Eternal Universe: The New Theory that Might Change the Way we Think About the Universe

One Night in 1946 three lecturer friends at Cambridge University went to the movies to enjoy the anthology horror movie dead of night this film opens with the protagonist arriving in a Countryside estate where he encounters an assorted cast of characters who recount their disturbing stories after killing one of them the protagonist wakes up from what appeared to be just a nightmare but a phone call summons him back to the very same estate thus resetting the entire story in motion before anyone wonders no this is not a channel called movie graphics and we're actually talking Astron and cosmology today you see those three friends happen to be lecturers in astronomy mathematics and cosmology and the cyclical structure of that horror film inspired them to formulate one of the most credible challenges to The Big Bang Theory one According to which the universe is infinite Timeless and more crucially without a defined beginning this is the steady state theory of the universe today The Big Bang Theory is the most widely agreed upon explanation for the origin of our universe but this hasn't always been the case for at least two decades steady state appeared to Gar a more consensus even as recently as April of this year 2024 new Publications have cast doubt on the Big Bang but let's take it one step at a time what does the Big Bang Theory entail exactly well the theory was first formulated in 1927 as a hypothesis of the Primeval Atom by Belgian Catholic priest physicist and astronomer George lra the label Big Bang only stuck in 1949 ironically this was intended as a slightly derogatory phrase and it was coined by one of the the founders of study State Theory English astronomer Fred Hil and we'll get to him later but for the moment let's just stick with L Matra according to his hypothesis the universe originated from a single point infinitely hot and dense around 30.7 billion years ago a sudden explosive expansion took place inflating the Primeval Atom faster than the speed of light according to physicist Alan GTH this phase lasted a fraction of a second to be precise 10 to the power of minus 32 of a second after this initial an inflation a second phase known as reheating set in this was the process by which radiation and particles began populating the universe in the following stage some 380,000 years after the initial Bang free electrons floating in the void started aggregating with protons and neutrons thus forming the first atoms this process can also be described as a transition from a plasma state of matter to a neutral gas according to NASA researchers this process allowed for photons to permeate through the initial chaotic soup of the universe now photons are the most elementary particle of electromagnetic radiation such as light and this primordial light shining through our early Universe has been described as the Afterglow of the Big Bang or more appropriately as the cosmic microwave background or CMB from that moment onwards the universe has been doing mostly fine for billions of years crucially it has never stopped expanding since that very first incredibly fast incredibly violent burst this is a key aspect of the Primeval Atom or Big Bang Theory is we live in an ever expanding Cosmos stretching out at a measurable rate from the primordial point of origin the theory first posited in 1927 by father lametra is now mainstream but for much of the first half of the 20th century it was actually the outlier before and immediately after that year models based on continuous creation were all the rage now this point was quite complex for our tiny little brains so allow us to clarify it according to the Big Bang Theory all matter currently present in the universe was contained within that incomprehensibly dense primeval point on the other hand continuous creation models maintain that matter is constantly created from radiation and this new matter replaces the old matter which is converted into energy in Stellar processes so new matter comes in replaces the old matter the overall result is that the universe is kept in a steady state American physicist William McMillan was the first to proposed such a steady state model in 1918 10 years later his colleague James jeans SP speculated that matter was continuously created in the center of the Spiral nebula where matter is poured into our universe from some other spatial Dimension so that they appear as points at which matter is continually created even Albert Einstein was an early proponent of steady state models as discovered by a team of researchers at Waterford Institute of Technology Dublin Institute for advanced studies and the University of Cambridge the researchers viewed an unpublished four-page manuscript drafted by Einstein in 1931 and titled on the co mological problem in his paper the famous scientist proposed a mechanism to explain how the density of matter remains constant even as the radius of the universe keeps expanding Einstein concluded that new matter continuously formed from empty space a process which also determines the expansion of our universe without going into specific details which would be totally beyond our grasp anyway the team of researchers identified some flaws in the equations written by Einstein to prove his steady state model their conclusion was that quoting Einstein discovered the error at a later Point realized the model led to a trivial solution and set the work aside without correcting the equation besides these precedents what is today referred to as steady state theory was formerly developed by Cambridge lecturers Fred Hy Herman bondy and Thomas gold those are the three friends at the start of our episode who enjoyed a thrilling night of the movies while returning home from the cinema gold suggested producing a movie with a cyclical structure similar to dead of night so that a spectator could start viewing it at any point he then expanded