The need to understand our environment and, therefore, ourselves, has driven thinkers and scientists throughout history to decipher one of the most intricate mysteries about our existence: the origin of the universe
What is the universe origin?. When and how was he born?
Since the beginning of philosophical thought and the first sciences of our civilization, more than 3500 years ago in Sumeria , Egypt and ancient Greece , thousands of thinkers have tried, by any means, to discover the origin of the universe.
Theories about the origin of the universe , as the evolution and origin of the universe is also known , are very diverse and depend on theoretical principles that have not yet been fully unified, therefore they have branched out into different directions over the years.
For example, some theories begin with the Steady State theory, which posits that the entire universe originated in its current shape and size. On the other hand, the Inflationary Universe theory suggests that the universe is constantly expanding, pushing galaxies further apart and creating new ones continuously.
Origin of the Universe Theories in Antiquity
LSumerianos
Despite their poor understanding of the dynamics of the universe, the Sumerians marveled at the origin of the stars, to the point where astronomy became a kind of obsession for them.
In fact, from this, one of the first civilizations known to man, a relationship between the heavenly bodies and human behavior was already considered, which today has evolved in astrological beliefs.
In fact, it was the Sumerians who identified the 12 constellations through which the sun moves throughout the year and gave it the names of animals, for which it later became known as the zodiac.
Although they never proposed an acceptable theory of universal genesis (they believed that the universe floated on a sea called Nammu ), the Sumerians set an important precedent for future theories about the composition of our Solar System in other civilizations.
Mainly because they managed to identify the most visible planets from Earth: Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Origin of the Universe according to the Egyptians
Even today, the depth of the Egyptians' astronomical knowledge remains a mystery to us; what we do know for certain is that they possessed knowledge that was not passed on.
For example, the precise alignment of the Giza pyramid with the North Star defies all possible causality. In fact, they used the study of the stars for navigation and to accurately calculate the length of the seasons.
However, beyond this mysterious knowledge, the Egyptians never proposed a theory about the origin of the universe that went beyond their own mythology and legends based on the god Ra.
Origin of the Universe according to the Griegos
The theories, thoughts, and discoveries made in Sumeria and Egypt in previous centuries were inherited by the most prominent Greek thinkers as a basis for their studies and subsequent theses.
In ancient Greece, theories about how the universe was created were very varied; in fact, some philosophers defended the widely accepted geocentric theories , such as Ptolemy , whose theory was accepted and taught in universities for the next 1500 years.
Others, far ahead of their time, were already beginning to speak of the heliocentric theory , which, as you probably know, was rejected during the following centuries by the Catholic Church.
One of the greatest theorists of astronomy in Greece was Aristarchus of Samos , who, in addition to being the first to propose that our solar system revolves around the sun and not the Earth , was also the first to make acceptable calculations to measure the distance between the Earth and the sun.
On the other hand, Aristotle , based on the divinity of the spherical form, the most perfect of figures according to him, proposed that the Earth was indeed spherical and not flat , as had always been believed. Another theory very advanced for its time, which, as history also tells us, was rejected for more than a thousand years.
Nicolaus Copernicus theory
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer and scholar who completely overturned the conception of Universal Genesis due to his controversial Heliocentric theory , which earned him the repudiation of the scientific and religious community in Europe, which at that time was governed by the Geocentric theory of Ptolemy (a thesis that at that time was 1300 years old).
In his conclusions, drawn from several years of astronomical studies, Copernicus proposed that, just as Aristarchus of Samos believed, the Earth and other celestial bodies revolve around the Sun and not the other way around.
Although, at that time, in the 16th century, Copernicus's theory was very controversial and, in fact, its dissemination was prohibited by the Catholic Church, only a century later it became the most widely accepted thesis globally.
The mathematical verification of Copernicus's Heliocentric Theory opened the door for the scientific community to achieve a much broader understanding of the dynamics of our solar system and the universe.
This progressive compression bore fruit, which, together with the technological advances of the 20th century, has allowed physicists and astronomers to begin to speculate on scientific grounds about the creation of the universe.
Albert Einstein's theory
Albert Einstein is, to this day, recognized as the most influential physicist in history, mainly for his contribution to science with the Theory of Universal Relativity in 1915, in which he related the deformations in the displacement of light in relation to the gravitational fields of matter
Although the general belief is that Einstein's famous Theory of Relativity did not actually seek to decipher the origin of the universe , but rather the nature of its mechanics, his equations were the cornerstone on which the theory of the expansion of the universe was based, confirmed by Edward Hubble only a few years later, in 1930.
