Name: ____________________

Title/Topic: Cosmology and the Origins of the

Date: _____________________
Universe Subject: ___________________
Period: ____________________
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
• Where did the universe come from?
• How does science operate when new theories or evidence comes to light?
• What is Hubble’s Law?
Study Questions Student Notes
Since the dawn of _________, people have been searching to answer many
1. Life’s BIG Questions critical questions, these include but aren’t limited too:
• Where did the universe come from?
• Why are we here?
• What is the meaning of life?
• Are we _______?

2. Theories Attempting to explain the Throughout history many people have tried to explain the Universe’s origins, and
origins of everything many theories have come and gone. Today there are 4 theories that scientific
community believes ______ be the most likely. 3 of them are _________ of the
first theory we will discuss, while the 4th is a completely separate idea.

• The Big Bang Theory

• The Oscillating Universe Theory
• The Eternal Inflation Theory
• The Digital Simulation Theory

3. The Big Bang Theory • The universe started as a point of _______ mass and density known as
the singularity.
• This point became unstable and suddenly _________ outward in the
event known as the “Big Bang”
• Matter Time and Space were create at this moment

Expansion was approximately ___ billion years ago

Evidence for the Big Bang
• All galaxies appear ____-Shifted
o Hubble’s Law
• Cosmic ________________
• Mathematical Models
• Particle Physics Theory
The faster something moves away from the observer the more of a _____ shift it
has towards the ___ end of the spectrum.

• Nearly all galaxies in the Universe display a ____-Shift

• The amount of ____-shift is related to the relative distance of the galaxy
__________ galaxies show GREATER RED-SHIFT

Summary:

What are your thoughts on the Hubble Deep Field images?

________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

What do you think Hubble’s Law is telling us?

________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
 Name: ____________________
Title/Topic: Date: _____________________
Subject: ___________________
Period: ____________________
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
• Where did the universe come from?
• How does science operate when new theories or evidence comes to light?
• What is Hubble’s Law?
Study Questions Student Notes
• Is the Earth the ______ of the Universe after all, and everything is moving
away from us?
• Does this depend on frame of reference?
o Would Hubble’s Law apply if we looked at the Universe from another
location?
o _____ is everything moving away?
In 1965 two scientists discovered “________” in their experimental system.
• They assumed the noise was a result of pigeon droppings on their equipment.
• Later discovered the ‘noise’ to be __________ throughout space.
• Connected with other scientists studying the Big Bang at Princeton, NH and
determined this was a _____ piece of evidence in _______ of this theory.
• Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize in ______ for their work.

4. The Oscillating Universe This theory is a combination of two ideas, the Big Bang and the Big ______.
Theory
The theory essentially says that the universe is constantly moving between these two
stages, moving from the big bang to the big crunch, and then from the big crunch,
back to the big bang.

At this point, we know about the Big Bang, but what is the Big Crunch?
• The Big Crunch is a theory suggesting how the universe will end.
o At the conclusion of the ________ of our universe all matter will
essentially ‘collect’ at the other end of the universe from where it
started
▪ OR
o All of that material will “Crunch” back together due to the force of
gravity.
▪ This essentially creates a ‘new’ _________, and when that
expands outwards it creates a new big bang.
• The idea is that the universe is oscillating back and forth between these two
big extremes.

Evidence for Oscillating Universe

• Explains the beginning and end of any universe life ______
• It explains why everything is expanding so rapidly and everything is moving
‘_____’ from us

• The big crunch is possible in multiple ways, both if the universe has bounds
and if it does not, albeit far more likely if the universe does in fact have
bounds (no matter how big those are)

Summary:

How is the Oscillating Universe Theory different than the Big Bang Theory?
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
 Name: ____________________
Title/Topic: Date: _____________________
Subject: ___________________
Period: ____________________
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
• Where did the universe come from?
• How does science operate when new theories or evidence comes to light?
• What is Hubble’s Law?
Study Questions Student Notes
Negatives for Oscillating Universe
• _______ measurements suggests that the universe will expand infinitely, and
will not collapse back onto itself
o Meaning unless the universe has bounds (and cannot expand
infinitely) the Big Crunch seems unlikely
________ (beginning of time) gravitational waves are something that the oscillating
universe simply would not create. Yet expectation is that we will eventually find these
waves in the CMB. If we do, as many experts expect that we will, it will be a
___________ to this theory. Note: We have ____ found any to date.

