29 August, 2014 Recently, Craig Hogan, director of the Center for Particle Astrophysics, the famous Fermi Laboratory and the creator of the theory of holographic noise, announced that a group of scientists under his leadership plans to conduct large-scale research aimed at studying space, namely to find an answer to the question of whether it is a quantum system or not. We ourselves may not realize that, like a television screen, our space is divided into points (pixels), tens of trillion times smaller than the size of an atom. That is, there is a certain code for our Universe, which is generated in certain clusters of a two-dimensional dimension.
Astrophysicists want to understand whether our world can actually be a hologram, that is, a system that can be encoded, supplemented and programmed like matrix systems. An unimaginable discovery awaits us if such a theory turns out to be true. This stunning experiment called Holometer is carried out with the active participation of the Fermi National Acceleration Laboratory and should help collect enough information that should open the veil of the mystery of the existence of the Universe.
Let's turn again to the screen matrices. We can all see the pixels into which they are divided and yet these points work together to present us with a single, single image. According to researchers, our Universe can be divided into such pixels. Holometer is based on quantum theory, according to the postulates of which, the speed and exact location of subatomic particles is almost impossible to know. Spatial cubes (analogous to screen pixels) are two-dimensional and cannot provide accurate information about the location of objects enclosed in this space. Another interesting fact is that matter has the property of trembling, that is, it is in continuous oscillation and even cooling to absolute zero cannot stop these oscillations (oscillations do not allow us to establish the exact location of the smallest particles). Thus, we see that space will fluctuate even at the lowest energy level, and thereby determines the existence of the principle of uncertainty in it.
The above trembling of all space affects the ability of the universe to store information. Researchers are going to measure it, as well as test other conditions of this theory using a supersensitive new device called a holographic interferometer. There have never been any analogues to this device before. Astrophysicists want to measure the tremor of space with it.
During the experiment, at the Holometre peak, two holographic interferometers will be used, which will be located close to each other and will send laser beams to a beam splitter and two perpendicular 40-meter manipulators with a power of one kilowatt, which corresponds to the power of 200 thousand laser pointers. From which the light will again be reflected into the beam splitter, where the two beams will again merge and produce brightness fluctuations in the event of movement. After scientists collect data on these fluctuations in the brightness of the returning light, they will analyze them and see if the beam splitter was moving under the influence of space tremors.
By eliminating the influence of the motion of simple matter, Holometer scientists will determine the presence of holographic noise. The Holometer will ignore the influence of ordinary matter and radio waves used by the electronics due to the possibility of super-frequency oscillations, at a rate of one million cycles per second. In the course of the experiment, it will be necessary to cut off other uninformative phenomena, and then, if it is possible to identify "pure" noise, then it will be possible to talk about a new fundamental discovery concerning the nature of noise. The discovery of a new kind of noise - inherent in space-time - is something incredible for physicists around the world and physics as a science in general. It will be possible to look under the veil of secrets of the functioning of space.
According to preliminary data, the Holometre project will carry out all calculations throughout 2015.
Parallel universes - is this theory or reality? Many physicists have been struggling to resolve this issue for far from the first year.
Are there parallel universes?
Is our universe one of the many? The idea of \u200b\u200bparallel universes, previously attributed solely to science fiction, is now becoming more and more respected among scientists - at least among physicists, who usually take any idea to the very limits of what can be assumed. In reality, there are a huge number of potential parallel universes. Physicists have proposed several possible forms of the "multiverse", each of which is possible according to one or another aspect of the laws of physics. The problem that follows directly from the definition itself is that humans can never visit these universes to make sure they exist. Thus, the question is how to use other methods to verify the existence of parallel universes that cannot be seen or touched?
The origin of the idea
It is assumed that at least some of these universes live human counterparts who live similar or even identical lives with people from our world. This idea touches your ego and awakens your fantasies - which is why the multiverse, no matter how distant and unprovable they may be, have always been so popular. Most clearly, you have seen multiverse ideas in books like The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, and in films like Beware the Doors are Closing. In fact, there is nothing new in the idea of \u200b\u200bmultiverse - this is clearly demonstrated by the religious philosopher Mary-Jane Rubenstein in her book Worlds Without End. In the mid-sixteenth century, Copernicus argued that the Earth was not the center of the universe. A few decades later, the Galileo telescope showed him stars out of reach, so mankind got the first idea of \u200b\u200bthe immensity of space. Thus, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno argued that the universe could be infinite and contain an infinite number of inhabited worlds.
