History of the Universe

or,
following Stephen Hawking,

A Brief History of Time

Concentrating on themes relevant to SPU 18

 The Universe is Very Large

How many stars are in the visible universe?

10 sextillion (1022)
100 billion galaxies (1011), each with an average of
100 billion stars (1011)
And we will see that the visible universe is
probably a miniscule part of the whole
universe.
We will start with a tour of the visible
universe, starting near our solar system and
expanding our view by 10 or 20 at each step.
The Nearest Stars

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
 Our Nearest Neighbor Alpha Centauri
A triple star system about 4.3 light-years (25 trillion miles) from the Sun
The figure shows the relative sizes and colors.
The Solar Neighborhood (Zoom x 20)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
The Orion Arm of the Milky Way (Zoom x 20)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
The Milky Way (Zoom x 10)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
Satellite Galaxies (Zoom x 10)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
Local Group of Galaxies (Zoom x 10)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
 Andromeda Galaxy
2.5 million light-years from the Milky Way
Contains 1 trillion stars

The Virgo Supercluster (Zoom x 20)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
Neighboring Superclusters (Zoom x 10)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
 Real Data
2.5o Slice of the sky with a radius of 2 billion light years.

From the Sloan Digital Sky

Survey.

Color shows the age of

stars in each galaxy the
redder, the older.

The missing wedges were

not mapped because of
dust in the plane of our
galaxy.


The Visible Universe (Zoom x 15)

From www.anzwers.org/free/universe
 Origin of the Universe

We now have strong evidence (to be

discussed) that our universe started 13.7
billion years ago as a very small object (the
Big Bang) and has been expanding every
since.
This expansion is not due to objects moving
away from us, as in an explosion, but an
expansion of space itself.
 How do we tell the difference between
galaxies moving away from us and space
expanding?

The isotropy of the universe.

Copernican principle: We are not privileged
observers.
most scientists believe that it is not reasonable
to adopt a cosmological model in which the
universe is simply a joke played for the benefit of
mankind. John Peacock, Cosmological
Physics
Cosmological Principle: Since the universe
appears isotropic and homogeneous to us, it
will appear isotropic and homogeneous to all
observers.
Evidence for the Expansion of the Universe

(1) Red shift versus distance

Edwin Hubble, 1929
(2) Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
Discovered by accident by Arno Penzias and
Robert Wilson in 1964 (Nobel Prize 1978), but had
been predicted by Georg Gamow, Ralph Alpher,
and Robert Herman in 1948.
Examples of Redshifts

Wavelength in nm
 How Do We Measure Distance?

Distance Ladder:
Parallax to nearby stars
To go further, we need standard candles.
Star color vs. brightness
Cepheid variables luminosity vs. period
Type 1a supernovae (discussed later)
 The Hubble Parameter

The Hubble parameter measures the speed

of recession vs. distance.
H0 = 70 km/s/3.26 x 106 light-years
Note that H0 x 13.7 x 109 light-years c, the speed
of light.
The rest of the universe is receding from us faster
than the speed of light.
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light
through space, but there is no limit on how fast
space can expand.
 The Red Shift

The red shift is parameterized as 1 + z, where

z v/c, for z << c, like a Doppler shift.
However, it is not a Doppler shift, but a
stretching of the wavelength of light and
(1 + z)-1 is the relative size of the universe at
the time of emission.
Redshift of 4.92
 Cosmic Microwave Background

300,000 years
after the Big Bang
the universe had
cooled to about
3000 K. At this
point, electrons
and protons formed
atoms and the
universe became
transparent to
photons.
 Cosmic Microwave Background

The subsequent stretching of the photons

reduced this black body temperature to
2.275 K.
Discovered accidentally by Arno Penzias and
Robert Wilson in 1964, but had been
predicted in 1948.
In the last decade, this has been measured
very accurately.
A Perfect Black Body Spectrum
Spatial Distribution
 Spatial Distribution, Zoom in by 1000

The solar system is moving 370 km/s (830,000 mi/hr)

relative to the CMB

The magnitude is typical of the local cluster of galaxies,
but in the opposite direction!
Spatial Distribution, Zoom in by 100,000
 Shape of the Universe

The curvature of the universe could be closed

(like a sphere), open (like a saddle shape), or
flat.
With the Cosmological Principle, these are the
only three possibilities.
The size of the fluctuations in the CMB tells
us that the universe is flat.
Angular Scale of CMB Fluctuations
The Angular Spread Indicates a Flat
Universe
 Problem with a Flat Universe (1)

