Dark Mysteries of the Universe
Peter Higgs and his mates predicted that mass comes from the Higgs field. The God particle! Until yesterday, there was news on television about the experiments that everyone was eagerly awaiting. Actually, it was called the God particle, the mysterious particle that could not be detected.
Albert Einstein told us that matter is also equal to energy. He not only told us, but also wrote his famous formula. E=mc2
Peter Higgs and his mates predicted that mass comes from the Higgs field. The God particle! Until yesterday, there was news on television about the experiments that everyone was eagerly awaiting. Actually, it was called the God particle, the mysterious particle that could not be detected.
Although it cannot be observed today, its existence has been proven. Unfortunately, it exists for a very short time and decays immediately.
Yes, there is such a thing as the Higgs field and the Higgs boson. It is this Higgs boson that gives matter its mass. It has been proved.
At the end of long endeavours, this subject could be proved by experiment.
Nevertheless, most of what is called mass consists of energy.
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In fact, what is called mass is something that is under an irresistible gravitational pull against each other. Although it is not yet known exactly what it is, there is such a thing as mass. We know that.
Isaac Newton once developed a simple formula for gravitation, F=Gm1m2/r2
Einstein later showed that Newton was wrong, that is, he said that this formula was incomplete.
Einstein predicted that time is not something that flows at a constant speed as Newton predicted, that we perceive time differently according to our speed, and that time is something that shortens with speed.
He revealed that space and time are actually a whole and that there is no such force as gravitation, that the gravitational effect of masses against each other is due to the bending of space-time dimensions, that gravitation is actually an illusion, that masses appear to attract each other due to the bending of space-time by mass.
Moreover, he predicted that everything is relative to each other, that the astronaut looking out of the window of a spaceship that is rapidly moving away from you will see that you are rapidly moving away.
He was able to put forward all these predictions with the knowledge that light has a constant speed and some other physical knowledge infrastructure.
Throughout history, many scientists have contributed to the knowledge of humanity.
But today we can say that Einstein summarised the last known valid formulae.
As the last known genius, we place Einstein in a different place than others.
The theories of special and general relativity!
These theories really have very complicated formulae.
Maybe special relativity is not so complicated, but the formulae of general relativity are really very complicated.
But no matter how complicated they are, all of this information has been proved today.
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Of course, when we talk about physics today, we also know quantum mechanics.
We were finally able to break the atom into very small particles, and in experiments we found many fundamental subatomic particles. Quarks, neutrinos, gluons, positrons, the list goes on and on.
Since the communication of these particles with each other is also quite complex, the quantum world is a world with a lot of complex diagrams called Feynman diagrams and a lot of complex formulas.
Quantum physics, identified with Schrödinger's cat, which is not clear whether it is alive or dead, is actually a world of possibilities.
But it is also a world with incomprehensible rules, as in the double slit experiment. Subatomic particles sometimes behave as particles and sometimes as waves.
There is such a thing as quantum entanglement and this is almost a hocus pocus show, a magician's work.
Einstein said that God does not throw dice, but it has recently been proved that God does throw dice. It seems Einstein was wrong too.
Then there is a property called spin in these subatomic particles, electrons seem to spin around themselves like spinning tops, but this spin is not exactly like a spinning top. So they don't fall into the nucleus of the atom.
All these theories are very complicated theories.
For example, the wave equations, the behaviour of the electron, whose speed and position are not known at the same time, and therefore the uncertainty theory is valid, and the behaviour of the electron, whose whereabouts and when it is unknown, are still not completely solved.
Max Planck's work and the smallest possible size, the smallest possible mass. Planck's constant.
All these are still research topics of quantum mechanics.
The quantum world has its own rules.
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All these subatomic particles have a mass of their own.
Yes, Higgs came up with a theory, and after a long time and by spending a lot of money, it has been proved today that he was right.
Mass is due to the interaction of the Higgs boson with the Higgs field. We know this now.
