ASTRO 142 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Baryogenesis, Conservation Law, Shape Of The Universe
Document Summary
Little was known about the conditions of the early universe prior to 1965. Eddington: infinitely distant, nearly static initial state. Milne: special relativity: infinity of galaxies expanding outward at ever-increasing velocities approaching the speed of light. Hoyle: developed a relativistic model that maintained a constant density by the introduction of a creation field. Cannot create any amount of matter out of nothing without violating physical law. Georges lemaitre: spherical geometry that contained both matter and a positive cosmological constant. Nucleosynthesis: creation of elements in the early universe. Pure neutrons, some decayed to create protons, electrons and antineutrinos. Primordial mixture of universe: photons, neutrinos and both neutrons and protons. Overcome by the triple-alpha process: helium converted into carbon. Big bang creates helium, as well as trace quantities of other light isotopes. There arose a need for better data as no observations could begin to prove any model was correct.
