Big bang as it is written. Theories of the origin of the universe

Course work on the subject " Theoretical basis progressive technologies"

Completed by: Belozerskaya Larisa Mirzodzhonovna, Course I

Moscow State Open University, branch

Cosmology is a physical study of the Universe, which includes the theory of the entire world covered by astronomical observations as part of the Universe.

The greatest achievement of modern cosmology was the model of the expanding universe, called the Big Bang theory.

According to this theory, the entire observable space is expanding. But what happened at the very beginning? All matter in the Cosmos at some initial moment was squeezed literally into nothing - compressed into a single point. It had a fantastically huge density - it is almost impossible to imagine, it is expressed by a number in which there are 96 zeros after one - and an equally unimaginably high temperature. Astronomers have called this state a singularity.

For some reason, this amazing balance was suddenly destroyed by the action of gravitational forces - it's hard to even imagine what they should have been with an infinitely huge density of "primary matter"!

Scientists have given the name "Big Bang" to this moment. The universe began to expand and cool.

It should be noted that the question of what was the birth of the Universe - "hot" or "cold" - was not immediately resolved unambiguously and occupied the minds of astronomers for a long time. Interest in the problem was far from idle - after all, from physical condition matter at the initial moment depends, for example, the age of the universe. In addition, thermonuclear reactions can take place at high temperatures. Consequently, chemical composition The "hot" Universe must differ from the composition of the "cold" one. And this, in turn, depends on the size and pace of development. celestial bodies...

For several decades, both versions - "hot" and "cold" birth of the Universe - existed in cosmology on an equal footing, having both supporters and critics. The matter remained "for small" - it was necessary to confirm their observations.

Modern astronomy on the question of whether there is evidence for the hypothesis hot universe and the Big Bang, can give an affirmative answer. In 1965, a discovery was made, which, according to scientists, directly confirms that in the past the matter of the Universe was very dense and hot. It turned out that in outer space there are electromagnetic waves that were born in that distant era, when there were no stars, no galaxies, no our solar system.

The possibility of the existence of such radiation was predicted by astronomers much earlier. In the middle of 1940s. American physicist George Gamow (1904-1968) took up the problems of the origin of the universe and the origin of chemical elements. The calculations made by Gamow and his students made it possible to imagine that the Universe had a very high temperature in the first seconds of its existence. The heated substance "shone" - it emitted electromagnetic waves. Gamow suggested that they should be observed in the modern era in the form of weak radio waves, and even predicted the temperature of this radiation - about 5-6 K.

In 1965, American scientists, radio engineers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, registered cosmic radiation that could not be attributed to any known cosmic source at that time. Astronomers have come to the conclusion that this radiation, which has a temperature of about 3 K, is a relic (from the Latin "remainder", hence the name of the radiation - "relic") of those distant times when the Universe was fantastically hot. Now astronomers have been able to make a choice in favor of the "hot" birth of the Universe. A. Penzias and R. Wilson, received in 1978 the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the cosmic microwave background (this is the official name of the cosmic microwave background) at a wavelength of 7.35 cm.

The big bang is the name given to the creation of the universe. Within the framework of this concept, it is assumed that the initial state of the Universe was a point called the singularity point, in which all matter and energy were concentrated. It was characterized by an infinitely high density of matter. The specific properties of the singularity point are unknown, as is unknown what preceded the singularity state.

An approximate chronology of events that followed from the zero point in time - the beginning of the expansion, is presented below:

Regarding the conditions and events that occurred before the moment 5·10-44 seconds - the end of the first time quantum - there is no reliable information. About the physical parameters of that era, one can only say that then the temperature was 1.3 1032 K, and the density of matter was about 1096 kg/m3. The given values ​​are limiting for the application of existing theories. They follow from the ratios of the speed of light, the gravitational constant, Planck's and Boltzmann's constants and are called "Planck's".

The events of the period from 5 10-44 to 10-36 seconds reflect the model “ inflationary universe”, a description that is difficult and cannot be given within the framework of this presentation. However, it should be noted that according to this model, the expansion of the Universe occurred without a decrease in the volume concentration of energy and at a negative pressure of the primary mixture of matter and energy, i.e., as it were, repulsion of material objects from each other, which caused the expansion of the Universe, which continues to this day.

To understand the processes that took place in the period of 10-36-10-4 seconds from the beginning of the explosion, a deep knowledge of physics is required. elementary particles. During this period, electromagnetic radiation and elementary particles - different kinds mesons, hyperons, protons and antiprotons, neutrons and antineutrons, neutrinos and antineutrinos, etc. existed in balance, i.e. their volume concentrations were equal. A very important role at that time was played first by the fields of strong and then weak interactions.

In the period of 10-4 - 10-3 seconds, the formation of the entire set of elementary particles took place, which, transforming one into another, now make up the entire Universe. Annihilation of the overwhelming majority of elementary particles and antiparticles that existed earlier took place. It was during this period that the baryon asymmetry appeared, which turned out to be the result of a very small, only one billionth part, excess of the number of baryons over antibaryons. It arose, apparently, immediately after the era of the inflationary expansion of the Universe. At a temperature of 1011 degrees, the density of the Universe has already decreased to a value characteristic of atomic nuclei. During this period, the temperature halved in thousandths of a second. At the same time, the existing and now relic neutrino radiation was born. However, despite its significant density, which is not less than 400 pieces / cm3, and the ability to obtain essential information about that period of the formation of the Universe, its registration is not yet possible.

