Where did all the matter and energy in the universe come from?

Question

As I understand it, matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, only transferred or dissipated. So what scientific theory explains the origin of matter?

Answer 1

The "Big Bang" is a theory that "explains" it (or, maybe I should say, "declares it to be plausible"). But, if you're looking for tangible evidence, there just isn't any.

Black holes are the closest thing to "demonstrating" the compressibility of matter beyond our limits of normal comprehension. Being black holes, they remain a mystery, since even light can't escape the gravitational field.

An excerpt from "The First Three Minutes", an excellent suggestion above. Should get your analytical juices flowing freely:

" During the first four seconds of the universe, matter formed by pair production.

A Cautionary Note: It is sometimes said, paraphrasing Will Rogers, that all we know about the universe outside the Solar System comes from gathering photons. Aside from a few stray neutrinos that we've managed to capture, this is true. Thus, we can directly observe the universe only where it is transparent (that is, after the time of recombination, when the universe was about 300,000 years old). Knowledge of the earlier universe comes from indirect deductions. For instance, the theory of inflation is taken seriously because
it follows from the laws of physics as we understand them
it explains observed properties of the universe, such as the homogeneity and flatness of the universe at the time of recombination.
Speculations about the early universe which cannot be checked by comparison to observed properties of the universe are basically a waste of time.
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The first three minutes of the universe are when light elements, such as hydrogen and helium, formed. We can check our theories about nucleosynthesis during the first 3 minutes by comparing the predicted abundances of H and He with the abundances which are actually observed. The very oldest stars known have the following proportion of elements:
75% H, 25% He, <0.01% heavier elements.
The elements heavier than helium are made in stars, but where did all that helium in the oldest generation of stars come from? It must have formed prior to the first stars. For that matter, where did hydrogen come from? Why doesn't the universe contain nothing but photons?


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Two photons can collide to form a particle-antiparticle pair if the energy of each photon is greater than the energy equivalent (E = mc2) of the particle or antiparticle. For instance, a proton has mc2 of 10-10 joules. Two photons, each an energy greater than this value, can collide to form a proton-antiproton pair. This process is known as pair production.
Conversely, a particle and antiparticle can collide to form a pair of photons. For instance, a proton and antiproton colliding at a low relative velocity will produce a pair of photons, each with an energy of 10-10 joules. (This is a high energy for a photon, corresponding to an extremely energetic gamma-ray.) The process of converting a particle-antiparticle pair to photons is known as annihilation.

When the universe was less than 0.0001 second old, the photons of the cosmic background were so energetic, proton-antiproton pairs were continuously being formed by pair production. However, the proton-antiproton pairs were also continuously being destroyed by annihilation.

At an age of 0.0001 seconds, the temperature of the universe dropped below 10 trillion degrees Kelvin. At this temperature, the average photon energy is 10-10 joules, the energy equivalent of a proton or antiproton. Pair production of protons stops (the photons have dropped below the necessary energy), but the annihilation of protons continues.

Thanks to a subtle bias in the laws of physics, however, the production of protons is very slightly favored over the production of antiprotons. For every billion antiprotons, there will be a billion and one protons. So here's the situation after pair production stops:
1 billion and 1 protons + 1 billion antiprotons -> 2 billion photons + 1 proton
We now have a situation in which the universe contains lots of photons, a few protons, and no antiprotons. We state that the protons have ``frozen out'', since they are no longer being produced or annihilated.


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Neutrons are about as massive as protons, so they freeze out at the same time as protons. Electrons and positrons, however, since they are only 1/2000 as massive as a proton, are produced and annihilated continuously until the universe drops to a much lower temperature.
At an age of 4 seconds, the temperature of the universe dropped below 6 billion degrees Kelvin. At this temperature, the average photon energy is 8 x 10-14 joules, the energy equivalent of an electron or positron. Pair production of electrons stops, but the annihilation of electrons continues.

The production of electrons is very slightly favored over the production of positrons (just as the production of protons is favored over that of antiprotons, and the production of neutrons is favored over that of antineutrons). Here's the situation after the pair production of electrons stops:
1 billion & 1 electrons + 1 billion positrons -> 2 billion photons + 1 electron.

