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A typical Big Bang model is summarized. The speed of light, not time, is proposed as the best measure for sequencing the very earliest events.
J. M. Williams
2011-01-06
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Abstract
The best scientific model of the origin of the universe depends upon an extrapolation backwards from the current, expanding universe to a spatially more compact one, the ultimate origin of which was a unique "Big Bang". Although there can not be any meaningful physical law to extrapolate to events before or during the Big Bang, it is nevertheless possible to connect the Big Bang with nearby events, before and after, by means of arbitrary assumptions. In this essay, I suggest that the speed of light has varied during the earliest Big Bang events, and that the speed of light, not the lapse of time, is the best measure by which to sequence those events.
Introduction
First of all, I should make it very clear that I do not dispute the correctness of the Big Bang model; nor do I address the sequence of events assumed to occur after the end of the hypothetical inflationary epoch which will be explained below. Nor do I think that the speed of light in vacuum is not a constant. My suggested approach here is intended only to better organize assumptions about events before the end of the inflationary epoch. Typical presentations of the Big Bang model are cited in the References below. Some popular exposition has been that the idea, after all, was developed by bomb physicists, and that the Big Bang means just an explosion. This is not correct. The model states that the whole universe, including space itself, originated effectively in a very tiny region, and that initially there was no space for the universe to "expand" into. The Big Bang was just the first meaningful instant of the existence of the universe. There was no expansion in the usual sense, because space itself was created and "expanded" along with the rest of the early universe. If space had existed before the Big Bang, the whole universe would have constituted just a black hole in space, and no expansion of anything could have occurred. Not even light could have been created. Big Bang models typically use one or more of three different measures to describe the sequence of the events in the early universe: Time, size, and temperature. The actual equations used to calculate these events mostly depend on those of general relativity, and they involve four-dimensional space-time and sometimes higher-dimensional mathematical spaces, depending on the theorist. Each of these measures has its own problems. For example, if the speed of light is not constant over all the events described, then time is not well-defined, because the concepts of a "clock", or of an inertial reference frame, likewise are not well defined. Size similarly means nothing when there is no space to locate or contain the universe, and no speed of light to constrain the causality of events. And, how can there be a particlestatistical concept such as temperature, when there are no particles yet to move
J. M. Williams
2011-01-06
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randomly? Temperature values describing the early universe merely reflect the total energy involved, converted formally to effective units of heat. Then again, what is energy, if there is no well-defined speed of light c, for example in the formula, E = mc2?
J. M. Williams
2011-01-06
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Inflation
The current Big Bang models generally assume that the very earliest universe experienced a period of "inflation". This is a technical term not at all equivalent to the expansion or inflation of a balloon, but more like the increase in numerical value of the currency during a period of fiscal inflation. During the period of inflation, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light; during other periods, the expansion was limited by the speed of light. This inflation is a bizarre and unphysical assumption, but certain properties of the current universe seem to require it, as will be detailed below. For now, it's enough to remark that, in the present universe, the speed of light in vacuum is an absolute limit on the speed of propagation of any effect, whether that effect be the light from a distant supernova, the sending of a transcontinental radio signal, the motion of an electron in a particle accelerator, or the change in the position of a quark inside an atomic nucleus. The speed of light in vacuum has been measured repeatedly, in different ways, and with great precision, and there is no evidence that it is anything but constant. In the present work, we shall concentrate on the implications of the inflation assumption and try to render it consistent with other implications of the Big Bang model. To return to the topic at hand, first, let us look at an outline of the assumed sequence of Big Bang events according to the most commonly accepted model. Readers wanting further detail should refer to the online articles in the References below.
J. M. Williams
2011-01-06
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10-43 s 10-36 s
1032 1027
1 s
1010
102 s 1013 s
108.5 103.5
1015 s 1016 s
102.5 102
The times are approximate and may vary from model to model, usually within a factor of 10 or so. Events before the time of separation of the four fundamental forces are far more speculative than those after. Physics can be applied with some confidence to describe events after the four fundamental forces have become identical to those of the present. In particular, details after nucleosynthesis has begun are considered relatively well understood.