In the period from 10-3 to 10-120 seconds as a result thermonuclear reactions helium nuclei and a very small number of nuclei of some other light chemical elements were formed, and a significant part of the protons - hydrogen nuclei - did not undergo fusion into atomic nuclei. All of them remained immersed in the “ocean” of free electrons and photons electromagnetic radiation. From that moment on, the ratio was established in the primary gas: 75-78% hydrogen and 25-22% helium - according to the masses of these gases.

Between 300 thousand and 1 million years, the temperature of the universe dropped to 3000 - 45000 K and the era of recombination began. Previously free electrons united with light atomic nuclei and protons. Hydrogen, helium, and some lithium atoms formed. The matter became transparent and the cosmic microwave background radiation, observed so far, “separated” from it. All currently observed features of the relic radiation, for example, temperature fluctuations of its streams coming from different parts of the celestial sphere or their polarization reflect the picture of the properties and distribution of matter at that time.

During the next - the first billion years of the existence of the Universe, its temperature decreased from 3000 - 45000 K to 300 K. Due to the fact that by this time period the Universe had not yet formed sources of electromagnetic radiation - stars, quasars, etc., and CMB has already cooled down, this era is called the “Dark Age” of the Universe.

The idea of ​​the development of the Universe naturally led to the formulation of the problem of the beginning of the evolution (birth) of the Universe and its

end (death). Currently, there are several cosmological models that explain certain aspects of the origin of matter in the Universe, but they do not explain the causes and process of the birth of the Universe itself. Of the totality of modern cosmological theories, only Gamow's theory of the Big Bang has been able to satisfactorily explain almost all the facts related to this problem by now. The main features of the Big Bang model have survived to this day, although they were later supplemented by the theory of inflation, or the theory of the expanding Universe, developed by the American scientists A. Gut and P. Steinhardt and supplemented by the Soviet physicist A.D. Linda.

In 1948, the outstanding American physicist of Russian origin G. Gamow suggested that the physical Universe was formed as a result of a gigantic explosion that occurred about 15 billion years ago. Then all the matter and all the energy of the Universe were concentrated in one tiny superdense clot. If you believe mathematical calculations, then at the beginning of the expansion, the radius of the Universe was completely equal to zero, and its density is equal to infinity. This initial state is called singularity - point volume with infinite density. The known laws of physics do not work in the singularity. In this state, the concepts of space and time lose their meaning, so it is meaningless to ask where this point was. Also, modern science cannot say anything about the reasons for the appearance of such a state.

However, according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, matter cannot be pulled into one point, so it is believed that the Universe in its initial state had a certain density and size. According to some estimates, if the entire matter of the observable Universe, which is estimated at about 10 61 g, is compressed to a density of 10 94 g/cm 3 , then it will occupy a volume of about 10 -33 cm 3 . In no electron microscope it would be impossible to see it. For a long time, nothing could be said about the causes of the Big Bang and the transition of the Universe to expansion. But today there are some hypotheses trying to explain these processes. They underlie the inflationary model of the development of the Universe.

"Beginning" of the Universe

The main idea of ​​the Big Bang concept is that the Universe in its early stages of origin had an unstable vacuum-like state with a high energy density. This energy originated from quantum radiation, i.e. as if from nothing. The fact is that in the physical vacuum there are no fixed

particles, fields and waves, but this is not a lifeless void. In a vacuum, there are virtual particles that are born, have a fleeting existence and immediately disappear. Therefore, the vacuum "boils" with virtual particles and is saturated with complex interactions between them. Moreover, the energy contained in vacuum is located, as it were, on its different floors, i.e. there is a phenomenon of differences in the energy levels of the vacuum.

While the vacuum is in equilibrium, there are only virtual (ghostly) particles in it, which borrow energy from the vacuum for a short period of time to be born, and quickly return the borrowed energy to disappear. When, for some reason, the vacuum at some starting point (singularity) was excited and left the equilibrium state, then virtual particles began to capture energy without recoil and turned into real particles. In the end, at a certain point in space, a huge number of real particles were formed, along with the energy associated with them. When the excited vacuum collapsed, a gigantic radiation energy was released, and the superpower compressed the particles into superdense matter. The extreme conditions of the "beginning", when even space-time was deformed, suggest that the vacuum was also in a special state, which is called a "false" vacuum. It is characterized by an energy of extremely high density, which corresponds to an extremely high density of matter. In this state of matter, strong stresses, negative pressures can arise in it, equivalent to a gravitational repulsion of such magnitude that it caused the unrestrained and rapid expansion of the Universe - the Big Bang. This was the first impulse, the “beginning” of our world.

From this moment, the rapid expansion of the Universe begins, time and space arise. At this time, there is an unrestrained inflation of "bubbles of space", the embryos of one or several universes, which may differ from each other in their fundamental constants and laws. One of them became the embryo of our Metagalaxy.

