Journey Through Time Read online

  Journey

  Through

  Time

  Part One

  Things That Make Our Universe

  Ivica Hausmeister

  Copyright © 2018 Ivica Hausmeister

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

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  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 978 1788034 951

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  I would like to thank to my daugher, Hana,

  who gave me the idea to write this book,

  and my wife, Vesna, for her love and support.

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction

  1.Matter

  2.Four Fundamental Forces

  3.Energy

  4.Dark Matter

  5.Dark Energy

  6.Space-Time

  Summary

  Bibliography

  PREFACE

  I believe that we are quite privileged to live in this time of human history, a time which has allowed us access to an almost unlimited amount of information on whatever topic we choose to read about.

  There is no doubt that such opportunity can help us to broaden our horizons. This certainly increased my knowledge and helped me to get a better understanding of the universe we live in.

  Sometimes I ask myself how the world would look if we were able to peep at it, just for a short time, some two or three thousand years ahead. I wonder whether our planet would have changed beyond recognition, and into what level of knowledge mankind would have managed to catapult itself.

  At the present time of technological development and achievement in science, we have quite a good understanding about our universe and its origins, as much as about our planets, our surroundings and ourselves.

  Currently, the so-called ‘Big Bang’ theory is widely accepted as the most plausible explanation as to how the universe was born. Based on scientific evidence such as the red shift of galaxies, the predicted existence of microwave background radiation and its later discovery, the ‘Big Bang’ theory is not only the most plausible explanation for the history of the universe, but probably the only possible order of events since the creation of the universe to date.

  The development of nuclear physics and the awareness of the existence of a variety of subatomic partials together with progress in a new field of physics, quantum physics, have given another dimension to the existence of the universe, and have helped us to understand current theories.

  I myself am a psychiatrist. I graduated medical school and completed postgraduate training obtaining a specialist qualification in Neurology and Psychiatry in my country of origin, then Yugoslavia, before moving to England around twenty-five years ago. I have always been interested in science. Along with medicine, I have been as fascinated by astronomy as by the history of our Earth. Recently, I was looking to find a book that embraces a history of our universe, history of our solar system and Earth going all the way through to modern civilisation. I was looking for a book, which is a kind of encyclopaedia, not written in alphabetical order but in chronological order since the beginning of everything to nowadays.

  It was how I came to the idea of writing this book.

  I have therefore decided to write this book for the purpose of embracing the knowledge we have about the origin and nature of our universe, our planet and our own existence.

  My idea is to write a book that will have a holistic approach to the knowledge we have about the history of the universe, our solar system, the Earth and mankind. In doing so, I do not have the intention of going into details, nor will I be able to do so, as these fields are not my area of expertise.

  What I will try to do is to explain, in the way I understand it, what we know so far in a very simplistic way, to make particular physical or chemical reactions easier to understand.

  I am not a mathematician or physicist, and I have always tried to understand these topics without using mathematics. This is possible when a layman, such as myself, wants to obtain a basic understanding.

  This book is just about that: getting a rough idea about these topics. My attempt was to explain some physical or chemical reactions in a very simplistic way. More importantly, I have tried to give an example for any theory or rules by which our universe is governed. In other words, to understand a particular topic it was very important to me to have an example, which will prove a particular theory, reactions or natural rules logical to me. I was also led by a presumption that my book will be read by people who can remember very little or almost nothing from the science they studied during their primary or secondary school.

  As I am not an expert in these fields, I have asked for help from a physicist and a mathematician, to supervise me and correct me. The last thing I want to do is to give misleading information. To this end, I would like to thank my cousin Barbara Lazukić. Barbara obtained a degree in mathematics and physics at university in Slovenia. Her speciality is astrophysics and as such, she was a particular help to me.

  I hope that I have managed to take the reader on a journey through time, providing them with a plausible, simple and understandable explanation for the natural phenomena that are taking place in our universe; in the field of physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology.

  INTRODUCTION

  This series of books is composed of four parts, which are placed in chronological order, each part dealing with a particular time in the history of the universe apart from the first part.

  In this the first part, I have outlined what the universe is composed of, focusing on matter, fundamental forces, energy, dark matter and dark energy. Describing the structure of matter, I have given an explanation of the structure of the atom as the smallest part of an element with a description of elementary particles as the main building block of all matter of which the universe is made up.