The universe now contains protons, neutrons, electrons, and photons. The photons outnumber the massive particles by billions to one. "

Great stuff!!

Answer 2

The theory is only that it all (time and space) came from the singularity at the moment of creation of the universe. The big bang. However, it didn't start out as all the complex molecules and heavy elements we now have but only originally as subatomic particles and eventually as hydrogen and helium that only after star formation and super novae explosions formed the heavier elements needed for everything other than stars. A good book on the subject is "The First Three Minutes" which discusses what physicists know (or did when the book was written, which was a few years back) about the origins of the universe. Fun stuff! No one will ever know "where" it all came from except that primordial point in time and space.

Answer 3

The whole "energy can't be created or destroyed" thing is outdated.

A. In any space, virtual particles are constantly popping in and out of existence. As the universe expands, all of this new space has energy for these virtual particles.

B. This saying is dependent on the physics in our known universe with 4 fundamental forces. Before the big bang, these 4 forces were combined in some way that we do not understand. This is still one of the great mysteries of physics/cosmology how these 4 forces were separated.

So basically we don't know, but that famous saying is not part of the equation as far as we can tell.

Answer 4

Conservation of the potential does not carry genuine in each and every subject. the international of subatomic debris is plenty distinctive from that of our uncomplicated day journey. in accordance to quantum mechanics, (right here, i'm assuming which you be conscious of approximately nuclear fission)if the marvelous state has lesser potential than the potential in the preliminary state, there is an probability that the approach will happen despite if the intermediate state has potential greater suitable than the preliminary one and no potential is provided externally. Such tactics are referred to as “barrier penetration”. The potential seems to be created out of not something, a contravention of the potential conservation. yet this could be a actuality of physics of small debris. The potential conservation in the prevalent experience may be violated for 'little while'. the quantity of potential seems to be created and the time for which it is created are appropriate by Heisenberg Uncertainty relation, ?E.?t >= h/2?. check out 'quantum fluctuation of the vacuum'. This phenomenon has been experimentally shown and is to blame for the black hollow radiation. it is speculated that the internet potential dE of the whole universe is amazingly on the fringe of 0, and via making use of the uncertainty concept, you return up with an particularly large dt (the existence time of the universe). In different words, the universe might desire to be a quantum fluctuation and truly got here from not something. And gravitational means potential is destructive, if we upload all the different potential with gravitational means potential the sum might desire to be 0.

Answer 5

It's hard to find an analogy for the way the universe evolved.
It started originally as a single space-time pulse of minimum size and duration.
The pulse continued cubing the result each pulse.
The expanding entity built in pressure for one-thirty billionths of a second at which time it was about 2 cm in diameter and expanding radially at the speed of light.
This entity contained all the ingredients to evolve into a universe like ours.
Compare it to a hurricane.
The hurricane started as the disturbance of a few molecules of heated air which started to rise,picking up moisture and maturing into a roaring maelstrom that reaches a maximum,begins to wane and finally disappears in the wisp from which it began.
Oh, heck what the hell do I know?!

Answer 6

No one knows, from a scientific perspective. The big bang theory suggests that all the matter in the universe was packed into a tiny ball or something if I remember correctly, and then that ball exploded (the big bang) and created the universe. But the theory fails to explain where that matter came from.

Answer 7

The Universe was Created and constructed out of a basic substance by our Creator.
The system of the Universe is conservative=this is because its a closed system .
That means all the mass structures content are contained in this closed system is constant.
And the Energy used to maintain the mass structures together is a constant. Therefore; Your assumption is correct.
For this reason Newton's Gravitational constant is Universal.

There really are no scientific theory which would tell how matter originated ,except in the 1st verse of the 1st Chapter of Genesis in the Holy Bible.

Answer 8

All the energy was there at the beginning with the Big Bang. We can see this from the cosmic microwave background. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/08/it_works_bitches.php The origin of this can not be known as there is no evidence of anything before the Big Bang, not even time and space.

Answer 9

As Erwin Chargaff said "Science is wonderfully equipped to answer the question "How?" but it gets terribly confused when you ask the question "Why?""

But in this case we do not know how or why.

Answer 10

Without a lot of details, it's in the spinning - circle of everything - whether it's completely round or oval and most are oval.