Just as electric charges arise from the interaction of a photon with the electric field, or the strong nuclear force arises from the interaction of gluons with the strong nuclear force field, mass arises from the interaction of the Higgs field and the Higgs boson.
Quantum field theory!
But as I said at the beginning, the mass due to the Higgs field is a very small proportion compared to the mass due to energy.
Inside the atomic nucleus, we can calculate that most of the mass of protons and neutrons is not due to the Higgs field, but to the energy of the strong nuclear force due to gluons.
Yes, E=mc2, mass equals energy, energy equals mass. We proved this experimentally.
Because the sum of the masses of the individual droughts is much lower than the mass of the atomic nucleus.
Mass really means energy, and it is unbelievable how Einstein, lacking all the information known today, was able to reveal this fact.
E=mc2 is a very magical formula!
Although not completely, it is possible to somehow convert the charged mass in the atomic nucleus into energy!
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All these theories have been checked many times by making the calculations of the world, the experiments of the world have been carried out and the things predicted in the theory have been proved by experiments and the accuracy of the formulae has been assured and now other calculations have been made with these formulae.
Today, we know that it is almost impossible to falsify these formulae that have been put before us.
Okay, there are still a lot of things we do not know, but the formulae at hand are not the kind that can be thrown aside immediately, they are not formulae that can be simply given up.
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Let's come to another subject, which we can call a bit mystical, apart from the known things.
Based on these formulae, we can foresee many inferences that we cannot see with our eyes, but whose accuracy is not in doubt.
So what else do we know today about physical matters based on formulae without seeing them with our eyes?
For example, we know that there is dark matter in the universe besides the matter we know that can emit light.
Yes, I say we know, because we are sure that the formulae are correct.
Look, this is also interesting, we cannot see it, but we are sure of its existence?
Yes, we are sure of its existence!
But how do we know this? How can we be sure?
Again, we can be sure of the accuracy of this information through calculations and observations.
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Yes, cosmological calculations prove the existence of an invisible matter that is five times more than the visible matter in the universe.
In other words, ‘dark matter’, as it is called in the literature, does not communicate with light, does not emit light itself, but interacts with the matter we know through the effect of gravity.
We observe that something has a say in the movements of the matter we know.
Dark matter! It cannot be anything else!
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The situation is much more interesting if we look at it from the energy dimension.
We observe that the universe is expanding, and when we take into account the accelerated continuation of this expansion, when we put it into formulae, we calculate that in addition to the kinetic energy we know, there must also exist an energy whose source we do not know exactly, and whose existence we cannot detect, but whose existence we are sure of, and which we call ‘dark energy’.
How strange is this?
Like in Russian children's fairy tales, go there, but don't know where it is, take it, but don't know what to take. Russians have such a fairy tale.
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Dark matter, dark energy, these are separate things, mysterious theories that we calculate to exist, but whose existence we cannot observe.
Scientists have put all this information into a graph with the energy dimension and the graph in the cover picture has emerged.
They have been trying to prove the existence of dark matter experimentally for a long time.
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So what led scientists to these calculations and how could they be sure that there is more than five times more dark matter than the visible matter in the universe?
Let's talk a little bit about this subject.
Firstly, the first observation was made on galaxy clusters.
I have written about this before, when the motions of the stars in galaxies were monitored with existing formulas, some anomalies were detected in the rotation speeds of the stars around the black holes in the centre of the galaxies.
The total mass of galaxies can be determined by calculating the light bending as it passes around them. Taking into account the kinetic energy calculations of this total mass with the velocities of the stars in the galaxy, it was calculated that the mass required for the galaxy to hold together should be five times higher than the calculated mass.
Of course, these calculations are quite complicated; the light coming from the stars is analysed, the masses of the stars are calculated based on their hydrogen content, the kinetic energy of the galaxy is calculated based on the velocities of the stars and all this information is uploaded to supercomputers, which are now in the service of the scientific world, and long calculations are made.
