6.

Introduction to macro-world ``

Modern Cosmology
Till the first years of the 20th century, the universe was more or less synonymous with the
Milky Way to the astronomers. Milky Way is the galaxy we belong to and this was the extent
up to which the astronomers could observe with their telescopes. A galaxy is a
conglomeration of millions of stars. But soon with more telescope power it was established
that our Milky Way is but one of the millions of galaxies at much further distance. By the
first two decades of the century accurate methods to measure the distances of these galaxies
were invented. In studying the light coming from distant galaxies, astronomers noticed that
the spectral lines were shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. They recognized this to be
a Doppler Shift – in this case red shift, which indicates that the source of light is moving way
from us. Soon it was realized by measuring the amount of red shifts and distances of various
galaxies, that all galaxies are moving away from each other– further the galaxies are, the
higher is the speed of this moving away from each other. Young American Astronomer
Edwin Hubble working with the most powerful telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory,
was the pioneer of these measurements and correlations. He showed that this could happen
only if the space itself is expanding. The expanding universe means that at earlier times the
universe was smaller, and if we go back in time sufficiently we end up with a point universe.
The Hubble’s law he established, which is basically the correlation between the distance and
the expanding speed, allowed him to calculate the time when the universe was just a point,
the beginning of the universe. After some later corrections it came to 14 billion years ago
from now. This is regarded as the established age of the universe today. The powerful space
telescope now in orbit has been named Hubble Telescope after Edwin Hubble.

distance
(light-year)
78 million
Red shifts for light coming
from galaxies at various
1,200 km/sec.
distances, representing their
1 billion various speeds away from each
other. (Notice the gradual shift
of the line at the arrow head,
15,000 km/sec. towards right)
1.4 billion

22,000 km/sec.

2.5 billion

39,000 km/sec.

4 billion
1
61, 000 km/sec.
This theory of the birth and evolution of universe has been dubbed as the Big Bang theory
because it says that the universe came into being in an explosion from a point size 14 billion
years ago.
Later research provided some explanation how the universe started as a hot and highly
compressed matter-energy, and how our familiar matter and familiar energy came into being
and were separated from each other as the temperature and the density began to drop.
In the early 1960s a background radiation in the microwave frequency – uniformly spread
out in every direction, seemingly filling up the whole universe – was discovered. This was
recognized as the original energy decoupled from matter a short time after the big bang.
Now after all this time this increased in wavelength to microwave range because of the
expansion and cooling of the universe. This discovery of the Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB), as the radiation is called, and a few other evidences made the Big Bang
theory firmly established. Stars and galaxies were created in the expanding universe by the
accumulation of matter at certain locations starting from minute asymmetries in the
distribution density of matter.
The mysteries which have been attacked by the cosmologists and other physicists since then
included the happenings of the first few milliseconds after big bang when extreme conditions
prevailed which defy the contemporary physics; the nature of dark matter (not same as
ordinary matter as we know it ) throughout the universe that has been indirectly discovered;
the nature of the strange dark energy that pervades the universe causing the latter to expand
at continuously accelerated rate; the possible fate of universe considering all these (will it
continue to expand for ever, or will it eventually start to contract); black holes which
gobble's up everything– matter and energy – that comes near them because of their extreme
density of mass and therefore their enormously concentrated gravitation; etc.

Q. Give the process of Doppler shift in the case of sound. How would you know that the
source of sound is going away from you, or approaching you, by noticing the pitch of the
sound?
A. If the source approaches you the wave will be more packed and hence a higher pitch of
sound. This is equivalent to blue-shift in case of light. If the source goes away from you, the
wave will elongate, the wavelength getting longer and the pitch lower. This is equivalent to
red-shift in the case of light. You can notice this by listening to an approaching or receding
ambulance’s siren.

Q. We are surrounded by CMB which is a relic from the big bang. We can notice this CMB
any day even at our home. How?
A. If we switch on a TV when the channel is not available we see a noise in the screen. A
part of this is due to CMB.

