A short history of nearly everything

A short history of nearly everything

Written by Bill Bryson.

I remember some childhood questions about the earth and its surrounding. This book is not just good to quench the curiosities of childhood, it also shares the challenges the scientists and the mathematicians had in the 18th century and the wisdom they had to overcome the constraints.

We often see a completely disturbed TV screen, especially while changing the channels, where it has infinite dancing dots on the screen. I never knew that the reason for the irritation while switching the TV channels was a part of research in the Princeton university. Actually!

The disturbance on TV screens while changing the channels has a scientific reasons. It has some connection with the history, when the earth was being formed.

In fact, the disturbance on the screens was because of the micro waves that were produced during birth process of our universe. That means we can witness the formation of universe even now....

There is an interesting story behind it.

Arno penzias and Robert Wilson were trying to make a large communication antenna in 1965. They were troubled by persistent background noise-a steady, steamy hiss that made the experimental work impossible.

Unknown to them, just 30 miles away at Princeton university, Robert Dicke was working on how to find the very thing that Arno and Robert were trying so diligently to get rid of.

The disturbance was because of the leftover microwaves after the big bang. Although penzias and Wilson had not been looking for cosmic background radiations, didn't know what it was when they found it, they received the 1978 Nobel prize in physics.

Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiations are experienced by all of us. So whenever you tune your TV to any channel with the problems in signals about 1%of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. 

The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.

There is a question that always kept creeping in my mind, "what's there outside our space"?

Where does it end? What's there beyond that end?

I got the answers this way...

We all have learnt about protons. Haven't we?

 Protons are so small that the dot on this 'i' can hold 5000cr of them or more or equal to the number of seconds in 5 lack years.

Now imagine if you can (though very tough) shrinking one of these protons to a billionth of its normal size into a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous. Now pack into that tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You are ready to start a universe

If you gather everything there is, every last mote and particle of matter between here and the edge of the creation and squeeze it into a spot so infinitesimally compact that it has no dimensions at all. That's singularity.

When universe began to expand, it did not spread out or to fill the large emptiness. There only existed was the space it created.

In a single binding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumed heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception.

In the first lovely second, gravity and the other physical forces were produced. In less than a minute the universe got spread million billion miles across and went growing fast from there on. There was a lot of heat then, enough to begin the nuclear reactions that created the light elements.-principally hydrogen and helium, with a dash (about one atom in hundred million) of lithium. In three minutes, 98%, of all the matter there was produced.

*So we have a universe that got all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich.*

All this happened around 13.7 billion years ago. (There was an argument between 10bn and 20bn years)

Another interesting story...

Alan Guth a physicist at Standford was attending a lecture of Robert Dicke on Big bang theory. Inspired by the lecture Alan found the Inflation theory.

The theory states that a fraction of moment after the dawn of creation, the universe underwent a dramatic expansion. It inflated-in effect ran away with itself, doubling in size every 10^-34 seconds. The whole episode must have lasted no more than 10^-30 seconds. It changed the universe from something you could hold in your hand to something at least 10^25 times bigger. Inflammation theory explains ripples and eddies that make our universe possible. Without it, there would be no clumps of matter and thus no stars, just drifting gas and everlasting darkness.

According to Guths theory 10^- 30 seconds were taken for Gravity to be emerged. After another ludicrously brief interval it was joined by electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces- the stuff of Physics.

These were joined an instant later by swarms of elementary particles-the stuff of stuff. From nothing at all, suddenly there were swarms of photons, electrons, protons and much else-between 20^79 and 10^89 of each, according to the standard big bang theory.

What is extraordinary from a point of view is how well it turned out for us. If the universe had formed just a tiny bit differently- if gravity were fractionally stronger or weaker, if the expansion had proceeded just a little slowly or swiftly then there might never have been stable elements to make you and me stand on. Had gravity been a trifle stronger, the universe itself might have collapsed like badly erected tent without precisely the right values to give it the dimensions and density and component parts. Had it been weaker however nothing would have coalesced. The universe would have remained forever a dull scattered void.

There may have been other planets, perhaps trillions of them moving through the mighty space of eternity and the reason we exist in this particular one is that this is one we could exist in.

Another note I liked was about photogens. The Cosmic photogens.

Photogens are oil like substances(respiratory fluid) that fell from space in the primitive days.

Which is why humans and most other animals evolved their nose pointing downwards with the nostrils safe from the inhalation.Influenza is one of the disease that has cosmic photogens as the responsible factor.

One of best thing I liked is about Triangulation method 

Suppose we need to find the distance between earth and the sun..

Take two spots, say Nasik and New York. So we have the three vertices of the triangle.

We know the length of one side and we need to find the two angles. The Angle from NY to the moon and that of Nasik to the moon. With the two angles we can find the third angle. So with one side and the three angles we can find the required distance.

Can we see past? Yes!!!!!

Light takes some time to travel. In our space the objects are so far away that the light takes years to reach our planet.

The North star is more than 400 light years away from us. So when we see the North star, it is of 400+ years back. So it really mean that the current condition of the Polaris can be much different and we'll be able to see that only after 433.8 years later. So the star that we see live, is 400+ years old star.

On the similar lines today in 2018 if any aliens are seeing us through a telescope, they must be seeing the ancient civilization when we human beings were half naked and for some aliens the way we are in 2018 will be visible hundreds of year later.

Ahh! Really nice book to go through.

My kids really enjoy when these interesting things are shared with them. Fascinating!!!!

Vinay wagh.

Disclaimer: 
This article that I have written is from the book, A short history of nearly everything. by Bill Bryson.

In this article I have used my experience, Knowledge and predictions as well.