Origins Quest
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  • The First Three Days of the Earth
    • Reconciling Science and the Bible >
      • Precise Science Confirms the Bible
      • Moses Foresaw Three Discoveries >
        • First Discovery >
          • Mass and Weight of Energy
          • Transformations and Materialization
          • Different Kinds of Rays and Materialization in Empty Space
          • Was Energy the Source of Material
        • Second Discovery
        • Third Discovery >
          • The First Light
          • Separating Light from Darkness
        • Early Ideas about the Beginning
        • An Up-to-Date Ancient Cosmology
        • The Confirmation
        • A Challenging Question
      • Cycles of Darkness and Light >
        • Teaching Children
        • The Idea the Word “Day” Expresses >
          • A Day Not The First Day
          • Not Literal 24-Hour Days
        • How Long Did the First Three Days Last?
        • Earth Rotation and the First Two Days
        • The Duration of the First Day
        • The First Three Cycles of Darkness and Light
      • Was There a Beginning? >
        • An Uncreated Unchanging Universe
        • Evidence for a Beginning >
          • Elements in the Stars
          • Natural Radiation from Space
          • Stars Consume Their Fuel
        • Cosmology and Relativity
        • Instability Determinism Uncertainty, Predestination >
          • Instability
          • Stability and Determinism
          • Predestination Indeterminacy Uncertainty
        • Einstein Science and Philosophy
        • Predestination versus Timely Intervention
    • Simple Elements and Morning Stars >
      • First Evening Energy and Particles >
        • The Energy of Different Kinds of Rays
        • The Most Energetic Rays
        • Natural Particle Production >
          • Simulating the Process
          • Particles from Darkness
        • Darkness in the Bible >
          • Why Darkness Comes First
          • Isaiah on Darkness and Light
      • First Morning-Simple Elements >
        • Doppler Shift Expansion and Cooling >
          • The Beginning of Nucleosynthesis
          • Four Forces
          • Forces Present in Empty Space
        • Nucleosynthesis >
          • The First Elements
          • The First Halt in Nuclei Production
          • Insufficient Complexity
        • The First Light Was Good >
          • The Immediate Cause of the First Light
          • Forming the Light
          • The Confirmation of Darkness and Light
    • Stars that Formed Complex Elements >
      • Second Evening-Expansion >
        • The Expanding Universe >
          • The Giant Atom that Exploded
          • Expansion Not a Big Bang Explosion
          • Expansion Preserves Order
        • Expanding Now But Later What? >
          • Expanding but Uncreated
          • Continuous Creation
          • The Cyclic Version of Continuous Creation
        • The Expanding Universe Prevails
      • Second Morning-Heavy Elements >
        • Heat and Light Make Heavy Elements >
          • Differences in Stellar Composition
          • Nuclear Binding Energy
        • Energy from Fusion and Fission >
          • The Proton-Proton Reaction
          • Nuclear Stability
        • Different Kinds of Fission
        • Burning Helium and Heavier Elements
    • Forming the Sun and Earth >
      • Third Evening-A Dusty Yellow Star >
        • Supernovas Begin the Third Evening
        • Extraterrestrial Water
        • Lighting the Sun
        • The Carbon to Oxygen Reaction
        • The Darkness of the Third Evening
      • Third Morning-The Earth Forms >
        • The Search for a Planet Suitable for Life
    • How Does God Create? >
      • Conditions at the Very Beginning >
        • Creation from Nothing
        • Can We Create Energy? >
          • God Works to Create Energy
          • The Work Necessary to Create the Universe
        • Denial of Creation
        • The Simplest Explanation
        • Creation in a Singularity >
          • Can We Investigate the Instant of Creation?
          • The First Light Has Fluctuations
      • The Next Three Days >
        • Structure in the Genesis Narrative >
          • Examples of Parallelism
          • Parallel Structure in the Creation Narrative
        • Day Four >
          • Not All Stars Formed on the Fourth Day
          • When Did the Stars and Sun Start to Shine?
          • Signs for Animals and People
      • What Is the Origin of the Universe?
    • Appendices >
      • Appendix A
      • Appendix B
  • Design or Luck?
