Friday, September 16, 2016

Friday Science: The First Day

1. As I was reading through the next chapter of The Road to Reality, I decided I was wasting my time for now. I'm not horrible when it comes to math and science. I want to understand. But I have experienced his words like having a map without any clue where you are on it. He needs a translator. :-)

2. So today I thought I'd work out the outline for an idea I had for a "novel" of sorts based on a post I did here a while back. The novel idea is "The First Day," namely, Genesis 1:1-3: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth, but the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

So here's how I see the chapters going:

Chapter 1: In the beginning, God.
A little (Wesleyan) theology about God prior to creation :-)

Chapter 2: Let there be one.
So the second chapter of the novel would have God create math. He would create 1 out of 0. He would create multiples of 1. Not 100% sure what all I would do here, but it would be fun for nerds. This is the time of the universe before 10-43 seconds. The economic Trinity might be mentioned.

Chapter 3: Let the universe inflate.
The next chapter would deal with the time between 10-43 to 10-34. This is the time when all the forces are unified (so I would make up some grand unification theory, probably not string theory since for some reason I don't like it). The universe increases its size by 1026 times in less than a trillionth of a second. At the end of the period, the electroweak and strong nuclear forces differentiate, and there are gravitational ripples.

Chapter 4: Let there be quarks.
So the next time frame is 10-34 to 10-10. Matter and antimatter annihilate, leaving a lot of energy and a sliver of matter. Supersymmetry is broken, so time only flows one direction. The Higgs boson is frozen at a trillionth of a second. The electromagnetic and weak forces are differentiated.

Chapter 5: Let there be protons.
From about 10-10 seconds to three minutes, the universe cools enough from about 1015 to 1012 for quarks to stick together enough to form protons and neutrons. Dark matter is formed.

Chapter 6: Let there be light.
From about three minutes to 380,000 years, we basically have hydrogen and helium nuclei in a plasma state. There is darkness over the face of the deep, and the Spirit hovers over the face of the waters. But once the temperature of the universe cools down to about 3000K, actual atoms can form and the photons that had been absorbed by the plasma burst free and we have the cosmic background radiation we can still detect today.

Chapter 7: The universe rested.
For the next period, there is darkness again as atoms roam in gaseous clouds. Eventually, they will form stars.

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