Before and after the Big Bang
This is an essay review of Professor of physics, Guido Tonelli's book, "Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began."
Introduction
The author provides a day-by-day scientific account of the universe's birth, purposefully paralleling the biblical account in Genesis. But his version is based entirely on the discoveries predicted by the Standard Model of physics, rather than those promulgated by the scriptures.
From the void to the Big Bang, to cosmic inflation, cooling, and symmetry breaking, the author presents his evolving first draft of the Standard Model's account of the universe's birth. This includes the emergence of particles like the Higgs boson and the formation of matter, stars, galaxies, and planets, including our own solar system.
This intriguing account delves into numerous cosmic mysteries, shedding light on pivotal moments in the universe's history. It offers historical context on key contributors to the development of the Standard Model, including that of women scientists, and then it provides a more profound understanding of the origins of everything.
Day One: From the Void to the Energy Bank
We now know that the universe originated as a void, once referred to as the vacuum.
The void was thought to be a container holding nothingness, until, that is, it was more closely examined, revealing that it actually held a bed of quantum foam with particles that continually popped in and out of existence -- their net energy value always hovering around zero.
No harm was done as long as this process adhered to the principle of uncertainty. This principle suggested that the void could be utilized as an energy bank, where energy could be borrowed so long as it was replaced. The shorter the borrowing terms, the higher the cost of the loan.
Surprisingly, when we sum up all the positive and negative energy in the universe from almost any direction, we find that the total value is exactly zero.
This holds true whether we are calculating the universe's total charge, its total impulse, or angular momentum.
Despite its apparent abundance of matter, the universe maintains a zero net energy balance between positively charged particles and negative gravitational fields. And this tendency to always sum to zero, undoubtedly reflects the fact that it began with the void.
Having the void serve as an energy bank also explains why, as the author suggested, a singularity at the Big Bang was unnecessary.
Since withdrawals were always paid back, the energy accounts in the void always remain balanced at exactly zero. Therefore, there was no need for a singularity to accompany the Big Bang.
The author emphasized that, contrary to popular belief, the void on the first day of the universe was not empty or filled with nothingness, but rather was a living entity; a dynamic and ever-changing substance filled with activity and potential.
Day Two: The Big Bang (minus a singularity)
Thus, the true origin story begins with a random particle that expanded beyond the bed of foam in the void at faster than light speed.
This particle's Higgs boson field blossomed, initiating a chain reaction that inflated the vacuum to unimaginable proportions. We refer to this incredible expansion as the Big Bang.
It was first predicted by George Lemaitre's reformulated equations of general relativity.
At the time, Lemaitre, a Belgian physicist and priest, had made other controversial predictions as well. For instance, he predicted that the universe had begun from a single primeval atom on loan from the void; that this occurred 10 to 20 billion years old; that the universe was dynamic; and that the Big Bang would be accompanied by ripples of radiation that would reverberate across the universe, leaving a measurable electromagnetic echo in its path.
In due course, experiments using the Standard Model of physics, would confirm each of Lemaitre's predictions.
The most controversial of them was not the Big Bang itself, but the idea that the universe was dynamic (and thus was possibly unstable) rather than static (and therefore permanently stable).
Fred Hoyle, a renowned British astronomer was so repulsed by Lemaitre's act of heresy, and so certain that the universe was uncreated, eternal and stationary, that he sarcastically dubbed Lemaitre's idea the "Big Bang." It was a derisive putdown that stuck.
I still find it difficult to believe that a mere six decades ago, the scientific community not only believed that the universe was static but also that it consisted of only one galaxy: Ours!
Even Einstein himself blanched at the idea that the universe was dynamic.
Notoriously, and regretfully, he introduced a fudge factor into his equations of general relativity specifically to mitigate the unsettling implications of a possible non-static universe. He later admitted that it was his greatest blunder.
Around this time, an American astrophysicist named Edwin Hubble made two astounding discoveries. He first revealed the unsettling an embarrassing truth that the galaxy we inhabit is not the entire universe, not even by a long shot, but is rather just one of literally 200 billions other galaxies! Second, he confirmed that the universe is not static, but is indeed expanding.
