Essay/Term paper: The cosmos: creation

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Science Reports

The Cosmos: Creation


Where is the universe from? Where is it going? How is it put together?
How did it get to be this way.
These are Big questions. Very easy to ask but almost impossible to answer.
We want answers for philosophical reason having nothing to do with science. No
one will get rich from discovering the structure of the universe unless they
right a book about it.
The area of science dealing with Big questions is called cosmology. The
reason for it's study is found in the fact that:
The universe was born at a specific time in the past and has expanded ever
since.

The Expansion of the Universe

Edwin Hubble established the existence of other galaxies. He noted that the
light from these galaxies was shifted toward the red. That is it's wavelength
was longer than that of the light emitted from the corresponding atoms in the
lab. Furthermore he found that the farther away the galaxy was the more it was
shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Hubble attributed this shift to the
doppler effect.
Hubble saw this and concluded that all galaxies are rushing away from us and
the universe is expanding as a whole. Modern equipment has observed and
verified this so-called Hubble expansion exists throughout the observable
universe.
This shows three important things. First there is no significance to the
fact that earth seems to be the center of the universal expansion. In any
galaxy it would look as if you were standing still and all others were rushing
away from you. Second the movement of the universe is not like an explosion.
Galaxies are not moved through the universe but expand with the universe. Third
the galaxies themselves do not expand only the space between them.
Finally if you ask where the expansion started the only answer is everywhere.
In the words of the fifteenth-century philosopher Nicholas of Cusa, "the
universe has its center everywhere and its edge nowhere."
This theory has one fact that is inescapable. The universe was not always
there but did have an beginning. This has come to be known as the Big-Bang
theory.

Universal Freezing

When the universe was younger it was smaller. When matter and energy are
compacted the temperature inevitably rises. Thus when the universe was younger
it was hotter. We can see six crucial events called "freezing's" where the
fabric of the universe changed in a fundamental way.
The most recent occurred when the universe was about 500,000 years old,
about 14,999,500,000 years ago. After 500,000 years permanent atoms started to
form. Before 500,000 years matter existed as loose electrons and nuclei in a
state called plasma.
Moving back in time the next freezing occurred at about three minutes. This
was when nuclei first started to form. Before this only elementary particles
existed in the universe.
From about three minutes to ten-millionths of a second the universe was a
seething mass of elementary particles- protons, neutrons, electrons and the rest
of the particle zoo.
Now there are four distinct forces in the universe the strong,
electromagnetic, the weak, and gravitational. Before they must have all been
one before the first ten-millionth of a second. The timetable of these forces
as theorized today is:
(10 to the -10th power) second: the weak and electromagnetic forces form
into one called electroweak.
(10 to the -33rd power) second: the strong force joins the electroweak
leaving only gravity.
(10 to the -43rd power) second: known as the plank time for one of the
founders of quantum mechanics. Before this time the universe and all forces
were completely unified and as allinged as is possible.