Universe matryoshka
The idea that the universe contains many solar systems became quite common in the eighteenth century. In the early twentieth century, Irish physicist Edmund Fournier D'Alba even suggested that there could be an infinite regression of nested universes of different sizes, both large and small. From this point of view, a single atom can be considered as a real inhabited solar system. Modern scientists deny the assumption of the existence of a multiverse-matryoshka, but instead they have proposed several other options in which multiverse could exist. Here are the most popular ones.
Patchwork universe
The simplest of these theories comes from the idea of \u200b\u200bthe infinity of the universe. It is impossible to know for sure whether it is infinite, but it is impossible to deny it. If it is nevertheless infinite, then it must be divided into "patches" - regions that are not visible to each other. Why? The fact is that these regions are so far from each other that light cannot cover such a distance. The universe is only 13.8 billion years old, so any regions 13.8 billion light years apart are completely cut off from each other. According to all the data, these regions can be considered separate universes. But they do not remain in this state forever - eventually the light crosses the border between them, and they expand. And if the Universe actually consists of an infinite number of "island universes" containing matter, stars and planets, then somewhere there must be worlds identical to the Earth.
Inflationary multiverse
The second theory grows out of ideas about how the universe began. According to the dominant Big Bang theory, it began as an infinitesimal point that expanded incredibly quickly in a blazing fireball. A fraction of a second after the start of the expansion, acceleration had already reached such a tremendous speed, which was much faster than the speed of light. And this process is called "inflation". Inflationary theory explains why the universe is relatively homogeneous at any given point. Inflation has expanded this fireball to cosmic proportions. However, the original state also had a large number of different random variations, which were also subject to inflation. And now they are saved as relic radiation, the faint afterglow of the Big Bang. And this radiation permeates the entire Universe, making it not so uniform.
Cosmic natural selection
This theory was formulated by Lee Smolin from Canada. In 1992, he suggested that universes could evolve and reproduce in the same way as living things. On Earth, natural selection contributes to the emergence of "useful" traits, such as a high speed of running or a special position of the thumbs. There must also be a certain pressure in the multiverse that makes some universes better than others. Smolin called this theory "cosmic natural selection." Smolin's idea is that the "mother" universe can give life to the "daughters" that are formed within it. The parent universe can only do this if it has black holes. A black hole forms when a large star collapses under its own gravitational force, knocking all of its atoms together until they reach infinite density.
Brane multiverse
When Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity began to gain popularity in the twenties, many people discussed the "fourth dimension." What could be there? A hidden universe perhaps? It was nonsense, Einstein did not assume the existence of a new universe. All he said was that time is the same dimension, which is similar to the three dimensions of space. All four are intertwined with each other, forming a space-time continuum, the matter of which is distorted - and gravity is obtained. Despite this, other scientists began to discuss the possibility of other dimensions in space. For the first time, hints of hidden dimensions appeared in the works of the theoretical physicist Theodor Kaluza. In 1921, he demonstrated that by adding new dimensions to Einstein's equation of general relativity, an additional equation could be obtained that could predict the existence of light.
Multiworlds Interpretation (Quantum Multiverse)
The theory of quantum mechanics is one of the most successful in all of science. She discusses the behavior of the smallest objects, such as atoms and their constituent elementary particles. It can predict all kinds of phenomena, from the shape of molecules to how light and matter interact, all with incredible precision. Quantum mechanics considers particles in the form of waves and describes them in a mathematical expression called the wave function. Perhaps the strangest feature of the wave function is that it allows a particle to exist in multiple states simultaneously. This is called superposition. But superpositions are destroyed as soon as the object is measured in any way, since the measurements force the object to choose a specific position. In 1957, American physicist Hugh Everett suggested that we stop complaining about the strange nature of this approach and just live with it. He also suggested that objects do not switch to a specific position when they are measured - instead, he believed that all possible positions embedded in the wave function are equally real. Therefore, when an object is measured, a person sees only one of many realities, but all other realities also exist.