    • Creative Design >
      • Darwin and Adaptive Variation >
        • Finches and Form Adaptation
        • Adaptive Behavior and Structure
        • Intelligence and Autonomy
      • Biological Structure and Reproduction
      • Adaptive Form
      • Darwin and Darwinism >
        • The Development of the Sciences
        • Contrasting Darwinism and Thermodynamics
        • Darwinism Today
      • The Limits of Automatic Design
    • Why Are Not All Darwinists Rich? >
      • Automatic Design: Artificial and Natural >
        • The Automatic Lens-Design Program
        • Company Top Secret
        • Comparing Evolution and Lens Design
        • My Colleagues Reacted
      • Conclusion-Darwinism Does Not Work >
        • Can Design Be Automatic?
        • Darwinism and Automatic Design
      • How Far Can Small Steps Take Us? >
        • Small Improvements Are Merely Engineering
        • The Vastness of Hyperspace
        • Primordial Alphabet Soup >
          • Wide Coding Overcomes Noise
          • DNA is a Natural Language
          • Common Ancestry
          • Accepted Words Span the Space
        • Is Creative Design Consistent with Darwinism? >
          • Engineering Design
          • A Challenge for Darwinists
    • Thermodynamics >
      • Thermodynamics Information and Creation >
        • The First Law of Thermodynamics
        • The Second Law of Thermodynamics >
          • Entropy
          • Perpetual Motion
        • Information and Order >
          • Entropy Probability and Information
          • Multiplying Probability and Adding Entropy
          • Probability and Information
        • Structure Design Intelligence and Creativity >
          • Structure and Breakdown--Death and Decay
          • Perfection and Beauty
      • Earth-Sun Thermodynamics >
        • A Simple Example of a Thermodynamic Process
        • The Example Applied to the Sun and Earth
      • Another Error about Thermodynamics >
        • A Darwinist Argument about Thermodynamics
        • Sunlight and Earth Temperature
        • What Makes Sunlight Suitable?
      • The Night Sky Is Dark >
        • Olbers and his Paradox
        • A Black Forest and the Stars >
          • Seeing to the Far Limit of the Universe
          • The Limit of the Known Universe
          • Ordinary Darkness
      • A Planet Suitable for Life
      • The Thermodynamics of Life >
        • Living Organisms and Heat Engines >
          • The Thermodynamics of Life without Sunlight
        • Entropy Thermodynamics and Prigogine >
          • Darwinism and Thermodynamics
      • Thermodynamics and the Universe >
        • Formless and Dark but Energetic and Orderly >
          • Entropy and Penrose
        • Creative Agencies and Their Characteristics
    • Complex Order-Life-Intelligence >
      • Random Action and Complexity
      • Does Matter Organize Itself?
      • Complexity Can Be Specified
      • Information and Physical Laws
      • Did Our Life Begin Elsewhere?
      • Discovering Alien Life Will Change Nothing
      • Creative Design Suits the Universe for Life
    • The Quest Continues
  • Creationism that Scientists Can Accept
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The Beginning of Nucleosynthesis

Physicists speak of many theories of strange particles produced in the high temperature and enormous pressure of the very early universe. The first particles may have been complex and heavy. Many of the strange particles were antiparticles of others. These quickly found particles of the same species and annihilated them, producing two or three gamma rays. Each annihilating pair made photons with a total energy equivalent to the mass of the pair. This contributed to the process of breaking up the original highly energetic photons into many others of lower energy. It also broke up the strange, complex, heavy particles into the more familiar, simpler, low-mass particles. Eventually the components of ordinary atoms predominated: protons, neutrons, and electrons.

At this point nucleosynthesis began. Protons and neutrons collided with each other to form the first nuclei, but they made only the three elements of greatest simplicity and lowest weight: hydrogen, helium, and lithium. The cooling put an end to particle production about the time that nucleosynthesis began. Nucleosynthesis also requires high temperatures, though not as high as those particle production requires. The protons repel each other. They must collide with sufficient speed to overcome their mutual repulsion and get close enough to each other to stick together. The cooling continued so rapidly that nucleosynthesis stopped a few minutes after the universe began.

