Gentlemen start your Warp engines
Discussion
cymtriks said:
Gene,
Why does a "warp drive" invoke problems with time?
I thought that the whole point of a "warp" was that the problems with FTL were sidestepped. In other words, if space changes shape while we travel, can we avoid the timetravel problem?
Names or 'folding space' mean nothing, it is what you are trying to do that counts.Why does a "warp drive" invoke problems with time?
I thought that the whole point of a "warp" was that the problems with FTL were sidestepped. In other words, if space changes shape while we travel, can we avoid the timetravel problem?
The Cosmos works very simply, at any given moment there is a given amount of energy and its equivalence present, it never dissipates, just moves around, doing work, fizzing off into the distance or what ever, so let's give that a random number we'll call it 'x'... 'x' is the value of the total energy+eq in the entire cosmos, this is an accounting process, nothing more, we call it a geometry in maths at this level.
So 13bn years ago the Cosmos had an energy+eq account of 'x' and today that remains the same.
What time travel is doing is taking you and your machine (that have an energy+eq value) taking it from this moment in time and adding it to the Cosmos sometime later.
First the Cosmos is in delicate balance as far as energy+eq is concerned, taking any from it means collapse of the Cosmos, it goes 'phoom' big style immediately, so what you go to? No future.
Go back in time and you do the same thing but in going you kill the future from that point and arriving back in time kills it from there causing you not exist to do it!
So we can't go back, because if someone had gone back to any time before now we wouldn't be here.
The moment someone tries it and leaves he ceases to exist also as he/she has no future to go to.
You, me and all of us are here, stuck here, in our little time frame, our energy+eq can't be accommodated at any other time than that given us.
Bum.
What was the story about a (fictional) company that ran trips back to the dinosaur age, with the strict warning that tourists must not step off the path? As you can imagine, a tourist duly steps off the path and crushes a butterfly. Nothing is thought of it until they arrive back in the present day - and the spelling on the company's signboard is different...
The phenomenon has a name that escapes me. Something to do with chaos theory I think.
(If it can't be done, at least you can write stories about doing it!)
What was the story about a (fictional) company that ran trips back to the dinosaur age, with the strict warning that tourists must not step off the path? As you can imagine, a tourist duly steps off the path and crushes a butterfly. Nothing is thought of it until they arrive back in the present day - and the spelling on the company's signboard is different...
The phenomenon has a name that escapes me. Something to do with chaos theory I think.
(If it can't be done, at least you can write stories about doing it!)
Simpo Two said:
Bum.
What was the story about a (fictional) company that ran trips back to the dinosaur age, with the strict warning that tourists must not step off the path? As you can imagine, a tourist duly steps off the path and crushes a butterfly. Nothing is thought of it until they arrive back in the present day - and the spelling on the company's signboard is different...
The phenomenon has a name that escapes me. Something to do with chaos theory I think.
(If it can't be done, at least you can write stories about doing it!)
you utter sod What was the story about a (fictional) company that ran trips back to the dinosaur age, with the strict warning that tourists must not step off the path? As you can imagine, a tourist duly steps off the path and crushes a butterfly. Nothing is thought of it until they arrive back in the present day - and the spelling on the company's signboard is different...
The phenomenon has a name that escapes me. Something to do with chaos theory I think.
(If it can't be done, at least you can write stories about doing it!)
I remember the story, I used to have the book with it in...
Was it John Wyndham, short story, Trouble with time?
Poul Anderson or dear old Arthur C?
You know I have a thousand books to look through now to try to find it
Still, rereading them will be worth the journey through my spare room
perdu said:
you utter sod
I remember the story, I used to have the book with it in...
Was it John Wyndham, short story, Trouble with time?
Poul Anderson or dear old Arthur C?
You know I have a thousand books to look through now to try to find it
Still, rereading them will be worth the journey through my spare room
A Sound of Thunder is the name of the story and I'm guessing Simpo Two is referring the butterfly effect.I remember the story, I used to have the book with it in...
Was it John Wyndham, short story, Trouble with time?
Poul Anderson or dear old Arthur C?
You know I have a thousand books to look through now to try to find it
Still, rereading them will be worth the journey through my spare room
hth
perdu said:
Laplace said:
A Sound of Thunder is the name of the story and I'm guessing Simpo Two is referring the butterfly effect.
hth
I dont remember that title hth
fading old man's memory...I do realise were on butterfly effect though
Thanks for the title, off to the library in the AM
Two stories that kick started my love of science fiction.