According to various estimates, the period of "inflation", going exponentially, takes an unimaginably short period of time - up to 10 - 33 s after the "beginning". It is called inflation period. During this time, the size of the universe has increased 1050 times, from a billionth of the size of a proton to the size of a matchbox.

By the end of the inflation phase, the universe was empty and cold, but when inflation dried up, the universe suddenly became extremely "hot". This burst of heat that lit up the cosmos is due to the huge reserves of energy contained in the "false" vacuum. This state of vacuum is very unstable and tends to decay. When

the decay ends, the repulsion disappears, and so does inflation. And the energy, bound in the form of many real particles, was released in the form of radiation, which instantly heated the Universe to 10 27 K. From that moment on, the Universe developed according to the standard theory of the “hot” Big Bang.

Early evolution of the universe

Immediately after the Big Bang, the Universe was a plasma of elementary particles of all kinds and their antiparticles in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium at a temperature of 10 27 K, which freely transformed into each other. Only gravitational and large (Great) interactions existed in this bunch. Then the Universe began to expand, at the same time its density and temperature decreased. The further evolution of the Universe took place in stages and was accompanied, on the one hand, by differentiation, and, on the other hand, by the complication of its structures. The stages of the evolution of the Universe differ in the characteristics of the interaction of elementary particles and are called eras. The most important changes took less than three minutes.

hadron era lasted 10 -7 s. At this stage, the temperature drops to 10 13 K. At the same time, all four fundamental interactions appear, the free existence of quarks ceases, they merge into hadrons, the most important of which are protons and neutrons. The most significant event was the global symmetry breaking that occurred in the first moments of the existence of our Universe. The number of particles turned out to be slightly larger than the number of antiparticles. The reasons for this asymmetry are still unknown. In a common plasma-like bunch, for every billion pairs of particles and antiparticles, one particle turned out to be more, it lacked a pair for annihilation. This determined the further appearance of the material Universe with galaxies, stars, planets and intelligent beings on some of them.

lepton era lasted up to 1 s after the onset. The temperature of the Universe dropped to 10 10 K. Its main elements were leptons, which participated in the mutual transformations of protons and neutrons. At the end of this era, matter became transparent to neutrinos; they stopped interacting with matter and have since survived to the present day.

Radiation era (photon era) lasted 1 million years. During this time, the temperature of the Universe decreased from 10 billion K to 3000 K. During this stage, the processes of primary nucleosynthesis, the most important for the further evolution of the Universe, took place - the combination of protons and neutrons (there were about 8 times less

less than protons) into atomic nuclei. By the end of this process, the matter of the Universe consisted of 75% protons (hydrogen nuclei), about 25% were helium nuclei, hundredths of a percent fell on deuterium, lithium and other light elements, after which the Universe became transparent to photons, since the radiation separated from matter and formed what in our era is called relic radiation.

Then, for almost 500 thousand years, no qualitative changes occurred - the Universe slowly cooled and expanded. The universe, while remaining homogeneous, became increasingly rarefied. When it cooled down to 3000 K, the nuclei of hydrogen and helium atoms could already capture free electrons and turn into neutral hydrogen and helium atoms. As a result, a homogeneous Universe was formed, which was a mixture of three almost non-interacting substances: baryon matter (hydrogen, helium and their isotopes), leptons (neutrinos and antineutrinos) and radiation (photons). By this time there were no high temperatures and high pressures. It seemed that in the long term the Universe was waiting for further expansion and cooling, the formation of a "lepton desert" - something like heat death. But this did not happen; on the contrary, there was a jump that created the modern structural universe, which, according to modern estimates, took from 1 to 3 billion years.

Big Bang Mysteries

Our universe began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang, and scientists have been trying to understand this phenomenon for generations.

In the late 20s of the 20th century, Edwin Hubble discovered that all the galaxies we see are flying apart - like fragments of a grenade after an explosion, at the same time the Belgian astronomer and theologian Georges Lemaitre put forward his hypothesis (in 1931 it appeared on the pages of "Nature" ). He believes that the history of the universe began with the explosion of the "primary atom", and this gave rise to time, space and matter (earlier, in the early 1920s, the Soviet scientist Alexander Fridman, analyzing Einstein's equations, also came to the conclusion that "The universe was created from a point" and it took "tens of billions of our ordinary years").

At first, astronomers resolutely rejected the reasoning of the Belgian theologian. Because the theory of the Big Bang was perfectly combined with the Christian faith in God the Creator. For two centuries, scientists prevented the penetration into science of any kind of religious speculation about the "beginning of all beginnings." And now God, expelled from nature under the measured swaying of the wheels of Newtonian mechanics, unexpectedly returns. He is coming in the flames of the Big Bang, and it is difficult to imagine a more triumphant picture of his appearance.

However, the problem was not only in theology - the Big Bang did not obey the laws of the exact sciences. The most important moment history of the universe was beyond knowledge. At this singular (special) point, located on the axis of space-time, the general theory of relativity ceased to operate, because pressure, temperature, energy density and curvature of space rushed to infinity, that is, they lost all physical meaning. At this point, all those seconds, meters and astronomical units disappeared, turned not into zero, not into negative values, but into their complete absence, into absolute insignificance. This point is a gap that cannot be bridged on the stilts of logic or mathematics, a hole right through in time and space.

