Understanding the Big Bang

An artist’s concept illustrating the expansion of
the Universe after the Big Bang.

The term Big Bang was originally coined by the English astronomer Fred Hoyle in an attempt to help listeners to a radio program that he was a guest on understand the difference between it and the popular Steady State theory of which he was a proponent. The Steady State theory had been around since 1920 and proposes that matter in the Universe was being continually created, and had existed pretty much as it does today for all time. 
   In 1931, the Belgian physicist Georges Lemaître first suggested the evidence for the expansion of the Universe, if projected back in time, meant that all the mass of the Universe was at some point concentrated into a single “Primeval Atom”. Einstein initially refused to accept the concept, telling Lemaître that “Your math is correct, but your physics is abominable.” It would take Einstein another four years to embrace the theory.
   Simply put, The Big Bang theory states that because space is expanding, the Universe must have been much denser in the past. Einstein’s theory of gravity lets us run time backwards to calculate the density of the Universe billions of years ago. As a result we know that the observable Universe must have expanded from an extremely dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago.
   During the Big Bang, matter did not explode into space from a point. The Big Bang was an expansion of space itself that filled all of space with energy right from the beginning. 

Timeline of the Universe.

   Evidence indicates only that the early universe was extremely dense, but not necessarily extremely small. Even though the observable portion of the Universe was once packed into an incredibly small volume, it was not surrounded by empty space—it was surrounded by more matter and energy which is now beyond the observable Universe. This leads to an amazing little-known conclusion: if the whole Universe is infinitely large, then it was always infinitely large, even during the Big Bang.
   Current evidence also tells us that the Universe is either infinitely large, or else is so large that we cannot detect its curvature from what we can observe—similar to how we can not tell that the Earth is round by looking at our back yard.
   The observational evidence for the Big Bang is overwhelming and is known as the Four Pillars of Big Bang Cosmology: Hubble expansion as measured through the redshifts of distant galaxies, the discovery in 1965 of cosmic microwave background radiation, the abundance of hydrogen and helium in proportions predicted to have been produced during the Big Bang, and the formation of galaxies and large-scale structure such as galactic superclusters.
   But the Big Bang is not the whole story—its details are a subject of intense research. The Big Bang theory says nothing about how the universe came into being in the first place—it just assumes that energy, space and time already existed. And because current description of physical laws do not yet apply to such extremes of nature, we may never know what actually happened during the Big Bang. 

Space: The Misunderstood Frontier

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity,
gravitational attraction between masses results from
their warping of space and time.

This week I am going to deal with some popular misconceptions about space and the Universe in general. Next week I will tackle the Big Bang theory.
   First off, we must realize that when we look out in space we are looking back in time. It takes a long time for the light from distant objects in the Universe to reach us. Light from the Sun takes eight minutes to reach us, and light from nearby stars takes years. Distant galaxies are seen as they looked millions or even billions of years ago. Galaxies extend out far beyond what we can see today, but how far no one knows. Because the Universe has been evolving and expanding over time, most of the light from the distant reaches of the Universe has not yet had time to reach us. 
   As far as we can tell, there is no edge to the Universe. Galaxies extend as far as we can detect in every direction with no sign of diminishing. Even though galaxies extend much further than we can see, we don’t know if the Universe is infinite. So when a galaxy is described as being near the edge of the Universe, what is really meant is that it is near the edge of the observable Universe.
   Until Einstein showed that space has structure, astronomers thought of space as just the emptiness that contains matter. But Einstein showed, through his general theory of relativity, that space is flexible and can be warped. Now when we talk about the expansion of the Universe, we are referring to the stretching of space itself—not just galaxies moving apart through space.
   The notion that space is expanding was predicted by Einstein’s theory of gravitation which describes a simple but universal relationship between matter, space and time. It was a prediction that Einstein initially couldn’t embrace. He modified his theory by adding a term to achieve a static Universe that he called a cosmological constant. Later, after observational evidence by Edwin Hubble indicated that the Universe was indeed expanding, Einstein abandoned his constant calling it his biggest blunder.
   Today, we know that not only is the Universe expanding, but that it is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. Cosmologists use the term “dark energy” to explain this mysterious energy that Einstein had embraced, then discarded. The best explanation we have today for dark energy is that it is a vacuum energy associated with virtual particles—quantum fluctuations which produce particle pairs that blink into existence and then annihilate in a times pan too short to measure. This happens everywhere, throughout the Universe. But there is a big problem with this theory—vacuum energy is far too weak to account for the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. One thing is clear—discovering the properties of space remains one of the core problems of modern science.

Ten Great Moments in Science

This week’s quiz will test your knowledge of science history. As you read these ten great moments in science, try to match them up with the year in which they occurred.
   I’m starting something new this week: a ladder competition. If you submit your name along with your answers I will keep a running tally of the top ten scores over time and update the results weekly. See if you have what it takes to make the top ten!

Here are the years to choose from for the ten items below. Each year is only used once.: 1543, 1665, 1687, 1775, 1859, 1905, 1909, 1919, 1923 and 1928.

