Democritus, ancient Greek philosopher who is credited with the birth of atomic theory. Credit: phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de
As the philosopher Nietzsche famously said “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” This is certainly true when it comes to humanity’s understanding of the universe, something which has evolved over many thousands of years and been the subject of ongoing discovery.
And along the way, many names stand out as examples of people who achieved breakthroughs and helped lay the foundations of our modern understanding. One such person is Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher who is viewed by many as being the “father of modern science”. This is due to his theory of universe that is made up of tiny “atoms”, which bears a striking resemblance to modern atomic theory.
Though he is typically viewed as one of Greece’s many pre-Socratic natural philosopher, many historians have argued that he is more rightly classified as a scientist, at least when compared to his contemporaries. There has also been significant controversy – particularly in Germany during the 19th century – over whether or not Democritus deserves credit for atomic theory.
This argument is based on the relationship Democritus had with contemporary philosopher Leucippus, who is renowned for sharing his theory about atoms with him. However, their theories came down to a different basis, a distinction that allows Democritus to be given credit for a theory that would go on to become a staple of the modern scientific tradition.
Democritus, by Hendrik ter Brugghen – Heraclitus, 1628. Credit: rijksmuseum.nl
Birth and Early Life:
The precise date and location of Democritus birth is the subject the debate. While most sources claim he was born in Abdera, located in the northern Greek province of Thrace, around 460 BCE. However, other sources claim he was born in Miletus, a coastal city of ancient Anatolia and modern-day Turkey, and that he was born in 490 BCE.
It has been said that Democritus’ father was from a noble family and so wealthy that he received the Persian king Xerxes on the latter’s march through Abdera during the Second Persian War (480–479 BC). It is further argued that as a reward for his service, the Persian monarch gave his father and other Abderites gifts, and left several Magi among them. Democritus was apparently instructed by these Magi in astronomy and theology.
After his father had died, Democritus used his inheritance to finance a series of travels to distant countries. Desiring to feed his thirst for knowledge, Democritus traveled extensively across the known world, traveling to Asia, Egypt and (according to some sources) venturing as far as India and Ethiopia. His writings include descriptions of the the cities of Babylon and Meroe (in modern-day Sudan).
Upon returning to his native land, he occupied himself with the study of natural philosophy. He also traveled throughout Greece to acquire a better knowledge of its cultures and learned from many of Greece’s famous philosophers. His wealth allowed him to purchase their writings, and he wrote of them in his own works. In time, he would become one of the most famous of the pre-Socratic philosophers.
The ruins of the ancient Greek city of Abdera, with the west gate shown. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Marysas
Leucippus of Miletus had the greatest influence on him, becoming his mentor and sharing his theory of atomism with him. Democritus is also said to have known Anaxagoras, Hippocrates and even Socrates himself (though this remains unproven). During his time in Egypt, he learned from Egyptian mathematicians, and is said to have become acquainted with the Chaldean magi in Assyria.
In the tradition of the atomists, Democritus was a thoroughgoing materialists who viewed the world in terms of natural laws and causes. This differentiated him from other Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, for whom philosophy was more teleological in nature – i.e. more concerned with the purpose of events rather than the causes, as well things like essence, the soul, and final causes.
According to the many descriptions and anecdotes about Democritus, he was known for his modesty, simplicity, and commitment to his studies. One story claims he blinded himself on purpose in order to be less distracted by worldly affairs (which is believed to be apocryphal). He was also known for his sense of humor and is commonly referred to as the “Laughing Philosopher” – for his capacity to laugh at human folly. To his fellow citizens, he was also known as “The Mocker”.
Scientific Contributions:
Democritus is renowned for being a pioneer of mathematics and geometry. He was among the first Greek philosophers to observe that a cone or pyramid has one-third the volume of a cylinder or prism with the same base and height. While none of his works on the subject survived the Middle Ages, his mathematical proofs are derived from other works with contain extensive citations to titles like On Numbers, On Geometrics, On Tangencies, On Mapping, and On Irrationals.
Right circular and oblique circular cones. Credit: Dominique Toussaint
Democritus is also known for having spent much of his life experimenting with and examining plants and minerals. Similar to his work in mathematics and geometry, citations from existing works are used to infer the existence of works on the subject. These include On the Nature of Man, the two-volume collection On Flesh, On Mind, On the Senses, On Flavors, On Colors, Causes concerned with Seeds and Plants and Fruits, and to the three-volume collection Causes concerned with Animals.
From his examination of nature, Democritus developed what could be considered some of the first anthropological theories. According to him, human beings lived short lives in archaic times, forced to forage like animals until fear of wild animals then drove them into communities. He theorized that such humans had no language, and only developed it through the need to articulate thoughts and ideas.
Through a process of trial and error, human beings developed not only verbal language, but also symbols with which to communicate (i.e. written language), clothing, fire, the domestication of animals, and agriculture. Each step in this process led to more discoveries, more complex behaviors, and the many things that came to characterize civilized society.
In terms of astronomy and cosmology, Democritus was a proponent of the spherical Earth hypothesis. He believed that in the original chaos from which the universe sprang, the universe was composed of nothing but tiny atoms that came together to form larger units (a theory which bears a striking resemblance to The Big Bang Theory and Nebular Theory). He also believed in the existence of many worlds, which were either in state of growth or decay.
In a similar vein, Democritus advanced a theory of void which challenged the paradoxes raised by his fellow Greek philosophers, Parmenides and Zeno – the founders of metaphysical logic. According to these men, movement cannot exist because such a thing requires there to be a void – which is nothing, and therefore cannot exist. And a void cannot be termed as such if it is in fact a definable, existing thing.
To this, Democritus and other atomists argued that since movement is an observable phenomena, there must be a void. This idea previewed Newton’s theory of absolute space, in which space exists independently of any observer or anything external to it. Einstein’s theory of relativity also provided a resolution to the paradoxes raised by Parmenides and Zeno, where he asserted that space itself is relative and cannot be separated from time.
Democritus’ thoughts on the nature of truth also previewed the development of the modern scientific method. According to Democritus, truth is difficult, because it can only be perceived through senses-impressions which are subjective. Because of this, Aristotle claimed in his Metaphysicsthat Democritus was of the opinion that “either there is no truth or to us at least it is not evident.”
However, as Diogenes Laertius quoted in his 3rd century CE tract, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers: “By convention hot, by convention cold, but in reality atoms and void, and also in reality we know nothing, since the truth is at bottom.”
Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, makes mention of Democritus and his theories. Credit: Public Domain
Ultimately, Democritus’ opinion on truth came down to a distinction between two kinds of knowledge – “legitimate” (or “genuine”) and bastard (or “secret”). The latter is concerned with perception through the senses, which is subjective by nature. This is due to the fact that our sense-perception are influence by the shape and nature of atoms as they flow out from the object in question and make an impression on our senses.
“Legitimate” knowledge, by contrast, is achieved through the intellect, where sense-data is elaborated through reasoning. In this way, one can get from “bastard” impressions to the point where things like connections, patterns and causality can be determined. This is consistent with the inductive reasoning method later elaborated by Renee Descartes, and is a prime example of why Democritus is considered to be an early scientific thinker.
Atomic Theory:
However, Democritus greatest contribution to modern science was arguably the atomic theory he elucidated. According to Democritus’ atomic theory, the universe and all matter obey the following principles:
Everything is composed of “atoms”, which are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible
Between atoms, there lies empty space
Atoms are indestructible
Atoms have always been, and always will be, in motion
There are an infinite number of atoms, and kinds of atoms, which differ in shape, and size.
He was not alone in proposing atomic theory, as both his mentor Leucippus and Epicurus are believed to have proposed the earliest views on the shapes and connectivity of atoms. Like Democritus, they believed that the solidity of a material corresponded to the shape of the atoms involved – i.e. iron atoms are hard, water atoms are smooth and slippery, fire atoms are light and sharp, and air atoms are light and whirling.
Democritus’ model of an atom was one of an inert solid that interacted mechanically with other atoms. Credit: .science.edu.sg
However, Democritus is credited with illustrating and popularizing the concept, and for his descriptions of atoms which survived classical antiquity to influence later philosophers. Using analogies from our sense experiences, Democritus gave a picture or an image of an atom that distinguished them from each other by their shape, size, and the arrangement of their parts.
In essence, this model was one of an inert solid that excluded other bodies from its volume, and which interacted with other atoms mechanically. As such, his model included physical links (i.e. hooks and eyes, balls and sockets) that explained how connections occurred between them. While this bears little resemblance to modern atomic theory (where atoms are not inert and interact electromagnetically), it is more closely aligned with that of modern science than any other theory of antiquity.
While there is no clear explanation as to how scholars of classical antiquity came to theorize the existence of atoms, the concept proved to be influential, being picked up by Roman philosopher Lucretius in the 1st century CE and again during the Scientific Revolution. In addition to being indispensable to modern molecular and atomic theory, it also provided an explanation as to why the concept of a void was necessary in nature.
If all matter was composed of tiny, indivisible atoms, then there must also be a great deal of open space between them. This reasoning has also gone on to inform out notions of cosmology and astronomy, where Einstein’s theory of special relativity was able to do away with the concept of a “luminiferous aether” in explaining the behavior of light.
Early atomic theory stated that different materials had differently shaped atoms. Credit: github.com
Diogenes Laertius summarized Democritus atomic theory as follows in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers:
“That atoms and the vacuum were the beginning of the universe; and that everything else existed only in opinion. That the worlds were infinite, created, and perishable. But that nothing was created out of nothing, and that nothing was destroyed so as to become nothing. That the atoms were infinite both in magnitude and number, and were borne about through the universe in endless revolutions. And that thus they produced all the combinations that exist; fire, water, air, and earth; for that all these things are only combinations of certain atoms; which combinations are incapable of being affected by external circumstances, and are unchangeable by reason of their solidity.”
Death and Legacy:
Democritus died at the age of ninety, which would place his death at around 370 BCE; though some writers disagree, with some claiming he lived to 104 or even 109. According to Marcus Aurelius’ book Meditations, Democritus was eaten by lice or vermin, although in the same passage he writes that “other lice killed Socrates”, implying that this was meant metaphorically. Since Socrates died at the hands of the Athenian government who condemned him, it is possible that Aurelius attributed Democritus death to human folly or politics.
While Democritus was highly esteemed amongst his contemporaries, there were also those who resented him. This included Plato who, according to some accounts, disliked him so much that he wished that all his books would be burned. However, Plato’s pupil Aristotle was familiar with the works of Democritus and mentioned him in both Metaphysics and Physics, where he described him as a “physicist” who did not concern himself with the ideals of form or essence.
Democritus meditating on the seat of the soul, by Léon-Alexandre Delhomme (1868). Credit: Pubic Domain
Ultimately, Democritus is credited as being one of the founders of the modern science because his methods and theories closely resemble those of modern astronomers and physicists. And while his version of the atomic model differs greatly from our modern conceptions, his work was of undoubted value, and was a step in an ongoing process that included such scientists as John Dalton, Neils Bohr and even Albert Einstein.
As always, science is an process of continuing discovery, where new breakthroughs are built upon the foundations of the old and every generations attempts to see a little farther by standing on the shoulders of those who came before.
In honor of Dr. Stephen Hawking, the COSMOS center will be creating the most detailed 3D mapping effort of the Universe to date. Credit: BBC, Illus.: T.Reyes
When we think of major figures in the history of science, many names come to mind. Einstein, Newton, Kepler, Galileo – all great theorists and thinkers who left an indelible mark during their lifetime. In many cases, the full extent of their contributions would not be appreciated until after their death. But those of us that are alive today are fortunate to have a great scientist among us who made considerable contributions – Dr. Stephen Hawking.
Considered by many to be the “modern Einstein”, Hawking’s work in cosmology and theoretical physics was unmatched among his contemporaries. In addition to his work on gravitational singularities and quantum mechanics, he was also responsible for discovering that black holes emit radiation. On top of that, Hawking was a cultural icon, endorsing countless causes, appearing on many television shows as himself, and penning several books that have made science accessible to a wider audience.
Early Life:
Hawking was born on January 8th, 1942 (the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England. His parents, Frank and Isobel Hawking, were both students at Oxford University, where Frank studied medicine and Isobel studied philosophy, politics and economics. The couple originally lived in Highgate, a suburb of London, but moved to Oxford to get away from the bombings during World War II and give birth to their child in safety. The two would go on to have two daughters, Philippa and Mary, and one adopted son, Edward.
The family moved again in 1950, this time to St. Albans, Hertfordshire, because Stephen’s father became the head of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research (now part of the Francis Crick Institute). While there, the family gained the reputation for being highly intelligent, if somewhat eccentric. They lived frugally, living in a large, cluttered and poorly maintained house, driving around in a converted taxicab, and constantly reading (even at the dinner table).
