Was Energy the Source of Material?
Einstein’s discovery showed that all the material of the universe may have come from energetic gamma rays colliding in space. This greatly simplifies our search for a beginning. If neither matter nor energy could ever be created or destroyed, as the old conservation laws stated, then matter and energy would be separate, eternal components of the universe. If they can be created but can’t be transformed into one another then they require separate causes for their origin. Now we know that matter can be destroyed to produce energy and that energy can materialize when rays collide. Therefore, we need only search for one cause.
Which came first, matter or energy? All known forms of matter in quantity contain electromagnetic, gravitational, and nuclear energy. Nuclear energy can only exist where there is matter. Gravitational energy appears when matter or electromagnetic energy or both are distributed unevenly in space. Any quantity of electromagnetic energy can exist by itself in free space, and if it is nearly uniformly distributed in space its gravitational energy is very low. If there is only one cause, then electromagnetic energy filling all of space nearly uniformly came first, and matter came later.
Rays are packets of electromagnetic waves. Waves repeat themselves periodically as they spread through space. Each period of a wave takes a certain amount of time to develop. At the very beginning no time had yet elapsed, so no wave had yet developed. Only the potential for the development of waves and the spreading of rays was present. This makes it hard to describe the very beginning.
It is easier to describe how things were soon after the beginning. We must imagine the picture. We cannot see it, because there was no light at the beginning. The beginning was perfectly dark.
Any nucleus can form an atom if it cools enough to capture a number of electrons equal to its number of protons. The electrons are too lightweight and active to stay in the nucleus. They form a cloud around the nucleus about a hundred micro-micrometers in diameter. The nucleus is about ten thousand times smaller than that. Atoms subjected to intense heat or bombarded with ultraviolet rays or high-energy electrons turn back into plasma, a mixture of bare nuclei and electrons. Flames and the gas in neon signs are examples.
Very soon after the beginning highly energetic rays were spreading throughout space, starting from all points and traveling in all directions. When the rays collided, they collided everywhere, and often partially materialized as particles. The universe filled with an energetic mixture of rays and particles. Partial materialization took so much energy from some of the rays that they became light rays. Suddenly the picture blazed with light. The source of the light was the energetic gamma rays that collided and partially materialized in the first darkness. Since the darkness had been everywhere, the light shone out of everywhere, starting from all points and spreading from them in all directions.
Other rays, those that retained even less energy than light rays, became heat. The mixture had an extremely high temperature and pressure. All the rays and particles collided frenetically with one another. Some of the protons and neutrons hit each other hard enough to stick together and form simple nuclei of a few particles each.
The pressure made the mixture expand and cool. Cooling stopped the formation of nuclei after the first three or four minutes. Some 380 000 years later the mixture was cool enough to let the nuclei move slowly, capture the free electrons, and become atoms.
This was the beginning of matter as we know it.
Matter is neither indestructible nor eternal. Einstein’s discovery shows how material came from the energy of gamma rays, but it does not explain the source of the energy. It takes huge amounts of energy to make a tiny bit of matter.
Physicists have the capability of making gold directly from energy. When a cyclotron’s dark rays collide, they materialize as electrons, protons, and neutrons. Nuclear reactions can put protons and neutrons together to make nuclei, and when the nuclei are cool enough, they will attract the electrons to make atoms. Gold atoms have 79 electrons, 79 protons, and 118 neutrons to help hold the protons together in the nucleus. Probably no one has ever carried out the complete process of constructing a gold atom from particles. Certainly no one can get rich making gold directly from energy. A recent market price check showed that the electrical energy the cyclotron converts into particles costs 1000 times more than the value of the gold.
A very powerful agency must have worked very hard to generate so much energy.
Einstein’s discovery showed that all the material of the universe may have come from energetic gamma rays colliding in space. This greatly simplifies our search for a beginning. If neither matter nor energy could ever be created or destroyed, as the old conservation laws stated, then matter and energy would be separate, eternal components of the universe. If they can be created but can’t be transformed into one another then they require separate causes for their origin. Now we know that matter can be destroyed to produce energy and that energy can materialize when rays collide. Therefore, we need only search for one cause.
