Home
Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite books - Sluffy and MB, I highly recommend reading it. It explains the world of physics, chemistry and Biology in a more 'accessible' manner. After that, if you want to know a bit more about how the universe works, read "A briefer history of time" by Stephen Hawking, its a more readable version of his more famous "Brief history of time"
Space is a complete Head-fuck...
NO MATTER HOW hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially
unassuming, is a proton. It is just way too small.
A proton is an infinitesimal part of an atom, which is itself of course an insubstantial thing.
Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like the dot on this i can hold something in the
region of 500,000,000,000 of them, rather more than the number of seconds contained in half
a million years. So protons are exceedingly microscopic, to say the very least.
Now imagine if you can (and of course you can’t) shrinking one of those protons down to a
billionth of its normal size into a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous.
Now pack into that tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You are ready to start
a universe.
I’m assuming of course that you wish to build an inflationary universe. If you’d prefer
instead to build a more old-fashioned, standard Big Bang universe, you’ll need additional
materials. In fact, you will need to gather up everything there is every last mote and particle of
matter between here and the edge of creation and squeeze it into a spot so infinitesimally
compact that it has no dimensions at all. It is known as a singularity.
In either case, get ready for a really big bang. Naturally, you will wish to retire to a safe
place to observe the spectacle. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to retire to because outside the
singularity there is no where. When the universe begins to expand, it won’t be spreading out
to fill a larger emptiness. The only space that exists is the space it creates as it goes.
It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a
dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no “around”
around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can’t even ask how long
it has been there—whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it
has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn’t exist. There is no past
for it to emerge from.
And so, from nothing, our universe begins.
Actually, here is a free PDF copy of the full book ... enjoy.
http://www.huzheng.org/bookstore/AShortHistoryofNearlyEverything.pdf
Space is a complete Head-fuck...
NO MATTER HOW hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially
unassuming, is a proton. It is just way too small.
A proton is an infinitesimal part of an atom, which is itself of course an insubstantial thing.
Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like the dot on this i can hold something in the
region of 500,000,000,000 of them, rather more than the number of seconds contained in half
a million years. So protons are exceedingly microscopic, to say the very least.
Now imagine if you can (and of course you can’t) shrinking one of those protons down to a
billionth of its normal size into a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous.
Now pack into that tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You are ready to start
a universe.
I’m assuming of course that you wish to build an inflationary universe. If you’d prefer
instead to build a more old-fashioned, standard Big Bang universe, you’ll need additional
materials. In fact, you will need to gather up everything there is every last mote and particle of
matter between here and the edge of creation and squeeze it into a spot so infinitesimally
compact that it has no dimensions at all. It is known as a singularity.
In either case, get ready for a really big bang. Naturally, you will wish to retire to a safe
place to observe the spectacle. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to retire to because outside the
singularity there is no where. When the universe begins to expand, it won’t be spreading out
to fill a larger emptiness. The only space that exists is the space it creates as it goes.
It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a
dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no “around”
around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can’t even ask how long
it has been there—whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it
has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn’t exist. There is no past
for it to emerge from.
And so, from nothing, our universe begins.
Actually, here is a free PDF copy of the full book ... enjoy.
http://www.huzheng.org/bookstore/AShortHistoryofNearlyEverything.pdf
