We live in this universe full of stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, neutron stars, dwarf stars, and a very large variety of heavenly bodies. It is great and huge (compared to us). It contains different types of planets - each unique and different from others. Some are very hot, some are icy cold. Some are thousand times larger than earth, some really tiny in shape. We can see big clusters of rocks like asteroids and comets. If we and the life on earth is a unique creation of the universe. And who knows? There might be many other living species, each of a different and unique kind. There is a lot to discuss about the variety in the universe. But the question is how did the universe create such things. We know there are many theories about how the universe was born. Most popular and most accepted of them is the Big Bang theory. You must be knowing about it (you can read a Wikipedia article about Big Bang HERE). So, I would be building my question upon the big bang theory. The Big Bang was like an explosion. At first there was a tiny ball of enormous amount of energy at a very high temperature. It is called the singularity and had an infinite density. The ball of energy then suddenly exploded and expanded rapidly to form different types of fundamental particles. These particles together formed atoms. Atoms formed molecules. They then formed clusters of different gases and they formed stars and it continued to form large clusters like solar systems, galaxies etc. But if big bang was an explosion from singularity, it must have to be uniform. There was absolutely nothing before the big bang to disturb the explosion and make the explosion non-uniform. Then why didn't we end up with a large cluster of particles and energy uniformly distributed over a spherical universe? What caused particles to come close and form clusters of gases and then galaxies? The answer lies in Quantum Mechanics. At First Universe was like ExpectedDuring the first moments of its birth, universe was actually what we would expect. Uniform over a sphere. It was just what we would expect according to the classical physics. But afterwards, some kind of ghost, created some irregularities in the new born universe and those irregularities amplified with time, creating the familiar universe with large clusters like stars, planets, galaxies etc. That Ghost was Quantum Mechanics. Uncertainty Principle Popped in Some Random ParticlesAccording to quantum mechanics and the Uncertainty principle, you can never know where a particle actually is until you observe it. Before that you can only predict the probability of it being at a particular location. Once you observe it you can know where it is. But it could randomly be at some point in space when you observe it. So, a particle's position is actually randomly distributed over a volume of space. Similar is the case for the particle's momentum. It also allows particles to randomly pop in and out of existence any time and at any location in space. You can read more about Quantum Mechanics HERE. In the starting of the expansion of the universe, particles were randomly popping in and out in the universe. Sometimes these lasted long enough to affect the other particles in the universe through gravitational and electromagnetic interactions. These random interactions at random locations created some irregularities in space. Particles slowly started to come closer. Even the slightest irregularity would be amplified with time as the particles came closer and closer and created clusters gradually. Also, the expansion of space amplified the effect even more. With time gravity made particles cluster to form larger and larger structures, eventually resulting in the creation of stars, galaxies and the other variety of things that we see today. It is Built-In the UniverseSuch a randomness and irregularity of the universe is built in the physics of our universe. The Quantum Fluctuations in space fabric produce these irregularities in different ways. The fluctuations are really tiny for us to observe. But are powerful enough to cause the irregularities in the universe that we see now. Randomness is an in-built feature of the physics of our universe and we should thank Quantum Mechanics, without which the universe would have been uniform and we would never have born to ask this question today. We still don't KnowHumans are still working on this problem. We are continuously upgrading the theory of quantum mechanics to explain the universe in a better ways. So, the answer is there, but is incomplete. We must wait for us to get smarter to get a better answer. Thanks for Reading !! Do share and comment
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AuthorAnish Sharma - A Student and the owner of this website. Archives |