Thanks guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder
I hadn't realised it was so famous but it always stuck in my memory even though I don't recall reading any Ray Bradbury. Guess that's the mark of a good story (like Arthur C Clarke, and before him HG Wells)
NB: Also a film! www.imdb.com/title/tt0318081/
I hadn't realised it was so famous but it always stuck in my memory even though I don't recall reading any Ray Bradbury. Guess that's the mark of a good story (like Arthur C Clarke, and before him HG Wells)
NB: Also a film! www.imdb.com/title/tt0318081/
Gene Vincent said:
Names or 'folding space' mean nothing, it is what you are trying to do that counts.
Gene,I'm really not seeing the issue!
I would have thought that the problems with causality (which I asume your time travel stuff is about) wouldn't apply if space was distorted such that a spaceship didn't move very far or fast, while space did. As far as the energy sum is concerned why would it fail if a quantity of mass/energy found a "short cut" to another part of space?
It is begining to look as if the only way to reach the stars is to use Ark Ships or suspended animation, a bit depressing really!
Time is a point dimension, to exist as such it has to have certain attributes, the most awkward attribute is that of Relativity.
Taking your last point first, there will be no need to suspend animation.
If we were to travel close the SoL, our time slows so even a journey of 1000lys will be over very quickly five years to accelerate a few seconds of near light speed and the 5 years deceleration. Even a journey of 1bn lys follows the same pattern 5 year 'up' a few seconds of near SoL and 5 years 'down'... effectively all space journeys take 10 years.
This means space exploration is literally 10 year missions and there would be no limit in that time to where you could go. 13bn lys years away is just 10 years on-board.
It is when you try to come back that you are dragged into problems, your 10 years means we here who eagerly await your return are all dead, we died 2000, 2bn or 26bn years earlier.
This is a consequence of Relativity.
I have some work to do, so will construct the second part this morning and post about lunchtime.
Taking your last point first, there will be no need to suspend animation.
If we were to travel close the SoL, our time slows so even a journey of 1000lys will be over very quickly five years to accelerate a few seconds of near light speed and the 5 years deceleration. Even a journey of 1bn lys follows the same pattern 5 year 'up' a few seconds of near SoL and 5 years 'down'... effectively all space journeys take 10 years.
This means space exploration is literally 10 year missions and there would be no limit in that time to where you could go. 13bn lys years away is just 10 years on-board.
It is when you try to come back that you are dragged into problems, your 10 years means we here who eagerly await your return are all dead, we died 2000, 2bn or 26bn years earlier.
This is a consequence of Relativity.
I have some work to do, so will construct the second part this morning and post about lunchtime.
The entire edifice of Warp travel is based on Alcubierres mathematic model of a very 'odd' field tensor.
That is barely comprehensible as an explanation, so I'll try to encapsulate why this simply is not possible in reality.
The first thing to remember that pure maths allows me, should I so wish, to perform nothing more than conjuring tricks, I can build mathematical models that on the surface contradict almost everything we know works and brings us or has brought us an advance in knowledge.
But to do this I have to ignore something fundamental, it is called Congruence, I have alluded to it before and the most well known congruent point is E=mc^2 which is an essential tool to stop us going off on a fantasy, but there are dozens of them. These are 'checks' on my calculations to avoid wasting my time and life.
But... the real 'trick' is to stay congruent almost all the way then have just a little bit of incongruence in one of your calcs and see if there is any potential for a new attribute in certain 'knowns' to be found.
This is what Alcubierre did, his maths 'works'... but only up to a point.
Let's go back to that 'odd' field tensor... this is an energy tensor, a tensor simply a geometric array and we know so much about the energy tensor that we have build our civilisation upon it, Alcubierre posits the principle that perhaps we don't know it all, this is probably true and some minor adjustments may occur, but his tensor causes energy to behave in ways we have never observed for any length of time.
We are very clever monkeys, we can also conjure with nature, we can make some energy behave like that posited in Alcubierres tensor, but the 'weight' of the energy that doesn't behave like that forces it to 'conform', we can 'fend off' this Cosmological conformity for a few trillionths of a second, but it costs us hugely in applied energy and it causes stress within the entire energy field as a result, it has side effects, so even if we could manage to sustain this exotic energy for any length of time it is so aberrant that it would change the conditions of the production process itself causing it to collapse.
