Earth Science (Lesson 1)

1. Genesis
- One of the books of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament, describe how
God created the earth in a span of six days.
2. Rigveda
- A Hindu text that describes the universe as an oscillating universe in which a “cosmic
egg” or Brahmanda containing the whole universe.
- The sun, moon, planets, and space expanded out of a single concentrated point called
Bindu.
3. Fifth Century to Third Century BCE
- Greek Philosophers would present their own description of the universe.
- Anaxagoras believed in a primordial universe and explained that the original state of
the cosmos was a primordial mixture of all its ingredients which existed in
infinitesimally small fragments of themselves.
- At some point in time, this mixture was set in motion by the action of the “nous” or
mind.
4. Greek Philosophers Leucippus and Democritus
- Believed in an atomic universe.
- They held that the universe was composed of very small, indivisible, and
indestructible atoms.
- The Stoic philosophers also believed that the universe is like a giant living body,
with the sun and the stars as the most important parts to which everything else was
interconnected.
- What happens in one place affects the events that occur elsewhere.
5. Greek Philosophers Aristotle and Ptolemy
- Proposed a geocentric universe where earth stayed motionless in the heavens and
everything was revolving around it.
6. Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’
- In 1543, he invented the theory of heliocentrism. Copernicus demonstrated that the
motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth in the center of the
universe.
7. Italian Philosopher Giordano Bruno
- In 1854, He suggested that even the Solar System is not in the center of the universe
it is merely just another star system among an infinite multitude of others.
8. Sir Isaac Newton
- In 1687, He described the universe as a static, steady-state, infinite universe.
- In his description of the universe, matter on a large scale is uniformly distributed, and
the universe is a gravitationally balanced but essentially unstable.
9. French Philosopher Rene Descartes
- He outlined a Cartesian vortex model of the universe with many of the
characteristics of Newton’s static, infinite universe.
- The vacuum of space was not empty at all but was filled with matter that swirled
around in large and small vortices.
- His model involved a system of huge swirling whirlpools of fine matters, producing
what would later be called gravitational effects.
10. Albert Einstein
- He was no different than Newton’s in that the universe was a static, dynamically-
stable universe, which was neither expanding nor contracting.
- He added a cosmological constant to his general theory of relativity equations to
counteract the dynamic effects of the gravity, which would have caused the universe
to collapse.
- He would later abandon this part of the theory when, in 1929, American astronomer
Edwin Hubble showed that the universe was not static.

Modern Theories on the Origin of the Universe

1. Big Bang Theory
- The current accepted model on the formation of the universe is the big bang theory.
- This theory believes that the universe is expanding, having originated from an
infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point around 14 billion years ago (gigayears ago or
gya).
- Matter was not present at the beginning of time; there was only pure energy
compressed in a single point called singularity.
- Georges Lemaitre in 1927. Invented the fundamental statement of the big bang
theory is attributed to him. He is a Belgian Roman Catholic priest.
- Later supported by Edwin Hubble’s demonstration of the continuously expanding
universe through his observation of galactic redshifts in 1929
- Also supported by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson because of their discovery of
cosmic background radiation in 1965.
- The big bang was a violent explosion which caused the inflation and expansion of
the universe.
- Gravity (attraction between bodies), electromagnetic force (binds atoms into
molecules), strong nuclear force (binds protons and neutrons together in the
nucleus), and weak nuclear force (breaks down an atom’s nucleus and produces
radioactive decay).
- After 300 million years, stars and galaxies began to form as hydrogen and helium
coalesce with the aid of gravity.
2. Oscillating Universe
- An Oscillating Universe was Albert Einstein’s favored model after rejecting his own
original model.
3. Steady State Theory
- Proposed by astronomers Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, and Hermann Bondi
- Predicted a universe that expanded but did not change its density------matter was
inserted into the universe as it expanded in order to maintain a constant density.
4. Inflationary Universe
- American physicist Alan Guth, proposed a model of the universe based on the big
bang theory.
- He incorporated a short early period of exponential cosmic inflation in order to solve
the uncertainties of the standard big bang model, such as horizon and flatness
problems. This became knows as the inflationary model.
5. Multiverse
- Russian-American physicist Andrei Linde developed the concept of inflationary
universe from his chaotic inflation theory in 1983
6. String Theory
- Is based on the existence of cosmic strings. Describe how these strings propagate
through space & interact with each other.
7. M Theory
- Unifies all consistent versions of the Superstring Theory.

- Prevents an idea about the basic substance of the universe.

- The origin of the universe occurred as a result of the contract of two (2) hyper
dimensional Brane