  I have tried to explain the four main fundamental forces or four fundamental interactions between matter or particles as it is called in physics. As one of the four fundamental interactions is weak nuclear interaction, referring to radioactive beta decay as an example, I have decided to provide some information about radioactivity as well. The remaining three fundamental interactions such as gravity, strong nuclear interaction and electromagnetic interaction are outlined in not too much detail, apart from electromagnetic forces where I found it useful to provide a little bit of the history of magnetism and electricity.

  I have outlined the simple definition of energy, focusing on radiation or electromagnetic waves as a way of transferring energy or actually being an expression of a type of energy.

  I have superficially explained current evidence supporting the existence of a dark matter and dark energy.


  The last chapter in the first part of the book, dedicated to space-time , embraces the conservation of momentum, Einstein’s theories of relativity and awareness of the shape of the universe.

  Following these introductory topics, in the second of the series, I have started the journey through time explaining roughly the Big Bang theory as an origin of the universe in the second part of the book. Within this part is also superficially outlined the origin of stars’ galaxies.

  The third part of the series consists of the geological history of our planet, outlining events that took place on Earth in chronological order from the birth of our planet to the present day.

  The last, fourth part, of the series contains very superficial details of the evolution of life on Earth with chronological details of the evolution of the human species, again not in much detail but only with an intention to give a rough idea of natural events which take place during the process of evolution.

  The books in this four-part series are furnished with illustrations which are my own. There are, however, plenty of wonderful illustrations available online and I was so keen to use some of them for my book but did not know how I would get permission to do so. I have decided therefore to do my own illustrations.

  Before we embark upon this journey through time, we need to have a basic understanding of what makes our universe. Firstly, it would be good to define what we mean or what pictures come into our mind when we read or utter the word universe from the aspect of astronomy. I was searching for the best way to define it or perhaps say it in a different way than it has been defined in a dictionary. Whatever way I try to say it, to sound more fancy, the main point is that the universe presents wholeness or totality or everything that exists. Among these things which exist in the universe, we can make a hierarchy and say that the universe is composed of a space and time in which are incorporated matter, dark matter, energy and dark energy, planets, solar system, galaxies and intergalactic space. We are aware that current space of the universe is expanding and that this expansion is accelerated. Thanks to the universe expansion, an idea was born about the origin of the universe from an initial super hot and super dense place, which was less than the size of an atom. This well-known Big Bang theory has now been accepted as the most plausible explanation of history and origin. I will go into more details regarding this scientific model of the history of the universe in Part 2 of this book. Here, I would like to concentrate on those things which our universe is made of.

  We can state that our universe is made or consists of the following components:

  •Matter

  •Four fundamental forces

  •Energy

  •Dark matter

  •Dark energy

  •Space-time

  It would be natural to talk about space and time or space-time first, but as this is a complicated topic involving Einstein’s theory of relativity, I will leave it as the last to be explained in the most simplistic way possible. In this part I have used mathematics, but I have attempted to show it from the angle of a person who has the minimum level of mathematical knowledge.

  Before going into each single component, just to outline that calculations made by scientists about the percentage of each of the main components present in the universe show that the universe is composed of around 4% of matter, around 23% of dark matter and around 73% of dark energy.

  Although this looks unbelievable at first sight, it is understandable when we think of a dark energy as a space between celestial bodies and space between galaxies. Dark energy is, in fact, referred to as a vast space between galaxies and celestial bodies.

  The closest star to our planet is, for example, Proxima in the Centauri constellation (seen on the southern hemisphere). It is 4.3 light years away from us. It means that what we see now is how the star looked 4.3 years ago when light left this star. If we want to know how it looks now, we will need to wait another 4.3 years for the light from the star to reach us. The light year is an astronomical measure or tool to measure distances in the universe. It refers to the distance light will pass during one year of travel. Light travels at a constant speed of around 300 000 km a second. If we multiply this speed by 60 seconds to get 1 minute and then by 60 to get 1 hour and then by 24 (number of hours in a day) and then by 365 (number of days in a year) we will get how many kilometres the light will pass in one year. It is actually slightly less than 10 trillion kilometres or around

  9460,730,472,580,800 metres.

