The Bang and the Quantum
This article is a part of a series of articles on Cosmology. This is part 4/4.
In the last article, we talked about how the Inflationary Model solved many mysteries of the the Bing Bang, (check that out here)but one question, that remains unanswered in our exploration of the Cosmological world. Our universe as we have seen, although highly homogeneous as a whole, it is a extremly diverse on our scales. We see different galaxies, different stars, different planets, different supernovae, different black holes. Why does this happen?
The Quantum Jitters
Something that we havent talked is the Quantum Realm. And you would, at the least be surprised by this. Why should we talk about the ultramicroscopic realm when we are discussing about literal universal scales. The answer is a simple realisation. The Big Bang involves a particle of a size that makes the full stop at the end of this sentence look gargantuan, and its expansion a googol(10¹⁰⁰) times, in 10-³⁶ seconds(or about a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second). In other words, it takes the ultimate quantum particle and expands it to the universal scales, and that is solely responsible for the inequalities we see in our universe.
To find out the answer, we need to look at something discovered by Werner Heisenberg, the Uncertainity Principle. Basically, it says that if you measure one of a particle’s properties, such as speed, you cant measure some of the other properties, like its position. (that makes sense, because speed is change in position over time. So if you measure the speed, you cant know about the position, since it is changing, and if you measure the position, you have to stop the particle, therefore killing its speed). One such thing is Size, and if we know its size, we cant know the frequency of its vibrations.
Here, we know about the size of the particle, so we cant know about the frequency. And that makes is the value of frequency, anything but zero. So, during the rapid expansion, when some particles were produced, some of them were jittering at a non zero frequency, and as a result, got stretched out during the expansion,forming clumps. These clumps, have more gravitational pull when compared to normal particles, and therefore, attract more particles, evantually forming stars, and galaxies that you see.
The Multiverse Proposal and the Boltzmann Redux
To many aspiring astronomers, multiverse theory is fascinating. And why not? A you in a parallel universe. A universe where you were never born. A universe where you switched place with Gandhi. All of these possibilities exist, and thinking about them gives you an adrenaline rush. But an interesting proposal, made by others who built up on Boltzmann’s work, is the theory, that there are many universes inside a universe. That may confuse you, but to understand it, we must look, once again, at the crossroads of the Inflationary Model and the Quantum Realm. You see, the very reason of Inflation is that the conditions were prevalent, so that the repulsive gravity can push the Higgs Field’s potential energy value to zero, and then to a nonzero value. And even now, as we say the intergalactic space (the space between galaxies) is increasing, we can say and confirm that repulsive gravity is again at play. So, one may ask, if the repulsive gravity is still in play, what are the chances, that in intergalactic space, it does manage to push the Higgs Feild value to zero, and then displace again to a non zero value? An Educated Guess (or an Understanding one) can be- Inflation all over again. And that, is correct. So what does this mean? There can be universes spawning out of ours, and who knows, maybe ours was spawned out of some other universe. This is staggering, as not only does it provide a multiverse theory in cahoots with both the Inflationary and the Relativity models, but also with the Quantum Theory. Just like a yeast reproduces with budding, a universe, sort of, can reproduce by spawning another universes out of it.