Researchers from University of Copenhagen have investigated what happened to a specific kind of plasma — the first matter ever to be present — during the first microsecond of Big Bang. Their findings provide a piece of the puzzle to the evolution of the universe, as we know it today.
About 14 billion years ago, our universe changed from being a lot hotter and denser to expanding radically – a process that scientists have named ‘The Big Bang’.
And even though we know that this fast expansion created particles, atoms, stars, galaxies, and life as we know it today, the details of how it all happened are still unknown.
Now a new study performed by researchers from University of Copenhagen reveals insights into how it all began.
“We have studied a substance called Quark-Gluon Plasma that was the only matter, which existed during the first microsecond of Big Bang. Our results tell us a unique story of how the plasma evolved in the early stage of the universe,” explains You Zhou, Associate Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.
“First the plasma that consisted of quarks and gluons was separated by the hot expansion of the universe. Then the pieces of quark reformed into so-called hadrons. A hadron with three quarks makes a proton, which is part of atomic cores. These cores are the building blocks that constitutes earth, ourselves and the universe that surrounds us,” he adds.
From Fluent and Smooth to the Strong Building Blocks of Life
The Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) was present in the first 0.000001 seconds of the Big Bang and thereafter it disappeared because of the expansion. But by using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, researchers were able to recreate this first matter in history and trace back what happened to it.
“The collider smashes together ions from the plasma with great velocity – almost like the speed of light. This makes us able to see how the QGP evolved from being its own matter to the cores in atoms and the building blocks of life,” says You Zhou.
“In addition to using the Large Hadron Collider, the researchers also developed an algorithm that is able to analyze the collective expansion of more produced particles at once, than ever possible before. Their results show that the QGP used to be a fluent liquid form and that it distinguishes itself from other matters by constantly changing its shape over time.
“For a long time, researchers thought that the plasma was a form of gas, but our analysis confirm the latest milestone measurement, where the Hadron Collider showed that QGP was fluent and had a smooth soft texture like water. The new details we provide is that the plasma has changed its shape over time, which is quite surprising and different from any other matter we know and what we would have expected,” says You Zhou.
One Step Closer to the Truth About Big Bang
Even though this might seem like a small detail, it brings us one step closer to solving the puzzle of the Big Bang and how the universe developed in the first microsecond, he elaborates.
“Every discovery is a brick that improves our chances of finding out the truth about the Big Bang. It has taken us about 20 years to find out that the Quark-Gluon Plasma was fluent before it changed into hadrons and the building blocks of life. Therefore our new knowledge on the ever changing behavior of the plasma, is a major breakthrough for us,” You Zhou concludes.
Reference: “Measurements of mixed harmonic cumulants in Pb–Pb collisions at TeV” by ALICE Collaboration, 11 May 2021, Physics Letters B.
DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2021.136354
The study has just been published in the journal Physics Letters B and is performed by You Zhou together with Zuzana Moravcova, who is a PhD at the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen.
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18 Comments
Impressive report. Its completely wrong. No one and I mean NO ONE knows anything. Your just guessing and we know it. At least you got payed for proposing nonsense. Well actually you should lose your day job and go dig wells in Africa and stop wasting your life.
Nice try. But, I don’t ‘BELIEVE’ in quark gluon plasma. And that’s what counts.
(signed)
Republican Party
The 10th Man is right. No one knows anything. No one knows how mobile phones work or how planes stay up in the air or how rainbows appear in the sky and don’t even get me started on computers. Those are a complete mystery. Scientists are just guessing. The years they spend studying, experimenting, developing theories, replicating the work of other scientists is just a big waste of time because if I don’t understand it, without putting in the decades of study and work then NOBODY understands it.
Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
JUST BECAUSE SCIENCE CAN EXPLAIN how an airplane works doesn’t mean that no one designed or made the airplane. And just because science can explain how life or the universe works doesn’t mean there was no Designer and Maker behind them.
Natural laws may explain how the order in the universe works and operates, but mere undirected natural laws cannot explain the origin of that order. Once you have a complete and living cell then the genetic code and biological machinery exist to direct the formation of more cells from raw materials such as amino acids and other chemicals, but how could life or the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? Read my Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM.
WHAT IS SCIENCE? Science simply is knowledge based on observation. No human observed the universe coming by chance or by design, by creation or by evolution. These are positions of faith. The issue is which faith the scientific evidence best supports.
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE CANNOT BE ETERNAL because it could not have sustained itself eternally due to the law of entropy (increasing and irreversible net energy decay, even in an open system). Even a hypothetical oscillating universe could not continue to oscillate eternally! Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity shows that space, matter, and time all are physical and all had a beginning. Space even produces particles because it’s actually something, not nothing. What about the Higgs boson (the so-called “God Particle”)? The Higgs boson, even if it existed, would not have created mass from nothing, but rather it would have converted energy into mass. Einstein showed that all matter is some form of energy. Even time had a beginning! Time is not eternal.
The law of entropy doesn’t allow the universe to be eternal. If the universe were eternal, everything, including time (which modern science has shown is as physical as mass and space), would have become totally entropied by now and the entire universe would have ended in a uniform heat death a long, long time ago. The fact that this hasn’t happened already is powerful evidence for a beginning to the universe.
Popular atheistic scientist Stephen Hawking admits that the universe had a beginning and came from nothing but he believes that nothing became something by a natural process yet to be discovered. That’s not rational thinking at all, and it also would be making the effect greater than its cause to say that nothing created something. The beginning had to be of supernatural origin because science teaches us from the First Law of Thermodynamics that natural laws and processes do not have the ability to bring something into existence from nothing.