Stephen Hawking as a young man. Credit: gazettereview.com
Education:
Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School, where he experienced difficulty in learning to read (which he later blamed on the school’s “progressive methods”.) While in St. Albans, the eight-year-old Hawking attended St. Albans High School for Girls for a few months (which was permitted at the time for younger boys). In September of 1952, he was enrolled at Radlett School for a year, but would remain at St. Albans for the majority of his teen years due the family’s financial constraints.
While there, Hawking made many friends, with whom he played board games, manufactured fireworks, model airplanes and boats, and had long discussions with on subjects ranging from religion to extrasensory perception. From 1958, and with the help of the mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, Hawking and his friends built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard and other recycled components.
Though he was not initially academically successfully, Hawking showed considerable aptitude for scientific subjects and was nicknamed “Einstein”. Inspired by his teacher Tahta, he decided to study mathematics at university. His father had hoped that his son would attend Oxford and study medicine, but since it was not possible to study math there at the time, Hawking chose to study physics and chemistry.
Stephen Hawking (holding the handkerchief) and the Oxford Boat Club. Credit: focusfeatures.com
In 1959, when he was just 17, Hawking took the Oxford entrance exam and was awarded a scholarship. For the first 18 months, he was bored and lonely, owing to the fact that he was younger than his peers and found the work “ridiculously easy”. During his second and third year, Hawking made greater attempts to bond with his peers and developed into a popular student, joining the Oxford Boat Club and developing an interest in classical music and science fiction.
When it came time for his final exam, Hawking’s performance was lackluster. Instead of answering all the questions, he chose to focus on theoretical physics questions and avoided any that required factual knowledge. The result was a score that put him on the borderline between first- and second-class honors. Needing a first-class honors for his planned graduate studies in cosmology at Cambridge, he was forced to take a via (oral exam).
Concerned that he was viewed as a lazy and difficult student, Hawking described his future plans as follows during the viva: “If you award me a First, I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I expect you will give me a First.” However, Hawking was held in higher regard than he believed, and received a first-class BA (Hons.) degree, thus allowing him to pursue graduate work at Cambridge University in October 1962.
Hawking on graduation day in 1962. Credit: telegraph.co.uk
Hawking experienced some initial difficulty during his first year of doctoral studies. He found his background in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology, and was assigned Dennis William Sciama (one of the founders of modern cosmology) as his supervisor, rather than noted astronomer Fred Hoyle (whom he had been hoping for).
In addition, it was during his graduate studies that Hawking was diagnosed with early-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). During his final year at Oxford, he had experienced an accident where he fell down a flight of stairs, and also began experiencing difficulties when rowing and incidents of slurred speech. When the diagnosis came in 1963, he fell into a state of depression and felt there was little point in continuing his studies.
However, his outlook soon changed, as the disease progressed more slowly than the doctors had predicted – initially, he was given two years to live. Then, with the encouragement of Sciama, he returned to his work, and quickly gained a reputation for brilliance and brashness. This was demonstrated when he publicly challenged the work of noted astronomer Fred Hoyle, who was famous for rejecting the Big Bang theory, at a lecture in June of 1964.
Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde on their wedding day, July 14, 1966. Credit: telegraph.co.uk
When Hawking began his graduate studies, there was much debate in the physics community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and the Steady State theories. In the former, the universe was conceived in a gigantic explosion, in which all matter in the known universe was created. In the latter, new matter is constantly created as the universe expands. Hawking quickly joined the debate.
Hawking became inspired by Roger Penrose’s theorem that a spacetime singularity – a point where the quantities used to measure the gravitational field of a celestial body become infinite – exists at the center of a black hole. Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe, and wrote his 1965 thesis on the topic. He went on to receive a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College and obtained his PhD degree in cosmology in 1966.
It was also during this time that Hawking met his first wife, Jane Wilde. Though he had met her shortly before his diagnosis with ALS, their relationship continued to grow as he returned to complete his studies. The two became engaged in October of 1964 and were married on July 14th, 1966. Hawking would later say that his relationship with Wilde gave him “something to live for”.
Scientific Achievements:
In his doctoral thesis, which he wrote in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the existence of singularities to the notion that the universe might have started as a singularity. Their joint essay – entitled, “Singularities and the Geometry of Space-Time” – was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research Foundation competition and shared top honors with one by Penrose to win Cambridge’s most prestigious Adams Prize for that year.
In 1970, Hawking became part of the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholars visiting professorship program, which allowed him to lecture at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). It was during this time that he and Penrose published a proof that incorporated the theories of General Relativity and the physical cosmology developed by Alexander Freidmann.
Based on Einstein’s equations, Freidmann asserted that the universe was dynamic and changed in size over time. He also asserted that space-time had geometry, which is determined by its overall mass/energy density. If equal to the critical density, the universe has zero curvature (i.e. flat configuration); if it is less than critical, the universe has negative curvature (open configuration); and if greater than critical, the universe has a positive curvature (closed configuration)
According to the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem, if the universe truly obeyed the models of general relativity, then it must have begun as a singularity. This essentially meant that, prior to the Big Bang, the entire universe existed as a point of infinite density that contained all of the mass and space-time of the universe, before quantum fluctuations caused it to rapidly expand.
Per the Friedmann equations, the geometry of the universe is determined by its overall mass/energy density, and can have either flat, negative, or positive curvature. Credit: NASA/GSFC
Also in 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics. With James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with the four laws of thermodynamics.
These four laws stated that – for a stationary black hole, the horizon has constant surface gravity; for perturbations of stationary black holes, the change of energy is related to change of area, angular momentum, and electric charge; the horizon area is, assuming the weak energy condition, a non-decreasing function of time; and that it is not possible to form a black hole with vanishing surface gravity.
In 1971, Hawking released an essay titled “Black Holes in General Relativity” in which he conjectured that the surface area of black holes can never decrease, and therefore certain limits can be placed on the amount of energy they emit. This essay won Hawking the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January of that year.
In 1973, Hawking’s first book, which he wrote during his post-doc studies with George Ellis, was published. Titled, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, the book describes the foundation of space itself and the nature of its infinite expansion, using differential geometry to examine the consequences of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1974, a few weeks after the announcement of Hawking radiation (see below). In 1975, he returned to Cambridge and was given a new position as Reader, which is reserved for senior academics with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship.
The mid-to-late 1970s was a time of growing interest in black holes, as well as the researchers associated with them. As such, Hawking’s public profile began to grow and he received increased academic and public recognition, appearing in print and television interviews and receiving numerous honorary positions and awards.
In the late 1970s, Hawking was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, an honorary position created in 1663 which is considered one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world. Prior to Hawking, its former holders included such scientific greats as Sir Isaac Newton, Joseph Larmor, Charles Babbage, George Stokes, and Paul Dirac.
