Big Bang Back Hes N Math宇宙大黑洞没有数学.ppt

Before 700,000 years: Summary Photons are incessantly scattered by free electrons; photons are in equilibrium with matter Radiation dominated era Photons-electron soup ? have the same temperature (energy) 0 After 700,000 Years: “Recombination” Protons and electrons combine to form atoms ? universe becomes transparent for photons Transition to matter dominated era 0 Crappy Word! Atoms are combining for the first time, not recombining! A cartoon of an atom and a photon Mostly this is happening now since the photons are low energy The Cosmic Background Radiation After recombination, photons can travel freely through space Their wavelength is only stretched (red shifted) by cosmic expansion This is what we can observe today as the cosmic background radiation! 0 Wait a Billion Years After less than ~ 1 billion years, the first stars form ? Produce Heavy Elements in Stellar Cooking Formation of the first stars 0 The First Three Minutes /Figures/StolenAnimations/first3minutes.swf * * * * * * * * * The next few billion years After less than ~0.5 billion years, the first stars form ? Stars produce heavy elements (“Stellar Cooking”) A Neutral Universe After the electrons and protons combine to form atoms the Universe is almost completely neutral i.e., neutrally charged Why is this so important? All the particles in the Universe stop attracting each other due to their electric charge Not completely true, just true outside the atoms Basically can ignore electric charge from here on out Some Time Passes The Transition From a “Charged” Universe to a “Neutral” Universe Aside on Dark Matter Dark matter is a BIG part of this story because there is 5 times more mass in the Universe in dark matter than in atoms Will come back to this in Chapter 15 However, the story doesn’t change much with Dark Matter since we think it is just another neutral particle A Gravity Dominated Universe The only thing left is gravity! The gravitational attraction between massive things ONLY makes them