing primitive particles to slow down and combine with each other. • The first element to form was Hydrogen (H2) • Following were Helium (He) and Lithium (Li).

16. For 380,000 years the Universe looked like a kind of milky soup. • At this point, with the forces of gravity, the continually expanding universe, and the collection of matter the Universe became transparent. At this point you could see through space. • It was also at this point in time that the Universe started to mass produce atoms. • At 200 million years old, Hydrogen and Helium begin to create stars. • And one billion years old the first Galaxy forms. Eight billion years after that, our galaxy the Milkyway was born. • Five billion years ago to today’s date Gravity begins to draw in dust and gas and gives birth to a very familiar star- Our Sun.

17. Hubble telescope image of galaxies This image was taken by the Hubble telescope. It shows millions and millions of galaxies containing billions of stars. It’s one way that we can begin to wrap our minds around just how immense the Universe really is.

18. The Cosmic Microwave Background This image of the infant Universe was taken by scientists using NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. “The light we see today as the cosmic microwave background has traveled over 13 billion years to reach us. Within this light are infinitesimal patterns that mark the seeds of what later grew into clusters of galaxies and the vast structure we see all around us.”(www.nasa.gov)

19. The Universe’s birth, and it’s demise. • Our Universe could go on forever, and have no end or it could be closed in on itself. • One thing we know is that evidence shows that it’s expansion is not slowing down, in fact it’s speeding up. • There are two main theories on the way the Universe may come to an end. I will cover them in my next couple slides.

20. An icy demise • There exists a theory of what is known as dark energy. The true nature of this phenomenon is not fully understood. • We have no knowledge of what this destructive force is made of, or where it comes from. • What the theory suggests, in combination with our knowledge that the Universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate instead of slowing down as it gets larger and cooler, is that present in all empty spaces is dark energy and it is forcing all things that exist apart. • Starting with the big things, it will push all galaxies so far apart that we will be but a lonely post floating in a vast empty space. Next, stars will become ever more distant. Dark energy will go right down to the atoms of the Universe, and literally tear them apart. • There will be nothing, and no one left. Just a cold, empty, never ending blackness.

21. Big crunch • The other theory, and my personal favorite, is the theory of infinite and parallel universes. • This theory states that as the universe expands, it may reach a point where it cannot reach its own escape velocity, and the gravitational pull of all the matter it contains will reverse it back in on itself. • Essentially this could mean that since there will be so much empty space, all matter will eventually be consumed by black holes, creating one massive black hole. • Everything would be combined back together into another infinitely small, infinitely dense spec. • Inevitably causing another big bang, another universe is created in what is known as continual genesis. • This next universe could be exactly the same, or could create something completely different. The beauty lye's with the fact that it never ends, it is reborn.

22. What’s in it for me? • Everything started with the big bang. It contains the answers to our greatest questions about our past, present, and future. • This is one of, if not the biggest mystery of everything that exists today. Every new discovery is of the utmost importance. • The important thing to remember when searching for answers regarding the Big Bang theory, or really anything else for that matter, is that it is a THEORY. One should always continue to ask questions, continue to wonder, and create. • We must remember that challenging a theory (in the same way that it may challenge us) is not a bad thing, yet that it is the tool we can use to open the door to future discoveries.

23. “Everything that makes us human, the atoms in our bodies, the jewelry we wear, all of the things that lead to the tragedy or life and the beauty and the excitement, love. Everything arose because of processes 14 billion years ago. And if we really want to understand ourselves on some fundamental level we really must understand the Big Bang.”-Professor Lawrence Krauss Theoretical Physicist

24. References • How the Universe Works: Big Bang- Discovery Channel • www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstories/2003 • www.wikipedia.org • http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question2321.htm • Google Images