Wrinkles
in Time
by George
Smoot
1994, Avon, New
York, NY
ABSTRACT - A
story, by perhaps the greatest living cosmologists, of his discovery, which
Stephen Hawking called the "most important of the century, if not of all time" confirming
the big
bang theory and leading to an understanding that matter is not distributed uniformly throughout
the universe. As he traces the development of the universe from the moment of creation until the
present, he outlines some of the most basic principles of life, such as phase transitions and the
increasing complexity of life’s systems.
Key
Points:
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- "The most far-reaching implication
of general relativity, however, is that
the universe is not static, but is dynamic, either contracting or
expanding." p. 36
- "The evolution of the universe is
effectively the change of distribution of
matter through time - moving from virtual homogeneity in the early
universe to a very lumpy universe today, with matter condensed as
galaxies, clusters, super-clusters, and even larger structures. We can
view that evolution as a series of phase transitions from one state to
another under the influence of decreasing temperature (or energy)."
P.284
- "At a ten-millionth of a trillionth
of a trillionth of a trillionth (10 -42 ) of a
second after the big bang - the earliest moment about which we can
sensibly talk, and then only with some suspension of disbelief - all the
universe we can observe today was the tiniest fraction of the size of a
proton. space and time had only just begun...By 10-34 second inflation
had expanded the universe (at an accelerating rate) a million trillion
trillion (1030) times...The strong nuclear force had separated, and matter
underwent its first phase transition, existing now as quarks...The next
phase transition occurred at a ten-thousandth of a second, when quarks
began to bind together to form protons and neutrons...When the
temperature fell to about 3,000 degrees, at three hundred thousand
years, a crucial further phase transition occurred. the photons were no
longer energetic enough to dislodge electrons from around hydrogen
and helium nuclei and so atoms of hydrogen and helium were formed
ant stayed together." p. 284-285
"Had all matter
been distributed evenly, the fabric of space would have been
smooth, and the interaction of photons with particles would have been
homogeneous, resulting in a completely uniform cosmic background radiation.
Our discovery of the wrinkles reveals to us that matter was not uniformly
distributed, that it was already structured, thus forming the seeds out of which
today’s complex universe has grown." p. 285
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- "A powerful conviction for me, and
one that I believe encourages
confidence that one day we will understand the very essence of
creation, is the idea that as we converge on the moment of creation, the
constituents and laws of the universe become ever simpler." p. 290
- "Cosmology - through the marriage
of astrophysics and particle physics
- is showing us that this complexity flowed from a deep simplicity as
matter metamorphosed through a series of phase transitions." p. 291
"There is
a clear order to the evolution of the universe, moving from simplicity
and symmetry to greater complexity and structure. As time passes, simple
components coalesce into more sophisticated building blocks spawning a richer,
more diverse environment. Accidents and chance, in fact, are essential in
developing the overall richness of the universe. In that sense, Einstein had the
right idea: God does not play dice with the universe. Though individual events
happen as a matter of chance, there is an overall inevitability to the development
of sophisticated complex systems." p. 296
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