The Cosmos is huge, it is in balance, it fiercely controls itself to remain balanced not through some innate 'will' just by the omnipresence of it.
I am not decrying Alcubierres work, it is brilliant and the work of a genius and we'll look at it again if we find a way of diverting the Cosmos eyes from the aberation, but it does remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
I hope that helps.
That is barely comprehensible as an explanation, so I'll try to encapsulate why this simply is not possible in reality.
The first thing to remember that pure maths allows me, should I so wish, to perform nothing more than conjuring tricks, I can build mathematical models that on the surface contradict almost everything we know works and brings us or has brought us an advance in knowledge.
But to do this I have to ignore something fundamental, it is called Congruence, I have alluded to it before and the most well known congruent point is E=mc^2 which is an essential tool to stop us going off on a fantasy, but there are dozens of them. These are 'checks' on my calculations to avoid wasting my time and life.
But... the real 'trick' is to stay congruent almost all the way then have just a little bit of incongruence in one of your calcs and see if there is any potential for a new attribute in certain 'knowns' to be found.
This is what Alcubierre did, his maths 'works'... but only up to a point.
Let's go back to that 'odd' field tensor... this is an energy tensor, a tensor simply a geometric array and we know so much about the energy tensor that we have build our civilisation upon it, Alcubierre posits the principle that perhaps we don't know it all, this is probably true and some minor adjustments may occur, but his tensor causes energy to behave in ways we have never observed for any length of time.
We are very clever monkeys, we can also conjure with nature, we can make some energy behave like that posited in Alcubierres tensor, but the 'weight' of the energy that doesn't behave like that forces it to 'conform', we can 'fend off' this Cosmological conformity for a few trillionths of a second, but it costs us hugely in applied energy and it causes stress within the entire energy field as a result, it has side effects, so even if we could manage to sustain this exotic energy for any length of time it is so aberrant that it would change the conditions of the production process itself causing it to collapse.
The Cosmos is huge, it is in balance, it fiercely controls itself to remain balanced not through some innate 'will' just by the omnipresence of it.
I am not decrying Alcubierres work, it is brilliant and the work of a genius and we'll look at it again if we find a way of diverting the Cosmos eyes from the aberation, but it does remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
I hope that helps.
Gene Vincent said:
But... the real 'trick' is to stay congruent almost all the way then have just a little bit of incongruence in one of your calcs and see if there is any potential for a new attribute in certain 'knowns' to be found.
It seems Roddenberry devised dilithium crystals just as the early chemists devised phlogiston...So the idea of a "warp" is effectively a scientific fantasy, unlikely ever to be practical.
Does the same apply to all the other ways that have been thought of to provide a short cut across vast distances? Is there any hope for something like the worm holes or hyperspace in science fiction for example?
Are there any remaining ways for FTL to work?
How do we explain the vast velocities that existed in the expansion phase of the early universe? Can we vary the speed of light thus raising the speed limit and limiting relativistic effects even at speeds far beyond the normal speed of light?
Does the same apply to all the other ways that have been thought of to provide a short cut across vast distances? Is there any hope for something like the worm holes or hyperspace in science fiction for example?
Are there any remaining ways for FTL to work?
How do we explain the vast velocities that existed in the expansion phase of the early universe? Can we vary the speed of light thus raising the speed limit and limiting relativistic effects even at speeds far beyond the normal speed of light?
Remember Clarke's Laws:
1.When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2.The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3.Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
1.When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2.The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3.Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
cymtriks said:
So the idea of a "warp" is effectively a scientific fantasy, unlikely ever to be practical.
Does the same apply to all the other ways that have been thought of to provide a short cut across vast distances? Is there any hope for something like the worm holes or hyperspace in science fiction for example?
Are there any remaining ways for FTL to work?
How do we explain the vast velocities that existed in the expansion phase of the early universe? Can we vary the speed of light thus raising the speed limit and limiting relativistic effects even at speeds far beyond the normal speed of light?
Not so much fantasy as finally ill-disciplined mathematically.Does the same apply to all the other ways that have been thought of to provide a short cut across vast distances? Is there any hope for something like the worm holes or hyperspace in science fiction for example?
Are there any remaining ways for FTL to work?
How do we explain the vast velocities that existed in the expansion phase of the early universe? Can we vary the speed of light thus raising the speed limit and limiting relativistic effects even at speeds far beyond the normal speed of light?
