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2144 - Cosmic
Inflation is a theory to help astronomers explain the observations they have of
the Universe. The theory is that the
Universe expanded faster than the speed of light very early in its evolution. Galaxies began forming 600,000,000 years after
the Big Bang and clusters of galaxies at 3,000,000,000 years after. Our solar system and Earth started forming at
9,100,000,000 years after ( 4,600,000,000 years ago).
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---------------------------------- 2144 -
Cosmic Inflation
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- Cosmic
Inflation is a theory to help astronomers explain the observations they have of
the Universe. The theory is that the
Universe expanded faster than the speed of light very early in its
evolution.
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- That would
explain why the Universe appears the same in all directions. The Universe appears to be homogeneous. It is the same temperature no matter which
direction you look or from where you are standing. It appears to be isotropic.
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- Temperature
is simply a measure of how active particles are. It is their average kinetic energy, or degree
of vibration. The entire Universe
appears to be the same temperature, it has reached thermal equilibrium. Therefore, what we observe must have been in
contact with each other.
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- Here is the dilemma. If you look over the western horizon you can
see 13.7 billion lightyears distance. If
you look over the eastern horizon you can see 13.7 billion lightyears
distance. Those two regions are 27.4
billion lightyears apart. There is no
way one region could be in contact with the other region without traveling
faster than the speed of light.
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- This could be explained if these regions were
in contact long ago and rapid, faster than light, Inflation, occurred. In that case what we see today is just a
small volume of the actual Universe. The
Universe appears geometrically flat to us and the same density and temperature
is seen in all directions.
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- The physics
explanation for Inflation is that it was a phase transition that occurred
shortly after the Big Bang. It was a
phase transition of anti-gravity somewhat like the phase transition of water
into ice. It happened in an instant of
time.
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- We are
experiencing anti-gravity today. We call
it Dark Energy and think it is responsible for the accelerating expansion of
the Universe we first observed in 1998.
The Inflation phase transition after the Big Bang occurred when the Universe
was only 10^-43 seconds old. At that
moment gravity separated out, or froze out, from the electro weak and nuclear
forces.
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- The
anti-gravity scalar field then expanded, doubling over 100 times. That is 2^100 power, which is the same as
10^30 power. The Universe grew from
smaller than the size of a proton where everything was together to the size of
a soccer ball where everything was separated by the expanding vacuum of space.
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- The rapid
expansion of Inflation only lasted from 10^-35 to 10^-32 seconds. In 1000th of a second the space
grew by over 30 magnitudes in radius.
After that point the expansion of the Universe returned to its current
expansion rate.
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- Radiation at
first dominated gravity to slow the acceleration of expansion. Later, matter dominated to slow the
acceleration of expansion.
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- Later still, about half way through its
evolution, anti-gravity became the dominant force to increase the rate
acceleration in the expanding Universe.
That is what we observe today.
Dark Energy is dominant and now the Universe is expanding at an ever
expanding rate.
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- At 10^-43
seconds gravity separated out from the
other 3 forces. This is called Planck Time. It is the smallest interval of time
calculated by physicists. It is derived
from three known constants in nature: the gravitational constant, the speed of
light constant and the Planck constant.
( See note 1).
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- At that point in Planck time the temperature
was 10^32 degrees Kelvin. After 10^-32
seconds, Inflation had stopped, and the Universe was the size of a soccer ball,
the temperature had cooled to 10^27 Kelvin.
At this point the Strong Nuclear Force separated, froze out, from the
electro weak forces. The Strong Nuclear Force
is what affects the Quarks.
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- At 10^-6
seconds the expansion had cooled to 10^13 Kelvin. This lower temperature allowed the Strong
Nuclear Force to collect the Quarks into protons and neutrons, and anti-protons
and anti-neutrons. At that point all the
photons were high energy Gamma Rays.
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- When the temperature and energy is this high,
mass is routinely converted into energy and energy into mass according to E =
mc^2. Electrons and positrons would
collide and annihilate each other creating more Gamma Ray photons.
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- At one
second, 10^0 seconds, the expansion had cooled to where particles and
anti-particles could no longer be created out of the energy.
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- A mystery
remains when matter and anti-matter were frozen out why they were not exactly
equal and why they did not all annihilate each other to return to 100%
energy. Somehow for every billion
anti-particles there remained a billion and one particles. Somehow there was residue matter left
over. And, we do not know where the
residue anti-matter is today.
