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The theory that I will be discussing is the Big Bang Theory, this is currently the theory of creation accepted by most scientists as the explanation of the beginning of the universe. The big bang theory suggests that the universe was once extremely compact, dense, and hot. Some uncommon event, a cosmic explosion called the big bang, occurred about 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, and the universe has since been expanding and cooling. The theory is based on mathematical equations, known as the field equations. These equations come from the general theory of relativity, established in 1915 by Albert Einstein. In 1922 a Russian physicist named Alexander Friedmann provided a set of solutions to the field equations. These solutions have served as the basis for a lot of the present day work on the big bang theory. American astronomer Edwin Hubble provided some of the strongest supporting evidence for the Big Bang Theory. In 1929 he discovered that the light of distant galaxies was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum in the Doppler Effect. This proved that the galaxies were moving away from each other. He found that galaxies farther away were moving away faster, showing that the universe is expanding uniformly. However, the universe's initial state was still unknown. In the 1940’s Russian-American physicist, George Gamow, worked out a theory that worked in correlation with Friedmann's solutions in which the universe expanded from a hot, dense state. The actual title “The Big Bang Theory” came in 1950 when British astronomer Fred Hoyle, in support of his own opposing theory referred to Gamow's theory as a mere "big bang," and the name stuck. During the 1990’s Sky & Telescope magazine ran a contest to find a better, more dignified name, but no change was made. The overall framework of the big bang theory remains unchanged, but some details of the theory are still being modified today. For example, Einstein himself initially believed that the universe was static. But when his equations seemed to show that the universe was either expanding or contracting, Einstein added a constant term to cancel out the expansion or contraction of the universe. Then, when the expansion of the universe was later discovered, Einstein stated that adding this "cosmological constant" had been a mistake. After Einstein's work of 1917, several scientists, including the abbé Georges Lemaître in Belgium, Willem de Sitter in Holland, and Alexander Friedmann in Russia, came up with solutions of their own to Einstein's field equations. The universes described by the different scientists varied. De Sitter's model had no matter in it. This model is actually not considered to be a bad approximation since the average density of the universe is extremely low. Lemaître's universe expanded from a "primeval atom." Friedmann's universe also expanded from a very dense clump of matter, but did not involve the cosmological constant. These models helped explain what happened to the universe shortly after its creation, but there was still no satisfactory explanation for the beginning of the universe. In the 1940’s George Gamow was joined by his students, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman in working out details of Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's theory. They expanded on Gamow's idea that the universe expanded from a primordial state of matter called “ylem”, consisting of protons, neutrons, and electrons in a sea of radiation. They theorized that the universe was very hot at the time of the “big bang”, since elements heavier than hydrogen can only be formed at a very high temperature. Alpher and Hermann predicted that radiation from the big bang should still exist, and should therefore be detectable. This was the case in 1960 when background radiation was detected corresponding to the temperature predicted by Gamow's team. This discovery further supported the big bang theory. The big bang theory tries to explain what happened at or soon after the beginning of the universe. Today scientists can model the universe back to 10-43 seconds after the big bang. In the time before those 10-43 seconds, the classical theory of gravity is no longer adequate. Scientists are now searching for a theory that merges quantum mechanics and gravity, but have not found one yet. Many scientists hope that something called the string theory will tie together gravity and quantum mechanics and help scientists explore further back in time. Because scientists cannot look back in time beyond that early period, the actual big bang is hidden from them. Right now there is no way to detect the origin of the universe. The big bang theory does not explain what existed before the big bang either. It may be that time itself began at the big bang, so that there is no need to discuss what existed "before" the big bang. According to the big bang theory, the universe expanded rapidly during the first microseconds. The theory says that a single force existed at the beginning of the universe, and once the big bang occurred and the universe began to expand and cool, this single force separated into separate forces that we know today as: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. A theory called the electroweak theory now provides a unified explanation of electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force theory. Physicists are now searching for a grand unification theory to also incorporate the strong nuclear force. String theory seeks to incorporate the force of gravity with the other three