The first time I learned about the origin of the universe I was quite young, and remember asking a multitude of questions; feeling unhappy with the responses I was getting. But what was there before? How did it start? These questions have progressed over the years, and I would like to say that I now am an expert on how the universe was formed but this is far from the truth. Continue reading
Category: September 19 (Page 2 of 3)
At the beginning of class today, I gazed upon the screen that read “The Big Bang Theory and Origin of the Universe” and I immediately thought about the vast knowledge and information regarding such phenomenon’s and how I did not really know anything about them. The more I thought, the quicker I came to realize that I in fact do not know anything about the Big Bang or the origin or the Universe. Baffled, I sat prepared to listen to a conversation from our guest, Professor Kocevski whom apparently had an extensive, yet impressive, background in the world of astronomy and physics. As a psychology major with previous experience in the natural sciences, I felt ready to approach a theory that seemed so concrete yet so abstract.
The start of everything! It is tough to fathom the thought that before the big bang occured, there earth was void. Coming from a religious background, Genesis 1-7 has always been the standard text for the origin of the universe. It is mind blowing to read about other different texts from dedicated scientists and astronomers who have dedicated their lives to proofing their theories correct.
Let there be light! Has always been the magic word, but after sitting in a lecture with Professor Kocevski and carefully listening to the possible proofs of the big bang theory. The astronomers have it all together down to the wire. It is fascinating to see how different generations pass on and constructively criticize each other’s knowledge and research works. History in this subject has driven the research to greater heights. Einstein introduced the cosmological constant; vacuum energy that would counteract expansion of the universe and Hubble built his research off this constant.
How big will the universe potentially be? This was a question ringing in my headed throughout the lecture. The rate of expansion is increasing while gravity does not have enough mass to suppress this expansion. The universe might as well be on its way to infinity. If the everything is moving away from us, there is no potential boundary to this expansion. The string theory states that collision of higher dimensional membranes gave rise to our three-dimensional universe.
The big bang has been a topic of research to the extent that astronomers can reproduce the occurrence down to the last few seconds using the cosmic microwave background . Accurate calculations of the speed of light now enable the re-creation of the event in supercolliders. I would pay to see that! The PowerPoint illustrations presented by Professor Kocevski served as captivating visual evidence of this man-made phenomenon. Strikes me as a nature vs man ordeal.
It is said that the universe borrowed the initial energy it used to expand exponentially shortly after the bang. Such claims retract me from fully placing my faith in this theory. Where did that energy come from? If nothing existed prior to the bang, how possible was it to generate energy to synthesize hydrogen. This unanswered question reverts me into believing that there must have been a creator. Apart from that, the primary origin of the universe theory faces other problems such as the isotropy of the CMB, flatness of the space (another really compelling counter-argument) and the lack of anti-matter. If the bang really occurred, going by the laws of physics — There should have been equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe. Millions of dollars are still being pumped into this research of the big bang theory because indeed, every story needs a beginning and an ending (which we might not be alive to hear about)
Whenever the idea of space is mentioned I immediately think of the fact that space is a never ending unquantifiable distance. In todays day and age, in a society where people attempt to make sense of everything, space is the one thing we can never truly understand. It presents a challenge to people everywhere. While we have read about countless discoveries and advancements in technology, we will never truly be able to understand our origins which is why the Big Bang Theory is just that, a theory.
In Rhee’s writing, Cosmic Dawn, he mentions the Hopi people. In the reading he talks about their beliefs as to how the world originated. The Hopi tribe believed that people were created in a deep cave far below the surface of the earth and entered the world through a hole called “The Sipapu.” This origin story shows how people, from early on in our existence felt the need to understand our origins, to make sense of the unknown. However as time has progressed, our knowledge and beliefs of our origins have been shifted. Such explanations of our origin and the study of space itself is an attempt to make a never ending concept seem less daunting.
However, while the idea of space is a great source of chaos in our world, there have been people who have tried to bring order to it. In Professor Kocevski’s lecture, he mentions countless mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers who have tried to make sense of our beginnings. Some of the greatest discoveries having been made by Einstein, Hubble, Brahe, Copernicus, and Kepler, none of whom have been able to make sense of what occurred before “The Inflation Era,” which was a rapid expansion of our universe in the very first moments after The Big Bang Theory. “The Inflation Era” has posed a conflict for many scientists over the years. It has continued to be a source of chaos seeing as we do not truly know what happened in that time. In Kocevski’s lecture he mentions how “disorder increases overtime.” While this might sound counterintuitive it explains the process that scientists and philosophers face when looking at something like the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang we had order followed by the event of the bang bringing along chaos, once we reached a level of stability we regained order. However as time goes on our society has begun to exhausted the resources of the land we are going towards a phase of chaos. Our society has reached a level of order to the point where people forget that chaos often disrupts such order which is never a guarantee.
When thinking about the fragility of our current universe it makes me think how our universe was created on a complete whim. The collisions of atoms was a completely random occurrence which has lead to the creation of such a complex and advanced life formation. However the question of how the particles and atoms needed to create life were present poses a complex question. While we will probably never know the answer, we as a society will continue to attempt to make order out of such a chaotic idea.
There are still many mysteries about the Universe. One of the big question we once might think is related to the origin; How did the universe start? I discussed about this topic once with my friend before, and it made us even more confused with many uncertain questions related to the beginning of the Universe. It was pleasure to hear the lecture of The Big Band and the Origin of the Universe by prof. Dale Kocevski to approach my prior questions I have had about the Universe.
The Olber’s paradox example made me realize the importance of looking at the ordinary things from different point of view so that it could reach us to a new discovery.
Many people believe that it is common that we have the sun during daytime, thus it is bright, on the other hand, it is dark at night because there is no sun. However, German physicist Heinrich Olbers had still questioned himself “why is the sky dark at night?” because if the universe is infinite and is distributed by stars or galaxies, we see stars in any direction we look. Therefore the night sky is supposed be white with lights of the uniformed stars in the universe.
This is called Olber’s paradox. In order to find the explanations of this paradox, some researchers have shown the new evidence related to the origin of the Universe.The one is even though our universe is infinite large, it is not infinitely old. Namely, there was the beginning of the Universe. The Universe was born approximately 13.7 billion years ago in a stupendous explosion called Big Bang and has been expanding since then. Since the Universe is expanding, stars and galaxies get farther away from us. It suggest s us that the stars we see in the night sky is actually the intensity of that star billions of years prior when the light had not actually reached us yet. I remembered that I was surprised to hear once in my science class that even Albert Einstein, who is one of the most famous figures in human history for his theory of Relativity, did not admit that the universe has beginning or end but he proposed a steady state universe saying that the universe does not change in its size.
“Why is the sky dark at night?”, “Where are we all come from?” or “How is the universe created?”, those “why” are important and essential because it could be a trigger off reaching new findings and strive us to intuitively grasp the inner nature of things. Yet we have not known many things about the origin of the universe, we have to continue exploring more those uncertain matters with our irrepressible curiosities.
In addition, the lecture also made me rethink about the aim of this lecture series “order vs chaos”. I used to think that those are the opposite ideas but now I think chaos involves order in itself as the origin of the Universe indicates that the Universe/cosmos(order) began from the explosion of Big Bang(chaos) . Although Chaos itself is fluid and uncertain, there are several orders are swirling in chaos, having infinite possibilities to make order out of chaos.