- The Inflation Theory proposes a period of extremely rapid (exponential) expansion of the universe during its first few moments. It was developed around 1980 to explain several puzzles with the standard Big Bang theory, in which the universe expands relatively gradually throughout its history.
- The Inflation Theory, developed by Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Paul Steinhardt, and Andy Albrecht, offers solutions to inflation problems and several other open questions in cosmology. It proposes a period of extremely rapid (exponential) expansion of the universe prior to the more gradual Big Bang expansion, during which time the energy density of the universe was dominated by a cosmological constant-type of vacuum energy that later decayed to produce the matter and radiation that fill the universe today. CMB is landmark evidence of the Big Bang origin of the universe. The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space. It is an important source of data on the early universe because it is the oldest electromagnetic radiation in the universe, dating to the epoch of recombination.
- After inflation, the growth of the universe continued, but at a slower rate. As space expanded, the universe cooled and matter formed. One second after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons, photons, and neutrinos. During the first three minutes of the universe, the light elements were born during a process known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis is the production of nuclei other than those of the lightest isotope of hydrogen having a single proton as a nucleus) during the early phases of the Universe.
- Essentially all of the elements that are heavier than lithium were created much later, by stellar nucleosynthesis in evolving and exploding stars.
- The Doppler effect (or the Doppler shift) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. The fact that most of the galaxies show a redshift shows that the galaxies are moving away from us. If most of the galaxies are moving away this shows that the universe is expanding. The fact that the universe is expanding implies that the universe had a beginning.
- The relative expansion of the universe is parametrized by a dimensionless cosmic scale factor. Using the dimensionless scale factor to characterize the expansion of the universe, the effective energy densities of radiation and matter scale differently.
- Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within or surrounding a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body, an idealized opaque, non-reflective body. The thermal radiation spontaneously emitted by many ordinary objects can be approximated as black-body radiation.
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As the Big Bang’s plasma cools down, a two-phase transition takes place: The 1st phase change was the formation of the nucleus. The 2nd phase change was the formation of the atom. Both done in a split-second.As we move backward in time towards the moment of creation, prior to one-hundredth of a second, the Universe becomes hotter and denser until matter actually changes its phase, that is, it changes its form and properties.
- In physical cosmology, the Quark epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe when the fundamental interactions of gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong interaction, and the weak interaction had taken their present forms, but the temperature of the universe was still too high to allow quarks to bind together to form hadrons.[1] The quark epoch began approximately 10−12 seconds after the Big Bang when the preceding electroweak epoch ended as the electroweak interaction separated into the weak interaction and electromagnetism. During the quark epoch, the universe was filled with a dense, hot quark-gluon plasma, containing quarks, leptons, and their antiparticles.