It wasn't until the late 1960s that Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking convincingly showed that, within Einstein's theory, the Big Bang singularity was inevitable. However, this could not facilitate the work of theorists. How to describe the Big Bang? What was, for example, the cause of this event? After all, if there was no time at all before it, then there could not seem to be a reason that gave rise to it.

As we now understand, in order to create a complete theory of the Big Bang, it is necessary to link together the teachings of Einstein, which describes space and time, with quantum theory, which deals with elementary particles and their interaction. Probably, more than one decade may pass before it will be possible to do this and derive a single "formula of the universe."

And where, for example, could the tremendous amount of energy that generated this explosion of incredible force come from? Perhaps it was inherited by our Universe from its predecessor, which shrunk into a singular point? But then where did she get it from? Or was the energy poured into the primordial vacuum, from which our Universe slipped out as a “bubble of foam”? Or do the Universes of the older generation transmit energy to the Universes of the younger generation through - those singular points - in the depths of which, perhaps, new worlds are born that we will never see? Be that as it may, the Universe in such models appears " open system", which does not quite correspond to the "classical" picture of the Big Bang: "There was nothing, and suddenly the universe was born."

The universe at the time of formation was in an extremely dense and hot state.

And perhaps, as some of the researchers believe, our Universe is generally ... devoid of energy, more precisely, its total energy is zero? The positive energy of the radiation emitted by matter is superimposed on negative energy gravity. Plus times minus equals zero. This notorious "0" seems to be the key to understanding the nature of the Big Bang. From it - from "zero", from "nothing" - everything was born instantly. By chance. Spontaneously. Just. A negligibly small deviation from 0 gave rise to a universal avalanche of events. You can also make such a comparison: a stone ball, balanced on a thin, like a spire, top of some Chomolungma, suddenly swayed and rolled down, giving rise to an "avalanche of events."

1973 - Physicist Edward Tryon from America, tried to describe the process of the birth of our universe, using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, one of the foundations of quantum theory. According to this principle, the more accurately we measure energy, for example, the more uncertain time becomes. So, if the energy is strictly equal to zero, then the time can be arbitrarily large. So big that sooner or later in the quantum vacuum, from which the Universe is to be born, a fluctuation will arise. This will lead to the rapid growth of the cosmos, seemingly out of nothing. “It's just that the Universes are sometimes born, that's all,” Trion explained the background of the Big Bang so unpretentiously. It was a big Random explosion. Only and everything.

Could the Big Bang happen again?

Oddly enough, yes. We live in a universe that can still bear fruit and give birth to new worlds. Several models have been created that describe the "Big Bangs" of the future.

Why, for example, in the same vacuum that gave rise to our Universe, new fluctuations should not appear? Perhaps, over these 13.7 billion years, countless worlds have appeared next to our universe that do not touch each other in any way. They have different laws of nature, there are different physical constants. On most of these worlds, life could never have arisen. Many of them immediately die, experience a collapse. But in some Universes - by pure chance! - the conditions under which life can arise.

But the point is not only in the vacuum that exists before the beginning of "all times and peoples." Fluctuations fraught with future worlds can also arise in a vacuum that is spilled in our Universe, more precisely, in dark energy filling it. This kind of model of the "updating universe" was developed by an American cosmologist, a native of Soviet Union, Alexander Vilenkin. These new "big bangs" do not threaten us with anything. They will not destroy the structure of the Universe, will not burn it to the ground, but will only create a new space beyond the limits accessible to our observation and understanding. Perhaps such "explosions" that mark the birth of new worlds occur in the depths of numerous black holes that dot space, believes American astrophysicist Lee Smolin.

Another native of the USSR, living in the West, cosmologist Andrei Linde believes that we ourselves are capable of causing a new Big Bang, having collected at some point in space an enormous amount of energy that exceeds a certain critical limit. According to his calculations, space engineers of the future could take an invisible pinch of matter - just a few hundredths of a milligram - and condense it to such an extent that the energy of this bunch will be 1015 Gigaelectronvolts. A tiny black hole is formed, which will begin to expand exponentially. Thus, a “daughter Universe” with its own space-time will arise, rapidly separating from our Universe.

... There is a lot of fantastic in the nature of the Big Bang. But the validity of this theory proves a number of natural phenomena. These include the expansion of the Universe that we observe, the pattern of the distribution of chemical elements, as well as cosmic background radiation, which is called the "Big Bang relic".

The world does not exist forever. It was born in the flames of the Big Bang. However, was this a unique phenomenon in the history of the cosmos? Or a recurring event, like the birth of stars and planets? What if the Big Bang is only a phase of transition from one state of Eternity to another?

Many of the physicists say that initially there was Something, and not Nothing. Perhaps our universe - like others - was born from an elementary quantum vacuum. But no matter how "minimal simple" such a state is - and less than a quantum vacuum, the laws of physics do not allow it to be - it still cannot be called "Nothing".