J. M. Williams
2011-01-06
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Event Intervals
My first love in physics always has been Albert Einstein and his relativity theory. This theory is based on the constancy of the speed of light in vacuum, independent of the inertial frame of the instrument(s) measuring that speed. Briefly, ignoring gravity, any massive object can be associated with a frame of reference, a local spatial grid, at rest with respect to that object. This grid is called the inertial frame of the object. Distances between objects at rest in the same inertial frame can be measured by instruments such as tape measures or meter sticks, and clocks likewise at rest can be synchronized precisely, knowing their distances apart. Clocks in a particular inertial frame are said to measure the proper time in that frame (= the time proper to that frame). However, when objects in different inertial frames are in motion with respect to one another, distances in one frame will be contracted if measured in the other frame, and time in that one frame will be dilated (slowed down) if measured by a clock in the other frame. Time for an object in a different frame will lapse at a different rate than the proper time of the frame in which the measurement is made. These discrepancies usually are unnoticeably small except for frames in relative motion at speeds approaching the speed of light in vacuum, c, which is about 3108 m/s. High acceleration and strong gravity have similar effects to high speeds, but these factors will be ignored here. A relativistic event is a point in 4-dimensional space-time as located in one or more inertial frames, using one or more clocks differentially close to that location. The interval between that event and some other event is the distance between them in space-time, as measured in some specific inertial frame. This contrasts with the plain distance in space between them. When two events are referred to objects in different inertial frames, the measured spatial distance may vary, depending on the inertial frame in which the measurement was made. When two events in space-time are separated by an interval which could permit light to propagate from one to the other with any time at all left over, the interval is said to be time-like. A time-like interval permits causal relationships to exist between the two events. When the interval is too great to permit light to propagate between the events, the interval is said to be space-like. Events separated by a space-like interval can not possibly affect, or have any influence on, each other. Light (photons) has no inertial frame and so has the same speed in all inertial frames. Equivalently, light has no proper time. Photons have momentum but no mass. The value of c is determined by properties of the vacuum (empty space) as given by the formula, c= 1 00 , (1)
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2011-01-06
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in which 0 is the vacuum permittivity and 0 is the vacuum permeability. The vacuum is not at all empty; it has a "zero-point" energy caused by quantum effects in which virtual particles such as electrons and protons continually are popping in and out of existence. These virtual particles do not persist over enough of an interval to permit them to be localized above the limit given by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Therefore, their existence does not violate conservation laws. However, a virtual particle can become real if there is energy enough in a small enough vacuum interval to supply the rest energy required for the particle to exist according to the relation, E = mc2, in which m is the rest mass of that (massive) particle Experiments in high-energy particle accelerators have proven that electrons and other particles can be created from the vacuum by focussing intense-enough coherent light at a point. When light is propagated through a lens or water or other transparent medium, its speed may be measured to be substantially less than c (but never greater). This is because the photons exitting the medium are not the same as those entering it: Photons within a transparent medium always travel exactly at speed c between the atoms in that medium; but, they are repeatedly absorbed by those atoms and then reemitted (as a different photon) in the same direction. The brief time lapse between atomic absorption and reemission is what lowers the average speed of light in such media. Similarly, light reflected by the metallic coating of a mirror also consists of photons which travel at speed c, but which are absorbed by the atoms in the reflective coating; after a brief delay, a new, otherwise identical photon is emitted in the opposite direction. The wavelength and momentum of the new photons reemitted depend on the physical characteristics of the atoms and their bonds in each different medium. Further discussion of relativity and the speed of light may be found in the Schiller and the Williams postings in the References below.
Distances in Cosmology
Because light has a finite speed, events in the same inertial frame, but far apart spatially, will receive light-borne information from one another only after a lapse of proper time proportional to the spatial distance. Thus, a signal or image of a distant object always will represent the past state of that object, never the present state. Farapart clocks in the same inertial frame therefore can be synchronized only if their spatial distance from each other is known. In astronomy, and especially in cosmology, the distances between an observer and an object of interest, a planet, star, or galaxy, are so great that light from such an object represents events significantly distant in the past. Distances to stars and galaxies may be measured in light-years, units of the distance in vacuum traversed in a year by light. Instead of light-years, astronomers usually express distances in terms of parsecs, each parsec being about 3.25 light-years. A parsec is defined as the distance at which the radius of the Earth's orbit would subtend one second of visual angle. The seasonal parallax of stars in observational astronomy thus easily is converted to distance.
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2011-01-06
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Light from a star 10,000 parsecs distant thus is about 32,500 years old. The Milky Way galaxy, our home galaxy, is about 40,000 parsecs in diameter, and the nearby Andromeda galaxy is about 700,000 parsecs distant. Thus, we see Andromeda as it was about 2 million years ago, before the human race existed. Different parts of the visible Andromeda galaxy are somewhat different in age, too, because of its vast size. Astronomers have discovered that the universe is populated with immense numbers of galaxies; as far as the best telescopes can resolve, there are galaxies more or less uniformly distributed throughout space, although the most distant ones clearly show evidence of being more primitive -- younger -- than those which are closest. Beyond the galaxies, individual stars would be too faint to see, but quasars, primitive objects which apparently emit enormously intense, highly directional beams of light, can be found there (then). Because the chemical elements can be assumed to emit light with the same spectral properties regardless of their age or location, it has been discovered that the light from more distant galaxies is shifted toward the red, lowered in frequency, about proportional to their distances. This has been interpreted to be a Doppler shift, the speed of recession being the greater, the more distant the galaxy; and, this confirms that the universe has been expanding. The most distant galaxies observed are some billions of parsecs away, implying that the age of the universe is over 10 billion years (in our inertial frame). The red shift of the most distant objects implies a speed of recession which is a substantial fraction of the speed of light. Of course, there is a horizon beyond which hypothetically extremely distant objects could not possibly be observed: This would be the distance at which recession equalled the speed of light, c. The universe may not be big enough yet for such a horizon. Another way of expressing this, is that the speed of light puts an upper limit on the rate of expansion of the visible universe. The universe need not expand so that there exist objects in it actually moving at the speed of light relative to one another; the speed of light is just a limit.
