The Giant Atom that Exploded
Lemaître and Gamow thought that, in the beginning, a nuclear explosion produced the universe. Lemaître was right insofar as he persuaded Einstein to accept the evidence that the universe had a beginning. He was also right in thinking that the initial energy must have been highly organized. However the model Lemaître depicted at the time is not correct.
Lemaître wrote in 1931, when atomic theory was still in its early stages of development.[i] He proposed that the universe was once highly organized as a gigantic atom.[ii] Physicists already knew that the heaviest natural elements are unstable and may break up spontaneously into smaller atoms. Lemaître thought in 1931 that science would eventually discover atoms with millions or billions or trillions of particles. He said that perhaps all the particles in the universe were part of one huge atom originally. Quantum mechanics had already established that the energy of atomic orbitals is proportional to the square of the atomic number. Lemaître reasoned that the energy of the primordial atom would involve very large quantum numbers. The energy would be well organized like money paid in bills worth $10 000 each. Such a huge atom would surely be unstable and at an unpredictable time it would explode like a huge atomic bomb.
Scientists can now make atoms with more than a hundred protons, but the bigger the atoms are, the faster they break up spontaneously into smaller, stable atoms. Nobody is now asking who put the primordial atom together, because we now know that such huge atoms do not exist. Lemaître was wrong about huge atoms, but he was right in thinking that the universe must have begun in a highly organized state.
The present idea is that the initial energy of the universe was organized in cosmic rays of very high vibration frequency. The energy of a photon is directly proportional to the vibration rate. Therefore in the beginning the highly organized energy was the electromagnetic energy of cosmic rays, not the energy of material particles in an atom. Later part of the energy materialized as subatomic particles, and the rest of the energy broke up into many rays of lower energies, including rays of light and heat.
[i] Lemaître, Georges, “The beginning of the world from the point of view of quantum theory,” Nature, 127 (Number 3210, 9 May 1931), p. 706.
[ii] Lemaître, Georges, “I propose to give some answer to the two questions raised by Sir James Jeans,” Supplement to Nature, 127 (Number 3210, 24 October 1931), pp. 704–706.
Lemaître wrote in 1931, when atomic theory was still in its early stages of development.[i] He proposed that the universe was once highly organized as a gigantic atom.[ii] Physicists already knew that the heaviest natural elements are unstable and may break up spontaneously into smaller atoms. Lemaître thought in 1931 that science would eventually discover atoms with millions or billions or trillions of particles. He said that perhaps all the particles in the universe were part of one huge atom originally. Quantum mechanics had already established that the energy of atomic orbitals is proportional to the square of the atomic number. Lemaître reasoned that the energy of the primordial atom would involve very large quantum numbers. The energy would be well organized like money paid in bills worth $10 000 each. Such a huge atom would surely be unstable and at an unpredictable time it would explode like a huge atomic bomb.
Scientists can now make atoms with more than a hundred protons, but the bigger the atoms are, the faster they break up spontaneously into smaller, stable atoms. Nobody is now asking who put the primordial atom together, because we now know that such huge atoms do not exist. Lemaître was wrong about huge atoms, but he was right in thinking that the universe must have begun in a highly organized state.
The present idea is that the initial energy of the universe was organized in cosmic rays of very high vibration frequency. The energy of a photon is directly proportional to the vibration rate. Therefore in the beginning the highly organized energy was the electromagnetic energy of cosmic rays, not the energy of material particles in an atom. Later part of the energy materialized as subatomic particles, and the rest of the energy broke up into many rays of lower energies, including rays of light and heat.
[i] Lemaître, Georges, “The beginning of the world from the point of view of quantum theory,” Nature, 127 (Number 3210, 9 May 1931), p. 706.
[ii] Lemaître, Georges, “I propose to give some answer to the two questions raised by Sir James Jeans,” Supplement to Nature, 127 (Number 3210, 24 October 1931), pp. 704–706.