With Hubble's discoveries, Lemaitre's Big Bang theory was no longer a joke even to Hoyle.
These sobering realities not only liberated scientists from the prejudice of perceiving the world as a one-galaxy universe, but also freed it from the notion that the universe is static and unchanging.
Experimental results using the Standard Model eventually corroborated all of Lemaitre's predictions.
In particular, the echo Lemaitre predicted was discovered to be a collection of fossil relics from the moment protons separated from matter during the cooling process.
The electromagnetic echo was aptly named the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. It's discovery was confirmation of Lemaitre's final prediction and sealed the success of both the Standard Model and Lemaitre's theories.
Day Three: The Higgs boson universe
Before the expansion, the initial state of the universe was the void, where a formless sea of bubbles was, as predicted by the Standard Model, soon to be transformed by the Higgs boson field into particles with mass.
Each particle that passed through the Higgs boson field was slowed down sufficiently for it to either acquire enough mass to survive or became unstable and perished.
As the universe expanded and cooled down, overtime it became inhospitable for the Higgs boson which required high temperatures to continue existing.
Consequently, the Higgs boson vanished, not to be seen again until 2012, 13.8 billion years later, when scientists at CERN conducted experiments involving high intensity particle collisions that proved that the Higgs boson had existed before the Big Bang.
Day Four: Let there be light and matter
The Higgs field's importance lay in its ability to give particles mass, diversifying the previously uniform universe.
When coupled with the weak interactions separating from the electromagnetic force, subatomic particles gradually achieved stable forms, creating matter and laying the foundations for the material world.
Among the earliest of these developments, was the emergence of protons that served as critical building blocks for more complex cosmic structures; and then, as temperatures continued to drop, electrons orbiting protons came into existence, paving the way for atoms and molecules.
One major result of electrons being trapped inside a cloud of protons roaming free, was that on the fourth day, rather than the first, light was produced.
Day Five: The birth of stars and planets
As the universe continued to cool, it's development slowed down from the frenetic rapid fire cosmic events happening in mere hundreds of thousands of years, to a more gradual hundred million year span. This is when gravity, once only a supporting actor, steps into the spotlight at center stage in shaping our universe.
Gravity brought about another major transformation: It used matter to bring in gaseous clouds that consisted of atoms, the essential element of matter. With atoms, stable elements, like hydrogen and helium came into being.
In the beginning, an unequal distribution of matter across the universe created denser pockets of material, that, under the influence of gravity attracted even more matter.
This gradual density increase paved the way for pockets of gas to slowly become gigantic gaseous spheres, which developed incredibly dense hot and compressed cores. Thus, gravity, acting on gas, opened the curtains to the birth of the first stars.
After 200 million years, their intense heat triggered the fusion of hydrogen isotopes and resulted in an explosion of heat and light. This event marked the birth of the universe's first star.
The early stars were so massive that they were called mega stars. However, their significance was not due to size alone.
Inside their nuclear cores these mega stars forged increasingly heavier elements that contributed to the creation of newer stars and eventually to planets.
Day Six: The Birth of galaxies
Since the universe's inception, massive fires inside stars have burned out releasing gas, dust and heavier elements.
Once this happened gravity took hold, pulling these components together to give rise to galaxies. And central to almost every galaxy, exists a supermassive black hole, including one in our own Milky Way.
These black holes took on mind-boggling mass, millions of times greater than our sun.
However, they didn't swallow up everything because momentum kept stars and other matter orbiting the black hole, in a rotational disc.
Our Milky Way, a spiraling collection of approximately 200 billion stars, is just one of an equal number of galaxies present in the universe that did so.
Day Seven: Life comes to the Milky Way
Nestled in the calm galaxy of the Milky Way, something extraordinary happened: our solar system was born. Molecular clouds, composed of hydrogen, helium and other elements, condensed to form our sun and the planets that orbit it.
One of these planets, earth, developed a gaseous atmosphere and water, eventually harboring life in its oceans.
Over billions of years, life grew in complexity, giving rise to the human species, capable of tracing its origins back to the very beginning. Five stars