Pretty much, see previous posts by me about the net value of Energy and its Equivalence and its finite amount in the Cosmos.
Not really, the energy required to perform this trick along with the enforced conformity of any exotic energy stops all of them.
The was no 'light' when the Cosmos 'inflated', the big bang was initially a 'black event' because light did not exist until the Cosmos cooled (and it did this by inflating massively) when it finally cooled sufficiently the light, that was coalesced with other parts of the 'soup', was released this is what almost instantly slowed the inflation to simply expansion.
So although the speed of light was breached, the Cosmos had not deconstructed itself sufficiently for there to be any limit on velocity that we know now as the Speed of light, but the maths does give us a good idea of the extent of this multiplication of the the speed of light, so in about 5 seconds the Soup became approx 73bn lys across, our 'visible Cosmos' is about 13.7 bn lys across, this is part of why we can't discern any centre and the non-causal sponmtaneous expansion of the vast areas of Free Space between the galaxies and clusters has also mitigated against us discerning a point for the big bang.
Sorry.
cymtriks said:
So what was different about the early universe that permited vast velocities?
What defines the speed of light, why is it the value it is?
Why is this balance of energy so crucial, it seems to be a big factor in rendering FTL unworkable, why does the balance have to stay the same?
If you go outside on a clear night you see part of the Cosmos, it is beautiful just full of stars, but it's a very cold place, just a few degs above Ab. Zero, the early Cosmos was not like that at all.What defines the speed of light, why is it the value it is?
Why is this balance of energy so crucial, it seems to be a big factor in rendering FTL unworkable, why does the balance have to stay the same?
It was hot, and light did not exist, what were later to become Photons was wrapped up with other parts of the small, hot and almost infinitely dense ball about 10cms across... we can call this ball just a soup, it is our Cosmos but not as we know it.
This ball of soup was all there was, it had no constraints on it, such as the speed of light as there was no light, that came later.
This Cosmos was not 'fully lit' (as in light everywhere) for the first 345,000 years of its existence.
So this soup was not bound to behave by the constants we have in our later Cosmos.
The SoL is where it is because it works.
It is part of the balance and forms an essential part in equivalence.
The SoL is in reality what it is because it is the result of the equivalence of matter/energy.
It isn't a big factor it is essentially the only factor.
But to answer your last question fully is very hard to do without maths, but I'll give it a go...
Tomorrow...
Edited by Gene Vincent on Friday 28th September 23:00
Before we go any further we should get some proper time lines on things... the following is a simple and as far as we can tell a fairly accurate timeline for this Cosmos.
I originally posted this a year ago and I've modified it a bit to put newer stuff in.
Between 0 and 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds:
General Relativity stops working and we need to take into account quantum effects on gravity.
Probably our notions of time and space, in fact possibly any single notion we have at all does not make any sense at all.
Between 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 and 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds:
We are now in the realm of the known. (95% probability)
There were probably only two forces, gravity and the electronuclear force.
The temperature of the universe was about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Kelvin.
The particles that we know today did not really exist, there was no real difference between quarks, neutrinos and electrons yet.
What was a single particle back then would manifest itself as two particles now for example... Electric charge didn't exist and neither did the color nuclear charge of quarks.
The universe grew from fist sized to 10 to 12cms diameter.
Between 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 and 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 seconds:
Things are more conclusive here (99.5% probability)
The electronuclear force splits into the strong nuclear force and the electroweak force.
Quarks and electrons are now different, although neutrinos and electrons are still the same. (99.999% probability)
We suspect that one of the after effects of the forces separating was the result that matter became slightly more common than antimatter. (99.99% probability)
This is the start of the inflationary period.
Between 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 and 0.000000000001 seconds:
Physics that we properly understand is now in effect. (6+ Sigma)
The Cosmos is very large and filled with quarks and electron/neutrinos.
The strong force controls the quarks and the electroweak force controls both quarks and electron/neutrinos.
The Cosmos continues to expand at slower rates than before and continues to decelerate, still vastly faster than the SoL.
If supersymmetry is true, then at some point in this period it stopped having an obvious effect on the universe. Supersymmetry says that every particle species has a "twin" species with different spin, at some point in this period the universe became too cold for the twins to exist.
The vast amount of the inflationary period is over. (Cosmos now 65bn lyrs across)
Between 0.000000000001 and 0.000001 seconds: 6+ sigma from now on.