Why does our world look like this and not otherwise? How does it actually work? Why does what we call miracles happen in it, and why physical laws do not always work? Is it possible to learn how to manage reality and the events that occur around us? There is only one theory that explains all this: the so-called material world simply does not exist.
What was when there was nothing
People thought about the origin of the Universe in ancient times. Theologians believed that it was created by the Creator several thousand years before our era. But archaeological and paleontological finds prove that the earth and life on it are at least millions of years old. Much closer to the truth, apparently, was Aristotle, who argued that the Universe has no beginning or end and will exist forever ...
For a long time, the universe was considered static and unchanging, but in 1929 the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that it was constantly expanding. Therefore, it did not always exist, but arose as a result of some processes, he reasoned. This is how the Big Bang theory appeared, which gave birth to stars and galaxies billions of years ago. But if nothing existed before the Big Bang, then what led to it?
In 1960, physicist John Wheeler developed the "pulsating universe" theory.
According to her, the Universe has repeatedly passed through cycles of expansion and reverse contraction, that is, there have been at least several such Big Bangs over the entire period of its history. Another theory implies the presence of a protoverse: first, matter should have appeared, and then the Big Bang had already thundered.
Finally, there is a hypothesis of the emergence of the Universe from quantum foam, which is affected by energy fluctuations. "Foaming", quantum bubbles "inflate" and create new worlds. But this again did not explain the main thing: what existed before the formation of any matter?
The famous astrophysicists James Hartl and Stephen Hawking tried to resolve the scientific paradox by proposing another theory in 1983. It said that the Universe has no boundaries and its structure is based on the so-called wave function, which determines the various quantum states of matter particles. This makes possible the existence of many parallel Universes with a different set of physical constants.
Non-physical picture of the world
The main disadvantage of all scientific models of the formation of the Universe is that until now they were based on the so-called physical picture of the world. But there may be other worlds as well! Worlds where the laws of physics don't work.
We are accustomed to the fact that we are surrounded by matter - an objective reality given to us in sensations. But everyone has their own feelings, individual! Let us recall the same Plato, who believed that there is a world of ideas (eidos), and matter is just a projection of these ideas ... So we come to the most important thing: we are not surrounded by matter at all, but ideas, images!
Consider the phenomenon of autism. A child, being born, perceives the world around him in the form of images and sensations, and not in the form of a collection of objects. Over time, he learns to see the world as a whole picture, to establish connections between various objects and concepts.
Autistic people can perceive reality, but they cannot analyze it.
But they are able to assimilate a huge amount of "primary" information, which is inaccessible to most of us.
For example, the Swede Iris Johansson, who, while suffering from autism, was nevertheless able to adapt to the “normal” world and even get the profession of a teacher and psychologist, is able to feel the so-called “vital energy”. As a child, living in a peasant family where cows were kept, she always saw which of the calves was not destined to survive.
In her youth, Iris worked in a hairdresser and learned, by doing women hairstyles, to restore the energy potential of clients, if he was exhausted. Clients left the hairdresser feeling an extraordinary surge of energy. Thanks to this, Iris has become a very popular craftsman. Ordinary people are not capable of such miracles.
Evidence of the illusion
What about magic and religion? Eastern philosophers are convinced that the material world is an illusion, maya. The ancient Slavs divided the world into Reality, Nav and Rule: the world of matter, the world of spirits and the world of the Highest Principle, which controls reality. What if, with the help of certain rituals, we can influence reality?
Any psychic will tell you that when you target damage or unconventional treatment of a person, the impact is at the energy level. But even the most advanced magician will not explain to you the specific mechanism of what is happening at this moment. He only knows that in order to obtain a certain result, a certain ritual must be carried out. The magician works with ideas, and not with the physical picture of the world.