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Q. What is the status of our earth in the universe?
A. When the stars were created in the universe some of the materials participating in the
process cumulated at various distances away from the star as everything was revolving
around the centre of the system, to create planets such as earth. It is this way our solar
system was created along with the sun. There are billions of stars like our sun and it is
expected that most of them have their own planet system. As we are exploring now, many of
these planets should have similar environment as our earth.
As all matter in universe have the same origin they are mostly identical everywhere, though
every celestial body may not retain all of these. Think about moon, mars or jupitor.
Q. How can we know about the matter existing in the stars?
A. We can identify matters in a star by examining the spectrum of the light received from the
star. Each element has characteristic lines in the spectrum as the light is emitted or absorbed
by the element. These are a kind of signature of an element we can recognize.

Special theory of relativity

From the experiments done in the 19th century, the speed of light in a vacuum appeared to
be always the same, regardless of the motion of the observer. In one famous experiment by
Michelson and Morley in 1887, they found that the time taken for the light moving along the
direction of the motion of earth (the light source) and back in the opposite direction is
exactly same as the speed moving across this motion, though in accordance with the known
physics the speed across should have been quicker.
Einstein explained this by his revolutionary special theory of relativity in 1905, based on two
postulates.
i) The velocity of light in a vacuum will be observed to be the same in all reference frames
moving at a constant speed in a straight line.
ii) All the laws of physics will be observed to be the same in all reference frames moving at
a constant speed in straight line.

Notice that these only refer to the frames in constant speed in straight line, this is why it is
special theory. It will not be applicable for any frame which is being accelerated, for
example in a marry-go-round.
To include those too Einstein later gave a general theory.
These postulates can be true only if some very revolutionary consequences are also true.
● Speed of light is independent of the motion of source or receiver.
● Speed of light is unsurpassable.
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The speed of light in a vacuum is the maximum speed at which matter, energy, or for that
matter any information can travel.
● Time-dilation
The reason for independence of the speed of light of the motion of source is rooted in time
dilation. This means clocks in motion run slow. The faster they move the slower it gets to the
frame of reference relative to which it moves. Clock here means anything keeping time – the
aging of somebody, for example.
There will however be no time dilation to the person who is moving with the clock.
Using simple geometry and algebra we can calculate the relation between a time duration to
to be registered on the moving clock and the time duration t which should be registered on
the reference frame relative to which it is moving.

to
t
1 -v 2 /c 2
Where v = is the speed of the clock, and c is the speed of light in vacuum.

This was later proved by experiment in many cases where speed is fast. For example, short
lived particle muon which move at 95% speed of light at the top of mountain as cosmic
ray and lasts exactly the right amount longer than those static at the laboratory.
● Space contraction
On similar vein anything that moves with a constant speed in straight line near the speed
of light will be contracted in length along the direction of motion. The length L as
measured from the frame relative to which it is moving will have the following relation
with the length Lo as measured by some one traveling with the thing.

L
Lo 
1 - v 2 /c 2

If something could move at the speed of light, its length will become zero.
● Mass increase
On could imagine that a mass could be accelerated to a speed equal or higher than light by
applying necessary high force. But it will not be possible because acceleration does not
depend on force alone, it depends on mass too. And mass increases as the speed to the
thing approaches that of light, and will be infinite mass exactly at speed of light.

mo
m 4
1 -v 2 /c 2
where mo is the mass at rest.
● E=mc2
As the increased force is applied while the this is moving– work is being done, and increased.
In other words energy is increasing. But as speed is limited by speed of light, the energy can
not express itself as acceleration, the energy must show up in some other way. On the other
hand we have seen that mass is increasing. This leads us to suspect that mass itself is
representing energy. In fact the total energy of the thing is
E=mc2
Even at rest, mass represents some energy: Eo=moc2
● Einstein thus did away with the Newtonian concept of distinctiveness of mass and energy,
and merged them into a single entity mass-energy, and only one conservation law –
conservation of mass-energy.

● Simultaneity
In the above situation some other radical conceptions are created it makes simultaneousness a
relative notion, some observer in one frame of reference can see event A and event B happen
simultaneously, while to others A may precede B or the other way round.
● Cause & effect
One event may cause another event at a distance only if the time between the two events is
equal or longer than the time required to travel the distance. The original concept of cause and
effect is thus changed.
● 4-dimensioned space-time
The fact that near the speed of light both time (dilated) and space (contracted) are changed
together, they are intimately related, one change can be exchanged by the change of the other.
So we should talk about the 4 dimensional space-time, rather than 3 dimensions of space and
one dimension of time.