Perhaps the Universe we see is just another aggregate state of Eternity? And the bizarre arrangement of galaxies and galaxy clusters is something like crystal lattice, which in the n-dimensional world that existed before the birth of our Universe, had a completely different structure and which is possibly predicted by the "formula of everything" that Einstein was looking for? And will it be found in the coming decades? Scientists are peering intensely through the wall of the Unknown that has protected our universe, trying to understand what happened a moment before, according to our usual ideas, there was absolutely nothing. What forms of the Eternal Cosmos can be imagined, endowing time and space with those qualities that are unthinkable in our universe?

Among the most promising theories, in which physicists are trying to squeeze the whole of Eternity, may be called the theory of quantum geometry, quantum spin dynamics or quantum gravity. The greatest contributions to their development were made by Abey Ashtekar, Ted Jacobson, Jerzy Lewandowski, Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin and Thomas Tiemann. All these are the most complex physical constructions, entire palaces built from formulas and hypotheses, just to hide the abyss lurking in their depth and darkness, the singularity of time and space.

The Age of the Singularity

The roundabout paths of new theories force us to step over obvious, at first glance, truths. So, in quantum geometry, space and time, previously infinitely divided, suddenly break into separate islands - portions, quanta, less than which there is nothing. All singular points can be embedded in these "stone blocks". Space-time itself turns into an interweaving of one-dimensional structures - a "network of spins", that is, it becomes a discrete structure, a kind of chain woven from separate links.

The volume of the smallest possible space loop is only 10-99 cubic centimeters. This value is so small that in one cubic centimeter there are many more quanta of space than those same cubic centimeters in the Universe we observe (its volume is 1085 centimeters in a cube). Inside the quanta of space there is nothing, no energy, no matter - just as inside a mathematical point - by definition - you can not find either a triangle or an icosahedron. But if we apply the "submicroscopic fabric of the universe" hypothesis to describe the Big Bang, we get startling results, as shown by Abey Ashtekar and Martin Bojowald of the University of Pennsylvania.

If we replace the differential equations in the Standard Theory of Cosmology, which assume a continuous flow of space, with other differential equations following from the theory of quantum geometry, then the mysterious singularity will disappear. Physics does not end where the Big Bang begins - this is the first encouraging conclusion of cosmologists who refused to accept as the ultimate truth the properties of the universe that we see.

In the theory of quantum gravity, it is assumed that our Universe (like all others) was born in as a result of a random fluctuation of the quantum vacuum - a global macroscopic environment in which there was no time. Every time a fluctuation of a certain size occurs in the quantum vacuum, a new universe is born. It “buds off” from the homogeneous medium in which it was formed, and begins its own life. Now it has its own history, its own space, its own time, its own arrow of time.

In modern physics, a number of theories have been created showing how such a huge world as ours can arise from an eternally existing environment where there is no Macrotime, but at certain points of which its own microtime flows.

For example, physicists Gabriele Veneziano and Maurizio Gasperini from Italy, in the framework of string theory, suggest that the so-called “string vacuum” originally existed. Random quantum fluctuations in it led to the fact that the energy density reached a critical value, and this caused a local collapse. Which ended with the birth of our universe from a vacuum.

Within the framework of the theory of quantum geometry, Abey Ashtekar and Martin Bojowald showed that space and time can arise from more primitive fundamental structures, namely "networks of spins".

Eckhard Rebhan of the University of Düsseldorf and, independently, George Ellis and Roy Maartens of the University of Cape Town, are developing the idea of ​​a "static universe" that was conceived by Albert Einstein and the British astronomer Arthur Eddington. In their quest to do without the effects of quantum gravity, Rebhan and his colleagues came up with a spherical space that is in the middle of an eternal void (or, if you prefer, empty eternity), where there is no time. Due to some instability, an inflationary process develops here, which leads to a hot Big Bang.

Of course, the listed models are speculative, but they fundamentally correspond to the modern level of development of physics and the results of astronomical observations of the last few decades. In any case, one thing is clear. The Big Bang was more of an ordinary, natural event than a one of a kind.

Will such theories help to understand what could have been before the Big Bang? If the universe was born, what gave birth to it? Where in modern theories cosmology shows through the "genetic imprint" of its parent? 2005 - Abey Ashtekar, for example, published the results of his new calculations (Tomas Pawlowski and Paramprit Singh helped to do them). From them it was clear that if the initial premises were correct, then the same space-time existed before the Big Bang as after this event. The physics of our universe, as if in a mirror, was reflected in the physics of the other world. In these calculations, the Big Bang, like a mirror screen, cut through Eternity, placing the incompatible side by side - nature and its reflection. And what is the authenticity here, what is the ghost?

The only thing that can be seen "from the other side mirror glass that the Universe then did not expand, but contracted. The big bang became the point of its collapse. At that moment, space and time stopped for a moment, to be reflected again - to continue - to rise like a phoenix already in the world we know, that universe that we measure out with our formulas, ciphers and numbers. The universe literally turned itself inside out, like a glove or shirt, and has been steadily expanding ever since. The Big Bang was not, according to Ashtekar, "the creation of the whole Universe from Nothing", but was only a transition from one dynamic form of Eternity to another. Perhaps the Universe is going through an endless series of “big bangs”, and these tens of billions (or how many) years separating its individual phases are only periods of the “cosmic sinusoid”, according to the laws of which the universe lives?