So how do you make ideas work for you? First of all, you must be aware of the fact that there are parallel realities, the number of which, perhaps, tends to infinity. And they are not “out there”, but surround us. Only we do not notice the process of "transition" from one reality to another. Or we notice, but we perceive it as a miracle. Let's say some thing disappeared and then reappeared.
Seeing something unusual, we immediately take the vision for a hallucination, while, most likely, we managed to look into one of the many parallel worlds. By the way, we are used to perceiving reality as something stable and orderly, but people with some brain disorders are able to see it as it really is, which is usually perceived by us as delirium and gives a reason to twist a finger at the temple.
Materialization phenomenon
Once a brilliant physicist in quantum mechanics, Hugh Everett suggested that any thought or action leads to a choice that shapes what is called reality. At the same time, "unrealized" options continue to exist, as it were, in parallel.
For example, let's say you drove one road, got stuck in a traffic jam, and were late for your job interview and didn't get it. We went another - arrived on time, and the interview was successful. Is it possible to “step over” from one “branch” from a multitude of realities to another? This is what we do when we try to improve our life.
This is very well illustrated by Vadim Zeland in his series of books "Reality Transurfing". He explains why strong desires often don't come true. If we want something very badly, then an excess potential arises, and reality begins to restore balance. No wonder there is a saying: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."
In recent years, there has been a stir around the Simoron system. In essence, we are offered a variant of the so-called positive thinking, but with the use of various kinds of ritual actions. How it works? A person “shakes” the boundaries of the familiar picture of the world (the Simoronists call it PCM) and falls on the “wave” that is more desirable for him.
For example, Simoronists urge people to jump into another world more often. How? It's very simple - to jump off a chair or bed, saying to myself: I'm jumping for a new job, for a new apartment, for my soul mate, and so on.
Matter against chaos
But why then do we need objective reality at all? Isn't it better to be in a world of illusions, since they can be manipulated in any way?
The fact is that the material world is a kind of protection from chaos. Imagine that you are on a tiny island in the middle of the endless sea. You have at least solid ground under your feet, and if you throw yourself into the waves, they will carry you to no one knows where.
Most likely, people once really saw the world as chaotic as it really is. And they themselves created the so-called physical reality in order to avoid unwanted metamorphoses. In essence, such a theory explains everything: UFOs, and the appearance of ghosts, and telepathy, and clairvoyance ... After all, in the "true" world there are no boundaries, and anything can happen in it.
But if our world is illusory, then there must be some primary principle that gave birth to it. This is the mystery of God. If all this is indeed the case, then who created him? There is hardly a single scientist or philosopher who can answer this question, since, most likely, our limited consciousness is simply not given to comprehend the answer.
2.2. Is the universe really expanding?
In reflecting on this whole story, I proceeded from the premise that the truth, however incredible it may seem, is what remains if the impossible is discarded. It is possible that this remainder admits of several explanations. In this case, it is necessary to analyze each option until there is only one that is convincing enough.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Why is everyone so sure that the universe is really expanding? In the scientific literature, the reality of expansion is almost never discussed, since professional scientists who know the problem in its entirety, practically do not doubt it. Active discussions of this issue often erupt on various kinds of Internet forums, where representatives of the so-called "alternative science" (as opposed to "orthodox") again and again try to "reinvent the wheel" and find another explanation not related to the removal of objects, an explanation for what is observed in the spectra galaxies redshift. Such attempts are usually based on the ignorance that, in addition to redshift, there is other evidence in favor of the reality of cosmological expansion. Strictly speaking, the stationarity of the universe would be a much bigger problem for science than its expansion!
Modern science is a densely woven fabric of interconnected results, or, if you will, a constantly under construction building, from the base of which no one of the bricks can be pulled out without the whole building collapsing. The expansion of the Universe and the picture of the structure and evolution of the Universe and its constituent objects created on its basis is one of such basic results of modern science.
