so why did the big bang make hydrogen? .... and why do the elements fuse to make other elements? .... in short, why did the big bang create process? ....

every now and again i succumb to the temptation that perhaps i can improve my self & mind by watching something else besides "the big bang theory" on t.v.:  for some reason i really like it when penny and leonard are getting along.  they are such a cute couple, providentially, in a way.

so, i have been watching stuff on the learning channel about "the big bang theory."   cosmology and astronomy are very fascinating, and not the least of these matters is the accepted fact that stars fabricate the rest of the atomic elements that we can identify via the progressive fusion of first hydrogen into helium, and then helium into, ... , and so on and so forth.   depending on the size of the star, and the manner in which it ultimately goes super nova because it runs out of the basic fuels necessary to support the fusion process, these elements made by this accretion of fusion byproducts get spread throughout the universe.

and, here we are.

given some time, and some chance.

it seems entirely fortuitous (perhaps that is the point, eh?) that things work the way they do.  i mean, that you should get a whole bunch of hydrogen together, and gravity concentrates it enough to generate a sufficient heat of fusion, and bazinga!!  (to borrow a phrase from sheldon on "the big bang theory"), you got yourself some helium.  and, so it goes, right up to iron.

some kinds of stars, the 1-a type, have super novas in which mostly iron (and presumably the lower atomic weight elements) get spewed about, while other types of super novas not only spew iron out but also create the heavier elements during the enormous heat and pressure of the super nova's explosion.

so, why did the big bang make hydrogen, and its constituent proton nucleus, and its companion electron.  (as a matter of fact, in its plasma state in stars, the proton and electron don't seem to be paired up, according to the scientific types, and wikipedia, from which i derive all knowledge.)  and, why did the big bang make neutrons, which are not necessarily needed to make hydrogen but can be present in a common isotope of the element, in anticipation of the creation of the more complex elements?

o.k.  i can see protons and electrons to make the primarily material/s constituent of the material universe, and i can even accept the fact that they combine via progressive stages of fusion to make the rest of the stuff.

but, that neutron confuses me.

you don't need the damn thing for hydrogren.  hydrogen makes a perfectly good hydrogen with the proton and electron.  you don't need the neutron if the only thing you, being the big bang, (and i am being a bit arch here, introducing a bit of what, anthropromorphism into the discussion), intend to make is hydrogen.

i mean, pure chance doesn't need the neutron.  and, are we to suppose that "chance" is somehow looking beyond hydrogen?  is chance foreseeing the progressive nature of nuclear fusion, and keeping the neutron at the ready for more complex elements?   are we to believe that the neutron just happened to work out for this whole elegant process?

process, however, needs the neutron to make the elements work as they grow progressively more complex going up the periodic table.  its the matter of atomic weights, and mass, and charge matching up with the electrons on the outer dimensions of the atoms, and all that.

and, just how does the big bang theory account for all those damned electrons?

just how did chance anticipate the need for all those electrons as the elements develop in the fusion process?  and, how are free electrons running around, in order to make electrical charges, currents, and all of that?

to my mind, all these "extra" electrons also smack of process.  

so, "the big bang" is supposed to be order emerging from chaos and chance.

an order that depends upon the chance that a proton and an electron make something called hydrogen; that all the other 117 elements discovered thus far are formed in a whole series of cosmic furnaces we call stars by something called fusion; and that these elements are dispersed throughout the universe based upon these furnaces blowing up cataclysmally when their stores of hydrogen and helium run down.

heck, my campfire at elk camp just goes out, and the heat therefrom just dissipates in the embers and the coals.  lucky, that, i suppose.

john jay @ 07.09.2012

p.s.  well, yes, it seems to me that those who propose to deny the existence of god as creator because in their minds the chance, chaos and randomness of the nature of creation excludes & displaces the need for a creator, a prime mover, as it were, have to address this matter of process before they can even begin to make their case in any sort of a rational and logical manner.

well, of course, as the standard bearers of reason and logic, the scientific types should be held to the discipline of logic and reason.

i see process involved in the very mechanics of the process of the big bag, and the creation of more complicated material things in the stellar furnaces, the foundries of our being.   i think you have to be something of an intellectual dullard not to see it.

so, why do the scientific types not discuss this?

why are they seemingly afraid to address this issue?  well, they must be, because i have never heard any of them address it.  this whole business of accretion of atomic weight, and hence elements which are unique in their chemical and atomic behavior, holds true up to the creation of 118 elements, at last count, ... , all starting with the process of fusion of increasing orders of complexity in the foundries of the stars.

how far can science flog chance?