Which came first, matter or energy? All known forms of matter in quantity contain electromagnetic, gravitational, and nuclear energy. Nuclear energy can only exist where there is matter. Gravitational energy appears when matter or electromagnetic energy or both are distributed unevenly in space. Any quantity of electromagnetic energy can exist by itself in free space, and if it is nearly uniformly distributed in space its gravitational energy is very low. If there is only one cause, then electromagnetic energy filling all of space nearly uniformly came first, and matter came later.
Rays are packets of electromagnetic waves. Waves repeat themselves periodically as they spread through space. Each period of a wave takes a certain amount of time to develop. At the very beginning no time had yet elapsed, so no wave had yet developed. Only the potential for the development of waves and the spreading of rays was present. This makes it hard to describe the very beginning.
It is easier to describe how things were soon after the beginning. We must imagine the picture. We cannot see it, because there was no light at the beginning. The beginning was perfectly dark.
Any nucleus can form an atom if it cools enough to capture a number of electrons equal to its number of protons. The electrons are too lightweight and active to stay in the nucleus. They form a cloud around the nucleus about a hundred micro-micrometers in diameter. The nucleus is about ten thousand times smaller than that. Atoms subjected to intense heat or bombarded with ultraviolet rays or high-energy electrons turn back into plasma, a mixture of bare nuclei and electrons. Flames and the gas in neon signs are examples.
Very soon after the beginning highly energetic rays were spreading throughout space, starting from all points and traveling in all directions. When the rays collided, they collided everywhere, and often partially materialized as particles. The universe filled with an energetic mixture of rays and particles. Partial materialization took so much energy from some of the rays that they became light rays. Suddenly the picture blazed with light. The source of the light was the energetic gamma rays that collided and partially materialized in the first darkness. Since the darkness had been everywhere, the light shone out of everywhere, starting from all points and spreading from them in all directions.
Other rays, those that retained even less energy than light rays, became heat. The mixture had an extremely high temperature and pressure. All the rays and particles collided frenetically with one another. Some of the protons and neutrons hit each other hard enough to stick together and form simple nuclei of a few particles each.
The pressure made the mixture expand and cool. Cooling stopped the formation of nuclei after the first three or four minutes. Some 380 000 years later the mixture was cool enough to let the nuclei move slowly, capture the free electrons, and become atoms.
This was the beginning of matter as we know it.
Matter is neither indestructible nor eternal. Einstein’s discovery shows how material came from the energy of gamma rays, but it does not explain the source of the energy. It takes huge amounts of energy to make a tiny bit of matter.
Physicists have the capability of making gold directly from energy. When a cyclotron’s dark rays collide, they materialize as electrons, protons, and neutrons. Nuclear reactions can put protons and neutrons together to make nuclei, and when the nuclei are cool enough, they will attract the electrons to make atoms. Gold atoms have 79 electrons, 79 protons, and 118 neutrons to help hold the protons together in the nucleus. Probably no one has ever carried out the complete process of constructing a gold atom from particles. Certainly no one can get rich making gold directly from energy. A recent market price check showed that the electrical energy the cyclotron converts into particles costs 1000 times more than the value of the gold.
A very powerful agency must have worked very hard to generate so much energy.
The Second Discovery
At the beginning, heat and pressure started the universe expanding. Edwin Powell Hubble (American astronomer, 1889–1953) discovered in 1929 that the universe is still expanding. Most galaxies or galaxy clusters are spreading out, moving away from each other. The farther they are from us, the faster they move away.
This movement must have started at some time in the relatively recent past. If it had always been going on, forever and ever in the past, then by now all the other galaxies would be infinitely far from us, and we couldn’t see any. But the sky is full of galaxies. Therefore, we know that at a certain moment, not infinitely remote in the past, all the material and energy of the universe was close together. This moment marks the beginning of the universe, 13 820 million years ago.
Hubble adjusting the 100-inch telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California
Einstein’s and Hubble’s discoveries, the materialization of energy and the expansion of the universe, lead to a working model of the beginnings of the universe. A fraction of a second after the beginning cosmic rays collided in the darkness, making a fiery mixture of particles and rays that expanded under tremendous pressure. Eventually the material, heat, and light separated from the darkness and formed the first stars and galaxies.