But first, a few words about the non-Doppler interpretation of the redshift. Soon after the discovery of addiction zfrom distance arose - and this is quite natural - the idea that the redshift may not be associated with the distance of objects, but with the fact that on the way from distant galaxies part of the photon energy is lost and, consequently, the radiation wavelength increases, it “turns red”. Adherents of this point of view were, for example, one of the founders of astrophysics in Russia, A.A.Belopolsky, and also Fritz Zwicky, one of the most creatively thinking and fruitful astronomers of the 20th century. To a similar explanation zhubble himself bowed from time to time. Soon, however, it became clear that such processes of energy loss by photons should be accompanied by blurring of the source images (the further away the galaxy, the stronger the blur), which was not observed. Another version of this scenario, as shown by the Soviet physicist M.P. Bronstein, predicted that the reddening effect should be different in different parts of the spectrum, that is, it should depend on the wavelength. By the beginning of the 60s of the XX century, the development of radio astronomy also closed this possibility - for this galaxy the redshift value turned out to be independent of the wavelength. The famous Soviet astrophysicist VA Ambartsumyan back in 1957 summarized the situation with different interpretations of the redshift as follows: “All attempts to explain the redshift by some mechanism other than the Doppler principle ended in failure. These attempts were caused not so much by logical or scientific necessity as by the well-known fear ... of the immensity of the phenomenon itself ... ".
Let us now consider several observational tests that support the picture of the global cosmological expansion of the Universe. The first of them was proposed back in 1930 by the American physicist Richard Tolman. Tolman discovered that the so-called surface brightness of objects will behave differently in a stationary and in an expanding universe.
Surface brightness is simply the energy emitted per unit area of \u200b\u200ban object per unit of time (for example, per second) in some direction, or more precisely, per unit of solid angle. In a stationary Universe, in which the cause of the redshift is some unknown law of nature, leading to a decrease in the energy of photons on the way to the observer ("aging" or "fatigue" of photons), the surface brightness of an object should decrease in proportion to the value 1 + z... This means that if the galaxy is at such a distance that for it z\u003d 1, then it should look twice as faint in comparison with the same galaxies near us, that is, at z= 0.
In the expanding Universe, the dependence of the brightness (meaning the bolometric, that is, the total, summed over the entire spectrum, brightness) from the redshift becomes much stronger - it decreases as (1 + z)four. In this case, the object with z\u003d 1 will no longer look 2, but 16 times dimmer. The reason for such a strong drop in brightness is that, in addition to a decrease in the photon energy due to redshift, additional effects begin to work with the real distance of galaxies. Thus, each new photon emitted by a distant galaxy will reach the observer from a greater distance and spend more and more time on the road. The intervals between the arrival of photons will increase and, therefore, less energy will fall on the radiation receiver per unit time and the galaxy we are observing will seem weaker. In addition, in the case of a real expansion, the dependence of the angular size of the galaxy on zwill be different than for a stationary Universe, which also leads to a change in its observed surface brightness.
Tolman's test looks very simple and intuitive - indeed, it is enough to take two similar objects at different redshifts and compare their brightness. However, the technical difficulties of its implementation are such that they were able to apply this test only relatively recently - in the nineties of the XX century. This was done by a student and follower of Hubble, the famous American astronomer Alan Sandage. Together with various colleagues, Sandage has published a series of articles in which he examined the Tolman test for distant elliptical galaxies.
Elliptical galaxies are remarkable in that they are relatively simple in structure. To a first approximation, they can be represented as giant conglomerates of stars born almost simultaneously, having a smoothed, without any peculiarities, large-scale distribution of brightness (the brightest galaxies in Fig. 16 belong to this type). Elliptical galaxies have a simple empirical relationship that connects together their main observational characteristics - size, surface brightness, and velocity spread of stars along the line of sight. (Under certain assumptions, this relationship is a consequence of the assumption about the stability of elliptical galaxies.) Different two-dimensional projections of this three-parameter dependence also show good correlation, for example, there is a relationship between the size and brightness of galaxies. Hence, comparing elliptical galaxies of the same characteristic linear size at different z,you can implement the Tolman test.
This is approximately how Sandage acted. He examined several galaxy clusters at z ~ 1 and compared the surface brightness of elliptical galaxies observed in them with the data for similar galaxies near us. For the comparison to be correct, Sendige had to take into account the expected evolution of the brightness of galaxies due to the "passive" evolution of their constituent stars, but this correction is currently determined quite reliably. The results turned out to be unambiguous - the surface brightness of galaxies changes proportionally to 1 / (1 + z) 4 and, therefore, the universe is expanding. The model of a stationary Universe with "aging" photons does not satisfy observations.
