Chapter+1

= =  =   = =     "How to Make a Universe"  = by raider-aaron To start you need to pick up all the matter in the universe. Next you need to fit it into a space that has no dimension. Then it will start to expand at a million billion miles a minute. It creates as it expands and the only space that exists is that which it creates. It is one great big expansion of fire. Fire that is ten billion degrees hot. The nuclear reaction creates lighter elements such as hydrogen,lithium, and helium. In three minutes 98% of the matter in the universe is created. This is the end of the expansion that took about three minutes. The radiation from the explosion called the Big Bang, is able to still be picked up. It was discovered by two people who weren't looking for it. There names were Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. They were trying to get a large communications antenna but all they could get was a steamy hiss. They did everything they could to make it stop. Princeton researchers, lead by Robert Dicke, who had been trying to find this heard about it. This was the exactly what they needed. 90 billion trillion miles away they were picking up the oldest light in the universe.

 = __“BIG BANG”__ __OR NOT?__ = by: Ethan

 When people think of the “big bang theory,” they think about a huge explosion that happened millions of years ago. But what they don’t know is that it was just a very fast expansion. One hypothesis is that it used to be a universe that collapsed, and that it will keep on happening again. One universe is born, another dies. Others call the big bang theory a “false vacuum” and some call it a “scalar field” and some even call it “vacuum energy.” Many scientists don’t understand how you can get something from nothing. But the universe and the Milky Way, is a perfect example. There is also a hypothesis that our universe is just a small in universe inside many other universes. Many of the questions that are asked about the big bang theory always lead back to religious questions, because it seems that it was the only way it could possibly happen. By doing a lot of homework, studying, long nights at work, scientists believe that they can go back 10-43 seconds after moments of creation by studying particle accelerators. At that time the universe was so small that you would have to have a very magnified microscope to be able to even see it. 10-43 seconds is one 10 million trillion trillion trillionths of a second. Talk about a small number!          Most of what people know about the big bang theory is given thanks to Alan Guth. He proposed the inflation theory which was first propounded in 1979. He was a junior physicist at Stanford. He wouldn’t have even proposed this idea unless he had attended a lecture about the Big Bang theory by Robert Dicke. It got him interested in cosmology. The inflation theory is when the universe suddenly expanded. But when it happened, it only lasted for 10 -30 of a second! It went from something you could hold in your hand to something at least 1000000000000000000000000 times bigger!! The theory explains many things. Some of the things it explains is that ripples and eddies are what make our universe possible. Without it there would be no stars. It would just be empty, black space. His theory states that less than a second the gravity of the universe changed dramatically. In all to all the theory explains that in a matter of less than a second the world and the universe can change dramatically. So do you think it was just a big bang?

= = = Gravity, eternity, and other extraordinary things = by: Sterling In our world, we take for granted just how incredible the universe is. The creation of the universe was a very tenative thing, successful against many odds. If gravity were fractionally stronger or weaker, and the universe was expanding slightly slower or faster, stable elements may never have existed. We would not exist; no life forms, no planets, very little would exist at all. If gravity were stronger, the universe might have collapsed, but if it was weaker, it may only be a empty void. Some experts think that there have been many many big bangs throughout eternity and time, and we live in this one, because we can. The other big bangs were mostly failed attempts.

Martin Rees believes that there are many universes, each with different attributes, in different combinatons. And that this one has just the right attributes to allow for our life. Hydrogen converts 0.007% of its mass to energy when it converts to helium. If this number was changed slightly, nothing could exist other than hydrogen, or hydrogen could exhaust itself out. There is a delicate balance for everything in our universe.

= A Mystery about our Universe = by: Corey One "big" theory for the creation of the universe is the Big Bang Theory. It says that the universe was created with an enormous explosion and is forever expanding. However, Mr. Bryson, the writer of the book says that gravity will one day become too strong, halt the expansion of the universe, and finally collapse upon itself until it crushes down into another singularity.

A question that has run through just about everyones mind is: "what would happen if you traveled out to the edge of the universe and stuck your head out?" Well, this is impossible for two reasons: 1. It would take way too long. 2. even if you traveled in a straight line, you would eventually end up where you began. This is because the universe bends.

We are not in some ever expanding space. Space curves in a way in which it has boundaries but is finite. It seems as though it is but, galaxies are just rushing apart.

"For a long time," said Mr. Bryson, "the Big Bang theory had one gaping hole that troubled a lot of people." This is because it couldn't even begin to explain how we got here. According to Mr. Bryson, 98 percent of all matter that exists was created in the Big Bang. This matter was exclusively light gases such as helium, hydrogen, and lithium. Not a particle of the gases so vital to our being such as carbon, oxygen, and all the rest did not come from the Big Bang. But, according to Mr. Bryson, you need the kind of heat and energy of a Big Bang. Yet, the only Big Bang did not produce them.

So where did they come from? "The Big Bang"