What tipped the balance at creation time?

Technological advances have made it possible for man to understand and explain his origins. Recent scientific discoveries, particularly on the universe and its composition have enabled man to comprehend nature. Man has now the ability to create matter out of light and split matter into its basic components and reveal its mysteries.

Such knowledge we now call `modern science’, we find to be just a validation of knowledge written in antiquity. Concepts such as multiverses in quantum cosmology have existed long before its modern discovery. Modern theories in physics such as anti-matter and the flat universe have been written down in 3,000 year old scripts of the Ancients. A peer into the vastness of space has revealed the existence of millions of worlds which, if we are to read the ancient scriptures, has been written down before we even had the Hubble telescopes and space probes.

Recent discoveries about the Universe we live in

The universe, as we know it, is flat. WMAP experimentations reveal that our universe is a flat one, with a mean energy density equal to the critical density. Its mass density is 9.9 x 10-30 g/cm3, which is equivalent to only 5.9 protons per cubic meter. Of this total density, we now know the breakdown to be:

· 4% Atoms, 23% Cold Dark Matter, 73% Dark Energy. Thus 96% of the energy density in the universe is in a form that has never been directly detected in the laboratory. The actual density of atoms is equivalent to roughly 1 proton per 4 cubic meters.

· Fast moving neutrinos do not play any major role in the evolution of structure in the universe. They would have prevented the early clumping of gas in the universe, delaying the emergence of the first stars, in conflict with the new WMAP data.

· The data places new constraints on the Dark Energy. It seems more like a "cosmological constant" than a negative-pressure energy field called "quintessence". But quintessence is not ruled out.

Until the mid-1990s most cosmologists believed that gravity, created by ordinary matter and invisible dark matter, sculpted the Universe. Then, exploding stars in deep space hinted that a cosmic force was driving the Universe apart. Astronomers dubbed this force dark energy.

In February 2003, the merging of a large-scale galaxy map from the Anglo-Australian 2dF galaxy redshift survey with data on the afterglow of the Big Bang from NASA's WMAP spaceprobe showed strong evidence for dark energy.

The Creation of the Universe

NASA puts the age of the universe at 15 billion years old. The Standard Model, which is the theoretical construct in Quantum cosmology that explains the forces at work in the known universe, says that, in the beginning, there was no matter existing in the first seconds of the Big Bang, only energy. Now, if we are to ask, how did the Big Bang began, there are several theories which tries to explain it. Current research, however shows that the Big Bang probably started in one single singularity, possibly with the creation of light. An MIT experiment confirms that before matter was even created, there was light. More on light as an originator of creation later in this blog.

Quantum physicists say that matter and its mirror-image, antimatter, suddenly conversed into one single space the size of a coin and inflated. Recent experiments in the Slac laboratory in California gave the precise degree of asymmetry between matter and antimatter at a precise measurement known as sine two beta (0.74 plus or minus 0.07). Science has not found the reason why they conversed or where antimatter came from, but from recent theories, like what Stephen Hawking says, every created thing has its mirror-image existing outside the known universe of being. Theoretical Quantum physics say, everything is created “in pairs”.

Science recognizes that in the beginning, matter and antimatter are of equal amounts. Based on the Standard Model and confirmed by experimentations, a slightly higher percentage of regular matter developed— perhaps just one part in a million— for unknown reasons. That was all the edge needed for regular matter to win its longest running battle with antimatter. When matter and antimatter came into contact, they annihilated and only the residual amount of matter was left to form the known universe. This “jerk” happened in an infinitesimal fraction of a second or possibly about 5 billion years ago, says Adam Riess, an Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. The event stopped the universe from slowing down. Dark energy overwhelmed gravity which started the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

When matter and antimatter came into contact, they annihilated and only the residual amount of matter was left to form the known universe.

Recent discoveries in Charge Parity violations has now confirmed that the asymmetry between matter and antimatter is not enough to create the universe. Something else happened, says physicists that tipped the balance between matter and antimatter.

"Something else happened in addition to CP violation to create the excess of matter that became stars, planets, and living creatures," said Hassan Jawahery of the University of Maryland.

What this “something else” that happened? What tipped the balance, so to speak? And why is anti-matter annihilates when in contact with matter?

So after the big bang, matter was still relatively dense in the Universe and therefore gravity braked expansion. But as galaxies moved farther apart, dark energy began to exert a more significant influence. For a brief period, two forces balanced and "the expansion of the Universe coasted along at a steady rate, like a car in cruise control," says Riess.

More on this in the next installment….happy reading!