1) Newton publishes Principia, describing the three fundamental laws of motion forming the basics of classical mechanics. ______

2) Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Ernest Rutherford, perform the gold foil experiment which probes the structure of the atom demonstrating the existence of the atomic nucleus. ______

Charles Darwin

3) Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is published and becomes the foundation for evolutionary biology. ______




4) Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen. ______

5) Albert Einstein’s Miracle Year, where he publishes four articles that contribute to the foundation of modern physics, covering the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and mass/energy equivalence. ______

Nicolaus Copernicus

6) Nicolaus Copernicus describes a heliocentric solar system with the Earth and other planets revolving around the Sun, challenging the common perception at the time that the Earth was the center of the universe—as had been the assumption since the time of the Greeks. ______

7) Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic. ______

8) Arthur Eddington observes the bending of light during a total solar eclipse, confirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity. ______

9) Robert Hooke coins the term “cell” to describe the building blocks of life that he saw and described in his book Micrographia. ______

10) Edwin Hubble discovers that Andromeda is a galaxy, proving that the Milky Way is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the visible universe. ______

Did Einstein Really Say That?

It is very popular, nowadays, to strengthen an argument by quoting Einstein. The problem is that many of the quotes attributed to Einstein were never actually his. Some were him repeating a quote of another individual, but many others seem to be completely made up. Einstein has become the source to a treasure trove of phony quotes, largely because the internet has enabled us to share so much without sourcing anything.
   Einstein did not humiliate an atheist professor as an undergraduate, but Google returns over 61,000 hits on the subject. Nor did he trade places with his chauffeur and let the driver give his lecture instead. Recently, Einstein has been resurrected to say that if all the bees disappeared mankind would be extinct in four years. A classic case of a quote being invented and attributed to someone famous to give it extra credence. Einstein has been used by both sides of the debate on religion.
   So, how well do YOU know what Einstein said? Take our quiz and find out—you might be surprised.

The Last Arctic Penguin

Penguins today are not found north of the Equator, except in zoos and on Christmas cards, but this was not always the case. What follows is a sad tale of how the penguin of the north met its demise. 
   Off the coast of England, secluded by blankets of fog and gray rain clouds, is Lundy, which translates to the old Norse words for “puffin island”. This enormous block of granite rises over a hundred meters above the treacherous seas that surround it. Its towering, rocky cliffs and ledges providing breeding grounds for thousands of seabirds. It was here in 1835 that an islander saw a pair birds, the likes of which he had never seen before. He called them the “king and queen murres...because they were so big and stood up so bold-like”.
   Only one bird fits such a description. By the time of this encounter, the species in question had become so rare that to locals they were little more than legend. They spoke of a murre so large it was unable to fly, with a beak big enough to make that of its cousin, the Razorbill, seem small in comparison.

The Great Auk, although not directly related
to the King Penguin, filled a similar ecologic
niche in the north that the King Penguin fills
in the south.

   This original “penguin” was in fact the now-extinct Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), once found in vast numbers around northern shores of the Atlantic. Although no relation to true penguins, they were similar in appearance, filling much the same ecological niche as the King Penguin that lives on the islands around Antarctica. In fact the word “penguin” was initially a synonym for Great Auk, and is thought to have come from the Welsh pen gwyn which means “white head”. As Europeans travelled to southern seas, the word was used to describe the birds they found there.
   As the Great Auk passed into legend among the people of the North, it was quickly acquiring a prominent reputation among collectors. Its last hideouts were sought out by seamen looking for specimens to sell to wealthy collectors and museums for incredibly high sums.
   Some 78 skins and 75 eggs have been recorded and throughout the nineteenth century examples were regularly offered for sale, many of them at Stevens Auction Rooms in London, a venue celebrated for the natural history items they sold. So close was the connection of this firm with the dispersal of remains of the Great Auk, that its address was simply, “Auks, London”. In early years, Great Auks and their eggs fetched just a few pounds each but by 1900 a choice egg sold for £330. By 1971, a stuffed bird sold in London to an Icelandic museum for a record £9,000.

Great Auk (Pinguinis impennis)
specimen and replica egg, Glasgow.