J. M. Williams
2011-01-06
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The CMB is about the same, no matter what the direction in the sky. The Earth and its home galaxy seem to be almost at rest in the CMB: There is no Doppler shift in the CMB indicating a significant velocity relative to it, other than that because of the rotation of our galaxy, and because of the Earth's and Sun's movements within it. There is no reason to suspect that our galaxy is unique in the universe; therefore, we may assume that all galaxies are about equally at rest in the CMB, within some postformation, galaxy-specific, gravitationally-induced local speed on the order of hundreds of km/s -- nowhere near the speed of light. This line of reasoning reinforces the inference that the CMB is associated with the creation of the universe and, specifically, of our home galaxy. Direct observation of the hypothetical events earlier than the Last Scattering can not be mediated by light but perhaps might be mediated by the cosmic neutrino background, if it were possible to detect neutrinos at the impractically low energy corresponding to a temperature of about 2 K. This background would represent the universe at about 1 second after the Big Bang, using the timeline above.
Why Inflation
Inflation seems to be required to explain details of the CMB. As discussed in the references cited below, the CMB is not entirely uniform in space: It displays a certain degree of granularity or anisotropy in its intensity -- but, it is too smooth, as follows: If we calculate the size of the universe at the Epoch of Last Scattering, we find that it was so large that it must have displayed random density variations (and thus random CMB intensities) of a certain spatial extent. These density variations are what permitted the galaxies to form later. However, the anisotropy of the CMB, given the calculated duration of previous expansion, is not enough for the required random variations: The CMB is smooth over far too great spatial extents for the universe at that size, even if the universe had been expanding previously at the speed of light, c. Instead, the CMB displays the anisotropy of a too-young, too-small, universe. Its intensity is too uniform to have resulted from thermal randomization during previous expansion: Otherwise stated, the interval(s) spanning the observed uniformity earlier would have been space-like; and, thus, nothing could have caused the observed uniformity, even if its effect had been propagated at the speed of light. Therefore, cosmologists have reasoned, it must be that the very early universe was expanding at a speed far greater than the speed of light, so that, when the universe reached its size at Last Scattering, the CMB was much younger and finer than otherwise expected. This period of supraluminal expansion is what is called the period of inflation.
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be lower locally and higher for cosmologically more distant objects; this would tend to cancel the observed red shift and make more distant galaxies appear more closely packed -- higher in population density -- which is not observed. If c had been increasing, the opposite would occur, and, again, this is not observed.
(2)
1 , for .
(3)
There is no need explicitly to invoke vacuum properties. Other expressions are equally possible for such a limit; one need only solve for c in any equation of physics which seems applicable. For example,
2 2
E=mc c =
E E C = lim . m m m 0
(4)
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which the energy was confined. This assumption implies that space contributed zero energy during the expansion, and therefore that the zero-point energy of the vacuum contributed no energy at all, or at least no significant amount of energy. We shall accept this in the current discussion, although it seems possibly inconsistent with the idea that the early universe was prevented from becoming a black hole.
C1 c C2 varies
Inflation. The strong force separates from the electroweak force, creating a sea of quarks and antiquarks. Gravitons form and decouple. drops toward 0 and the sea expands at a between c speed limited only by the instantaneous value of C2. The high value of C2 allows coherent and maybe causality to preserve relatively uniform thermal substructures in the quark sea. By the 20c (?) and time C2 has given way to C3, the quark sea has evolved with a spatial granularity ends at C3 (anisotropy) disproportionately smooth, given the enormously expanded size of the still-tiny universe.
C3 = c
Temperature becomes meaningful. Most of the energy of the universe is in photons, but the quark sea persists: Its inflatedly smooth granularity determines that of the photons created during matter-antimatter annihilation and thus of the eventual CMB.
References
Anonymous. "Big Bang", Wikipedia, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang. Anonymous. "Big-Bang Model", Encyclopedia Britannica, 2006 (Encyclopdia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD). Anonymous. "Timeline of the Big Bang", Wikipedia, 2010,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang.
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Anonymous. "The Big Bang & the Standard Model of the Universe", CSIRO Australia, 2004, http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/senior/cosmicengine/bigbang.html. Nave, C. R. "Big Bang Expansion and the Fundamental Forces", HyperPhysics online, Georgia State University, http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/unify. Nave, C. R. "Models of Earlier Events" [of creation of the universe], HyperPhysics online, Georgia State University, http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/planck.html. Schiller, C. Motion Mountain: The Adventure of Physics (vol. 2). At
http://www.motionmountain.net/mmdownload.php?f=motionmountain-volume2.pdf.
Williams, J. M. A Simple Proof that the Speed of Light is the Greatest Possible. At
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38202981/A-Simple-Proof-that-the-Speed-of-Light-isthe-Greatest-Possible.