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A Short Biography of the Universe When we talk about a biography,
we usually talk about someone who is alive now or was alive during recorded
history. Since the universe began about fifteen billion years ago, none
of us was there; nor were we consulted. So how do we determine the biography
of the universe? Fortunately, nature has left some telltale evidence of
the creation and evolution of the universe. Like a detective, we can pick
up those pieces of the puzzle and put them together, using our knowledge
gained in the laboratory. It then results in a biography of the cosmos-a
story as fascinating as any Sherlock Holmes detective story. The first piece of the puzzle was discovered in 1929 by Edwin Hubble at the Mt. Wilson observatory above Pasadena, California. Hubble found that, contrary to our perception, the universe is not static, but is in the constant process of expanding. All the galaxies of the universe are moving away from each other. Also, the farther a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away. If the universe were expanding in this manner, then by running the frames backward, it would appear that, at one time, all the galaxies were together in one place. We know that if you compress something, it gets very hot. When the entire universe was all-together in a small volume, it would have been immensely hot. Thus came the idea of a hot beginning of the universe, dubbed the big bang. If the universe started out as a giant fireball and cooled by expansion, there should be an afterglow observable today. Indeed, such an afterglow was discovered in 1964 at the Bell Telephone laboratories and was called the microwave background radiation. Discovery of this afterglow gave a solid foundation to the Big Bang model and started cosmology on its way to be established as a subject of serious scientific discipline. More pieces of the puzzle were discovered and all started to fall in place. The big bang fireball was a giant thermonuclear reactor, which was cooling down by expansion. Our knowledge of the rate of nuclear processes, gathered in the laboratory, allows us to calculate the ratio of the atomic elements that will be produced in such a cooling reactor. The ratio of the elements observed in the universe was found to be surprisingly similar to what is predicted. This third piece of the puzzle gave a significant confirmation of the big bang model. Another confirmation came from observation of the galaxies at earlier times. These early galaxies, in the process of their formation, looked somewhat irregular and different from the more symmetric galaxies we observe today. This provides another vivid evidence of the evolutionary nature of the universe. Recent discovery of the minute fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation provided yet another support to the big bang model. Cosmologists are quite convinced that these fluctuations, observed by the COBE Satellite, provided the seed for formation of all the galaxies in the universe. Most interestingly, these fluctuations are also the oldest structures ever observed and their origin goes back to the very early moments of the creation of the universe. Newsweek called them, the handwritings of God. Like a cosmic Rosetta stone, the pattern of the fluctuations provides a wealth of information to decipher where the big bang fireball itself came from. The studies so far point to the most probable scenario that the unified field sequentially unfolded to create this universe and everything it contains. In the early stages of unfolding, the universe went through a process known to the cosmologists as inflation. This process created all the positive energy of which everything in this universe is made of. But at the same time it also created an equal amount of negative energy in the form of mutual gravitational attraction of the contents of the universe. Every particle in this universe is attracted by the rest of the particles due to gravitation attraction, which represents negative energy. Mathematical analysis shows that the sum total of the positive energy in the universe equals that of the negative energy. As strange as it may sound, the total energy of the universe is zero. Alan Guth, the discoverer of the cosmic inflation, amusingly remarked, “It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.” Although the balancing of energy created during the process of inflation is difficult to comprehend, it is not all together unlike our money system. If we paid our debts to each other, probably there would be very little money left. For example, I came to this country with three dollars in my pocket. Now I have enough assets to live comfortably, but I also have debts. If I liquidated my holdings and paid my debts and taxes, I am not sure how much money I would have left. In that context, it is easier to understand how we can have enormous positive energy counterbalanced by an equal amount of negative energy-with a net energy of zero. Just as my thought and intelligence led to the creation of my assets for a comfortable living, the universal intelligence possessed by the unified field created all the manifest energy to produce the cosmic fireball. Thus, creation of the universe with all its content including us points to the unified field as the likely source. The flash animation in the introduction depicts a summary of the biography of the universe. |