5. Eternal Inflation Theory Eternal Inflation Theory is an ‘offshoot’ of the Big Bang
• Essentially during the initial inflation of the universe from the singularity, it has
grown to be so large, that it is actually capable of sustaining multiple
universes, often referred to as ____________ or ______________
• These bubble universes can grow and eventually reach their end
o New bubble universes are created in an infinite pattern, often
repeating and replicating (or nearly replicating) previous experiences
in alternate universes over time.
Evidence for Eternal Inflation
• Attempts to explain what came _______ the universe that we live in, and what
will come ______.
• Some data supports the idea of consistent inflation throughout our universe
o No data points suggest that our universe is the ‘____’ one, and given
the size of our universe, we have no way of proving (or disproving)
that other_________ universes can or do exist
Each ‘bubble’ universe would be entirely unique and have it’s own characteristics and
laws of physics that ______ how things would operate within the individual bubble.

Negatives for Eternal Inflation

• Stephen Hawking’s final paper suggests that the idea of eternal inflation and
the multiverse it creates is ________, as it violates Einstein’s theory of
_________.
o Hawking suggests that the ‘background’ universe would need to
evolve according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, yet in doing so, the
pocket universes (or bubbles) would not be governed by the same
laws necessarily, thus Einstein’s model would not be testable within
our own bubble universe.
One of the original creators (Paul Steinhardt) has soured on the idea and is now a
proponent _________ Inflation Theory, and went on to help develop Cyclical Universe
theory, also known as the Oscillating Universe Theory
Summary:
After watching the short video, explain the significance of bubble universes and how they come to be in your own
words:
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
 Name: ____________________
Title/Topic: Date: _____________________
Subject: ___________________
Period: ____________________
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
• Where did the universe come from?
• How does science operate when new theories or evidence comes to light?
• What is Hubble’s Law?
Study Questions Student Notes
Everything that we know of, is a ________ created by beings of a higher intelligence than
6. Digital Simulation
Theory our own.
“Forty years ago, we had Pong, two rectangles and a dot…That is what games were. Now, 40 years
later, we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s
getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality. If you assume any
rate of improvement at all, the games will become indistinguishable from reality.”

“the odds that we’re not simulated are “one in ________”

Building on Musk’s ideas…. In today’s age, we create photorealistic 3-D worlds that many
people____ into on a regular basis. We are able to create new ___ that learns. Is it that
much of a stretch to think that in 100 years of further advancement we could create a
________ AI society that lives and functions on it’s own?

What could we create 1000 years from now? 10,000? 1,000,000?

• Why are we driven to create worlds and simulations (movies, stories, video games
etc)? Is it because we are trying to ________ ourselves?
• Déjà Vu - Perhaps our AI memory banks have some stored data from previous
runs, simulations or play throughs and we ________ that moment of Déjà Vu

Ever done something so wildly out of character (or watched someone else do it?) Perhaps
someone jumped into the simulation and controlled them to make them act in a way that is
just ___ how they normally would. Think the Sims

Not really. The laws of physics (and any other governing laws of our ‘world’) could simply
be _________ by our ‘creators’ and ________ at will. Or so says Cosmologist Paul Davies

So the bottom line is this: Once we go far enough down the multiverse route, all bets are
off. Reality goes into the melting pot, and there is no reason to believe we are living in
anything but a Matrix-style simulation. Science is then reduced to a charade, because the
simulators of our world — whoever or whatever they are — can create any pseudo-laws
they please, and keep changing them.
Cosmologists will keep searching for evidence to support the various ideas
7. What now? • For eternal inflation, they are looking for gravitational waves in primordial sections
of the CMB
• For Oscillating Universe, they need to NOT find gravitational waves, but instead
find evidence suggesting what might cause the Big Crunch
• For Digital Simulation, we keep looking for inconsistencies in the ‘system’ that
would indicate the laws of physics are/have/will be changed that would indicate our
system is changing and/or updating.
Summary:
The generally accepted theory is the Big Bang Theory. What do you think scientists should do if they don’t feel it is the
best explanation?
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________