The physics that we have today starts but is not 'all at once'. <<<< very important.
The electroweak force separates into the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force.
Electrons and neutrinos start to exist as separate entities.
Electric charge and electric current as we know it begin to exist and also 'light' comes slowly into existence.
The Cosmos is basically a very hot soup of these particles.
Between 0.000001 seconds and 1 second:
Finally the universe is cold enough to allow quarks to combine into protons and neutrons and other hadrons, taking us one step closer to having atoms.
The is progressively becoming hadrons, electrons, neutrinos, anti-hadrons, anti-electrons and anti-neutrinos.
At about 1 second it is too cold for new hadrons and anti-hadrons to be created, at this point production of these particles effectively ceases.
Hadrons and anti-hadrons now begin transfiguring each other until there are basically no anti-hadrons left and only a few hadrons.
The surviving hadrons are a miniscule fraction of the original amount, but they will form the whole Cosmos we see today.
Electrons, neutrinos, anti-electrons and anti-neutrinos now vastly out number hadrons.
1 second to 376,000 years:
In the next 10 seconds the universe becomes too cold for new electrons, neutrinos, anti-electrons and anti-neutrinos to be created.
During this 10 seconds (probably less than 5) all the inflation is over.
Just like the hadrons, they begin to transfigure, leaving only a tiny bit of the original amount.
Essentially no new matter will ever be created.
The temperature continues to drop, until it is cold enough for protons and neutrons to stick together forming atomic nuclei.
This continues until the universe is 20 minutes old, when the temperature drops beneath a million degrees creating mostly hydrogen and helium nuclei.
The universe is now made mostly of light trapped between the hydrogen and helium nuclei and the electrons and stays that way for thousands of years.
At around 70,000 years the universe stops being just a big soup and starts to become lumpy.
Irregularities start to develop.
Dark Matter probably causes the irregularities to develop, until the universe goes from being a soup to being a bunch of lumps separated by emptiness.
This is the first point at which Dark Matter is noticeable.
From about 345,000 years to 376,000 photons are released, the Cosmos slowly begins to light up.
376,000 years to 150 million years:
The Cosmos is now cold enough for the hydrogen and helium nuclei to capture the electrons, creating hydrogen and helium atoms.
Matter is now electrically neutral and light escapes and begins to move freely.
However nothing makes light, so after this initial burst 345,000 to 376,000 years the universe slowly becomes quite dark again.
150 million to 1 billion years:
Isolated energetic objects begin to exist.
That is objects which are hot, independent of the background temperature of the universe.
The first big black holes form, sucking in the surrounding matter and blasting out jets of radiation.
These huge black holes together with their accretion disks (the spiral of matter surrounding them) are called quasars.
The first stars begin to form (new light), outside of galaxies. Eventually the quasars will settle down to become galaxies.
The earliest stars produce the heavier elements in their interiors, adding something other than hydrogen and helium to the universe.
The galaxies begin arranging themselves into groups through complex gravitational interactions.
On larger scales the groups assemble into clusters. The clusters into superclusters. Finally superclusters string together to form filaments.
1 billion years to 8.5 billion years:
New generations of stars are produced in galaxies.
8.5 billion to 9 billion years:
The Cosmos starts to expand faster again, although not at the speeds as the earlier inflationary period.
It begins to expand faster and faster as time passes and continues to today.
It is suspected that simply the extent of the race into the void is no longer uniform.
I originally posted this a year ago and I've modified it a bit to put newer stuff in.
Between 0 and 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds:
General Relativity stops working and we need to take into account quantum effects on gravity.
Probably our notions of time and space, in fact possibly any single notion we have at all does not make any sense at all.
Between 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 and 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds:
We are now in the realm of the known. (95% probability)
There were probably only two forces, gravity and the electronuclear force.
The temperature of the universe was about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Kelvin.
The particles that we know today did not really exist, there was no real difference between quarks, neutrinos and electrons yet.
What was a single particle back then would manifest itself as two particles now for example... Electric charge didn't exist and neither did the color nuclear charge of quarks.
The universe grew from fist sized to 10 to 12cms diameter.
Between 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 and 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 seconds:
Things are more conclusive here (99.5% probability)
The electronuclear force splits into the strong nuclear force and the electroweak force.