Another interesting test was also proposed a very long time ago, and was implemented only relatively recently. A fundamental property of the expanding Universe is the apparent slowing down of time in distant objects. The farther from us in the expanding Universe are the clocks, the slower, as it seems to us, they go - at large zthe duration of all processes seems to be stretched in (1 + z) times (Figure 22). (This effect is similar to the relativistic time dilation in special relativity.) Therefore, if you find such a "clock" that can be observed at large distances, then you can directly check the reality of the expansion of the universe.
Figure: 22. Pulses emitted by a distant object at redshift zat intervals of 1 second, will reach us at intervals of 1 + zseconds.
In 1939, the American astronomer Olin Wilson published a note in which he noted the surprising constancy of the shape of the supernova light curves (see the example of Tycho Brahe's light curve in Fig. 4, as well as Fig. 23) and suggested using these curves as “cosmological hours ". A supernova explosion is one of the most powerful catastrophic processes in the universe. During such an outburst, the star throws off an envelope with a mass comparable to that of the Sun at a speed of ~ 104 km / s. At the same time, the star becomes tens of millions of times brighter, and at its maximum brightness it is able to outshine the entire galaxy in which it flared up. Such a bright object is naturally visible at very large, cosmological distances. How can you use supernova light curves as "clocks"? (They can also be used as a "standard candle", but I'll talk about that a little later.) First, not all supernovae are the same in their observational manifestations and in their light curves. They are divided into two types (I and II), and those, in turn, are subdivided into several subtypes. In what follows, we will discuss only the light curves of type Ia supernovae. Secondly, even for this type of star, the light curves look very diverse at first glance and it is not at all obvious what can be done with them. For example, Figure 23 shows the observed light curves of several nearby Type Ia supernovae. These curves are quite different: for example, the luminosities of the stars shown in the figure at maximum brightness differ by almost three times.
Figure: 23. SN Ia light curves: the upper figure shows the observed curves, the lower one brings them together taking into account the correlation between the shape of the light curve and the luminosity of the supernova at maximum. The horizontal axis represents days after the brightness maximum, the vertical axis represents the absolute magnitude (a measure of luminosity). According to the Calan-Tololo Supernova Survey project
The situation is saved by the fact that the variety of shapes of the observed light curves obeys a clear correlation: the brighter the SN at the maximum, the more smoothly its brightness then decreases. This relationship was discovered by the Soviet astronomer Yuri Pskovsky back in the 1970s and later, already in the 1990s, was studied in detail by other researchers. It turned out that with this correlation taken into account, the light curves of SN Ia are remarkably uniform (see Fig. 23) - for example, the spread of the luminosities of SN Ia at the maximum brightness is only about 10%! Consequently, the change in the brightness of SN Ia can be regarded as a standard process, the duration of which in the local frame of reference is well known. The use of these "clocks" showed that in distant supernovae (now several dozen SNs with z\u003e 1) changes in the apparent brightness and spectrum are slowed down by a factor (1 + z). This is an immediate and very strong argument for the reality of cosmological expansion. Another argument is the agreement of the age of the Universe, obtained within the framework of the expanding Universe model, with the age of actually observed objects. Expansion means that the distances between galaxies increase over time. By mentally reversing this process, we come to the conclusion that this global expansion must have begun sometime. Knowing the current rate of expansion of the Universe (it is determined by the value of the Hubble constant) and the balance of densities of its constituent subsystems (ordinary matter, dark matter, dark energy), it can be found that the expansion began about 14 billion years ago. This means that we should not observe objects in our Universe with an age exceeding this estimate.