His inaugural lecture as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics was titled: “Is the end in sight for Theoretical Physics”. During the speech, he proposed N=8 Supergravity – a quantum field theory which involves gravity in 8 supersymmetries – as the leading theory to solve many of the outstanding problems physicists were studying.
Hawking’s promotion coincided with a health crisis which led to Hawking being forced to accept some nursing services at home. At the same time, he began making a transition in his approach to physics, becoming more intuitive and speculative rather than insisting on mathematical proofs. By 1981, this saw Hawking begin to focus his attention on cosmological inflation theory and the origins of the universe.
Inflation theory – which had been proposed by Alan Guth that same year – posits that following the Big Bang, the universe initially expanded very rapidly before settling into to a slower rate of expansion. In response, Hawking presented work at the Vatican conference that year, where he suggested that their might be no boundary or beginning to the universe.
During the summer of 1982, he and his colleague Gary Gibbons organized a three-week workshop on the subject titled “The Very Early Universe” at Cambridge University. With Jim Hartle, an American physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, he proposed that during the earliest period of the universe (aka. the Planck epoch) the universe had no boundary in space time.
In 1983, they published this model, known as the Hartle-Hawking state. Among other things, it asserted that before the Big Bang, time did not exist, and the concept of the beginning of the universe is therefore meaningless. It also replaced the initial singularity of the Big Bang with a region akin to the North Pole which (similar to the real North Pole) one cannot travel north of because it is a point where lines meet that has no boundary.
This proposal predicted a closed universe, which had many existential implications, particularly about the existence of God. At no point did Hawking rule out the existence of God, choosing to use God in a metaphorical sense when explaining the mysteries of the universe. However, he would often suggest that the existence of God was unnecessary to explain the origin of the universe, or the existence of a unified field theory.
In 1982, he also began work on a book that would explain the nature of the universe, relativity and quantum mechanics in a way that would be accessible to the general public. This led him to sign a contract with Bantam Books for the sake of publishing A Brief History of Time, the first draft of which he completed in 1984.
After multiple revisions, the final draft was published in 1988, and was met with much critical acclaim. The book was translated into multiple languages, remained at the top of bestseller lists in both the US and UK for months, and ultimately sold an estimated 9 million copies. Media attention was intense, and Newsweek magazine cover and a television special both described him as “Master of the Universe”.
Further work by Hawking in the area of arrows of time led to the 1985 publication of a paper theorizing that if the no-boundary proposition were correct, then when the universe stopped expanding and eventually collapsed, time would run backwards. He would later withdraw this concept after independent calculations disputed it, but the theory did provide valuable insight into the possible connections between time and cosmic expansion.
During the 1990’s, Hawking continued to publish and lecture on his theories regarding physics, black holes and the Big Bang. In 1993, he co-edited a book with Gary Gibbons on on Euclidean quantum gravity, a theory they had been working on together in the late 70s. According to this theory, a section of a gravitational field in a black hole can be evaluated using a functional integral approach, such that it can avoid the singularities.
It was also in 1990s that major developments happened in Hawking’s personal life. In 1990, he and Jane Hawking commenced divorce proceedings after many years of strained relations, owing to his disability, the constant presence of care-givers, and his celebrity status. Hawking remarried in 1995 to Elaine Mason, his caregiver of many years.
Stephen Hawking lectured regularly throughout the 90s, many of which were collected and published in “The Nature of Space and Time” in 1996. Credit: educatinghumanity.com
In the 2000s, Hawking produced many new books and new editions of older ones. These included The Universe in a Nutshell (2001), A Briefer History of Time (2005), and God Created the Integers (2006). He also began collaborating with Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to produce new cosmological theories.
Foremost of these was Hawking’s “top-down cosmology”, which states that the universe had not one unique initial state but many different ones, and that predicting the universe’s current state from a single initial state is therefore inappropriate. Consistent with quantum mechanics, top-down cosmology posits that the present “selects” the past from a superposition of many possible histories.
In so doing, the theory also offered a possible resolution of the “fine-tuning question”, which addresses the possibility that life can only exist when certain physical constraints lie within a narrow range. By offering this new model of cosmology, Hawking opened up the possibility that life may not be bound by such restrictions and could be much more plentiful than previously thought.
In 2006, Hawking and his second wife, Elaine Mason, quietly divorced, and Hawking resumed closer relationships with his first wife Jane, his children (Robert, Lucy and Timothy), and grandchildren. In 2009, he retired as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, which was required by Cambridge University regulations. Hawking has continued to work as director of research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics ever since, and has made no indication of retiring.
“Hawking Radiation” and the “Black Hole Information Paradox”:
In the early 1970s, Hawking’s began working on what is known as the “no-hair theorem”. Based on the Einstein-Maxwell equations of gravitation and electromagnetism in general relativity, the theorem stated that all black holes can be completely characterized by only three externally observable classical parameters: mass, electric charge, and angular momentum.
In this scenario, all other information about the matter which formed a black hole or is falling into it (for which “hair’ is used as a metaphor), “disappears” behind the black-hole event horizon, and is therefore preserved but permanently inaccessible to external observers.
In 1973, Hawking traveled to Moscow and met with Soviet scientists Yakov Borisovich Zel’dovich and Alexei Starobinsky. During his discussions with them about their work, they showed him how the uncertainty principle demonstrated that black holes should emit particles. This contradicted Hawking’ second law of black hole thermodynamics (i.e. black holes can’t get smaller) since it meant that by losing energy they must be losing mass.
What’s more, it supported a theory advanced by Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler University, that black holes should have a finite, non-zero temperature and entropy. All of this contradicted the “no-hair theorem” about black boles. Hawking revised this theorem shortly thereafter, showing that when quantum mechanical effects are taken into account, one finds that black holes emit thermal radiation at a temperature.
From 1974 onward, Hawking presented Bekenstein’s results, which showed that black holes emit radiation. This came to be known as “Hawking radiation”, and was initially controversial. However, by the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics.
However, one of the outgrowths of this theory was the likelihood that black holes gradually lose mass and energy. Because of this, black holes that lose more mass than they gain through other means are expected to shrink and ultimately vanish – a phenomena which is known as black hole “evaporation”.
In 1981, Hawking proposed that information in a black hole is irretrievably lost when a black hole evaporates, which came to be known as the “Black Hole Information Paradox”. This states that physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole, allowing many physical states to devolve into the same state.