Quarks and electrons are now different, although neutrinos and electrons are still the same. (99.999% probability)
We suspect that one of the after effects of the forces separating was the result that matter became slightly more common than antimatter. (99.99% probability)
This is the start of the inflationary period.
Between 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 and 0.000000000001 seconds:
Physics that we properly understand is now in effect. (6+ Sigma)
The Cosmos is very large and filled with quarks and electron/neutrinos.
The strong force controls the quarks and the electroweak force controls both quarks and electron/neutrinos.
The Cosmos continues to expand at slower rates than before and continues to decelerate, still vastly faster than the SoL.
If supersymmetry is true, then at some point in this period it stopped having an obvious effect on the universe. Supersymmetry says that every particle species has a "twin" species with different spin, at some point in this period the universe became too cold for the twins to exist.
The vast amount of the inflationary period is over. (Cosmos now 65bn lyrs across)
Between 0.000000000001 and 0.000001 seconds: 6+ sigma from now on.
The physics that we have today starts but is not 'all at once'. <<<< very important.
The electroweak force separates into the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force.
Electrons and neutrinos start to exist as separate entities.
Electric charge and electric current as we know it begin to exist and also 'light' comes slowly into existence.
The Cosmos is basically a very hot soup of these particles.
Between 0.000001 seconds and 1 second:
Finally the universe is cold enough to allow quarks to combine into protons and neutrons and other hadrons, taking us one step closer to having atoms.
The is progressively becoming hadrons, electrons, neutrinos, anti-hadrons, anti-electrons and anti-neutrinos.
At about 1 second it is too cold for new hadrons and anti-hadrons to be created, at this point production of these particles effectively ceases.
Hadrons and anti-hadrons now begin transfiguring each other until there are basically no anti-hadrons left and only a few hadrons.
The surviving hadrons are a miniscule fraction of the original amount, but they will form the whole Cosmos we see today.
Electrons, neutrinos, anti-electrons and anti-neutrinos now vastly out number hadrons.
1 second to 376,000 years:
In the next 10 seconds the universe becomes too cold for new electrons, neutrinos, anti-electrons and anti-neutrinos to be created.
During this 10 seconds (probably less than 5) all the inflation is over.
Just like the hadrons, they begin to transfigure, leaving only a tiny bit of the original amount.
Essentially no new matter will ever be created.
The temperature continues to drop, until it is cold enough for protons and neutrons to stick together forming atomic nuclei.
This continues until the universe is 20 minutes old, when the temperature drops beneath a million degrees creating mostly hydrogen and helium nuclei.
The universe is now made mostly of light trapped between the hydrogen and helium nuclei and the electrons and stays that way for thousands of years.
At around 70,000 years the universe stops being just a big soup and starts to become lumpy.
Irregularities start to develop.
Dark Matter probably causes the irregularities to develop, until the universe goes from being a soup to being a bunch of lumps separated by emptiness.
This is the first point at which Dark Matter is noticeable.
From about 345,000 years to 376,000 photons are released, the Cosmos slowly begins to light up.
376,000 years to 150 million years:
The Cosmos is now cold enough for the hydrogen and helium nuclei to capture the electrons, creating hydrogen and helium atoms.
Matter is now electrically neutral and light escapes and begins to move freely.
However nothing makes light, so after this initial burst 345,000 to 376,000 years the universe slowly becomes quite dark again.
150 million to 1 billion years:
Isolated energetic objects begin to exist.
That is objects which are hot, independent of the background temperature of the universe.
The first big black holes form, sucking in the surrounding matter and blasting out jets of radiation.
These huge black holes together with their accretion disks (the spiral of matter surrounding them) are called quasars.
The first stars begin to form (new light), outside of galaxies. Eventually the quasars will settle down to become galaxies.
The earliest stars produce the heavier elements in their interiors, adding something other than hydrogen and helium to the universe.
The galaxies begin arranging themselves into groups through complex gravitational interactions.
On larger scales the groups assemble into clusters. The clusters into superclusters. Finally superclusters string together to form filaments.
1 billion years to 8.5 billion years:
New generations of stars are produced in galaxies.
8.5 billion to 9 billion years:
The Cosmos starts to expand faster again, although not at the speeds as the earlier inflationary period.
It begins to expand faster and faster as time passes and continues to today.
It is suspected that simply the extent of the race into the void is no longer uniform.
Edited by Gene Vincent on Saturday 29th September 14:19
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