The Big Bang Theory &
Expansion of the Universe
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
What is our physical place in the universe?
Our Cosmic Address
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
Example: the Suns Spectrum
Example: the Suns Spectrum
Distinct energy levels lead to distinct emission or
absorption lines.
Hydrogen
Energy
Levels
Emission:
atom loses
energy
Absorption:
atom gains
energy
Doppler Shift
Definition : Redshift
The measure of the amount a spectral line is shifted
in wavelength
Galaxies are all moving
away from each other, so
every galaxy sees the
same Hubble expansion,
i.e there is no center.
The cosmic expansion is
the unfolding of all space
since the big bang,
i.e. there is no edge.
We are limited in our
view by the time it takes
distant light to reach us,
i.e. the universe has an
edge in time not space.
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
Expansion is Accelerating!
The plots on the right
were the data from
supernovae that showed
that the expansion of the
Apparent Brightness
universe is not constant
but has changed value
over time.
More distant
supernovae are dimmer
than expected
Something (Dark
Energy) is causing the
expansion to accelerate.
We dont know what
Dark Energy is only
that it appears to 2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
counteract gravity
publishing as Addison-Wesley
Redshift ~ Distance
Cosmology: What We Know
1. Redshift its cosmic
expansion, not Doppler
If the Universe is expanding, then reversing
that expansion (going backwards in time)
indicates that the Universe must have been
smaller in the past.
Blackbody (Thermal) Radiation
Two Properties of Thermal Radiation:
1. Hotter objects emit more light at all frequencies per unit area.
2. Hotter objects emit photons with a higher average energy.
Infrared Light Human Body Glows!
Discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background
1964
Bob
Wilson
Arno
Penzias
Cosmology: What We Know
2. Background
Radiation
thermal, at
2.73K
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
Measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background
T = 2.725 K
WMAP
T = 3.35 mK
T = 18 K
T = 18 K
An image of quantum
fluctuations blown up to
the size of the universe
Planck Satellite
3. Galaxies in past look
younger (smaller
and more irregular)
Hubble Ultra Deep Field
HSTACS
4. Deuterium and Helium
synthesized (higher
temperatures in the past)
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
Status of the Big Bang
There is evidence for expansion, and
the universe was hotter and denser in
the distant past.
The microwave background and the
helium abundance cannot easily be
explained in any other way.
There are hundred of thousands of
big bang photons in every breath you
take: the big bang is all around us.
It is a theory, but a theory with a web
of evidence to support it. The theory
is mute about the cause of the cause.
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
How do our lifetimes compare to the age
of the Universe?
The Cosmic Calendar: a scale on which we
compress the history of the universe into 1 year.
This is a time scale model where 14 billion years
equals 1 year, i.e. 14,000,000,000:1.
Our lives would scale similarly, so 80 years goes
down by a factor of 14 billion too.
In the scale model, a human life is about 2 tenths
of a second!
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
Now home in
on the more
recent span
of the history
of life and of
humans and
civilization
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
The Raw Material for Astrobiology
Space: the potential habitable worlds around ten
thousand billion billion stars; ours is just one.
Time: a cosmic history of nearly 14 billion years;
life took less than billion years to start here.
If they not be inhabited, what a waste of space.
Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Essayist (1795-1881)
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,
publishing as Addison-Wesley