his thinking to the entire universe could it be that the Universe was like his hypothetical film and an endless cyclical real with no beginning and no end more precisely gold wondered if the universe as it expanded was being replenished with newly formed matter Fred Hoy worked out a set of complex calculations which suggested that matter could indeed be created on a continuous basis and if matter was actually being created everywhere all the time this meant that the Universe would have to expand to make space for it so let's break this apart shall we the fact that the universe is constantly expanding has been widely circulated since 1929 when American astronomer Edwin Hubble published his namesake Hubble's Law according to Hubble's observation galaxies move away from Earth at a speed proportional to their distance the further away the Galaxy the faster the speed this law implies that the average distance between galaxies is increasing the universe therefore must be expanding over time Hil bonsi and gold brought a new assumption into the picture The Continuous creation of new matter at the small rate of one atom of hydrogen per 6 cubic km of space per year the cosmos sounds pretty stingy if you ask me but according to our Trio of movie goinging lecturers this rate is actually enough to form new stars and galaxies to recap then the two essential ingredients of this Theory are new matter is being constantly created and the universe is constantly expanding so creation and expansion that doesn't sound exactly like a steady state does it well the thing is that H Bondi and gold were thinking about the mean density of matter once again if new matter constantly comes into a constantly expanding Universe the mean density of matter in the cosmos will remain constant hence their model describes the universe as being in a steady state another important element of this theory is that the Universe however expanding is stationary on a large scale this is known as the perfect cosmological principle According to which the universe is infinite in size infinitely old and destined to an infinite future and at this point you might be thinking but how about the creation of new matter as demonstrated by Hil how about the birth of new stars and the evolution of planets in fact the steady state Theory admits that changes may take place but only on a very small localized scale but as new matter is created old matter Fades into nothingness as stars burst into life old Stars exhaust their fuel and stop shining so if we look at a large region of space some tens of millions of light years across we may realize that the average amount of light emitted by the stars does not vary over time once again this brings us to the conclusion that the cosmos is endless homogeneous and timeless it is the same in all directions and doesn't evolve over time this concept is clearly in antithesis with the Primeval Atom hypothesis or big bang which identifies a clear point in space and time in which the universe blew up into existence the big question is did the steady state Theory make sense I hope I'm not giving away too many spoilers here but despite the initial popularity of the steady state Theory eventually the Big Bang came out on top the first blows again steady state came courtesy of observations from radio telescopes in the early 1960s these observations proved the existence of a large number of radio sources at a distance of billions of light years this led to two conclusions first those sources had emitted their signals billions of years ago and second billions of years ago there were more radio sources than there are now this last conclusion implies that the universe is changing at more than just a localized small scale which in itself contradicts steady state Theory furthermore in 1963 astronomer Martin Schmidt discovered a new class of of celestial bodies up to a thousand times brighter than the Milky Way But much smaller astronomy of should have recognized these objects as quazar now quazar are found only at huge distances from the earth which implies that the light we see today was actually emitted billions of years ago therefore the fact that quazars only existed billions of years ago provides more evidence that the Universe has changed over time the steady state Theory took another hit in 1965 thanks to an accidental Discovery by two Engineers working for Bell Telephone Laboratories Aro penzar and Rob Bert Wilson one of their radio receivers picked up some anomalous data which Princeton University researcher Robert dick identified as being evidence of the CMB the cosmic microwave backgrounds to oversimplify penia Wilson and Dick had picked up the faint backgrounds Echo left behind by the early stages of the primordial Big Bang the existence of the CMB corroborates latus hypothesis but it cannot be explained by proponents of steady state but they did try by arguing that this type of radiation was emitted by one or more supernovas extensive research on the CMB proved that it was equal in any direction of the universe and thus could not have been emitted by several scattered supernovas later research further piled on in favor of Team latra take the abundance of Light Elements such as helium Isotopes and dyum for example these were likely formed in the very hot very dense first minutes after the big bang and finally we have to take into account the Doppler effect this fundamental principle explains how perceived changes in the frequency of light sound or other waves depends on how a source and an object move toward each other this effect influences the light emitted by celestial bodies if a star or Planet moves away from us its light moves towards longer wavelengths in Scientific Dragon it's said that the body is red shifting on the other hand if a Celestial body is moving toward us observers its light waves appear shortened in this case the body is blue shifting measurements of light emitted by stars have so far shown that all galaxies