According to general relativity, whether the

universe is closed, open, or flat depends on
the amount of mass and energy in it. We
characterize this by a critical mass , where
for a flat universe c = 1.
c corresponds to about 5 hydrogen atoms/m3.
However, ordinary matter, matter made of
protons and neutrons, can account for only
5% of c.
The main evidence is from the ratio of hydrogen to
helium produced in the early universe.
 Problem with a Flat Universe (2)

Evidence from galactic structure, galactic

rotation speeds and gravitational lensing
indicate that the total amount of matter in the
universe is about 30% c.
This implies that 5/6 of the matter in the
universe is something we have never
observed on earth. We call it dark matter.
Where is the other 0.70 c?
 Accelerating Expansion of the Universe

About a decade ago, 2 groups, one based at

Harvard (Bob Kirshner), and based at UC
Berkeley, made a surprising discovery that
the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
This won 2011 Nobel Prize.
This is the opposite of what everyone
expected that gravity would slow the
expansion of the universe.
Both groups did this by measuring the red
shifts of type 1a supernovae.
 Type 1a and Type 2 Supernovae
Type 1a supernovae always have 1.44 solar masses.

 Supernova 1987A

After
Before

 Supernovae Trivia

In human history there have only been 6 confirmed

supernovae seen by the naked eye:
185 CE, seen by Chinese astronomers
1006, the brightest (it is said that one could read by its light
at midnight.
1054, in the Crab Constellation, from Chinese, Japanese,
and Arab records.
1572, seen by Tycho Brahe
1604, seen by Kepler
1987
 Red Shift (Size of the Universe)
vs.
Supernova Brightness (Distance from Us)
Dark Energy vs. Matter in the Universe
Composition of the Cosmos
Consequences of an Accelerating Expansion
The reason for Dark Energy is not
understood.
It appears to be consistent with a term, called
the cosmological constant, that Einstein
added to his general relativity equations for
the wrong reason.
However, attempts to calculate its likely size
fail by a factor of 10120.
Parts of the universe that we can see now will
not be visible in the future because they will
recede faster than the speed of light.
Fate of the Universe
 2 Problems with the Picture So Far

(1) The Horizon Problem: The CMB is uniform

to 1 part in 100,000, but parts of the universe
have never been in causal contact.
(2) The Flatness Problem: = 1 is unstable.
If > 1 in the early universe, gravity will
contract space and will grow exponentially.
If < 1, the expansion will reduce 0
exponentially. Therefore, for to be 1 now
requires that it was 1 in early universe to 1
part in 1060.
 A Likely Solution to these Problems

The Inflation Theory: Space could have

underwent an exponentially fast expansion in
the first 10-30 s after the Big Bang.
This would allow all of the universe to have
been in causal contact initially and would
flatten the universe to the required degree.
This also explains why the universe started
out in a low entropy state.
This could have been caused by the universe
starting out in a false vacuum.
 A Consequence of Inflation

Inflation implies that the whole universe is

much larger than the visible universe.
In Brian Greenes Fabric of the Cosmos, he
states that in some models of inflation, if the whole
universe is scaled to the size of the earth, the
visible universe would be much smaller than a
grain of sand.
 Epilog (1)
What happened before the Big Bang?
This may be an meaningless question. Time is not absolute
and is connected to space. Space and time may have been
created in the Big Bang.
What caused the Big Bang?
We do not know, and maybe like Newton, we should say that
our job as scientists is just to describe it, not explain its
cause.
Nevertheless, there are many speculative ideas, none of
them testable. One of them is that there are many
universes, maybe an infinite number, and maybe these
universes all have different physical parameters. We live in
one whose parameters allow life to exist (the anthropic
principle).
 Epilog (2)

Throughout the ages, physicists have been successful in finding

simple laws or principles that allow the understanding of
complex phenomena.
Physicists have hoped for a unique theory of everything that
could explain all of the laws and parameters.
However, at present, we have about 30 fundamental parameters
masses of particles, strengths of interactions, and other more
technical parameters for which we have no explanation.
Is it possible that there is no explanation other than the
anthropic principle? That is, that the parameters are random,
and out of possibly billions of universes, we just live in one
whose parameters allow life?