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Introduction to the theories of the origin of the universe
Theories and origin of the universe
Edwin hubble papers
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For centuries humans looked up at the sky and wondered where we came from and why we are here. It was this fascination that lead scientists and philosophers to explore the Universe for answers. Over time these answers varied depending on what religion, ideas and technology was available to them. Some believed in an Aristotelian Universe centred around the Earth where others believed in the Copernican Universe which placed our sun in the centre. Most theories were dispelled due to the religious connotations and that it went against their belief of creationism. Like with all theories the specifics of this developed over time, and there have been many countless advances since the first proposal.
It wasn’t until the 1920s when Georges Lemaitre,
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a Belgian priest first suggested the Big Bang theory. But what is the Big Bang theory? And why is it the leading scientific theory for the origins of the Universe? According to Georges Lemaitre the Universe began with a single primordial atom. This tiny atom created an explosion of incomprehensible speed and heat that rudimentary particles like protons and electrons could not bind together. Particles called quarks along with a massive amount of radiation were released from the explosion which created the Universe within the first microsecond. Within these quarks matter and antimatter started cancelling each other out as matter had more particles a residue was left behind. Gravity which is inherent to matter, which is what Newton explained, pulled the matter together into clumps . A few billion years’ later planets and stars were formed and eventually life started to form on Earth. Some scientists considered the Big Bang theory not only the beginning of the Universe but also the beginning of time. “Three main observational results over the past century led astronomers to become certain that the Universe began with a Big Bang.” Yuki D. Takahashi First, the most obvious result, the Universe is expanding.
Edwin Hubble supported Georges Lemaitre’s ideas as it fitted in with his own observations. While he were charting the galaxies he discovered that they were moving away from Earth at a high speed and time was expanding in all directions. He was able to track the movement of remote galaxies and other systems due to a phenomena known as Doppler shifts. However Hubble miscalculated and his data calculated that the sun was older than the Universe. Later Allan Sandage recalculated Hubble’s data and proved to the world that the Universe was older than first proposed. Planets, stars and galaxies only make up 4% of the Universe, the remaining 96% is unknown or unexplored territory. According to NASA there is a dark energy that is making the Universe expand and accelerate at a bigger rate than it did years ago . There are many galaxies apart from out Milky Way that are moving further and further away. Scientist like Stephen Hawkins believe that our Universe is just a small part and that many other Universes exist. According to Hawkins we live in a multiverse. He believes that there are more than 100 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars.
Secondly, a quarter of the total mass of the Universe is made up of dark matter which would have been created within the first few minutes of the Big Bang. It surrounds the galaxies and galaxy clusters and assist in the development of construction within the Universe. During the structural construction of the Universe, dark matter which can also be described as “cold, dark matter” was slow
moving. Finally and the most convincing reason is the presence of cosmic radiation. This theory was further boasted I 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson’s discovery of cosmic microwave radiation, which is believed to be the tangible remnant leftover light from the Big Bang. None of the previous theories mentioned this cosmic afterglow. In 1948 Alpher, Bethe and Gamow used the Big Bang theory to predict the existence of a low temperature background radiation throughout the Universe. This cosmic background radiation has been accurately measured by orbiting detectors. The Universe may not always be expanding though, scientists believe have come up with three possible fates for the Universe depending on its mass as it continues to grow. If the Universe is not dense enough to utilize gravity, it will keep expanding forever. This is called an Open Universe. If the density is just right, the Universe will continue expanding but will slow down and ultimately stop completely. This is called a Flat Universe. The third option has almost been ruled out, but there is always a possibility. If the Universe is denser than we think, gravity will eventually became stronger than the expansion perhaps resulting in the Universe collapsing in on itself in a Big Crunch.
Two men named Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis has a debate in 1920 that is still important today for changing how we think about galaxies. They talked about five important things. The first thing they debated was how big our galaxy, the Milky Way, is. Shapley said that the Milky Way was much bigger than we first thought, 100,000 light-years across, and that, because it was that big, it had to be the only one. Curtis said the the Milky Way was smaller than that, and that other galaxies existed past ours. They were both right and both wrong. Shapley was right about the size of the Milky Way, and Curtis was right about there being many more galaxies in the universe.
Matter, as we conceive it today, did not exist after the Big Bang, because the temperature was too high for that. While trying to join protons and electrons, light continually crossed apart. Only when the universe had cooled to 3,000 K, the atoms are held together and the light was beginning to happen.
Have you ever wondered who discovered that the sun is the center of our universe? If so, the answer is Nicolai Copernicus. This man was a well-respected as well as well educated man. He explored many different subjects including mathematics, medicine, canon law, and his favorite astronomy. The Earth-centered universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy were Western thinking for almost 2000 years until the 16th century when Copernicus proposed his theory.
