Abstract
Parts of this could logically be included in Chap. 3 under Ideas. However, the story of ideas underlying current theories of cosmology are too complex to reduce to a few names and dates, although I will start with one. For most modern astronomers, the logical starting point of modern cosmology was Vesto Slipher’s discovery (1912) of the “red shift” (Z) of the in absorption lines for hydrogen (and other elements) in starlight from distant galaxies. The red shift, toward the infra-red part of the spectrum, indicates slightly lower frequencies (longer wavelengths). It can be explained in terms of relative motion, like the “Doppler effect”. (The Doppler effect is what makes the sound of an approaching siren a little higher in pitch than the sound of a siren moving away). By 1920, 36 of 41 galaxies for which data had been obtained, were seen to be moving away from our galaxy, the Milky Way. Current data puts the fraction much higher.
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Notes
- 1.
Cepheid stars have time-varying brightness that is closely related to their pulse periodicity. The regular pulsation is now understood to be due to a dynamic contest between temperature and light pressure vs. gravity. A “halo” of ionized helium becomes doubly ionized (and opaque to light) when the star is compressed and hottest, but only singly ionized (and transparent) when it expands and cools. As the star cools energy (as light) escapes and the star cools further, until gravity takes over and recompresses it.
- 2.
There is one exception: it was discovered in 1977 that our galaxy, the “milky way” is actually moving toward the Andromeda nebula at the relative speed of 600 km/s (Smoot and Davidson 1993). This appears to be due to gravitational attraction. It is evidence that the large-scale structures of the universe are more “organized” than previously thought.
- 3.
By “quantum numbers” he meant electric charge and spin-direction, because each of them must be conserved in reactions. The concept of quantum numbers has since been extended to include other “either/or” variables, such as parity and “iso-spin”. Iso-spin is related to a conservation law applicable to strong nuclear forces and quarks.
- 4.
Confession: I have a personal history with fermions. My PhD thesis (1958) was entitled “Fermion correlation: A variational approach to quantum statistical mechanics” (Ayres 1958).
- 5.
The six leptons are electron e, electron neutrino (νe), muon (μ), muon neutrino (νμ) and tau (ι) and tau neutrino (νμ).
- 6.
The word “gauge”, here, refers to “gauge symmetry”. Symmetry-breaking changes the theory.
- 7.
In fairness, it seems that Alexei Starobinsky had the same idea earlier in Moscow and some anomalies in Guth’s version were later “fixed” by Andrei Linde and also, separately, by Andreas Albrecht and Paul Steinhard.
- 8.
He was a German astrophysicist who volunteered to join the army on the outbreak of war and who died of battle-related auto-immune disease in 1916, aged 43, a few months before his results were published.
- 9.
The Pauli exclusion principle in quantum mechanics says that no two fermions (like neutrons) can occupy the same quantum state. Hence, all but two of the neutrons in a neutron star need to be in highly excited states, whence they must move continuously at speeds closely approaching the speed of light.
- 10.
Such is the god-like authority of Einstein, some people have concluded that perhaps energy is not conserved after all e.g. Mirowski (1989, p. 82).
- 11.
The Mach principle (attributed to Ernst Mach, but first stated in the eighteenth century by George Berkeley) says—more or less—that local physical laws are determined by the large scale structure of the universe. Einstein used this idea, without attribution, in a more precise form.
- 12.
Type 1-A supernovas are known as “standard candles” in the trade, because their luminosity is both extreme and consistent.
- 13.
Beta-decay converts neutrons into protons and electrons, plus neutrinos. It occurs (very rarely) inside the nuclei of atoms, involves the emission of neutrinos or anti-neutrinos and kinetic energy. I wonder if at high enough temperatures and pressures, inside a massive star the process may be inverted, converting protons and electrons back into neutrons. The process known as “electron capture” is a clue. The source of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos is still mysterious.
- 14.
The fusion process is fairly complex, starting from hydrogen nuclei (protons), then to neutrons, then Helium 3 nuclei and finally Helium 4 nuclei. The “recipe” for a Helium 4 nucleus is: 4 protons (hydrogen nuclei) minus 2 positrons, 2 neutrinos and 2 photons. The two positrons emitted along the way eventually combine with two electrons, producing two more photons. Two other electrons can combine with the helium nucleus to form a helium atom. The star as a whole remains electrically neutral, but internally the positive and negative charges can be somewhat separated, resulting in electric voltages, currents and magnetic fields.
- 15.
Silicon also has this capability, although no known living organisms are silicon-based.
- 16.
For reasons that are not well understood, the photosynthetic carbon fixation process mediated by the enzyme ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase discriminates against the heavier isotopes of carbon. Consequently 13C is depleted by about 25 % in organic carbon, as compared to inorganic carbon. Thus the ratio of the isotopic composition of carbon becomes a definite indicator of how long ago the photosynthesis occurred.
- 17.
The asteroids came later. They were once thought to be fragments of a planet that once existed between Earth and Mars, but which blew up, long ago, for unknown reasons. Now they are thought to be fragments that never “coagulated” into planets, probably due to gravitational disturbances from the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. The Earth’s moon may have resulted from that collision, according to some authorities.
- 18.
As a matter of interest, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1824) was the first to realize that the Earth would be much colder than it is if it were not somehow being warmed by its atmosphere. John Tyndall was the first to discover that nitrogen and oxygen cannot be responsible, whereas carbon dioxide and water vapor both absorb infra-red radiation very effectively (1859).
- 19.
There is some dispute as to the rate of hydrogen loss and whether the early Earth’s atmosphere was very rich in hydrogen (strongly reducing) or neutral on the acid-base (pH) scale. At present the balance of opinion favors the reducing atmosphere.
- 20.
Without a magnetic field to deflect it, the solar wind interacts directly with the top of Venus’ atmosphere, sometimes causing huge planet-sized storms called “hot flow anomalies” that would also kill any living organisms.
- 21.
Medea was the legendary Greek wife of Jason (seeker of the golden fleece), who killed her own children.
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Ayres, R. (2016). The Cosmos, The Sun and The Earth. In: Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30545-5_4
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