« For me, life is too short to worry about things beyond my control and maybe even impossible. They ask: “What if the Earth is swallowed up black hole, or there will be a distortion of space-time - is this a cause for excitement? My answer is no, because we will only know about it when it reaches our ... our place in space-time. We get kicks when nature decides it's time: whether it's the speed of sound, the speed of light, the speed of electrical impulses, we will always be victims of a time delay between the information around us and our ability to receive it.»

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Time is an amazing thing. It gives us the past, present and future. Because of time, everything that surrounds us has an age. For example, the age of the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years. Approximately the same number of years ago, the closest star to us, the Sun, also lit up. If this figure seems mind-boggling to you, do not forget that long before the formation of our native solar system, the galaxy in which we live - the Milky Way - appeared. According to scientists' latest estimates, age milky way is 13.6 billion years. But we know for sure that galaxies also have a past, and space is simply huge, so we need to look even further. And this reflection inevitably leads us to the moment when it all began - the Big Bang.

Einstein and the Universe

The perception of the surrounding world by people has always been ambiguous. Someone still does not believe in the existence of a huge Universe around us, someone considers the Earth to be flat. Before the scientific breakthrough in the 20th century, there were only a couple of versions of the origin of the world. Adherents of religious views believed in divine intervention and the creation of a higher mind, those who disagreed were sometimes burned. There was another side that believed that the world around us, as well as the Universe, is infinite.

For many people, everything changed when Albert Einstein gave a talk in 1917, presenting to the general public the work of his life - the General Theory of Relativity. The genius of the 20th century connected space-time with the matter of space with the help of the equations he derived. As a result, it turned out that the Universe is finite, unchanged in size and has the shape of a regular cylinder.

At the dawn of a technical breakthrough, no one could refute Einstein's words, because his theory was too complicated even for the greatest minds of the early 20th century. Since there were no other options, the model of a cylindrical stationary universe was adopted scientific community as a generally accepted model of our world. However, she could live only a few years. After physicists were able to recover from scientific papers Einstein and began to take them apart, in parallel with this, adjustments were made to the theory of relativity and the specific calculations of the German scientist.

In 1922, an article suddenly appeared in the journal Izvestiya Fiziki Russian mathematician Alexander Friedman, in which he states that Einstein was wrong and our Universe is not stationary. Friedman explains that the statements of the German scientist regarding the invariance of the radius of curvature of space are delusions, in fact, the radius changes with respect to time. Accordingly, the universe must expand.

Moreover, here Friedman gave his assumptions about how exactly the Universe can expand. There were three models in total: a pulsating Universe (the assumption that the Universe expands and contracts with a certain periodicity in time); the expanding Universe from the mass and the third model - the expansion from the point. Since at that time there were no other models, with the exception of divine intervention, physicists quickly took note of all three Friedman models and began to develop them in their own direction.

The work of the Russian mathematician slightly stung Einstein, and in the same year he published an article in which he expressed his comments on the work of Friedman. In it, a German physicist tries to prove the correctness of his calculations. It turned out rather unconvincingly, and when the pain from the blow to self-esteem subsided a little, Einstein published another note in the journal Izvestiya Fiziki, in which he said:

« In a previous note, I criticized the above work. However, my criticism, as I saw from Fridman's letter communicated to me by Mr. Krutkov, was based on an error in calculations. I think Friedman's results are correct and shed new light.».

Scientists had to admit that all three Friedman models of the appearance and existence of our Universe are absolutely logical and have the right to life. All three are explained by understandable mathematical calculations and leave no questions. Except for one thing: why would the Universe begin to expand?

The theory that changed the world

The statements of Einstein and Friedman led the scientific community to seriously question the origin of the universe. Thanks to the general theory of relativity, there was a chance to shed light on our past, and physicists did not fail to take advantage of this. One of the scientists who tried to present a model of our world was the astrophysicist Georges Lemaitre from Belgium. It is noteworthy that Lemaitre was a Catholic priest, but at the same time he was engaged in mathematics and physics, which is real nonsense for our time.

Georges Lemaitre became interested in Einstein's equations, and with their help he was able to calculate that our Universe appeared as a result of the decay of some kind of superparticle, which was out of space and time before the start of fission, which can actually be considered an explosion. At the same time, physicists note that Lemaitre was the first to shed light on the birth of the Universe.

The theory of the exploded superatom suited not only scientists, but also the clergy, who were very dissatisfied with modern scientific discoveries for which new interpretations of the Bible had to be invented. The Big Bang did not come into significant conflict with religion, perhaps this was influenced by the upbringing of Lemaitre himself, who devoted his life not only to science, but also to the service of God.

On November 22, 1951, Pope Pius XII made a statement that the Big Bang Theory does not conflict with the Bible and Catholic dogma about the origin of the world. Orthodox clergy also said they were positive about this theory. This theory was also relatively neutrally received by adherents of other religions, some of them even said that in their scriptures There are references to the Big Bang.

