OBJECTIVE:  I will be able to relate CMBR to the age of Universe during today's class

WORDS FOR TODAY:

• Planck Time
• Proton (a non-fundamental particle, contains u-u-d quarks, has +1 charge)
• Electron (a fundamental particle of nature, has -1 charge)
• Neutron (a non-fundamental particle, contains d-d-u quarks)
• Up Quark (a fundamental particle of nature, has + 2/3 charge)
• Down Quark ((a fundamental particle of nature, has -1/3 charge)
• Strong Force (between quarks)
• Weak Force (not exactly a force)
• Electromagnetic force (between protons & neutrons)
• Gravity (between objects with mass)

 

WORK O' THE DAY: 

APOD

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I'll pass out Big Bang Tiles - let's have the people designaed by the color BLUE take the lead in organizing those!

Please work with your group to recap the first 3 minutes in terms of temperature and size especially

Plank Time: 10^-43 sec after the Big Bang, this is when the 'clock' starts ticking. Remember, we don't currently have the science or the math to understand what the Universe was like at Planck Time. However, we currently DO have science and math that tells us what the Universe was like at 10^-37 seconds after the Big Bang. That science and math tells us that there is a very high probability that we will at some point develop the science and math for Planck Time.

First fundamental particles (what are those again?)

Anti-matter anhialation?

First atoms (Hint: that's a lot *tougher* than it may seem)

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Now let's turn our attentions to one of the most intriguing episodes that occurred during those first 3 minutes.

BUT--- before we do that, we need to revisit ANTI-MATTER

We learned earlier about quarks and electrons (fundamental particles of nature) that were produced during some of the earliest periods of after the Big Bang (when???).

Recall that anti-matter was also created during that time. That anti-matter was present along with matter in that early, extremely chaotic (HOT!!! DENSE!!!) Universe!

As the Universe cooled a wee bit at about 10^-3 seconds most of the anti-matter particles combined with their matter counterparts and *anhialated* (recall that IS the actual term!) each other in a tremendous release of gamma ray light (energy).

RECAP

Matter-Antimatter Annihilation occurred at 10^-3 seconds after the Big Bang. Virtually ALL of the antimatter particles (such as positrons) and ALMOST all of the matter particles in the Universe (such as electrons) combined and annihilated each other. Each tiny collision produced a gamma ray of light. Because there were so many collisions, a MASSIVE amount of gamma light was produced. The Universe was so hot during this time that the gamma rays couldn't escape. As the Universe expanded, it cooled... and about 300,000 years after the Big Bang....

THE DARK AGE began when the Universe cooled off enough so that photons (that were created during the Matter-Antimatter Annihilation) could fly free. At that point, the Universe quite literarily went dark.

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CMBR ("Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation" sometimes written as "Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation" too)

Those photons continued to expand as the Universe expanded, losing energy all the way down through the EM spectrum. Those seething, high energy gamma photons 'cooled' off to x-ray, UV, through the visible spectrum, passed IR and are now present EVERYWHERE in the Universe as microwaves. Three generations of satellites (COBE, MAPI and PLANCK) have measured those microwaves with greater and greater precision giving us, among things... the temperature of the Universe (2.74 K, which is a VERY chilly -455 degrees F) and the age of the Universe 13.7 billion years)

 

Now let's review our work from yesterday. The general form of the graphic below is helpful:

However THIS form of the Big Bang Timeline is a bit more expressive:

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Today we're going to concentrate on the CMBR!!!

A quick review of how we discovered CMBR is HERE

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Here was our first attempt at measuring CMBR:

COBE: COsmic microwave Background Observer - 1989

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Our next attempt:

WMAP: Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (NASA) active from 2001 - 2010 (according to NASA the WMAP probe improved the measurements made by COBE by an astounding 68,000 times).

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And then:

The European Space Agency launched the Planck Satellite (2009 - 2013) that collected THIS data

And Now:

From all of that data, scientists have very, very strong evidence to support the Big Bang Theory.

That theory is so well researched and the evidence is so strong that there is no other scientific theory to explain how the Universe was formed.

From that data we know the temperature of the Universe (2.73 Kelvins (degrees above absolute zero) and the age of the Universe (13.82 billion years)