Table of Contents

Preface

1. Scientific Theories and Laws

2. The First Decade (1936-1946)

3. Relativity

4. The Second Decade (1946-1956)

5. Quantum Mechanics

6. The Third Decade (1956-1966)

7. The Big Bang

8. The Fourth Decade (1966-1976)

9. The Non-Bang

10. The Fifth Decade (1976-1986)

11. The Never-Bang

12. The Sixth Decade (1986-1996)

13. Evolution

14. The Seventh Decade (1996-2006)

15. The Theory of More than Everything

16. The Eighth Decade (2006-2016)

17. Now What?

18. The Ninth Decade (2016-2026)

Appendix A Paintings

Appendix B TTOMTE and a Steady State Universe

Appendix C Musical Compositions

Bibliography

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In the same way, we can measure what percentage of radium is left compared to the amount of radon. Then we know how many half-lives the material must have gone through to have that much change and can calculate the age of the Earth. Voila!

The Earth is about five billion years old.

WHAT'S THE MATTER

We're wondering what kind of matter makes up the whole universe. Here on Earth, studying matter is quite simple: We pick up a sample, taste it, weigh it, see how it acts with other samples, and give it a name. But what about the stuff out there we can't reach? We can only look at it, so we need some kind of instrument to help us study it.

If you've ever hung a prism in a window, you've seen a small rainbow on the wall or floor. The colors spread out from violet to blue, green, yellow, orange, and red with all the other colors in between because the white light of the sun actually contains all those colors. The prism splits the light into its various frequencies creating the same colors you see in an actual rainbow with raindrops acting as prisms. We say a rainbow has a full spectrum of colors with the light from the sun all split up. Red, having a longer wave, doesn't get bent as much as the shorter, violet wave which is why the sky turns reddish in the evening; the red frequency comes at us more directly through the dust in the air.

A spectroscope is an instrument built to study the spectrum in more exact detail and uses several prisms and other tricky parts. It can actually tell us what material is in the sun and tell us if other stars contain the same stuff. Below is a very simplified version.

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Sections

WHY KEEP LOOKING OUT THERE

CAN WE LEARN THE TRUTH

WHAT DO WE KNOW SO FAR

HOW OLD IS THE EARTH

WHAT'S THE MATTER

HOW WARM IS THE UNIVERSE

HOW BIG IS THE UNIVERSE

DO GALAXIES ACT UNEXPECTEDLY

WHY DOES UNIVERSE ACT SO

HOW DID THE UNIVERSE EXPAND

WHAT'S NEXT

FINAL THOUGHTS

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