Light usually accompanies high-energy collisions. Cycles of darkness and light let us trace the two stages of nucleosynthesis in the universe. The first stage made the nuclei of the three simplest elements, and the second stage made the heavier elements. We have gone over the first stage in this chapter, and will treat the second in another, when we come to the second time light filled the universe.

After the first stage of nucleosynthesis stopped, the cooling continued for thousands of years. Eventually the nuclei cooled enough to capture the free electrons and form atoms. At this point the light rays could travel freely. Without free charged particles like electrons and positive nuclei there was much less scattering. The cooling continued, making the light redder and redder.

On Earth the last light of day is reddish because of increasing scattering along longer and longer paths through the atmosphere. Twilight is usually cooler because the Sun’s rays strike the Earth more and more obliquely. Toward the end of the first day there was less scattering but more cooling, for different reasons.

​One cycle of darkness and light made the first atoms. The process of formation started with particles. These all came from darkness. The energetic darkness of gamma rays is a cause but also the effect of a previous cause. If we want to get back to the origin of all things, we must understand something about physical forces.
Four Forces
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  • Home
  • The First Three Days of the Earth
    • Reconciling Science and the Bible >
      • Precise Science Confirms the Bible
      • Moses Foresaw Three Discoveries >
        • First Discovery >
          • Mass and Weight of Energy
          • Transformations and Materialization
          • Different Kinds of Rays and Materialization in Empty Space
          • Was Energy the Source of Material
        • Second Discovery
        • Third Discovery >
          • The First Light
          • Separating Light from Darkness
        • Early Ideas about the Beginning
        • An Up-to-Date Ancient Cosmology
        • The Confirmation
        • A Challenging Question
      • Cycles of Darkness and Light >
        • Teaching Children
        • The Idea the Word “Day” Expresses >
          • A Day Not The First Day
          • Not Literal 24-Hour Days
        • How Long Did the First Three Days Last?
        • Earth Rotation and the First Two Days
        • The Duration of the First Day
        • The First Three Cycles of Darkness and Light
      • Was There a Beginning? >
        • An Uncreated Unchanging Universe
        • Evidence for a Beginning >
          • Elements in the Stars
          • Natural Radiation from Space
          • Stars Consume Their Fuel
        • Cosmology and Relativity
        • Instability Determinism Uncertainty, Predestination >
          • Instability
          • Stability and Determinism
          • Predestination Indeterminacy Uncertainty
        • Einstein Science and Philosophy
        • Predestination versus Timely Intervention
    • Simple Elements and Morning Stars >
      • First Evening Energy and Particles >
        • The Energy of Different Kinds of Rays
        • The Most Energetic Rays
        • Natural Particle Production >
          • Simulating the Process
          • Particles from Darkness
        • Darkness in the Bible >
          • Why Darkness Comes First
          • Isaiah on Darkness and Light
      • First Morning-Simple Elements >
        • Doppler Shift Expansion and Cooling >
          • The Beginning of Nucleosynthesis
          • Four Forces
          • Forces Present in Empty Space
        • Nucleosynthesis >
          • The First Elements
          • The First Halt in Nuclei Production
          • Insufficient Complexity
        • The First Light Was Good >
          • The Immediate Cause of the First Light
          • Forming the Light
          • The Confirmation of Darkness and Light
    • Stars that Formed Complex Elements >
      • Second Evening-Expansion >
        • The Expanding Universe >
          • The Giant Atom that Exploded
          • Expansion Not a Big Bang Explosion
          • Expansion Preserves Order
        • Expanding Now But Later What? >
          • Expanding but Uncreated
          • Continuous Creation
          • The Cyclic Version of Continuous Creation
        • The Expanding Universe Prevails
      • Second Morning-Heavy Elements >
        • Heat and Light Make Heavy Elements >
          • Differences in Stellar Composition
          • Nuclear Binding Energy
        • Energy from Fusion and Fission >
          • The Proton-Proton Reaction
          • Nuclear Stability
        • Different Kinds of Fission
        • Burning Helium and Heavier Elements
    • Forming the Sun and Earth >
      • Third Evening-A Dusty Yellow Star >
        • Supernovas Begin the Third Evening
        • Extraterrestrial Water
        • Lighting the Sun
        • The Carbon to Oxygen Reaction
        • The Darkness of the Third Evening
      • Third Morning-The Earth Forms >
        • The Search for a Planet Suitable for Life
    • How Does God Create? >
      • Conditions at the Very Beginning >
        • Creation from Nothing
        • Can We Create Energy? >
          • God Works to Create Energy
          • The Work Necessary to Create the Universe
        • Denial of Creation
        • The Simplest Explanation
        • Creation in a Singularity >
          • Can We Investigate the Instant of Creation?
