OLD IDEAS
Hindu: A giant tortoise and a large, inverted bowl
Sumerian: Giglamesh
Biblical: Genesis...and God created the universe
Greek: Ptolemy and Aristotle. Crystal Spheres. Logical and able to make predictions about occurrences. (Surprisingly the Ptolemean universe, with it's cycles, epicycles and sub-cycles would produce closer to reality fit than would Copernican system with perfect circles.)
Roman: Polytheistic + Mythical
China: 4000 years of continuous observations. Recurring patterns detected, and able to predict eclipses and the like.
Babylonian: Sexagesimal (60 based) system. Accurate observations and recorded cuneiform texts.
MEDIEVAL
Arabic: Preserved the ancient writings of the Greeks, Romans and others. Credited with naming and cataloguing the stars.
Copernicus: The start of modern, scientific theories. Heliocentric universe, but still tied to perfect crystal spheres.
Galileo: The first astronomical telescopes. The first modern sightings credited with challenging the accepted status quo.
Brahe: 20 years of accurate sightings and records.
Keppler: Mathematically derived the laws of planetary motion using the measurements by Brahe. The first to provide a mathematically derived formula for the understanding of real events occurring in the universe.
Newton: Discovered the law of gravity by calculation. Used the laws of planetary motion from Keppler to come up with Newton's Laws. Invented calculus and applied it to the planets and moons.
MODERN DAY
Hubble: Credited with the first "accurate" modern estimate of the size of the universe, by calculations. Discovered the red-shift.
Einstein: Attempted to create a unified field theory. Discovered the space-time curvature link. Discovered the equivalence of matter and energy. Credited with the first "esoteric" understanding of the universe, and its mathematical model.
Gamow:
Hoyle: Created the Steady State theory. Although the theory now seems to be discredited, it was one of two considered viable in the late 50's and early 60's. The steady state theory assumed that the universe was always expanding, always here, and always would remain here. Overall, the universe never changed. The universe would always appear as it does now, and would be in a perpetual steady state.
Penrose:
Hawking: One of the leading theoreticians in the area of black holes. Credited with the explanation of tunnelling to explain events around a Black-Hole.
SUPERSYMMETRY and SUPERSTRINGS
or: To Be or Knot to Be
subtitled: Further Reflections on Symmetry
The supersymmetry model of the universe seeks to simplify the explanation of everything by using strings. These looped, bead-like strings are the representation of all matter and energy. Everything is composed of strings, from strings and by strings. All of the basic forces are derived from the strings, and all interactions can be explained by the strings. The basic constants of the universe, like the Plank's constant, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the charge on the electron, the strength of the gravitational constant "g", are all supposed to be derivable from the properties of the strings.
Various resonances, or vibrations of the strings in various dimensions create the uniform conditions of identical sub-atomic particles. The concept of supersymmetry is: at the time of the initial conditions in the universe, all of the four forces, and all mass-energy interactions were governed by symmetry. As the energy density cooled and the universe expanded, the symmetry became isolated, lost, or hidden in the complex disorders which arose.
Although the underlying symmetry in the universe is still there, it remains hidden until scientists can create an environment simulating the temperature and energy density at the start of the universe. At that point, all will become clear, and our understanding will progress.
These strings exist multi-dimensionally, and some of the dimensions may be infinitesimally small. Something on the order of 10-42 meters would be the measurement of at least one of the dimensions. This would account for some of the quirky but similar behavior of sub-atomic particles. The smallest dimension of a string would place a lower limit on the knowability and divisibility of sub-atomic particles.
Multiple resonance modes in a direction of any of the other dimensions would account for the "family-type" behavior of sub-atomic particles. The similar properties among the families of hadrons, baryons, photons, and neutrinos would be explained by the "standing-wave" resonance in a closed-loop of different string-lengths. These energy-mass strings would behave like a clothesline or a piano-string vibrating in one or more of their resonance modes.
THE BIG-BANG Theory
A Point of Interest; Pointed Out
Modern day Big Bang theories owe their existence to George Gamow, who predicted the existence of the red-shifted remains of the initial radiation burst characterized by the Big-Bang. The detection of the microwave energy, at 2.7 K, from all directions in space, effectively sealed the coffin on the Steady-State theory.
Here is a nutshell description of the Big Bang. Observe the universe, with it's size, it's apparent recessionary speed, and it's contents of mass and energy. Imagine that time can be reversed, and extrapolate from present conditions to predict the past. This is the simplest way to explain "Why should there have been a Big Bang?"
The Big Bang supposes that at one time, in the distant past, all of the mass-energy of the entire universe was originally gathered together in a single, unbelievably dense point, or singularity. How this happened, or why the mass-energy didn't remain in that collapsed state is not specified.
Happy Birthday, Universe!
Be Sure to Blow-outward More than just the Candles.
At some given point in time, which could be called the birthday of the Universe, or the Beginning, the Big-Bang occurred. At that instant, so much energy and mass was released that modern logic and terms and statistics all fail to convey the temperature, density, or intensity of the event. Suffice it to say that all of the matter and energy in the entire universe was blown-out at this event.
As the Universe expanded, conditions gradually became more recognizable and understandable, and more like those we encounter today. Supposedly, today we are existing from 15 billion to 20 billion years after this event. All of everything which we can see and detect in the universe is said to be the result of this event.
The understanding of the Big Bang comes strictly from reverse logic. Scientists take everything we now can observe in the universe, and suppose that, if viewed in reverse, everything would collapse 15 to 20 billion years ago. The results from that scenario fuels our view of what occurred in the Big Bang.
Since the universe had supposedly started collapsed into nothingness at the time of the Big Bang, uniformity of starting conditions is taken for granted. All subsequent conditions are imagined as being derived from the starting conditions, and exponentially decreasing their density, increasing their time from the Big Bang, and increasing their distance from the center of the universe.
In essence, the conditions encountered today put the theoretical "straight-jacket" on the start of the Big-Bang. In addition, if any of our conclusions about the conditions in the universe because of misinterpreted observations today are in error, or if any of our assumed starting conditions were in error, then the entire scenario would be modified or invalidated.
One of the biggest limitations on the current Big-Bang theory is that there is no admitted reason for it to occur. There is no known force which can explain why the Big-Bang occurred. There is no possibility that we will ever know anything from the time before the Big-Bang.
Present theories of the universe must invent or create exotic new forces, such as the fifth or sixth basic force, to explain how the Big Bang occurred. Unfortunately, there is presently no evidence whatsoever that anything like a fifth or sixth force exists.
To test the assumptions in a laboratory, scientists expect that conditions remarkably close to the original condition encountered at the Big Bang would need to be created or attained. Since even the most expensive, and advanced equipment which we can create and/or afford will come nowhere close to this goal, the conditions may remain unknowable.
However, all is not lost. In Chapter 6 we will look at the Big-Bang from the C-R theory perspective.
