Category Ask the Psychologist

The short answer: nothing, nada, zip. But scientists still wonder if something existed before all the nothing. One theory: Our universe is caught in an endless loop of explosions and crunches. Eventually, in billions and billions of years, the iron grip of gravity will slow the growth of the universe, stall it, and then pull everything back toward its center – a process that astrophysicists call the ‘’big crunch.’’ Planets, stars, and galaxies will slowly collapse back into the singularity that started it all, kicking off another big bang and a brand-new universe.

According to another theory, our universe is just one of many, many, many alternate universes just like it in a vast ‘’multiverse.’’ When two of these universes interact at the quantum level (a level smaller than an atom), it kicks off a big bang and the birth of yet another alternate universe.

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Plenty. In fact, they see evidence everywhere they look in the universe. In 1924, astronomer Edwin Hubble noticed that galaxies outside the Milky Way – our home galaxy – were zipping away in all directions, as if they originated from a singularity. Astronomers also see the big bang’s ‘’baby pictures’’ in a cosmic crackle of microwave energy and special ripples in gravity, both evidence of that ‘’inflation’’ that gave birth to the universe. The amounts of hydrogen, helium, and other elements across the universe all measure up to the big bang model. Astronomers have also failed to find any stars older than 13.8 billion years, the approximate age of the universe.

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The big bang’’ is the name for the leading theory behind the birth of everything: atoms, light, gravity, gases, stars, planets, galaxies, and even time itself. And while scientists have found plenty of evidence to back up the big bang theory, the name itself isn’t entirely accurate. The universe didn’t begin with a bang (sound didn’t exist yet) or even a mighty explosion (fire and matter didn’t exist either). Even light was a relatively late addition to the cosmic chronology. Confused? Here’s a guide to how scientists think it all began.

1. In the beginning: A long time ago, time didn’t even exist. Neither did space. And in this nothingness hung a supremely hot spot crammed with all the raw ingredients of the universe scrunched into a point thousands of times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. Called a ‘’singularity,’’ this spot might even have been smaller than an atom, the basic unit of matter. (But it wasn’t an atom, because atoms didn’t exist yet.)

2. A trillion of a trillionth of a second later: Suddenly, the supremely hot, scrunched-up singularity doubles in size, and then doubles again, and again – at least 90 times – in a process known as inflation. This is the ‘’bang’’ in the big bang, and it get bigger. Expanding faster than the speed of light, this growth spurt defies the laws of physics. Everything in the universe explodes into existence, but at this point it’s little more than a mess of formless heat.

3. One second later: Inflation ends one-millionth of a second after the start of the big bang. The universe’s expansion slows and temperatures cool. At just one second old, the newborn universe contains nature’s fundamental forces. Including the gravity that keeps your feet on the ground and magnetic attraction.

4. 13.8 billion years later: present day: All the matter and energy created by the big bang continues to expand today. New stars form from clouds of gas; old stars die and expel sooty clouds known as nebulae. Planets orbit stars; stars orbit the centers of their galaxies dance with each other. Humans ponder the clockwork of the universe, just as you’re doing now. Got the gist? Good! Let’s move to topics a little less complicated than the birth of time and space.

5. 6 Billion years later: The first stars die and expel the heavier elements that eventually form new stars and planets.

6. 400 million years later: Gravity slowly tugs at the cosmic clouds of hydrogen and helium, squishing them all together to form the first stars. This marks the end of the universe’s dark age. The stars cluster together and form galaxies – including our own Milky Way galaxy.

7. 400,000 years later: The hot mess cools enough for subatomic electrons to join protons and neutrons in the formation of hydrogen atoms, the most common elements in the universe – and the stuff stars are made of. The fog fades so that light can finally shine, but the young universe is still without stars to create light. It continues its expansion in darkness.

8. Three minutes later: Expansion continues. Protons, neutrons, and electrons – the itty-bitty components of atoms – collide and interact to form a sort of super-heated fog, but this mess is much too hot to allow atoms to form – or even light to shine.

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1. Seek shelter! The safest place to be in a thunderstorm is inside.

2. While inside, don’t touch any water faucets or your landline phone (also unplug your computer and other gadgets, which can be damaged by lightning).

3. If you’re stuck outside, avoid standing under tall trees or towers, which attract lightning. Don’t even carry an umbrella!

4. Leave the area – seek shelter or climb into a car – as soon as possible.

5.  If you’re swimming, get out of the water as soon as you spy a storm. A lightning zap can zip more than 20 miles (32 km)!

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Thunder is the loud sound you hear after a lightning flash. Lightning is a bolt of very hot electricity that also makes the air around it very hot. In fact, that air can get as hot as 54,000 degrees. That’s about 44,000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun!

When air gets hot, it gets bigger. A balloon that has been stretched over the mouth of an empty plastic bottle will inflate when the bottom of the bottle sits in a bowl of hot water, heating up the air in the bottle. This happens because the air has warmed up, expanded, and the bottle can’t hold it all.

Just like the air in the bottle, the air around lightning gets bigger, too. But this happens really fast, like a giant blast, because it’s so hot. It smashes into the colder air around it, cools off fast, and shrinks again quickly, making a sound wave that we hear as thunder.

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Airplanes are designed to withstand hundreds of thousands of amperes of electricity—far more electricity than a lightning bolt can deliver. An airplane’s first round of defense is ensuring that fuel tanks and fuel lines are fully encased so that it almost impossible for a lightning spark to trigger a fuel explosion.

Adding to that safety precaution, the skin of airplanes—aluminum in older planes, a composite in more modern models—is designed to conduct electricity off of the plane. When lightning strikes a plane, it sends up to 200,000 amperes of electricity rocketing into the plane’s skin. The electricity follows the outer surface of the plane’s frame and then jumps back into the air, thanks to little antenna-like devices called static wicks.

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