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- At 3 minutes,
180 seconds, the matter collected protons and neutrons to become atomic nuclei of hydrogen, helium,
and a little lithium. These are the 3
lightest elements. The heavier elements
above lithium were not formed until millions of years later when massive stars
formed, died as supernova, and, their fusion spread the heavier elements
through interstellar space. The atomic
nuclei were still ionized, positively charged particles.
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- At 10,000
years, 3*10^11 seconds, radiation, the
effect of photons, was greater than the effects of matter. After 30,000 years matter became more
dominant on its affect on gravitation.
At this time matter was still ionized.
All the atomic nuclei were without the electrons in orbit to make them
neutral. These positive ions had the
affect of scattering the photons making the whole plasma opaque.
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- It was not
until 380,000 years that the ions began to collect their electrons and become
neutral atoms. It took 100,000 years for
the complete process to become hydrogen, helium and a few lithium neutral
atoms. But, when the environment became
neutral photon scattering stopped and the Gamma Ray photons escaped the opaque
plasma clouds and expanded into space as free photons.
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- The Cosmic
Microwave Background radiation, the CMB, that we see today are these same
photons. They came from the surface of
this opaque plasma 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Just like viewing a cloud in the sky you see
the surface of the cloud. Beyond the
surface the light photons are scattered by the atoms of water vapor and the
depth of the cloud is opaque. You can
only see the outer surface of the cloud.
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- After 380,000
years , 1.2*10^13 seconds, the expansion has reduced the temperature to 3,000
Kelvin. It was this lower temperature
that allowed the electrons to be captured by the nuclei and the atoms to become
neutral.
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- It was the neutral environment that allowed
the photons to expand without scattering.
Today these same photons, existing in space today, are occupying every
cubic meter of space in every direction.
Each cubic meter contains 400,000,000 microwave photons. In contrast there is only one hydrogen atom,
on average, in each cubic meter of space.
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- Because Cosmic
Inflation occurred the Universe is much, much bigger than the Observable
Universe we can see. The tiny volume,
relatively, of the Universe that we observe appears to be spatially Flat.
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- Just like the
spherical Earth appears spatially Flat to the horizons we can see standing on
the surface in Santa Rosa. In the Flat
Universe the temperature is the same in
all directions, the density is the same in all directions, the energy is the same in all
directions.
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- In our small
volume of the Universe it appears to be uniform, homogeneous, and
isotropic. The entire volume is in
thermal equilibrium. This is the primary
reason astronomers support the theory of Cosmic Inflation.
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- By using the
calculations from Inflation we also get the exact ratios of hydrogen to helium
to lithium that we see today. When we
expand the fluctuations of quantum sub-atomic uncertainties to the surface of
the CMB we get the expected one degree of temperature fluctuations that we see
today in the CMB. That one arc-degree at
380,000 years would expand today to be the scale of galaxies and clusters of galaxies that we see
13,700,000,000 years later, 10^18 seconds later.
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- Galaxies
began forming 600,000,000 years after the Big Bang and clusters of galaxies at
3,000,000,000 years after. Our solar
system and Earth started forming at 9,100,000,000 years after ( 4,600,000,000
years ago).
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- Our Sun is
likely a second, or third, generation star.
The one or two previous stars exploded into supernova with their fusion
releasing heavier elements into the interstellar medium. These same star formations and star deaths
(supernovae) are still going on today in our Milky Way Galaxy. My we live in interesting times has been granted.
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(1) . The Planck Time of 10^-43 seconds is derived
from the three known constants in nature: the gravitational constant, the speed
of light constant and the Planck constant.
If we look at the units of these three constants: G = meters^3/kilogram*seconds^2, c = meters / second, h = kilogram*meters^2 / second.
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- If you arrange these units into this formula,
(G*h/2*pi*c^5)^.5 you are left with seconds.
If you look at the magnitudes of these three constants: G = 6.7*10^-11, c = 3*10^8, h = 6.6*10^-34
and arrange them in the same formula you get 10^-43.
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- That is where
the Planck Time of 10^-43 seconds comes from.
All of the Planck Units of mass, time, and distance are calculated from
these three natural constants in this way.
That is the reason we say that Physics cannot go deeper into the Big
Bang beyond this short time. We have no
math that works beyond this point.
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(2) See Review 823 , “ Sound Waves and the Cosmic
Microwave Background”.
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(3) Alan Guth,
physicists at Stanford University, first proposed the theory of Cosmic
Inflation in 1979.
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- October 25, 2018 824
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--------------------- Thursday, October 25, 2018 -------------------------
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