forces. One widely accepted version of big bang theory includes the idea of inflation. In this model, the universe expanded much more rapidly at first, to about 1050 times its original size in the first 10-32 second, then slowed its expansion. The theory was advanced in the 1980s by American cosmologist Alan Guth and elaborated upon by American astronomer Paul Steinhardt, Russian American scientist Andrei Linde, and British astronomer Andreas Albrecht. The inflationary universe theory (see Inflationary Theory) solves a number of problems of cosmology. For example, it shows that the universe now appears close to the type of flat space described by the laws of Euclid's geometry: We see only a tiny region of the original universe, similar to the way we do not notice the curvature of the earth because we see only a small part of it. The inflationary universe also shows why the universe appears so homogeneous. If the universe we observe was inflated from some small, original region, it is not surprising that it appears uniform. Once the expansion of the initial inflationary era ended, the universe continued to expand more slowly. The inflationary model predicts that the universe is on the boundary between being open and closed. If the universe is open, it will keep expanding forever, even though the rate of expansion will gradually slow. If the universe is closed, the expansion of the universe will eventually stop and the universe will begin contracting until it collapses. Whether the universe is open or closed depends on the density, or concentration of mass, in the universe. If the universe is dense enough, it is closed. The universe cooled as it expanded. After about one second, protons formed. In the following few minutes—often referred to as the "first three minutes," combinations of protons and neutrons formed the isotope of hydrogen known as deuterium as well as some of the other light elements, principally helium, as well as some lithium, beryllium, and boron. The study of the distribution of deuterium, helium, and the other light elements is now a major field of research. The uniformity of the helium abundance around the universe supports the big bang theory and the abundance of deuterium can be used to estimate the density of matter in the universe. From about 300,000 to about 1 million years after the big bang, the universe cooled to about 3000° C (about 5000° F) and protons and electrons combined to make hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen atoms can only absorb and emit specific colors, or wavelengths, of light. The formation of atoms allowed many other wavelengths of light, wavelengths that had been interfering with the free electrons, to travel much farther than before. This change set free radiation that we can detect today. After billions of years of cooling, this cosmic background radiation is at about 3° K (-270° C/-454° F).The cosmic background radiation was first detected and identified in 1965 by American astrophysicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) spacecraft mapped the cosmic background radiation between 1989 and 1993. It verified that the distribution of intensity of the background radiation precisely matched that of matter that emits radiation because of its temperature, as predicted for the big bang theory. It also showed that the cosmic background radiation is not uniform, that it varies slightly. These variations are thought to be the seeds from which galaxies and other structures in the universe grew. Evidence indicates that the matter that scientists detect in the universe is only a small fraction of all the matter that exists. For example, observations of the speeds with which individual galaxies move within clusters of galaxies show that there must be a great deal of unseen matter exerting gravitational forces to keep the clusters from flying apart. Cosmologists now think that much of the universe—perhaps 99 percent— is dark matter, or matter that has gravity but that we cannot see or otherwise detect. Theorized kinds of dark matter include cold dark matter, with slowly moving (cold) massive particles. No such particles have yet been detected, though astronomers have given them names like Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). Other cold dark matter could be nonradiating stars or planets, which are known as MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects). An alternative model includes hot dark matter, where hot implies that the particles are moving very fast. The fundamental particles known as neutrinos are the prime example of hot dark matter. If the inflationary version of big bang theory is correct, then the amount of dark matter that exists is just enough to bring the universe to the boundary between open and closed. Scientists develop theoretical models to show how the universe's structures, such as clusters of galaxies, have formed. Their models invoke hot dark matter, cold dark matter, or a mixture of the two. This unseen matter would have provided the gravitational force needed to hold large structures such as clusters of galaxies together. The theories continue to match the observations, though there is no consensus on the type or types of dark matter that must be included. Supercomputers are important for making such models. Astronomers are making new observations that are interpreted within the framework of the big bang theory. Scientists have not found any major problems with the big bang theory, but the theory is being constantly adjusted to match the observed universe. Bibliography: N/A Word Count: 1851
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