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2117 - The age
of the universe? As of the year 2000 the
age was 13,400,000,000 years (+ or - 1.6 billion years). As of 2005 it is 13,700,000,000 years and
waiting for the next new discovery. The
time is incomprehensible to our lives.
And, the fact that we can comprehend the age of the Universe is truly
amazing.
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---------------------------------- 2117
- The Age of the Universe
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- The discovery of radioactivity reveled the
existence of previously unknown sources of energy and unknown laws of
physics. During radioactive decay
electrons and protons are ejected along with gamma ray radiation.
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It is the Weak force that was holding those
protons and electrons together in the form of neutrons inside the nucleus. It is the Strong force that holds two protons
together in the helium nucleus. These
ejected helium nuclei particles from the nuclei were first known as alpha rays.
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- Radioactive decay is a natural process and it
is responsible for much of the molten heat at the center of our planet. Uranium 238 is 99% or all naturally occurring
uranium on Earth. It has a half life of
4,510,000,000 years. This happens to be
the approximate age of the Earth.
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Therefore, in Earth’s beginning there
was twice as much U-238 as there is today.
Uranium 235, a different isotope of uranium containing 3 fewer neutrons,
makes up 0.7% of all naturally occurring uranium. It has a half life of 713,000,000 years.
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- By measuring the relative abundance of
different radioactive isotopes scientists can date the origin of the
sample. Using this technique scientists
have estimated the oldest natural rocks found on Earth to by 3,800,000,000
years old.
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-
We said natural rocks because we meant not to
include meteorites that have come to us from outer space. These rocks have been dated at 4,500,000,000
years. And, we think they are the same
age as the Earth.
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- The energy of uranium was put there by an
exploding supernova that produced such an enormous shockwave as to compress the
outer layers of the star into higher lever, or heavier, elements. The star itself uses fusion and can only
produce elements up to iron in atomic weight.
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All elements lighter than iron release
energy when fusion occurs. Iron is the
first element to absorb energy when fusion occurs. When a star starts the fusion of iron its
whole process of existence is reversed.
Instead of releasing energy to counteract the pressure of gravity it
absorbs energy and for the conservation of energy to be maintained this loss of
energy must be made up by the collapse of gravitational energy.
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- This whole process of collapse takes less
than one second. The bounce of the
collapsing star creates a great shockwave that expands into interstellar space
at velocities approaching the speed of light.
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The gas and particle compression that
occurs as this shock wave smashes into the elements is what creates the higher
isotopes of uranium (as well as all the other elements heavier than iron).
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Radioactive decay is the timed release of this
shockwave energy. Although the decay
process for an individual particle, a neutron, is random, the statistical
average of the decay in a sample of uranium follows this statistical average,
known as the “half-life“.
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- If we make this same radioactive material
ratio measurements on the stars of our Milky Way galaxy, using spectroscopy, we
can calculate a lower limit for the age of the Milky Way. It must be older than 8,000,000,000 years,
twice as old as Earth and our Solar System.
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If we assume that supernovae have been
exploding at the same rate as we see today we can calculate the upper limit of
13,000,000,000 years.
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- When scientists make calculations for the
birth of globular clusters of galaxies they get 15,000,000,000 years ( + or - 3
billion years).
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The
birth of the Universe, the Big Bang, has been interpreted as a super
radioactive process. The Universe
starting as a single atom with an atomic weight equal to the total mass of the
Universe.
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The Universe we see is the result of repeated
fission of this super atom. The diameter
of the nucleus of this super atom would have been 30 times the diameter of our
Sun. This dimension illustrates how much
empty space exists inside every atom if we can condense the whole universe into
this size. This is a 1920 theory by
Lemaitre, published in 1946.
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- Unfortunately this concept became interpreted
too literally. It was seen as an
explosion of mass and energy rather than the birth of space and time.
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All the scientists at that time were
trying to use Einstein’s equations for Relativity to calculate the Big Bang
process and the true age of the Universe.
Including Einstein himself. His
equations included the cosmological constant that he added to keep the Universe
flat and static with the equation results.
He later called it his greatest blunder when he learned from Edwin
Hubble’s work that the universe was not static but expanding.
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- It was not until the 1960’s that new knowledge
was added to our understanding of the Age of the Universe. This was the discovery of the cosmic
microwave background radiation. This
radiation is the leftover heat that occurred when the Big Bang first released
its radiation. The radiation has cooled
to the point that instead of gamma ray radiation at millions of degrees
temperature it is microwave radiation at 2.7 degrees Kelvin, -270.3 C.
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- The cosmic radiation may have started out
uniform in temperature however as it spread out and interacted with galaxy
clusters which contain interstellar gas at 100,000,000 degrees. This interaction boosts the energy of those
photons to shorter wavelengths. That is,
the radiation passing through a galaxy cluster get a bit hotter. Counter intuitive to what we see the
radiation gets boosted outside the range of our microwave receiver and it is
effectively gone. It appears cooler
rather than hotter in our microwave background picture. This apparent change of temperature in our
picture is only .01%.
- The math of how these temperature variations
are interpreted is beyond me. It
involves computer modeling and much error analysis and many assumptions
(inspired guesswork) that is over my head.
This interpretation is also compared with several other methods used to
date the Universe. As of the year 2000
the age was 13,400,000,000 years (+ or - 1.6 billion years). As of 2005 it is 13,700,000,000 years and
waiting for the next new discovery. The
time is incomprehensible to our lives.
And, the fact that we can comprehend the age of the Universe is truly
amazing. Stay tuned there is still more to
learn....................
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October 11, 2018
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------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
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--------------------- Thursday, October 11, 2018 -------------------------
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