But how can you find the age of space objects? Differently. For example, using radioactive "clocks" - methods of nuclear cosmochronology, which make it possible to estimate the age of objects by analyzing the relative abundance of isotopes with long half-lives. The study of the content of isotopes in meteorites, in terrestrial and lunar rocks showed that the age of the solar system is close to 5 billion years. The age of the Galaxy in which our solar system is located is, of course, greater. It can be estimated by the time it takes to form the amount of heavy elements observed in the solar system. Calculations show that the synthesis of these elements should have continued for ~ 5 billion years before the formation of the solar system. Consequently, the age of the surrounding regions of the Milky Way is close to 10 billion years.
Another way of dating the Milky Way is based on estimating the age of its oldest stars and star clusters. This method is based on the theory of stellar evolution, well supported by a variety of observations. The result of this approach is that the age of various objects in the Galaxy (stars, globular clusters, white dwarfs, etc.) does not exceed ~ 10–15 billion years, which is consistent with modern ideas about the time of the beginning of cosmological expansion.
The age of other galaxies is, of course, more difficult to determine than the age of the Milky Way. We do not see individual stars in distant objects and are forced to study only the integral characteristics of galaxies - spectra, brightness distribution, etc. These integral characteristics add up from the contributions of a huge number of stars that make up a galaxy. In addition, the observed characteristics of galaxies strongly depend on the presence and distribution of the interstellar medium in them - gas and dust. All these difficulties are surmountable, and modern astronomers have learned to reconstruct the history of star formation, which should have led to the currently observed integral characteristics of galaxies. For galaxies of different types, these histories are different (for example, elliptical galaxies arose during a powerful single burst of star formation many billion years ago, stars are born in spiral galaxies at the present time), but no galaxies have been found in which the beginning of star formation would exceed the age of the Universe. In addition, there is a quite definite, expected for a really expanding Universe, trend - the further along zwe climb into the Universe, that is, we move on to ever earlier stages of its evolution, so, on average, we observe younger objects.
Important arguments supporting the expansion of the Universe are also the existence of relic radiation, the observed increase in its temperature with increasing redshift, as well as the abundance of elements in the Universe, but I will talk about this a little later. I want to finish my story, perhaps, with the clearest evidence of the expansion of the Universe - images of distant galaxies (see the example in Fig. 24).
One of the most spectacular results of the Hubble Space Telescope is undoubtedly the wonderful pictures of various space objects - nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, etc. Observations from space are not interfered with by the Earth's atmosphere, which blurs the images, and therefore HST images about ten times clearer than terrestrial ones. In these very clear images (their angular resolution is about 0. "" 1) in the 1990s, it was for the first time possible to examine in detail the structure of distant galaxies. As it turned out, distant galaxies are not like those that we observe near us. With an increase in the redshift, the proportion of asymmetric and irregular galaxies increases, as well as galaxies in the composition of interacting and merging systems: if at z\u003d 0, only a few percent of galaxies can be attributed to such objects, then z\u003d 1, their share increases to ~ 30-40%.
Figure: 24. Fragment of the Superdeep field of the Hubble Space Telescope (image size 30 "" x 30 "") · Most of the visible galaxies in the figure have z ~ 0.5: 1, that is, they belong to the era when the universe was about half its age.
Why is this happening? The simplest explanation is associated with the expansion of the Universe - in earlier epochs, the mutual distances between galaxies were less (at z\u003d 1 they were two times smaller) and, therefore, galaxies should more often disturb each other with close passages and merge more often. This argument is not as unambiguous as those mentioned earlier, but it clearly testifies to a quite definite, corresponding picture of the expanding Universe, the evolution of the properties of galaxies over time. So, the expansion of the Universe is confirmed by various, completely unrelated to each other, independent observational tests. In addition, the nonstationarity of the Universe inevitably arises in theoretical studies of its structure and evolution. All this allowed the famous Soviet theoretical physicist Yakov Zeldovich in the early 1980s to conclude that the Big Bang theory, which is based on the expansion of the Universe, “is as reliably established and correct as it is true that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Both theories were central to the picture of the universe of their time, and both had many opponents who argued that the new ideas embedded in them were absurd and contrary to common sense. But such speeches cannot hinder the success of new theories. "
| |
Now, obviously, the universe did not always continue to expand in this way, because we are here, which means inflation should have ended and gave rise to the Big Bang. You can imagine inflation starting at the top of a flat hill and slowly rolling down like a ball. As long as the ball stays near the top and rolls slowly, inflation continues and the universe expands exponentially. As soon as the ball rolls down into the valley, inflation ends and energy dissipates. The energy inherent in space itself is converted into matter and radiation. We are moving from inflation to Big Bang.