However, although the theory big bang on the this moment is the generally accepted cosmological model, it has led many scientists to a dead end. On the one hand, the explosion of a superparticle fits perfectly into the logic modern physics, but on the other hand, as a result of such an explosion, mainly only heavy metals, in particular iron. But, as it turned out, the Universe consists mainly of ultralight gases - hydrogen and helium. Something did not fit, so physicists continued to work on the theory of the origin of the world.

Initially, the term "Big Bang" did not exist. Lemaitre and other physicists offered only the boring name "dynamical evolutionary model", which caused students to yawn. Only in 1949, at one of his lectures, did the British astronomer and cosmologist Freud Hoyle say:

“This theory is based on the assumption that the universe arose in the process of a single powerful explosion and therefore exists only for a finite time ... This idea of ​​the Big Bang seems to me completely unsatisfactory”.

Since then, this term has become widely used in scientific circles and the general public's idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe structure of the Universe.

Where did hydrogen and helium come from?

The presence of light elements has baffled physicists, and many Big Bang Theorists set out to find their source. For many years they were not able to achieve much success, until in 1948 the brilliant scientist Georgy Gamov from Leningrad was finally able to identify this source. Gamow was one of Friedman's students, so he gladly took up the development of the theory of his teacher.

Gamow tried to imagine the life of the Universe in reverse direction, and rewinded time until the moment when it just started to expand. By that time, as is known, humanity had already discovered the principles of thermonuclear fusion, so the Friedmann-Lemaitre theory gained the right to life. When the universe was very small, it was very hot, according to the laws of physics.

According to Gamow, just a second after the Big Bang, the space of the new Universe was filled with elementary particles that began to interact with each other. As a result of this, helium thermonuclear fusion began, which Ralph Asher Alfer, a mathematician from Odessa, was able to calculate for Gamow. According to Alfer's calculations, already five minutes after the Big Bang, the Universe was filled with helium so much that even staunch opponents of the Big Bang Theory will have to come to terms and accept this model as the main one in cosmology. With his research, Gamow not only opened up new ways of studying the Universe, but also resurrected Lemaitre's theory.

Despite the stereotypes about scientists, they cannot be denied romanticism. Gamow published his research on the theory of the Superhot Universe at the time of the Big Bang in 1948 in his work The Origin of the Chemical Elements. As fellow assistants, he indicated not only Ralph Asher Alfer, but also Hans Bethe, an American astrophysicist and future laureate Nobel Prize. On the cover of the book it turned out: Alfer, Bethe, Gamow. Doesn't it remind you of anything?

However, despite the fact that Lemaitre's works received a second life, physicists still could not answer the most exciting question: what happened before the Big Bang?

Attempts to resurrect Einstein's stationary universe

Not all scientists agreed with the Friedmann-Lemaitre theory, but despite this, they had to teach the generally accepted cosmological model at universities. For example, astronomer Fred Hoyle, who himself coined the term "Big Bang", actually believed that there was no explosion, and devoted his life to trying to prove it.
Hoyle has become one of those scientists who in our time offer an alternative view of the modern world. Most physicists are rather cool about the statements of such people, but this does not bother them at all.

To shame Gamow and his justification of the Big Bang Theory, Hoyle, together with like-minded people, decided to develop their own model of the origin of the Universe. As a basis, they took Einstein's proposals that the Universe is stationary, and made some adjustments that offer alternative reasons for the expansion of the Universe.

If adherents of the Lemaitre-Friedmann theory believed that the Universe arose from a single superdense point with an infinitely small radius, then Hoyle suggested that matter is constantly formed from points that are between galaxies moving away from each other. In the first case, the whole Universe was formed from one particle, with its infinite number of stars and galaxies. In another case, one point gives as much matter as is enough to produce just one galaxy.

The inconsistency of Hoyle's theory is that he was never able to explain where the very substance comes from, which continues to create galaxies in which there are hundreds of billions of stars. In fact, Fred Hoyle suggested that everyone believe that the structure of the universe appears out of nowhere. Despite the fact that many physicists tried to find a solution to Hoyle's theory, no one managed to do this, and after a couple of decades this proposal lost its relevance.

Questions without answers

In fact, the Big Bang Theory also does not give us answers to many questions. For example, in the mind of an ordinary person, the fact that all the matter around us was once compressed into a single point of singularity, which is much smaller than an atom, cannot fit in. And how did it happen that this superparticle heated up to such an extent that the explosion reaction started.

Until the middle of the 20th century, the theory of the expanding universe was never confirmed experimentally, therefore it was not widely used in educational institutions. Everything changed in 1964, when two American astrophysicists - Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson - did not decide to study the radio signals of the starry sky.

Scanning the radiation of celestial bodies, namely Cassiopeia A (one of the most powerful sources of radio emission in the starry sky), scientists noticed some kind of extraneous noise that constantly interfered with recording accurate radiation data. Wherever they pointed their antenna, no matter what time of day they began their research, this characteristic and constant noise always pursued them. Angry to a certain extent, Penzias and Wilson decided to study the source of this noise and unexpectedly made a discovery that changed the world. They discovered the relic radiation, which is an echo of that same Big Bang.

Our universe cools much more slowly than a cup of hot tea, and the CMB indicates that the matter around us was once very hot and is now cooling as the universe expands. Thus, all theories related to the cold Universe were left out, and the Big Bang Theory was finally adopted.