This was controversial because it violated two fundamental tenets of quantum physics. In principle, quantum physics tells us that complete information about a physical system – i.e. the state of its matter (mass, position, spin, temperature, etc.) – is encoded in its wave function up to the point when that wave function collapses. This in turn gives rise to two other principles.
The first is Quantum Determinism, which states that – given a present wave function – future changes are uniquely determined by the evolution operator. The second is Reversibility, which states that the evolution operator has an inverse, meaning that the past wave functions are similarly unique. The combination of these means that the information about the quantum state of matter must always be preserved.
By proposing that this information disappears once a black evaporates, Hawking essentially created a fundamental paradox. If a black hole can evaporate, which causes all the information about a quantum wave function to disappear, than information can in fact be lost forever. This has been the subject of ongoing debate among scientists, one which has remained largely unresolved.
However, by 2003, the growing consensus among physicists was that Hawking was wrong about the loss of information in a black hole. In a 2004 lecture in Dublin, he conceded his bet with fellow John Preskill of Caltech (which he made in 1997), but described his own, somewhat controversial solution to the paradox problem – that black holes may have more than one topology.
In the 2005 paper he published on the subject – “Information Loss in Black Holes” – he argued that the information paradox was explained by examining all the alternative histories of universes, with the information loss in those with black holes being cancelled out by those without. As of January 2014, Hawking has described the Black Hole Information Paradox as his “biggest blunder”.
Other Accomplishments:
In addition to advancing our understanding of black holes and cosmology through the application of general relativity and quantum mechanics, Stephen Hawking has also been pivotal in bringing science to a wider audience. Over the course of his career, he has published many popular books, traveled and lectured extensively, and has made numerous appearances and done voice-over work for television shows, movies and even provided narration for the Pink Floyd song, “Keep Talking”.
Stephen Hawking’s theories on black holes became the subject of television specials, such as “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” on PBS. Credit: discovery.com
A film version of A Brief History of Time, directed by Errol Morris and produced by Steven Spielberg, premiered in 1992. Hawking had wanted the film to be scientific rather than biographical, but he was persuaded otherwise. In 1997, a six-part television series Stephen Hawking’s Universe premiered on PBS, with a companion book also being released.
In 2007, Hawking and his daughter Lucy published George’s Secret Key to the Universe, a children’s book designed to explain theoretical physics in an accessible fashion and featuring characters similar to those in the Hawking family. The book was followed by three sequels – George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt (2009), George and the Big Bang (2011), George and the Unbreakable Code (2014).
Since the 1990s, Hawking has also been a major role model for people dealing with disabilities and degenerative illnesses, and his outreach for disability awareness and research has been unparalleled. At the turn of the century, he and eleven other luminaries joined with Rehabilitation International to sign the Charter for the Third Millennium on Disability, which called on governments around the world to prevent disabilities and protect disability rights.
Professor Stephen Hawking participating in a zero-gravity flight (aka. the “Vomit Comet”) in 2007. Credit: gozerog.com
Motivated by the desire to increase public interest in spaceflight and to show the potential of people with disabilities, in 2007 he participated in zero-gravity flight in a “Vomit Comet” – a specially fitted aircraft that dips and climbs through the air to simulate the feeling of weightlessness – courtesy of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times.
In August 2012, Hawking narrated the “Enlightenment” segment of the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony. In September of 2013, he expressed support for the legalization of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. In August of 2014, Hawking accepted the Ice Bucket Challenge to promote ALS/MND awareness and raise contributions for research. As he had pneumonia in 2013, he was advised not to have ice poured over him, but his children volunteered to accept the challenge on his behalf.
During his career, Hawking has also been a committed educator, having personally supervised 39 successful PhD students.He has also lent his name to the ongoing search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and the debate regarding the development of robots and artificial intelligence. On July 20th, 2015, Stephen Hawking helped launch Breakthrough Initiatives, an effort to search for extraterrestrial life in the universe.
Also in 2015, Hawking lent his voice and celebrity status to the promotion of The Global Goals, a series of 17 goals adopted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit to end extreme poverty, social inequality, and fixing climate change over the course of the next 15 years.
President Barack Obama talks with Stephen Hawking in the Blue Room of the White House before a ceremony presenting him and 15 others the Presidential Medal of Freedom, August 12th, 2009. Credit: Pete Souza/White House photo stream
Honors and Legacy:
As already noted, in 1974, Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), and was one of the youngest scientists to become a Fellow. At that time, his nomination read:
Hawking has made major contributions to the field of general relativity. These derive from a deep understanding of what is relevant to physics and astronomy, and especially from a mastery of wholly new mathematical techniques. Following the pioneering work of Penrose he established, partly alone and partly in collaboration with Penrose, a series of successively stronger theorems establishing the fundamental result that all realistic cosmological models must possess singularities. Using similar techniques, Hawking has proved the basic theorems on the laws governing black holes: that stationary solutions of Einstein’s equations with smooth event horizons must necessarily be axisymmetric; and that in the evolution and interaction of black holes, the total surface area of the event horizons must increase. In collaboration with G. Ellis, Hawking is the author of an impressive and original treatise on “Space-time in the Large.
Other important work by Hawking relates to the interpretation of cosmological observations and to the design of gravitational wave detectors.
Peter Higgs and Stephen Hawking visiting the “Collider” exhibition at London’s Science Museum in 2013, in honor of the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Credit: sciencemuseum.org.uk
In 1975, he was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold Medal, and in 1976 the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Prize and the Hughes Medal. In 1977, he was appointed a professor with a chair in gravitational physics, and received the Albert Einstein Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford by the following year.
In 1981, Hawking was awarded the American Franklin Medal, followed by a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) medal the following year. For the remainder of the decade, he was honored three times, first with the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1985, the Paul Dirac Medal in 1987 and, jointly with Penrose, with the prestigious Wolf Prize in 1988. In 1989, he was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH), but reportedly declined a knighthood.
In 1999, Hawking was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society. In 2002, following a UK-wide vote, the BBC included him in their list of the 100 Greatest Britons. More recently, Hawking has been awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Society (2006), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor (2009), and the Russian Special Fundamental Physics Prize (2013).
Stephen Hawking being presented by his daughter Lucy Hawking at the lecture he gave for NASA’s 50th anniversary. Credit: NASA/Paul Alers
Also in 2008, while traveling to Spain, Hawking received the Fonseca Prize – an annual award created by the University of Santiago de Compostela which is awarded to those for outstanding achievement in science communication. Hawking was singled out for the award because of his “exceptional mastery in the popularization of complex concepts in Physics at the very edge of our current understanding of the Universe, combined with the highest scientific excellence, and for becoming a public reference of science worldwide.”
