'The Universe' question?

Question

now this im sure isnt what most of you think its about. if anyone watches the TV series 'The Universe' on the history channel im sure they have seen the comercial for the last episode, which is about the big bang.

in this comercial it says that in 3 minutes 98% of everything ways created, now i was under the impression that 100% of everything was created at the same time in the giant explosion, it might have took more time for some energy to cool into matter, but it was still there.

so can someone explain to me wtf they are talking about, cuz im pretty sure theyre wrong.

im sure if you didnt post here before getting a brain most of us would be happier.

Answer 1

The link below has a time line for the early universe.

The "3 minutes" seems to refer to the end of the lepton era. By that time, most of the matter had been "created". I don't think that nuclear reactions have changed the mass-energy ratios much since then.

Answer 2

The universe started as a single space-time pulse of minimum size and duration.
It exploded outward,accelerating for one-thirty billionths of a second.
At this time the radial velocity was the speed of light
The universe was a 2 cm diameter sphere with all the ingredients required to evolve into the universe we see to-day.
There was no gravity,no strong or weak forces,no electro-magnetic radiation only quantizing errors that would initiate fundamental particles and hydrogen.
The essence of the universe continued to grow from there.
The first stars didn't light up for 100 million years,it took another 4.5 billion years for us come about.
The universe is likely about 6 billion light years in radius,it can't be any bigger but it could be much older.
The universe is a finite entity that one day will go out of existence.

Answer 3

I am sure they are referring to the elements of ordinary matter. In the Big Bang, Hydrogen, Helium, Deuterium, and a smidgeon of Lithium were created, which is 98% of the elements as measured by their mass. The remaining elements were cooked up later, in the interiors of stars, but your astute mind will immediately protest, saying these are made by fusing them from the original products of the big bang, and you would be correct. And you would also be correct in saying that there was more Hydrogen and Helium made in the Big Bang than exists now, due to the heavier elements' creation having depeted the supply of these two light elements, by a small amount. Nevertheless, the point is that NO Carbon and NO Oxygen and NO Iron were made in the Big Bang, these came later. So their statement is correct and your statement is correct, depending on how you look at it. I hope this helps.

Answer 4

I think you're correct, but they may have been trying to keep it simple for average people. Most people wouldn't get that the energy had to cool down before matter could form (and don't think of it as an explosion like dynamite, think of it as creation not explosion).
Maybe the 2% is all the matter that would eventually form to create stars, galaxies, planets and us. But since it wasn't "there" in the first minutes they don't count it (you and I know that the matter wasn't there but the energy that became matter was).
Or maybe the writers weren't quite up on the science.

Answer 5

I think what they are referring to is the heavy elements that were not created until some time after the big bang, things like iron, nickel, etc. It took some time after the big bang for the heavier elements to be created, because they needed fusion (as happens in the cores of big stars) to fuse the neutrons of the lighter elements together to make the heavier ones. In the beginning, there was primarily helium and hydrogen. As the universe cooled down, atoms began to form, and eventually, the quantum fluctuations caused "clumps" of matter to form. These clumps eventually led to stars, planets, and galaxies. So, until there were actual stars burning, the heavier elements could not be created.

Answer 6

Good question.
I too thought that the universe was made all at the same time, because everything is made of atoms, they have to have come from somewere... And I thought that was the big bang.

Maybe the history channel got it wrong! =o

Its like the question, Whats the meaning of life?

Answer 7

I saw the commercial as a metaphor or analogy to communicate the idea of the universe having popped up quickly.

I kind of lost my faith in the History channel after the "black hole in the bermuda triangle" documentary.

Answer 8

I can't explain it and neither can they. Actually I do not believe any of them because the entire premis of the supposed "Big Kaflooie" is only an extrapolated misinterpretation which has become adopted as the paradigm without real evidenial facts. Whatever they find is seen from that mandated point of view and then decorated with double-talk and doctored eye-candy from the Hubble. And we are paying their salaries for all that flim-flam. P.T. Barnum would have loved it. Contrary opinions are shouted-down by the pesudo-scientific bigots.

Answer 9

I'm sure that if you watch the show, they will explain it.