   The eggs of the Great Auk, for which there was such fierce competition, were dirty yellow-white in color, particularly around the fat end, with an irregular pattern of pale grey or brown. A single, large egg was laid—about as large as an Emu egg, and pyriform shaped, so that when nudged they move in a tight circle instead of rolling away and being dashed to bits on the rocks. This feature is of great importance to a bird that makes no nest. 
   On the rocky platforms that provided the Auks with their home, territory would be defended by a few low croaks. The beak could be used to administer an unpleasant bite but, apart from this, Auks were more or less defenceless.
   At breeding colonies, their great size set them apart from the other murres but they could also be immediately distinguished from the Guillemot and the Razorbill by their more upright stance. Most eggs were found in June and hatched by July. Their diet was made up of fish, crustaceans and other marine invertebrates which the Auk could pursue through the water with tremendous speed and agility.
   At one time the Great Auk was widely distributed across the North Atlantic, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west to Norway in the east and as far south as the Channel Islands. The Little Ice Age pushed the Auks south as these birds could not thrive under arctic conditions. With the advance of the great ice sheets during this time, more of their breeding islands became exposed to polar bears.
   Despite their wide distribution, Great Auks preferred to breed in colonies at just a few select locations, leaving many seemingly suitable sites unoccupied. Rookeries were known to exist at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Newfoundland coast, near Iceland, and at St Kilda.
   The Great Auk was an excellent swimmer, using its wings to propel itself underwater. On land it was clumsy and slow, waddling as it dragged itself across rocky shores. Their large size, combined with a pathetic inability to fly or evade capture, made the Great Auk an easy target for hunters. To those who eked out a meager living among the bleak isles of the north, or sailors and fishermen anxious to replenish stocks before venturing into the icy waters of the Arctic, such a bird was irresistible. Vast numbers were slaughtered for their feathers which were used to make pillows. On Funk Island, the unfortunate creatures were herded into pens, clubbed to death and tossed into vats of boiling water to loosen their feathers. The fires beneath these cauldrons were fuelled by the fat and oil from auks that had already met a similar fate.
   By 1800, the Great Auk was all but gone. The few recorded encounters with the species after this time make up a sordid list of human cruelty and ignorance. One bird was captured on St Kilda. Two men and two boys spotted it from a boat, sitting upon a low ledge. The men landed at either end of the shelf and began a steady approach while the boys rowed close to the rock, just below the spot where the bird was resting. As the men drew nearer, the Auk, by now becoming increasingly alarmed, made a desperate bid for the safety of the water but instead jumped straight into the arms of one of the waiting boys. This bird was kept alive and sent to Edinburgh, but managed to escape during one of its leashed swims, never to be seen again.
   Many years later, an elder resident of St Kilda claimed to have caught a Great Auk with the help of two accomplices. The bird was found sleeping and was captured and taken to the islander’s hut. There they kept it in captivity for three days, until a big storm arose. Thinking that the bird had caused the storm and was really a witch, they clubbed it to death.

Eldey island, the last home of the Great Auk.

   The Great Auks’ last colony was on Geirfuglasker, an islet off the coast of Iceland, but in 1830, it was sunk by volcanic activity. Nearly 50 of the surviving birds continued to breed on the nearby Eldey island and it was here that the species was hunted for the last time. The colony had been ravaged by museum collectors for over a decade, when on the morning of July 3, 1844, a party of three sailors landed on the island. Among a group of Guillemots, they spotted a pair of Great Auks and immediately attacked. The frightened creatures frantically tried to escape, but were overtaken. One was trapped between rocks and the other captured just a few steps from safety. Both were strangled to death. The female had been sitting on an egg which was crushed during the scuffle. Their skins were sold to a collector in Reykjavik. And while no doubt other individuals lingered here and there, soon after, somewhere in the cold and lonely waters of the North Atlantic, the last arctic penguin died.

The Water Quiz

Water is quite arguably the most important substance on Earth. Without it, life could not exist. Its high polarity makes it a universal solvent, able to dissolve both organic and inorganic compounds. And because it exists as a liquid at room temperature, it can transport those compounds through the body. It's high surface tension and adhesive/cohesive properties allows capillary action. In plants, water flows against gravity from the roots through the plant stem to provide nutrients to the rest of the plant. 
   How much do you know about this incredible substance? Take this week's quiz and find out.

The Black Swallower

The Black Swallower is a deep sea fish notable for its ability to swallow fish much larger than itself. It lives in tropical and subtropical waters, in the pelagic zone at a depth of 700 to 2,745 meters below sea level. This unusual fish is small—none longer than 25 cm in length have been found. As their name suggests, they are black in color. They have an unusual jaw—the lower jaw extends past the upper and their single row of teeth interlock when they close their mouth to create an eating trap. 

   When the Black Swallower preys, it eats its victim whole. It has a distensible stomach that can hold prey twice its own length and ten times its own body mass. Its hinged jaw has the capability of surrounding prey much larger than the Black Swallower’s head. As the Swallower eats, it starts at the tail and slowly walks its jaws up the fish’s body until fully consumed. But that it eats its prey like a some sort of aquatic python is a matter of supposition as nobody has ever observed the Black Swallower alive.

   Scientists don’t get to see these creatures in action, only as the result of a deathly case of indigestion. Usually the Swallower will bite off more than it can chew and swallow a fish so big that it can’t digest the whole thing. After a few days its meal starts to decompose and release gasses that get trapped inside the creature. Like a balloon, the extra buoyancy brings the fish to the surface where it can be collected and observed. 

In 2007, this Black Swallower was found having bitten off
more than it could chew—an 89-cm long snake mackerel.

   In 2007, a local Cayman Islands fisherman found a Black Swallower that had risen to the surface. In its stomach was a fish called a snake mackerel that was more than four times its own body length. This particular Swallower, at 19 cm in length, had eaten a fish that was over 86 cm long! Could this be where the saying “Never bit off more than you can chew.” came from?!