are red shifting I.E they're moving away from us this observation further confirms The Big Bang Theory as it shows that our universe is in a constant state of expansion eventually the theory of Hil bonsi and gold gradually fell out of favor with cosmologists as more and more evidence supported the initial hypothesis of latra as Steven Hawking ons described steady state the steady state theory was what car poer would call a good scientific theory it made definite predictions which could be tested by observation and possibly falsified unfortunately for the theory they were falsified and should' be forgiven for thinking that the matter is settled the observable MOS has a defined point of origin and has been steadily expanding since then but also fast as not everybody agrees with established Academia an article by science writer stab Demetropolis published by Popular Mechanics in April 2024 has brought attention to a 2022 paper by Jack Willen writing for progress in physics which quote claims that the Big Bang might be a bust willinik himself is quoted as saying no the universe did not start as an exploding atom or anything there's no beginning and no end to the universe now we should specify here that Mr Willen is an amate astronomer and lawyer by trade but it appears that he did do his homework will and Chi scrutinized The Big Bang Theory and claimed that its weak point is its Reliance on the Doppler effect as a means to prove it according to him the Doppler effect is a 180 yearold Theory nobody has backed up with experimental evidence therefore will and chick highly doubts that celestial bodies may be a red shifting in fact he doubts whether a red shift is indicative of movement at all the author of the paper based his observ on a spectroscopy test first used by astronomer William hugin in 1868 to clarify spectroscopy is the measurement of Spectra I.E the intensity of light emitted by celestial bodies he then asked a professional astrophysicist to process spectrometry data provided by the Keek observatory in Hawaii according to Willen Chi the result of his studies are aligned with the cosmological model known as the ti light model itself incompatible with the big bang the TD Li was first conceived by Swiss astronomer frit zwicki in 1929 who attribut the universe's red shift to photons losing energy as they Traverse the cosmos hence the phenomena of red shifting is not due to movement rather due to the loss of energy therefore Willen Chi concluded that the universe is not expanding but rather it is static the author attacked the Big Bang Theory and the Doppler effect also from another angle citing Isaac Newton's corpuscular theory of light according to this Theory light is made up of corpuscules or tiny particles traveling in a straight line these corpuscules come from in different sizes with the larger ones emitting blue l light while the smaller ones radiate red light adhering to this Theory Willen Chic challenges the fact that the different colored shifts are dependent on the wavelength of light emitted by a Celestial body actually the author rejects the idea that light must be a wave in his own words if light is not in waves then there goes the Doppler Theory because the entire theory is based on the idea that light is in waves Popular Mechanics ask professor of physics Steven holler forom University to review Jack Willen Chi's paper his verdict quoting the premise that the Big Bang is a big bust due to its Reliance on the Doppler effect is a big leap in logic doppler's theory has been tested repeatedly and has held up professor H further argued that without relying on the Doppler effect we would not have been able to engage in extraterrestrial exploration at all quoting again extraterrestrial we have been able to reconcile the chemical composition of stars and planets by noting the correspondence of spectral lines with known lines observed from chemicals on the earth through Doppler spectroscopy holler concluded by admitting that science may never have 100% conclusive proof that the Big Bang Theory is correct nonetheless it is our best cosmological model to describe the origins of the universe corroborated by Decades of observations quoting again we do not live in a world of alternative facts we must go where the evidence points there is nothing to suggest that the Big Bang is a myth at present once again you'd be forgiven to think that the Big Bang versus steady state matter is settled once and for all well maybe it is until a new hypothesis emerges and by the way should should we be grateful that the debate is settled or rather should we be grateful for the fact that there has been an ongoing debate to conclude we'd like to borrow some words and some thoughts from Yuri balashov professor of philosophy at the University of Georgia in the United States in a 1994 paper he argued cosmology on the whole gained from this controversy the early success of steady state theory in fact stimulated research in the fields of Stellar nuclear synthesis and radio astronomy both fields of research especially radio astronomy eventually contributed to disprove steady state and propelled science toward confirming the Big Bang model of the universe in bov's own words again it is not at all obvious that these and some other achievements would have been made so rapidly if there had not been a steady state Theory to be defeated and that's the beauty of science no hypothesis is conclusively wrong nor conclusively right until it is proven or disproven by evidence however outlandish however subject to being discredited every new hypothesis every new Theory concept or model is another log thrown onto the bonfire of scientific debate a fire whose Flames have propelled our Earthbound minds and even our bodies closer and closer to the secrets of the universe

Channel: Astrographics

Views: 331,828

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Id: 28AstfdTiOA

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2024