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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Let's shrink our orbit around the sun to the size of another pea. The pea now contains the sun with Mercury, Venus, and the Earth whirling inside there making our galaxy one and a half times the size of the Earth.

Shrink our galaxy to the size of a pea. The pea now holds a trillion stars, and the distance to the next galaxy is about five inches, little pinwheels of stars, five inches apart. The galaxies tend to group into clusters, so even more space exists between the clusters. The farthest peas in the universe are four thousand feet away.

You can draw a couple of conclusions from these descriptions; one is that I like peas.

But more importantly, notice how much space there is compared to how much matter, exactly the way things were with the smallest things we studied in quantum mechanics. Abraham Lincoln once said: "God must have loved the common man because He made so many of them." Maybe God spent most of His/Her/Their (trinity?) time creating space; matter was an afterthought. As you will find, space happens to have a big influence on the universe's behavior. Chapter Three, covering Relativity, gave hints of this, and in Chapter Nine, we'll focus on the importance of space.

The universe is at least ninety billion light-years across.

ARE THOSE GALAXIES DOING SOMETHING WE DIDN'T EXPECT

Our instruments forced us to see the universe in a different way. Telescopes let us see deeper into space, and photography saved an image on film for later, careful study. The spectroscope told us the sun and stars were all made out of the same stuff, but in 1912, an astronomer was surprised when he pointed his spectroscope at the Andromeda galaxy known as M31.

Chapter 0-Page 0

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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