Multiple films have been made about Stephen Hawking over the years as well. These include the previously mentioned A Brief History of Time, the 1991 biopic film directed by Errol Morris and Stephen Spielberg; Hawking, a 2004 BBC drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role; the 2013 documentary titled “Hawking”, by Stephen Finnigan.
Most recently, there was the 2014 film The Theory of Everything that chronicled the life of Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane. Directed by James Marsh, the movie stars Eddie Redmayne as Professor Hawking and Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking.
Death:
Dr. Stephen Hawking passed away in the early hours of Wednesday, March 14th, 2018 at his home in Cambridge. According to a statement made by his family, he died peacefully. He was 76 years old, and is survived by his first wife, Jane Wilde, and their three children – Lucy, Robert and Tim.
When all is said and done, Stephen Hawking was the arguably the most famous scientist alive in the modern era. His work in the field of astrophysics and quantum mechanics has led to a breakthrough in our understanding of time and space, and will likely be poured over by scientists for decades. In addition, he has done more than any living scientist to make science accessible and interesting to the general public.
Stephen Hawking holding a public lecture at the Stockholm Waterfront congress center, 24 August 2015. Credit: Public Domain/photo by Alexandar Vujadinovic
To top it off, he traveled all over the world and lectured on topics ranging from science and cosmology to human rights, artificial intelligence, and the future of the human race. He also used the celebrity status afforded him to advance the causes of scientific research, space exploration, disability awareness, and humanitarian causes wherever possible.
In all of these respects, he was very much like his predecessor, Albert Einstein – another influential scientist-turned celebrity who was sure to use his powers to combat ignorance and promote humanitarian causes. But what was especially impressive in all of this is that Hawking has managed to maintain his commitment to science and a very busy schedule while dealing with a degenerative disease.
For over 50 years, Hawking lived with a disease that doctor’s initially thought would take his life within just two. And yet, he not only managed to make his greatest scientific contributions while dealing with ever-increasing problems of mobility and speech, he also became a jet-setting personality who travelled all around the world to address audiences and inspire people.
His passing was mourned by millions worldwide and, in the worlds of famed scientist and science communicator Neil DeGrasse Tyson , “left an intellectual vacuum in its wake”. Without a doubt, history will place Dr. Hawking among such luminaries as Einstein, Newton, Galileo and Curie as one of the greatest scientific minds that ever lived.
Artist's conception of the event horizon of a black hole. Credit: Victor de Schwanberg/Science Photo Library
Could the famed “Big Bang” theory need a revision? A group of theoretical physicists suppose the birth of the universe could have happened after a four-dimensional star collapsed into a black hole and ejected debris.
Before getting into their findings, let’s just preface this by saying nobody knows anything for sure. Humans obviously weren’t around at the time the universe began. The standard theory is that the universe grew from an infinitely dense point or singularity, but who knows what was there before?
“For all physicists know, dragons could have come flying out of the singularity,” stated Niayesh Afshordi, an astrophysicist with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada who co-authored the new study.
So what are the limitations of the Big Bang theory? The singularity is one of them. Also, it’s hard to predict why it would have produced a universe that has an almost uniform temperature, because the age of our universe (about 13.8 billion years) does not give enough time — as far as we can tell — to reach a temperature equilibrium.
Most cosmologists say the universe must have been expanding faster than the speed of light for this to happen, but Ashford says even that theory has problems: “The Big Bang was so chaotic, it’s not clear there would have been even a small homogenous patch for inflation to start working on.”
Representation of the timeline of the universe over 13.7 billion years, from the Big Bang, through the cosmic dark ages and formation of the first stars, to the expansion in the universe that followed. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team.
This is what the physicists propose:
The model they constructed has the three-dimensional universe floating as a membrane (or brane) in a “bulk universe” that has four dimensions. (Yes, this is making our heads hurt as well, so it might be easier to temporarily think of the brane as two-dimensional and the “bulk universe” as three-dimensional when trying to picture it.) You can read the more technical details in this 2000 paper on which the new theory is based.
So if this “bulk universe” has four-dimensional stars, these stars could go through the same life cycles as the three-dimensional ones we are familiar with. The most massive ones would explode as supernovae, shed their skin and have the innermost parts collapse as a black hole.
The 4-D black hole would have an “event horizon” just like the 3-D ones we are familiar with. The event horizon is the boundary between the inside and the outside of a black hole. There are a lot of theories of what goes on inside a black hole, although nothing has ever been observed.
In a 3-D universe, the event horizon appears as a two-dimensional surface. So in a 4-D universe, the event horizon would be a 3-D object called a hypersphere.
So basically, what the model says is when the 4-D star blows apart, the leftover material would create a 3-D brane surrounding a 3-D event horizon, and then expand.
The long and the short of it? To bring this back to things that we can see, it is clear from observations that the universe is expanding (and indeed is getting faster as it expands, possibly due to the mysterious dark energy). The new theory says that the expansion comes from this 3-D brane’s growth. But there is at least one limitation.
This artist’s impression shows the surroundings of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the active galaxy NGC 3783 in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). New observations using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile have revealed not only the torus of hot dust around the black hole but also a wind of cool material in the polar regions. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
The new model differs from these CMB readings by about four percent, so the researchers are looking to refine the model. They still feel the model has worth, however. Planck shows that inflation is happening, but doesn’t show why the inflation is happening.
“The study could help to show how inflation is triggered by the motion of the universe through a higher-dimensional reality,” the researchers stated.
You can read more about their research on this prepublished Arxiv paper. The Arxiv entry does not specify if the paper has been submitted to any peer-reviewed scientific journals for publication.
The Big Bang Theory: A history of the Universe starting from a singularity and expanding ever since. Credit: grandunificationtheory.com
Observations of the kaboom that built our universe — known as the Big Bang — is better matching up with theory thanks to new work released from one of the twin 33-foot (10-meter) W.M. Keck Observatory telescopes in Hawaii.
For two decades, scientists were puzzled at a lithium isotope discrepancy observed in the oldest stars in our universe, which formed close to the Big Bang’s occurrence about 13.8 billion years ago. Li-6 was about 200 times more than predicted, and there was 3-5 times less Li-7 — if you go by astronomical theory of the Big Bang.
The fresh work, however, showed that these past observations came up with the strange numbers due to lower-quality data that, in its simplifications, created more lithium isotopes detections than are actually present. Keck’s observations found no discrepancy.
Artist’s conception of a metal-poor star. Astronomers modelled a portion of its surface to figure out its abundance of lithium-6, an element that was previously in discrepancy between Big Bang theory and observations of old stars. Credit: Karin Lind, Davide De Martin.
