- Our Strange Universe: A slight change to any one of the several laws of physics would cause some disaster that would disrupt the evolution of the Universe that got us here. Our mere existence would be impossible. It all starts with the slightest modification to the 4 forces of nature that came out of the Big Bang.
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- The Strong Nuclear Force binds the atomic nucleus together. If it were slightly stronger or slightly weaker the element carbon and several other elements would never have formed.
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- If a proton was just 0.2% heavier all hydrogen would have decayed into neutrons. Hydrogen is 75% of all the matter in the Universe and the building blocks for all the elements and for the nuclear fusion in stars.
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- Our Universe is very unique. What are the odds of that happening if only one Universe has formed? Maybe our Universe is just one among many. If many, many universes formed then the odds of ours being just right might become plausible. The existence of a superior God is the only other explanation I can think of.
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- The Cosmological Constant is responsible for the rate of expansion of the Universe. The “ Dark Energy” , as it is now called, is just strong enough to resist the collapse of gravity and just weak enough not to expand so fast that the stars, planet, and galaxies have the time to form.
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- The Big Bang nucleosynthesis took place because the Strong Nuclear Force pulled the Quarks together to make protons and neutrons. The Electromagnetic Force allowed the positively charged protons to capture negatively charged electrons and neutrally charged hydrogen atoms formed. With 2 protons neutral helium and with 3 protons neutral lithium were formed. This happened within a few seconds after the Big Bang.
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- The expansion was just fast enough to not allow nuclear fusion to occur. Instead the hydrogen and helium got spread out in the Cosmos. Pockets of gravity brought them back together to allow nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium and the stars were born. Our Sun is a 3rd or 4th generation star and it is still burning hydrogen into helium after 13,725,000,000 years of generations of recycled interstellar medium.
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- Our Universe contains overwhelmingly more matter than anti-matter. For the Universe to emerge from “nothing” there had to be equal amounts of both. We still do not understand why , but, we think that some small asymmetry occurring in nucleosynthesis is responsible for matter being slightly dominant in our Universe.
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- All of the heavier elements were created in the powerful explosions of supernovae, the death of stars. We think intelligent life requires some form of organic chemistry, which by definition is carbon based. The nucleus of carbon has 6 protons and the neutral atom has 6 electrons. The 6 electrons allow carbon to bind to an immense variety of complex molecules. In addition to carbon we need hydrogen 1 and oxygen 8 to get organic chemistry.
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- The neutron is 0.1% heavier that the proton If it were 2% heavier carbon could not form. If the protons were 1% heavier then hydrogen would not exist, it would all have collapsed into neutrons.
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- Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity requires that all forms of energy exert gravity. Spacetime is expanding against this attractive force. There must exist a positive as well as a negative gravitational energy in space. This is needed to explain how the space is expanding at an accelerating rate today. The + and - balance is very delicate because a deviation of even the 100th decimal point would not allow the structure of the Universe to have expanded to what we have today.
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- We need a much deeper knowledge of our Universe in order to explain our own existence. The odds of all of these parameters being just right and not the least bit different is mind boggling.
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- It is thought that the Universe started out with one Big Force and the 4 forces we have today froze out of the expanding and cooling Bang. Gravity froze out first and it becomes the dominate force in the Universe because it is only an attractive force. The Electromagnetic Force froze out as both a positive and a negative force which tend to cancel out to neutral. The Strong and Weak Nuclear forces only operate inside the atomic nuclei. Gravity extends to infinity even though it is the weakest of the 4 forces.
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- Gravity is what makes the stars and planets into spheres and holds planets in orbit around stars and stars in orbit around the center of galaxies.
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-------------------- Force of Gravity = G * m * M / d^2
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- The force of gravity is equal to the product of the masses and inversely to the square of the distance between them.
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- The force that governs chemistry and biology is the Electromagnetic Force. It is what hold electrons in orbit about nuclei creating neutral atoms. It creates molecules by interconnecting electrons with other element atoms. Molecules form proteins in the living cells and electrons send impulses to the brain.
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-------------------- Force of Electromagnetism = k * q * Q / d^2
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- The electromagnetic force is equal to the product to the electric charges and inversely to the square of the distance between them.
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- Only the element hydrogen could exist if some other force could not overcome the positive to positive repelling electromagnetic force that exist in the nucleus of atoms. Two or more protons in a single nucleus should be flying apart. The Strong Nuclear Force is 100 times stronger than the Electromagnetic Force. It over powers and holds the nucleus together. the Strong Nuclear Force also causes fusion which is how all the elements heavier than hydrogen are created.
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- The Strong Nuclear Force is strongly attractive holding the protons together but it only operates over a very short distance. Neutrons and protons in the nucleus of atoms are separated by only 10^-15 meters. The atom itself with electron in orbit is only 10^-10 meters across.
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- Lastly we have the Weak Nuclear Force. It operates on even a smaller scale than the Strong Nuclear Force. Its range is about 1% the size of the atomic nucleus. It operates in the realm of quarks and makes up the protons and neutrons.
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- The Weak Nuclear Force allows quarks to change flavor and transform protons into neutrons and neutrinos. It can also convert a neutron into a proton plus an electron and an anti-neutrino. This is what happens in radioactive decay and in fission reactors.
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- Together these 4 forces control everything in the Cosmos, well almost?
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- We still have Dark Energy and Dark Matter that represents 95% of the Cosmos. And, we do not know what forces are involved here. Dark Matter operates with gravity but not with the Electromagnetic Force. Dark Energy is the repulsive force that is a type of anti-gravity. These phenomena remain “ Dark” because science does not know what they are. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned
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707-536-3272, Tuesday, May 15, 2012www.physlink.com/education/essay/weinberg.cfm
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