The result is that there should be five times more matter than the visible matter in the medium.
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But this method is not enough to be sure of the existence of dark matter.
Another method is based on the big bang theory of the existence of the universe, and on the calculations of the emergence of matter in the very beginning of the universe, in order to reach dark matter.
Yes, it is said that the universe was composed of only three elements in those first dark ages when the light was not yet scattered in the medium with the big bang.
According to the calculations, hydrogen, consisting of a single proton, was the main element in the environment, and when hydrogen atoms collided with each other, an isotope of hydrogen, dutorium, was formed; dutorium is an isotope of hydrogen with a proton and a neutron in its nucleus.
Then helium is formed, i.e. helium, with a nucleus consisting of one proton and one neutron, and a nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons, starts to be the dominant substance in the environment.
In this first period, helium increases up to 25 per cent in the environment.
In this period, a very small amount of lithium is also formed, that is, the element we call lithium, which has three protons and three neutrons in its nucleus.
As a result, very little dutorium remains in the environment, very little lithium is formed and the first stars emerge with a helium-hydrogen ratio of 25 per cent to 75 per cent.
Thus, the first light is emitted and the dark ages of the universe come to an end.
The three scientists who made this calculation, R. A. Alpher, H. Bethe, and G. Gamow, published a scientific study titled ‘The origin of chemical elements’ in 1948, in which they calculated that these first nuclear mergers could not occur without dark matter in the environment.
The ratio of dark matter and visible matter was calculated to be five to one.
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A final example of the calculations on the existence of dark matter is the end of the dark age after the big bang of the formation of the universe.
Scientists have come across the same ratio again in the analyses made on the map where we observe the emergence of the first lights, which we call today's cosmic microwave afterglow, left over from the first nuclear reactions and the transformation of the universe into a sufficiently transparent environment.
In the cosmic afterglow map, it was calculated that there is a ratio of five to one between the orange regions indicating visible matter and the blue regions indicating dark matter.
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In other words, the conclusion reached after all these calculations is that there must be such a thing as dark matter.
All these calculations herald the existence of dark matter.
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But how do we detect the existence of such a thing?
What is dark matter?
It is certainly not something tangible, it probably surrounds us in the environment we live in, but we cannot see it, smell it, or hear it.
We don't know where it comes from.
It doesn't emit any light, not only visible light, it doesn't emit any light at any wavelength in the light spectrum. Because photons do not communicate with this matter.
I wonder if there is a subatomic particle of black matter in the quantum world?
Who knows, maybe there is. There are many scientists working on this subject.
After all, all the formulae that humanity has developed step by step in the history of science are somehow related to the light that we can see with our eyes.
Dark matter, on the other hand, is almost impossible to detect because it does not communicate with light.
In this case, although the calculations show that it must exist, it does not seem that easy to prove its existence.
Scientists are working on it, maybe one day its existence can be proven experimentally.
Since the accuracy of the existing formulae has been sufficiently proved, we cannot say that the formulae are wrong, but it is certain that there is an anomaly.
Let's say that a new Einstein is expected.
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Today I decided to write about a scientific storm again.
I have written about these topics before, but I think this time it was a bit more summarising.
Another topic, the dark energy ratios, also emerges from similar calculations.
Calculations on the growth of the universe, and moreover its accelerating growth, reveal that the total kinetic energy in the universe is not sufficient for such a rapid movement, and the calculations reveal that 68 per cent of the total energy in the universe is dark energy of unknown origin.
Who knows, maybe one day someone will shed light on these black things and we will stop calling them black. There are still black holes whose secrets are yet to be solved. Black holes are celestial bodies whose existence has at least been observed. I guess we can say that black holes will be the black thing whose mysteries will be solved the fastest.
Let me end this article by saying stay with science.
Love and respect to everyone from Moscow