“Understanding the birth of our universe is pivotal for the understanding of the later formation of all its constituents, ourselves included,” stated lead researcher Karin Lind, who was with the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich when the work was performed.
“The Big Bang model sets the initial conditions for structure formation and explains our presence in an expanding universe dominated by dark matter and energy,” added Lind, who is now with the University of Cambridge.
To be sure, it is difficult to measure lithium-6 and lithium-7 because their spectroscopic “signatures” are pretty hard to see. It takes a large telescope to be able to do it. Also, modelling the data can lead to accidental detections of lithium because some of the processes within these old stars appear similar to a lithium signature.
Keck used a high-resolution spectrometer to get the images and gazed at each star for several hours to ensure astronomers got all the photons it needed to do analysis. Modelling the data took several more weeks of work on a supercomputer.
Concentric circles interpreted as bruises from collisions with alternate universes. Image Credit: Feeney et al.
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At the end of last year, there was a flurry of activity from astronomers Gurzadyan and Penrose that considered the evidence of alternate universes or the existence of a universe prior to the Big Bang and suggested that such evidence may be imprinted on the cosmic microwave background as bruises of concentric circles. Quickly, this was followed by an announcement claiming to find just such circles. Of course, with an announcement this big, the statistical significance would need to be confirmed. A recent paper in the October issue of the Astrophysical Journal provides a second opinion.
The review was conducted by Amir Hajian at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. To conduct the study, Hajian selected a large number of circles, similar to the ones reported in the previous studies and asked what the probability was that, randomly, the “edge” of the circles would contain hot-spots, similar to the ones predicted. These were then compared to the bruises reported by the other teams by examining their “variance” which is how much the points on the perimeter were spread around the average temperature.
Hajian notes that, with the resolution considered it would be possible to consider some 5 million circles. The results of his comparison demonstrated that it would be expected that some 0.3% of those should have features similar to the ones reported previously. With so many possibilities, this would imply that some 15,000 potential circles could be flagged as candidates for these cosmic bruises. Even the “best” candidate proposed in the Gurzadyan and Penrose study should still exist statistically.
As such, Hajian concludes that the features Gurzadyan and Penrose reported were not statistically anomalous. Hajian does not comment directly on Feeney et al.’s detection, but given theirs were constructed in a similar manner, it should be expected that they are similarly statistically insignificant. It would appear that if the fingerprints of other universes are embedded in the sky, they have been lost in the noise.
Seven Year Microwave Sky (Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team)
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The cosmological constant, symbol Λ (Greek capital lambda), was ‘invented’ by Einstein, not long after he published his theory of general relativity (GR). It appears on the left-hand side of the Einstein field equations.
Einstein added this term because he – along with all other astronomers and physicists of the time – thought the universe was static (the cosmological constant can make a universe filled with mass-energy static, neither expanding nor contracting). However, he very quickly realized that this wouldn’t work, because such a universe would be unstable … and quickly turn into one either expanding or contracting! Not long afterwards, Hubble (actually Vesto Slipher) discovered that the universe is, in fact, expanding, so the need for a cosmological constant went away.
Until 1998.
In that year, two teams of astronomers independently announced that distant Type Ia supernovae did not have the apparent luminosity they should, in a universe composed almost entirely of mass-energy in the form of baryons (ordinary matter) and cold dark matter.
Dark Energy had been discovered: dark energy is a form of mass-energy that has a constant density throughout the universe, and perhaps throughout time as well; counter-intuitively, it causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate (i.e. it acts kinda like anti-gravity). The most natural form of dark energy is the cosmological constant.
A great deal of research has gone into trying to discover if dark energy is, in fact, just the cosmological constant, or if it is quintessence, or something else. So far, results from observations of the CMB (by WMAP, mainly), of BAO (baryon acoustic oscillations, by extensive surveys of galaxies), and of high-redshift supernovae (by many teams) are consistent with dark energy being the cosmological constant.
So if the cosmological constant is (a) mass-energy (density), it can be expressed as kilograms (per cubic meter), can’t it? Yes, and the best estimate today is 7.3 x 10-27 kg m 3.
Temperature and polarization around hot and cold spots (Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team)
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The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) science team has finished analyzing seven full years’ of data from the little probe that could, and once again it seems we can sum up the universe in six parameters and a model.
Using the seven-year WMAP data, together with recent results on the large-scale distribution of galaxies, and an updated estimate of the Hubble constant, the present-day age of the universe is 13.75 (plus-or-minus 0.11) billion years, dark energy comprises 72.8% (+/- 1.5%) of the universe’s mass-energy, baryons 4.56% (+/- 0.16%), non-baryonic matter (CDM) 22.7% (+/- 1.4%), and the redshift of reionization is 10.4 (+/- 1.2).
In addition, the team report several new cosmological constraints – primordial abundance of helium (this rules out various alternative, ‘cold big bang’ models), and an estimate of a parameter which describes a feature of density fluctuations in the very early universe sufficiently precisely to rule out a whole class of inflation models (the Harrison-Zel’dovich-Peebles spectrum), to take just two – as well as tighter limits on many others (number of neutrino species, mass of the neutrino, parity violations, axion dark matter, …).
The best eye-candy from the team’s six papers are the stacked temperature and polarization maps for hot and cold spots; if these spots are due to sound waves in matter frozen in when radiation (photons) and baryons parted company – the cosmic microwave background (CMB) encodes all the details of this separation – then there should be nicely circular rings, of rather exact sizes, around the spots. Further, the polarization directions should switch from radial to tangential, from the center out (for cold spots; vice versa for hot spots).
And that’s just what the team found!
Concerning Dark Energy. Since the Five-Year WMAP results were published, several independent studies with direct relevance to cosmology have been published. The WMAP team took those from observations of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the distribution of galaxies; of Cepheids, supernovae, and a water maser in local galaxies; of time-delay in a lensed quasar system; and of high redshift supernovae, and combined them to reduce the nooks and crannies in parameter space in which non-cosmological constant varieties of dark energy could be hiding. At least some alternative kinds of dark energy may still be possible, but for now Λ, the cosmological constant, rules.
Concerning Inflation. Very, very, very early in the life of the universe – so the theory of cosmic inflation goes – there was a period of dramatic expansion, and the tiny quantum fluctuations before inflation became the giant cosmic structures we see today. “Inflation predicts that the statistical distribution of primordial fluctuations is nearly a Gaussian distribution with random phases. Measuring deviations from a Gaussian distribution,” the team reports, “is a powerful test of inflation, as how precisely the distribution is (non-) Gaussian depends on the detailed physics of inflation.” While the limits on non-Gaussianity (as it is called), from analysis of the WMAP data, only weakly constrain various models of inflation, they do leave almost nowhere for cosmological models without inflation to hide.