In his writings, Georgy Gamow suggested that it would be possible to detect photons in space that have existed since the Big Bang, only more advanced technical equipment is needed. Relic radiation confirmed all his assumptions about the existence of the universe. Also, with its help, it was possible to establish that the age of our Universe is approximately 14 billion years.

As always, with the practical proof of any theory, many alternative opinions immediately arise. Some physicists scoffed at the discovery of the CMB as evidence of the Big Bang. Despite the fact that Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize for their historic discovery, many disagreed with their research.

The main arguments in favor of the inconsistency of the expansion of the Universe were discrepancies and logical errors. For example, the explosion uniformly accelerated all the galaxies in space, but instead of moving away from us, the Andromeda galaxy is slowly but surely approaching the Milky Way. Scientists suggest that these two galaxies will collide with each other in just some 4 billion years. Unfortunately, humanity is still too young to answer this and other questions.

Theory of equilibrium

In our time, physicists offer various models for the existence of the universe. Many of them do not withstand even simple criticism, while others receive the right to life.

At the end of the 20th century, an astrophysicist from America, Edward Tryon, together with his colleague from Australia, Warren Kerry, proposed a fundamentally new model of the Universe, and they did it independently of each other. Scientists based their research on the assumption that everything in the universe is balanced. Mass destroys energy, and vice versa. This principle became known as the principle of the Zero Universe. Within this universe, new matter emerges at singular points between galaxies, where the attraction and repulsion of matter is balanced.

The theory of the Zero Universe was not smashed to smithereens because after some time scientists were able to discover the existence dark matter- a mysterious substance that makes up almost 27% of our Universe. Another 68.3% of the universe is more mysterious and mysterious dark energy.

It is thanks to the gravitational effects of dark energy that the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe is attributed. By the way, the presence of dark energy in space was predicted by Einstein himself, who saw that something did not converge in his equations, the Universe could not be made stationary. Therefore, he introduced a cosmological constant into the equations - the Lambda term, for which he later repeatedly blamed and hated himself.

It so happened that the space in the Universe, empty in theory, is nevertheless filled with a certain special field, which drives the Einstein model. In a sober mind and according to the logic of those times, the existence of such a field was simply impossible, but in fact the German physicist simply did not know how to describe dark energy.

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Perhaps we will never know how and from what our universe arose. It will be even more difficult to establish what was before its existence. People tend to be afraid of what they cannot explain, so it is possible that until the end of time humanity will also believe in the divine influence on the creation of the world around us.

In the scientific world, it is generally accepted that the Universe originated as a result of the Big Bang. This theory is based on the fact that energy and matter (the foundations of all things) were previously in a state of singularity. It, in turn, is characterized by the infinity of temperature, density and pressure. The singularity state itself overrides all known modern world laws of physics. Scientists believe that the Universe arose from a microscopic particle, which, due to unknown reasons, came into an unstable state in the distant past and exploded.

The term "Big Bang" began to be used since 1949 after the publication of the works of the scientist F. Hoyle in popular science publications. Today, the theory of the “dynamic evolving model” has been developed so well that physicists can describe the processes occurring in the Universe as early as 10 seconds after the explosion of a microscopic particle that laid the foundation for everything.

There are several proofs of the theory. One of the main ones is the relic radiation, which permeates the entire Universe. It could have arisen, according to modern scientists, only as a result of the Big Bang, due to the interaction of microscopic particles. It is the relic radiation that makes it possible to learn about those times when the Universe looked like a blazing space, and there were no stars, planets and the galaxy itself. The second proof of the birth of everything that exists from the Big Bang is the cosmological redshift, which consists in a decrease in the frequency of radiation. This confirms the removal of stars, galaxies from the Milky Way in particular and from each other in general. That is, it indicates that the Universe expanded earlier and continues to do so until now.

A Brief History of the Universe

• 10 -45 - 10 -37 sec - inflationary expansion


• 10 -6 sec- the emergence of quarks and electrons


• 10 -5 sec- the formation of protons and neutrons


• 10 -4 sec - 3 min- the emergence of nuclei of deuterium, helium and lithium


• 400 thousand years- formation of atoms


• 15 million years- continued expansion of the gas cloud


• 1 billion years- the birth of the first stars and galaxies


• 10 - 15 billion years- the appearance of planets and intelligent life


• 10 14 billion years- termination of the process of birth of stars


• 10 37 billion years- depletion of the energy of all stars


• 10 40 billion years- evaporation of black holes and the birth of elementary particles


• 10 100 billion years- completion of the evaporation of all black holes

The Big Bang theory has become a real breakthrough in science. It allowed scientists to answer many questions regarding the birth of the universe. But at the same time, this theory gave rise to new mysteries. Chief among them is the cause of the Big Bang itself. The second question to which there is no answer modern science How did space and time come about? According to some researchers, they were born together with matter, energy. That is, they are the result of the Big Bang. But then it turns out that time and space must have some kind of beginning. That is, a certain entity, constantly existing and not dependent on their indicators, could well initiate the processes of instability in a microscopic particle that gave rise to the Universe.

The more research is done in this direction, the more questions arise for astrophysicists. The answers to them await humanity in the future.