Einstein’s and Hubble’s discoveries, the materialization of energy and the expansion of the universe, lead to a working model of the beginnings of the universe. A fraction of a second after the beginning cosmic rays collided in the darkness, making a fiery mixture of particles and rays that expanded under tremendous pressure. Eventually the material, heat, and light separated from the darkness and formed the first stars and galaxies.
Hubble was working with the largest telescope of his day when he made his discovery. Even so he could not see very far into space. This meant that he could only observe conditions in the relatively recent past.
Light moves very fast, but still takes years to arrive even from the closest stars. We can never see how things are at the present moment in the heavens. What we see there is now past. The farther out one looks into space, the farther back in time one sees.
Telescopes gradually increased in size and performance. Nevertheless, they had to await the invention of electronic detector arrays to replace film before they could see very close to the beginning. Until then, theories based on Hubble’s discovery had to rely on indirect evidence for confirmation. By 1948 Ralph Asher Alpher (American physicist, 1921–), Robert Herman (American physicist and civil engineer, 1914–), and George Gamow (Russian-born American theoretical physicist, 1904–1968) had calculated that the original high temperature of the universe has dropped to about 5 kelvins at present in the coldest empty regions of space.
We now know the temperature more accurately. It is 2.735 kelvins.
Bright red coals or electrical heating elements have a temperature of 850º C to 950º C (1 562º F to 1 742º F). Some people can see incipient red heat beginning at temperatures as low as 500º C (932º F). Five kelvins is ‑268º C (‑450.4º F). This is far too cold to produce any detectable light.
The expansion of the universe makes the first light colder than that. Therefore, no optical telescope can ever see the first light, no matter how far it can look. Only a radio telescope can detect the electromagnetic waves that correspond to so low a temperature.
This movement must have started at some time in the relatively recent past. If it had always been going on, forever and ever in the past, then by now all the other galaxies would be infinitely far from us, and we couldn’t see any. But the sky is full of galaxies. Therefore, we know that at a certain moment, not infinitely remote in the past, all the material and energy of the universe was close together. This moment marks the beginning of the universe, 13 820 million years ago.
Hubble adjusting the 100-inch telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California
Einstein’s and Hubble’s discoveries, the materialization of energy and the expansion of the universe, lead to a working model of the beginnings of the universe. A fraction of a second after the beginning cosmic rays collided in the darkness, making a fiery mixture of particles and rays that expanded under tremendous pressure. Eventually the material, heat, and light separated from the darkness and formed the first stars and galaxies.
Einstein’s and Hubble’s discoveries, the materialization of energy and the expansion of the universe, lead to a working model of the beginnings of the universe. A fraction of a second after the beginning cosmic rays collided in the darkness, making a fiery mixture of particles and rays that expanded under tremendous pressure. Eventually the material, heat, and light separated from the darkness and formed the first stars and galaxies.
Hubble was working with the largest telescope of his day when he made his discovery. Even so he could not see very far into space. This meant that he could only observe conditions in the relatively recent past.
Light moves very fast, but still takes years to arrive even from the closest stars. We can never see how things are at the present moment in the heavens. What we see there is now past. The farther out one looks into space, the farther back in time one sees.
Telescopes gradually increased in size and performance. Nevertheless, they had to await the invention of electronic detector arrays to replace film before they could see very close to the beginning. Until then, theories based on Hubble’s discovery had to rely on indirect evidence for confirmation. By 1948 Ralph Asher Alpher (American physicist, 1921–), Robert Herman (American physicist and civil engineer, 1914–), and George Gamow (Russian-born American theoretical physicist, 1904–1968) had calculated that the original high temperature of the universe has dropped to about 5 kelvins at present in the coldest empty regions of space.
We now know the temperature more accurately. It is 2.735 kelvins.
Bright red coals or electrical heating elements have a temperature of 850º C to 950º C (1 562º F to 1 742º F). Some people can see incipient red heat beginning at temperatures as low as 500º C (932º F). Five kelvins is ‑268º C (‑450.4º F). This is far too cold to produce any detectable light.
The expansion of the universe makes the first light colder than that. Therefore, no optical telescope can ever see the first light, no matter how far it can look. Only a radio telescope can detect the electromagnetic waves that correspond to so low a temperature.