  Our solar system is located in our galaxy which is called the Milky Way. The Sun is located 28 000 light years from the centre of the galaxy. The closest next galaxy to our own is a small galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is 170 000 light years away from us. In this space there is no object before we reach this galaxy. Galaxies are arranged into clusters due to the gravitational force they have on each other. Our galaxy belongs to a cluster known as the local group. Within this group the Andromeda galaxy, as the largest galaxy, is a little bit more than 2 million light years away fron the Milky Way. The Virgo cluster, the closest cluster to our local group cluster, is 50 million light years away from our own cluster. In this space of 50 million light years there is no detectable object or matter but vast space. Looking at the universe in that way or having that picture in our minds, it is understandable why the universe is composed of 73% dark energy.

  1

  MATTER

  We already have an idea what matter is as we can perceive it with our five senses. We can see things around us; we can touch them, taste them, smell them or hear them. A rough definition of matter is applied to everything which has its own mass and occupies a particular space in a particular point of time. If we leave an ashtray on a table, it will occupy this particular space of a table. This ashtray can be made of glass but also of metal such as gold. While it is on this table we will see it as matter or we can detect its presence at this place by touching it if our eyes are closed. Once the ashtray is removed from this place, then this place will be occupied with a different matter, which makes air. We know that air is composed of oxygen which we breathe in, and other elements such as nitrogen.

  An ashtray can also be made of different elements such as gold, iron or different compounds, such as glass.

  We have introduced words such as elements and compounds.

  In our universe there are many different sorts of matter. They differ between each other as each one has a particular physical or chemical property.

  Some matter exists in a solid form such as metal, some in liquid form and some in the form of a gas such as oxygen or nitrogen. Some particular matter is very active chemically and reacts with other matter, creating compounds, while others do not react at all.

  The matter that has the specific physical and chemical characteristic is called an element.

  In our universe and on our planet have been detected many different elements (more than 100).

  The same elements can chemically react with each other, creating compounds. These compounds now have a different property, physical or chemical, from the elements of which they are made.

  Hydrogen and oxygen on their own are matter, which comes in gas state. Once they unite in a compound of water, the property of this matter changes; it now comes as a liquid or water.

  ATOM

  An atom is the smallest bit of matter or element that still has the property of that matter or element. An atom of gold is still gold; an atom of oxygen or helium is still oxygen or helium. Once the structure of an atom is destroyed, as in a process called fission, then this particular matter, element, ceases to exist. In fact, in the case of fission, a few new atoms are created that are lighter than the original, and form the smallest bits of other elements.

  Fission takes place among a few very heavy atoms. The few new lighter atoms, created in this process, belong to a different matter, or an element with different chemical properties.

 
; We know now very well that an atom is composed of subatomic particles: protons (positively charged particles), neutrons (neutral, with a slightly larger mass than protons) and electrons (negatively charged particles with the smallest mass).

  Protons and neutrons make the middle of the atom, or ‘nucleus’ of the atom, while the electrons go around an atom’s nucleus, similarly to how planets go around the Sun in our solar system (Picture 1.01).

  Picture 1.01

  Ernest Rutherford, an English scientist and physicist born in New Zealand, contributed significantly to our understanding of the structure of an atom. He conducted an experiment in which he fired alpha rays (which consist of helium nuclei or two protons and two neutrons) at a gold foil. In this experiment, the majority of the radioactive particles went through, some with higher or smaller deflection depending on how close they were to the atomic nucleus. This led to the conclusion that there is a big empty space between electrons orbiting around an atom and an atomic nucleus being in the centre of an atom. Such a big space allowed the majority of positively charged partials to go through an atom with no interference. How big or small deflection is depends on how close or further away to an atomic nucleus these particles are while passing through an empty space of an atom. A small amount of positively charged partials (alpha rays) deflected right back, not passing through the gold foil. These particles hit an atomic nucleus directly and as a result they were bounced back as they were not able to pass through the atoms or gold foil (Picture 1.02).

  Picture 1.02

  It was Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, who contributed to our better understanding of the structure of an atom and the behaviour of electrons around an atomic nucleus.