Concerning ‘cosmic shadows’ (the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect). While many researchers have looked for cosmic shadows in WMAP data before – perhaps the best known to the general public is the 2006 Lieu, Mittaz, and Zhang paper (the SZ effect: hot electrons in the plasma which pervades rich clusters of galaxies interact with CMB photons, via inverse Compton scattering) – the WMAP team’s recent analysis is their first to investigate this effect. They detect the SZ effect directly in the nearest rich cluster (Coma; Virgo is behind the Milky Way foreground), and also statistically by correlation with the location of some 700 relatively nearby rich clusters. While the WMAP team’s finding is consistent with data from x-ray observations, it is inconsistent with theoretical models. Back to the drawing board for astrophysicists studying galaxy clusters. Seven Year Microwave Sky (Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team)
I’ll wrap up by quoting Komatsu et al. “The standard ΛCDM cosmological model continues to be an exquisite fit to the existing data.”
Primary source: Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation (arXiv:1001.4738). The five other Seven-Year WMAP papers are: Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Are There Cosmic Microwave Background Anomalies? (arXiv:1001.4758), Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Planets and Celestial Calibration Sources (arXiv:1001.4731), Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Sky Maps, Systematic Errors, and Basic Results (arXiv:1001.4744), Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Power Spectra and WMAP-Derived Parameters (arXiv:1001.4635), and Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Galactic Foreground Emission (arXiv:1001.4555). Also check out the official WMAP website.
‘Nucleo-‘ means ‘to do with nuclei’; ‘synthesis’ means ‘to make’, so nucleosynthesis is the creation of (new) atomic nuclei.
In astronomy – and astrophysics and cosmology – there are two main kinds of nucleosynthesis, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), and stellar nucleosynthesis.
In the amazingly successful set of theories which are popularly called the Big Bang theory, the early universe was very dense, and very hot. As it expanded, it cooled, and the quark-gluon plasma ‘froze’ into neutrons and protons (and other hadrons, but their role in BBN was marginal), which interacted furiously … lots and lots of nuclear reactions. The universe continued to cool, and soon became too cold for any further nuclear reactions … the unstable isotopes left then decayed, as did the neutrons not already in some nucleus or other. Most matter was then hydrogen (actually just protons; the electrons were not captured to form atoms until much later), and helium-4 (alpha particles) … with a sprinkling of deuterium, a dash of helium-3, and a trace of lithium-7.
That’s BBN.
The atoms in your body – apart from the hydrogen – were all made in stars … by stellar nucleosynthesis.
Stars on the main sequence get the energy they shine by from nuclear reactions in their cores; off the main sequence, the energy comes from nuclear reactions in a shell (or more than one shell) around the core. There are several different nuclear reaction cycles, or processes (e.g. triple alpha, s process, proton-proton chain, CNO cycle), but the end result is the fusion of hydrogen (and helium) to produce carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, … and the iron group (iron, cobalt, nickel). In the red giant phase of a star’s life, much of this matter ends up in the interstellar medium … and one day in your body.
There are other ways new nuclei can be created, in the universe (other than BBN and stellar nucleosynthesis); for example, when a high energy particle (a cosmic ray) collides with a nucleus in the interstellar medium (or the Earth’s atmosphere), it breaks it into two or more pieces (this process is called cosmic ray spallation). This produces most of the lithium (apart from the BBN 7Li), beryllium, and boron.
And one more: in a supernova, especially a core collapse supernova, huge quantities of new nuclei are synthesized, very quickly, in the nuclear reactions triggered by the flood of neutrons. This ‘r process’, as it is called (actually there’s more than one) produces most of the elements heavier than the iron group (copper to uranium), directly or by radioactive decay of unstable isotopes produced directly.
Time line of the Universe (Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team)
The Big Bang timeline is basically just a list of relative times at which the major events in the history of the universe occurred, per the collection of theories, models, and hypotheses which together form what is called the Big Bang theory.
The start – when time began, when t = 0 – is not actually part of the Big Bang timeline (!), contrary to popular belief. That’s because the two theories of physics which are at the heart of the Big Bang theory – General Relativity (GR) and the Standard Model (of particle physics; SM for short) – are mutually incompatible, and that incompatibility becomes so intolerable that saying anything about what happened in the first Planck second (approx 10-43 second) is meaningless.
In fact, the closer to the Planck regime – when GR and the SM are utterly incompatible – the less reliable are our descriptions … but the relative times are nonetheless pretty good.
Actually, that’s not quite true … what is relatively certain are temperatures; forces, matter, and radiation interact in very distinct ways, depending on the temperature (and pressure, or density), but converting from temperature back to time depends on various parameters which are not so well pinned down. However, once the average mass-energy density of the universe, today, is estimated, the clock can be wound back with some confidence (it’s ~six hydrogen atoms per cubic meter, or about 7 x 10-27 kg/m3).
Around 10-35 seconds leptons and baryons were created (the strong force became a distinct force), and inflation caused the universe to expand so much that the part which later became our observable universe was both flat (no curvature, in the GR sense) and incredibly smooth (with only tiny variations in density due to quantum effects).
At around 10-11 seconds the electromagnetic and weak force became distinct.
And by about a microsecond the universe underwent another phase change … it was no longer a quark-gluon plasma, but hadrons formed (protons and neutrons).
When t = 1 second (more or less), nuclear reactions produced light nuclides, such as deuterium and helium-3 (before this time the universe was too hot for them to form) – Big Bang nucleosynthesis.
The earliest part of the universe we can still see, directly, happened when the electrons and protons (and other nuclei) combined to form hydrogen atoms; this is the recombination era, and we see it today as the cosmic microwave background … and gravity took over as the dominant force (before this it was electromagnetism – the universe was ‘radiation dominated’ – and before that, at the time of nucleosynthesis, the strong and weak forces ruled).
The rest, as they say, is history … the Dark Ages (during which the first stars were formed), the era of recombination (when stars and quasars ionized the diffuse hydrogen), galaxy formation, … and then about 13.4 billion years later we observed the skies and worked out the timeline!
There’s a lot of good material on the web on the Big Bang timeline; here are some: John Baez (who’s always worth reading) has a brief timeline, in terms of temperature; there’s a more extensive one from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and perhaps the best, A Brief History of the Universe (University of Cambridge).