The supernatural origin of the universe cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence and power for the origin and order of the universe. Where did God come from? Obviously, unlike the universe, God’s nature doesn’t require a beginning.
The disorder in the universe can be explained because of chance and random processes, but the order can be explained only because of intelligence and design.
Gravity may explain how the order found in the precise and orderly courses of thousands of billions of stars is maintained, but gravity cannot explain the origin of that order.
Some evolutionary astronomers believe that trillions of stars crashed into each other leaving surviving stars to find precise orderly orbits in space. Not only is this irrational, but if there was such a mass collision of stars then there would be a super mass residue of gas clouds in space to support this hypothesis. The present level of residue of gas clouds in space doesn’t support the magnitude of star deaths required for such a hypothesis. And, as already stated, the origin of stars cannot be explained by the Big Bang because of the reasons mentioned above. It’s one thing to say that stars may decay and die into random gas clouds, but it is totally different to say that gas clouds form into stars.
Even the father of Chaos theory admitted that the “mechanisms” existing in the non-living world allow for only very rudimentary levels of order to arise spontaneously (by chance), but not the kind or level of order we find in the structures of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Yes, individual amino acids have been shown to come into existence by chance but not protein molecules which require that the various amino acids be in a precise sequence just like the letters found in a sentence.
Some things don’t need experiment or scientific proof. In law there is a dictum called prima facie evidence. It means “evidence that speaks for itself.”
An example of a true prima facie would be if you discovered an elaborate sand castle on the beach. You don’t have to experiment to know that it came by design and not by the chance forces of wind and water.
If you discovered a romantic letter or message written in the sand, you don’t have to experiment to know that it was by design and not because a stick randomly carried by wind put it there. You naturally assume that an intelligent and rational being was responsible.
It’s interesting that Carl Sagan would have acknowledged sequential radio signals in space as evidence of intelligent life sending them, but he wouldn’t acknowledge the sequential structure of molecules in DNA (the genetic code) as evidence of an intelligent Cause. Read my popular Internet article, HOW DID MY DNA MAKE ME.
I encourage all to read my popular Internet articles:
NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION
HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM
Visit my latest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION (This site answers many arguments, both old and new, that have been used by evolutionists to support their theory)
Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I’ve been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis “Who’s Who in The East” for my writings on religion and science.
Do you really mean the quark gluons plasma was fluent in somerhing or fluid as a liquid?
There was no big bang so anything that happened around it, in it, or near it, is fantasy.
The world of Effects is all we barely grasp .The world of Causes can really be manifested in a lab?The Human Being it’s still seen as a piece of flesh with a jelly brain.Until the Human real nature and his place in the Cosmo it’s recognized for what it is all those concepts will brings only theory’s that stands barely on .But still my respect for the efforts is great!
Once again we’re reading scientific speculation being presented as scientific fact.
Big Bang has already been proven evidencially incoherent. It’s time we started presenting new information as ‘possible explanations for the origins of the material universe’ rather than ‘details of what happened during or following the Big Bang’.
Such assertions do this website and the scientists behind the papers a disservice. The scientists presented absolutely no relationship between their paper and the Big Bang hypothesis, so SciTech should not be adding this hyperbole to the proceedings.
Just present the findings and trust the public to interpret the information aganst other data instead of peddling highly speculative (and very shaky) theories as established fact.
…”First the plasma that consisted of quarks and gluons was separated by the hot expansion of the universe”… but what happened before plasma that consisted of quarks and gluons… how did quarks and gluons came into life…
… who and how created quarks and gluons, … aliens, magic man, God, supper man,…
YES! THERE HAS TO BE A CREATOR. I HAVE NEVER DOUBTED THAT. BUT THAT ONLY RAISES THE QUESTION OF WHO OR WHAT COULD HAVE PUT IN M0TI0N THE EVENTS THAT STARTED THE CREATION OF WHAT WE KNOW TODAY AS “THE UNIVERSE” AND IF “HE” COULD, WHY WOULD “HE”? WHOEVER THE CREATOR IS, WE ARE A PART OF HIS CREATION. WOULD IT NOT BE REASONABLE TO ASSUME THAT “HE” WOULD ALSO HAVE INTENDED TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH US THROUGH SOMETHING WE KNOW AS PRAYER?
The only true deity, out of the billions crafted by humans– is the universe that you are a part of.
Humans “crafted” the universe?
… but who created the creator?
Have you any Ìdèa or knowledge about qùark-gluon,that how they formedfrom BigBang matter.NO.
There is an ammendment that can earn quark-gluon model to enhance name for proposing a theory for big bang.But,permission is given to do so.Take due care while implemènting a new concept in experimentation wìþh regards fòr strict limitations by it.
Rest of the facts of QGP quìte good,so congratulations.
There is an ammendment that can earn quark-gluon model to enhance name for proposing a theory for big bang.But,permission is given to do so.Take due care while implemènting a new concept in experimentation wìþh regards fòr strict limitations by it.
Rest of the facts of QGP are quìte good,so congratulations.But,one thing is present that,yet the recent theory can assimilate morè and more decoŕative aspects to enrich to the self time to time.
Time having a beginning and end implies polarity. Is a universe at absolute zero, and maximum entropy, required before a new one can pop into existence? In other words, would a refractory period be required, before re-polarization could occur?