Centuries ago, people gazed into the night sky wondering what it was that they were looking at. When astronomers first started to study the night sky, like Galileo, Copernicus and even modern day astronomers, they all shared one goal, and that was to see further than anyone has ever before. The invention of the Hubble Space Telescope changed the study of astronomy forever. Astronomers were seeing and learning more in just days of the launch of the telescope than past astronomers had in their lifetimes. The Hubble Space Telescope is the most technologically advanced telescope to enter space. Its advanced technology has made it possible to obtain countless amounts of data about space and open many doors in the exploration of space. Its accuracy has and still is proving/debunking the myths of space.
Dark matter was first proposed by a man named Fitz Zwicky, who was observing a galaxy cluster, and noticed it was much more massive than to be expected, considering the cluster’s luminosity. Zwicky proposed something that he could not see was there, causing this; he dubbed this dark matter. However, Zwicky was ridiculed for this idea. In the 1960s, Kent Ford designed what is now called a spectrograph, a device that disperses electromagnetic radiation, making the radiation visible to the user. This innovation allowed Ford and Vera Rubin to observe the orbital speeds of stars and gases in galaxies from different distances from the central black hole of that galaxy. When doing so, Rubin observed that the Newtonian laws of gravity. The stars closer to the black hole should have been orbiting it at a more accelerated pace than the stars farther away, although this was not happening. Rubin then lead a team of astronomers to observe many galaxies, and in their observations, they noticed that the galaxies evidently had a form of invisible mass at work. The research team discovered spirals encapsulated in what appears to be dark matter. The mass of dark matter is believed to be far greater than the mass of visible matter in the universe. Dark matter is called dark matter for the reason that it does not appear to interact with regular matter in any form,
ABSTRACT: Given the great historical distance between scientific explanation as Aristotle and Hempel saw it, I examine and appraise important similarities and differences between the two approaches, especially the inclination to take deduction itself as the very model of scientific knowledge. I argue that we have good reasons to reject this inclination.
Despite all our advances in particle physics and astrophysics, we still don't know what form of matter makes up 95% of the universe. Physicists have named this mysterious substance dark matter, for it can not be detected by observation (it does not emit visible or other frequency light waves). However, we know that dark matter must exist, following Newton's universal law of gravity.
The number of theories surrounding how the universe materialized is nearly endless, but Krauss’ thesis is one of the most convincing and buttressed that has been proposed. Lawrence Krauss is one of the most well respected theoretical physicists and cosmologists in America and has done extensive research on how and why the universe is in existence. Like the title of his book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, his entire theory surrounds the fact the universe was created from nothing. In support of his argument, he explores the weight and shape of the universe, dark matter and energy, quantum mechanics, visual particles, and expansion rates. While the world may never know exactly how the universe was created, society is getting closer to figuring it out and Krauss may have been the one to figure it out.
NOTE: This paper was written for an English class and a non astronomy audience. Thus, several arguments were left out to make the material easier to understand for the target audience. These arguments would include (but are not limited to) dark energy, dark matter, and the inflationary model of the universe. If I later have time I may revise this paper to cover such topics and be more comprehensive.
The first person to ever observe the Milky Way was Greek philosopher, Democritus, who said the galaxy may consist of distant stars. In 1610, Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and came to the conclusion that it was composed of billions and billions of faint stars. Then, in 1750, Thomas Wright c...
The Universe is a collection of millions of galaxies and extends beyond human imagination. After the big bang, the universe was found to be composed of radiation and subatomic particles. Information following big bang is arguable on how galaxies formed, that is whether small particles merged to form clusters and eventually galaxies or whether the universe systematized as immense clumps of matter that later fragmented into galaxies (Nasa World book, 2013). A galaxy is a massive area of empty space full of dust, gases (mainly 75% Hydrogen and 25%Helium), atoms, about 100-200 billion stars, interstellar clouds and planets, attracted to the center by gravitational force of attraction. Based on recent research, 170 billion galaxies have been estimated to exist, with only tens of thousands been discovered (Deutsch, 2011).
The Earth was a planet that was believed to be the center of the Universe until Copernicus proposed that the planets orbited the sun, and Galileo had found data that supported the theory of a heliocentric universe. It wasn’t until Isaac Newton that the planetary motion mystery was solved with mathematical certainty, and it was official that the planets orbited the Sun. Since then, there have been many scientific breakthroughs on where our planets sit in the celestial scheme of things.
Even though we know a great amount more than the astronomers in the past, there is still an even larger amount we do not know about the universe to this day. Even our own solar system contains many questions yet to be answered. Some of these include the possibility of a planet beyond Pluto (Planet X), the means by which the system was created, and even the possibility of a sister star to the Sun named Nemesis. Another astronomical mystery is the creation of the universe. In time, many questions will be answered but some will always remain. Astronomy is something that will never be completely understood.
Since the dawn of intelligent man, humanity has speculated about the origins of the universe.
The big bang theory has evidence to support it. An example of this evidence is the cosmic microwave background. The cosmic microwave background was discovered in 1964. The cosmic microwave background is radiation left over from the beginning of the universe or the big bang. This background is important because the radiation is the type of radiation that was seen at the beg...