General Theory of Relativity

The special relativity states that the laws of physics should be same in all reference frames
that are not accelerating. But it is tempting to be able to show that they are same in any
reference frame – even if accelerating. Einstein's general theory of relativity is an attempt to
establish this.

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Taking the example of people within a lift, one can show that there is no locally
measurable difference between the effects of a gravitational field and the effects that
arise from the acceleration of the reference frame.

The man inside the lift cannot distinguish between situation (a) or situation (b).
In (a) the lift is somewhere in space being accelerated by a force pushing on the
bottom. In (b) the lift is at rest on the surface of a planet.

To take an analogy, in a rotating cylinder such as the tornado ride in an amusement park,
a rider inside sitting near the axis measuring its circumference will have it a bit longer as
his measuring rod will contract because of the circular motion. But while measuring the
radius, he will get the same radius as when the cylinder was not rotating– because there
is no motion in the radial direction. This means in the accelerating body (as everything
inside the cylinder accelerates towards the wall at the circumferences) the ratio of the
radius and the circumference does not remain normal (as given in Eucleadian geometry),
but is distorted, as is expected in a curved or warped space instead of plane space (where
Eucleadean geometry applies). This is a conclusion of the General Theory– the
acceleration (that is the gravitation) makes space warped. In a similar measurement with
a clock in the rotating cylinder it can be argued that it also makes time warped (different
rate of time in different location).

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 Greater mass (gravitation) will mean greater warping of space and time. What is attraction in
Newtonian gravitation is just following the easiest path through the space warp caused by
the mass in the Einstein’s gravitation. Actually the distribution of the masses in the universe
will determine the overall ‘shape’ of the four-dimensional geometry (curvature) of the
universe, according to this theory.

Various possible shapes of the

universe according to the General
Theory of Relativity.
Current evidences support a space
very near flat. As a result it is not
sure whether the universe will
continue to expand, or collapse
into smaller and smaller entity as it
was before.

Though we tried here to understand the theory by analogies, the general theory is actually an
extremely complex and highly mathematical one.

The general theory of relativity was soon empirically proved by being able to explain several
odd behaviours of celestial motion which could not be explained by Newtonian gravitation.
Then in 1919 during a solar eclipse it was possible to measure the very slight deviation of
light coming from a distant star while grazing the sun. The deviation was found to be exactly
what is expected by the general theory – as the light followed the warp in space created by
sun’s mass.

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 Starlight is deflected in the gravitational field of the sun

Though the difference in results obtained from Newton’s and Einstein’s theory of
gravitation are extremely small (even in the solar eclipse example given above), the latter
theory is radically different from the former. It was initiated not because of any want of
correctness of result of the former, rather because Newton’s theory was in conflict with the
special relativity. The internal inconsistency can also be a reason for dissatisfaction with a
theory as important as incorrect results.

Q. Suppose that the speed of light were 100 km per hours.

a) Could you drive a distance 500 km in less than 5 hour? Explain
b) Could you reduce your body bulk taking advantage of the contraction?
c) Would it still be practical to set your watch-time by time-signal from radio
station?
d) Would radar be obsolete?
e) If the speed limit is 100 km per hour, suggest a method for police to catch
violators.

Q. A statement is usually made that there is no absolute fixed space and absolute fixed time.
Space is a property of the measuring rod, and time is a property of clocks. How correct is
this ?
Q. Which of the following process increases the mass of a body of matter and which one
decreases it – i) boiling ii) freezing, iii) shining sunlight on iv) starting in motion, v) cutting
in two vi) stretching it vii) contracting it. Why is it difficult to measure the mass changes that
take place in such case?
A. v) some binding energy is released, so mass decreases.

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vi) Some energy is added to stretch it, so mass increases. The same thing happens when
contracting.

Q. Which theory is correct Newton’s or Einstein's ?

A. Newton’s theory is correct as a special case to Einstein's theory in which speeds are
much less than that of light. It is correct to a very high precision even in our current space
travel. But Einstein’s theory is a more general one, and is more correct in that sense.