The basic concept of Einstein's theory tells us that the perception of universal events is not invariable as Newton proposed, but is distorted according to the perception of the receiver in relation to their position in time and space.
He also demonstrated with the variation of general relativity that the displacement of time and light are affected by the gravitational fields of matter according to its density, which helped to establish the concept of spacetime curvature and to understand cosmic phenomena such as wormholes.
Thus, denser clusters of matter, such as neutron stars , which concentrate a greater number of particles in a smaller space, are capable of generating much more intense gravitational fields, capable of creating a deformation of the space-time line of the universe.
Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, also known as the Great Explosion Theory, has been developed thanks to the validation of several theses and the joint work of some of the greatest astrophysicists in history, which is why it is the most widely accepted theory about the origin of the universe by the scientific community.
The Big Bang suggests that the universe was born from a gravitational singularity at some point before known time, approximately 13.800 billion years ago (which would be the estimated age of our universe).
A singularity is understood as a space/time event that cannot be governed by the physical rules of matter; in this case, the behavior of energy or matter would be governed by rules of quantum physics, for which there is still no proven thesis.
Therefore, from this point onward, it becomes difficult for physics to explain the circumstances that could have given rise to the Big Bang in the first place, or to any other dimension of existence before this point, where Time begins . In fact, this is a dimension that the steady-state theory of the universe attempts to explain.
The Big Bang was then an explosion in which the elements that make up the universe ( matter, space and time ) were created and, since the moment of singularity , they have been in permanent expansion, expanding the limits of the universe second by second ( basic principle of inflationary theory).
But what existed before the Big Bang?
As we have mentioned, it is impossible to understand, through the laws that govern our universe (explained by the theory of general relativity ), the conditions of a hypothetical existence before the event that created our universe as we know it.
However, it suggests that, immediately after the explosion, all the mass of the universe was concentrated in a point of hyper-concentrated density, which would exceed the Planck density by thousands of times, that is, the accumulation of matter of hundreds of thousands of solar masses within a point no larger than a single atomic particle.
During the 500.000 years following the first spacetime singularity, the matter ejected by the explosion shifted, expanding space and cooling sufficiently to begin forming the first stable atomic particles , whose mass was capable of generating gravitational fields.
The first subatomic particles created during this period (Lepton-Quark era) were protons and neutrons, which, when combined, began to form matter as we know it today.
Matter particles with physical properties began to attract and accumulate thanks to the gravitational property (explained in Einstein's theory of relativity), in what we now know as Cosmic Clouds.
The hyper-condensation of the gaseous masses of cosmic clouds gave rise to the formation of the first galaxies, along with the stars and planets they contain.
For example, it is estimated that it occurred approximately 4600 billion years ago from the collapse of a giant cosmic cloud.
A large portion of the mass ejected during the collapse coalesced, leading to the formation of our single sun. The remaining material ejected formed the planets that currently orbit around our star's gravitational field.
Steady state theory
The steady state is a theory opposed to the inflationary universe theory , which posits that our universe has a fixed dimension, which does not change over time and is, in fact, completely invariable from any point in space and time.
Thus, the universe must always show the same characteristics in terms of shape and dimension for viewers regardless of their location in space or on the timeline.
This theory accepts that the universe is in permanent expansion and that the loss of matter produced by the expansion is compensated by the creation of new matter at a parallel rate, achieving a perfect cycle of creation, in a universe that has no beginning or end.
However, acceptance of stationary theory calculations would render obsolete many of the currently accepted theories and validated studies, including Hubble's early XNUMXth century demonstrations and the principles of general relativity.
Although no experiment has managed to demonstrate the fundamental principles of the steady-state theory , many modern scientists continue to work on it, under the belief that with quantum-scale modifications to Einstein's equations, it would be possible to explain a model of the universe in reverse time, that is, the existence of matter similar to ours before the creation of time as we know it.
According to a study titled “A Finite Universe, with no beginning or end” presented by physicist Peter Lynds in 2007, it suggested that the existence of the universe is cyclical and that it is in constant rebirth.
According to this assumption, the universe will expand to a maximum point, and then begin to contract matter to a point of density that causes gravitational forces to repel rather than attract, generating a new point of expansion.