          • The First Light Has Fluctuations
      • The Next Three Days >
        • Structure in the Genesis Narrative >
          • Examples of Parallelism
          • Parallel Structure in the Creation Narrative
        • Day Four >
          • Not All Stars Formed on the Fourth Day
          • When Did the Stars and Sun Start to Shine?
          • Signs for Animals and People
      • What Is the Origin of the Universe?
    • Appendices >
      • Appendix A
      • Appendix B
  • Design or Luck?
    • Creative Design >
      • Darwin and Adaptive Variation >
        • Finches and Form Adaptation
        • Adaptive Behavior and Structure
        • Intelligence and Autonomy
      • Biological Structure and Reproduction
      • Adaptive Form
      • Darwin and Darwinism >
        • The Development of the Sciences
        • Contrasting Darwinism and Thermodynamics
        • Darwinism Today
      • The Limits of Automatic Design
    • Why Are Not All Darwinists Rich? >
      • Automatic Design: Artificial and Natural >
        • The Automatic Lens-Design Program
        • Company Top Secret
        • Comparing Evolution and Lens Design
        • My Colleagues Reacted
      • Conclusion-Darwinism Does Not Work >
        • Can Design Be Automatic?
        • Darwinism and Automatic Design
      • How Far Can Small Steps Take Us? >
        • Small Improvements Are Merely Engineering
        • The Vastness of Hyperspace
        • Primordial Alphabet Soup >
          • Wide Coding Overcomes Noise
          • DNA is a Natural Language
          • Common Ancestry
          • Accepted Words Span the Space
        • Is Creative Design Consistent with Darwinism? >
          • Engineering Design
          • A Challenge for Darwinists
    • Thermodynamics >
      • Thermodynamics Information and Creation >
        • The First Law of Thermodynamics
        • The Second Law of Thermodynamics >
          • Entropy
          • Perpetual Motion
        • Information and Order >
          • Entropy Probability and Information
          • Multiplying Probability and Adding Entropy
          • Probability and Information
        • Structure Design Intelligence and Creativity >
          • Structure and Breakdown--Death and Decay
          • Perfection and Beauty
      • Earth-Sun Thermodynamics >
        • A Simple Example of a Thermodynamic Process
        • The Example Applied to the Sun and Earth
      • Another Error about Thermodynamics >
        • A Darwinist Argument about Thermodynamics
        • Sunlight and Earth Temperature
        • What Makes Sunlight Suitable?
      • The Night Sky Is Dark >
        • Olbers and his Paradox
        • A Black Forest and the Stars >
          • Seeing to the Far Limit of the Universe
          • The Limit of the Known Universe
          • Ordinary Darkness
      • A Planet Suitable for Life
      • The Thermodynamics of Life >
        • Living Organisms and Heat Engines >
          • The Thermodynamics of Life without Sunlight
        • Entropy Thermodynamics and Prigogine >
          • Darwinism and Thermodynamics
      • Thermodynamics and the Universe >
        • Formless and Dark but Energetic and Orderly >
          • Entropy and Penrose
        • Creative Agencies and Their Characteristics
    • Complex Order-Life-Intelligence >
      • Random Action and Complexity
      • Does Matter Organize Itself?
      • Complexity Can Be Specified
      • Information and Physical Laws
      • Did Our Life Begin Elsewhere?
      • Discovering Alien Life Will Change Nothing
      • Creative Design Suits the Universe for Life
    • The Quest Continues
  • Creationism that Scientists Can Accept
  • About
  • Contact
  • DVD
  • Booklet