- Inflation is not a ball, not a classical field - but rather a wave that propagates over time, like a quantum field.
- This means that as time goes on, as more and more space is created due to inflation, certain areas are likely to see the end of inflation, and others - its continuation.
- The regions where inflation has ended give rise to the Big Bang and our Universe; in others, inflation continues.
- Over time, due to expansion dynamics, no two areas where inflation has ended will be able to interact or collide. In between, there will be areas of continuing inflation that will push the former apart.
It is worth noting that we do not know much about this inflationary state, so we are faced with many uncertainties and opportunities:
- We do not know how long the inflationary state lasted before it ended and led to the Big Bang. The universe can be either not much larger than what we see, or much larger, or even infinite.
- We do not know if the regions where inflation ended are the same or are very different from our own. It is likely that there is an unknown physical dynamics that leads to the fact that all fundamental constants - particle masses, interaction forces, the amount of dark energy - are the same for all regions where inflation has ended. It is also possible that there will be different physics in different areas.
And if these universes are all the same, speaking about the laws of physics, and the number of these universes is truly infinite, and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is quite correct, does this mean that there are parallel universes in which everything happened in the same way as in our Universe, not counting one tiny quantum result? 
In other worlds, everything could happen in the same way as in ours, except for one tiny detail, because of which your life took a completely different path ...
- When did you choose to work overseas instead of staying in the country?
- When did you stand up for the girl and did not give her offense?
- When did you kiss her goodbye instead of just letting her go?
- When, at some turning point, something prevented you from losing her?
Just think: what if there is a universe for each of the possible outcomes of events? If the probability of the existence of such a universe is not zero, and the number of such worlds is infinite, then everything is possible? For this alone, many "ifs" have to happen. The inflationary state had to remain not just long, but endless.
If the universe was expanding exponentially - not only for a tiny fraction of a second, but over 13.8 billion years (that's about 4 x 10 17 seconds) - we are dealing with a gigantic volume of space. After all, while there are regions in space where inflation has ended, most of the volume of the universe is in regions where inflation has not ended. That is, we are talking at least 10 10 ^ 50 universes that started with the same conditions as our own. These are 10¹⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ universes. Quite a large number. And the numbers describing the number of possible outcomes of particle interactions will be even larger.
There are 10 90 particles in each universe, and we need all of them to go through exactly the same history of 13.8 billion years in order to give us an identical universe to ours. For a universe with 10 90 quantum particles that will interact for 13.8 billion years in 10 10 ^ 50 possible variations ... The number you see above, for example, is just 1000! (or (10 3)!), a factorial of 1000, which describes the number of possible permutations for 1000 different particles at any given time. Imagine how much greater the number (10 3)! Than (10 1000). (10 3)! - this is almost 10 2477. 
Thousand factorial: all numbers from 1 to 1000, multiplied among themselves
But there are not 1000 particles in the Universe, but 10 90. Every time two particles interact, there is not one result - a whole quantum spectrum of results. There are many more possible outcomes in the universe than (10 90) !, and this number is many more googolplexes than the paltry 10 10 ^ 50.
In other words, the number of possible outcomes of particle interactions in any universe tends to infinity faster than the number of possible universes increases due to inflation. Even putting aside such questions as there can be an infinite number of possible values \u200b\u200bof fundamental constants, particles and interactions, and even postponing questions of interpretation, for example, does the Many-Worlds interpretation describe our physical reality, the fact is that the number of possible outcomes is increasing so rapidly - much faster than just exponential progression - that if inflation actually goes on forever, there will be no parallel universe identical to ours.
This means that there can be a huge number of Universes, with other laws and so on. But they are not enough to give us alternative versions of ourselves. What does this mean for you?
That there is no other copy of you anywhere in the world. And there is no future that someone else will choose for you. Therefore, live this life as no one else in all parallel universes would have lived it.