Comments

[Jay Dee]

Perhaps they do discuss this somewhere but I've found you can be pushed off a forum pretty quickly if you dare to question the orthodoxy. I had that experience a few years ago when I dared to question that c was a constant. After all, we've only been able to accurately measure the speed of light for less than two centuries; an instant on cosmological time scales.

[Michael Prescott]

The Big Bang produced helium as well as hydrogen. Otherwise the first generation of stars would have burned pure hydrogen, and would not have served as efficient cosmic furnaces for the creation of heavier elements. Some helium (but not too much) was required to get the process going. The calibrations are very fine; there was remarkably little room for error.

"The availability of neutrons as the universe cools through temperatures appropriate for nuclear fusion determines the amount of helium produced during the first few minutes of the big bang. If the weak nuclear force coupling constant were slightly larger, neutrons would decay more readily, and therefore would be less available. Hence, little or no helium would be produced from the big bang. Without the necessary helium, heavy elements sufficient for the constructing of life would not be made by the nuclear furnaces inside stars. On the other hand, if this constant were slightly smaller, the big bang would burn most or all of the hydrogen into helium, with a subsequent over-abundance of heavy elements made by stars, and again life would not be possible."

Source: http://tinyurl.com/73z7e4c

[Ken Mitchell]

As you fuse atomic nuclei together to build heavier atoms, you get a little bit of extra energy left over. That happens fusing hydrogen into helium, with a bit less extra energy when you fuse helium into carbon or oxygen, and a little less all the way through the Periodic Table. This is called, non-intuitively, the "packing fractions" curve. And as you fuse heavier and heavier elements, you get less and less energy.

Until you get to iron. Iron is at the trough of the packing fraction curve. It takes extra energy to be put IN to fuse iron together into something heavier. So where did the gold, lead, uranium and other really heavy elements come from? During the final moments of a REALLY big star's life, there's enough extra energy in to stellar core to begin fusing iron - but because iron fusion sucks energy out of the star, the star begins to collapse. The enormous heat and pressure of the outer layers restore the heat lost by iron fusion in the core, and in a very short time, the entire star begins to collapse in on itself.

The mid-levels of the star suffer a sort of rebound explosion, and the core of the star is crushed unimaginably into a neutron star or black hole, while the middle and outer layers, subject to the truly titanic energies being released, fuse everything into heavier elements on past uranium - in the same instant that the matter is being blasted back into space. The exploding star is a nova, or a supernova (depending on its original mass) and the core of the star itself winks out as it is crushed to neutron star or black hole.

We know that our solar system is at least a third-generation, formed from the dust and gas of many previous supernova explosions. The iron in your blood and the gold in your jewelry was forged in the cores of massive stars.

[john jay]

ken:

thank you for your note.

i understand the basic process, though this explanation of energy surplus until we get to iron i did not know about.

but, you miss the central topic of my post.

and, that is this little point of "process."

it is an amazing process, is it not, this whole business of nuclear fusion creating the elements, and, ultimately, us.

and, the end result is intelligence.

i am suggesting, with all due humility, that the end also reflects an intelligence at the beginning, a suggestion that to my mind cannot be overcome by assertions of mere chance guiding the whole process.

to my mind, this is the issue that science will not meet.

surely, there must be a physicist somewhere in the world who can calculate the levels of improbability of this whole chance of events being random.

and, the whole chain of unlikely events starts w/ an extra neutron, and the fusion process itself, which is driven, at least to my rudimentary understanding, by gravity itself.

no gravity, no compaction and accretion of the hydrogen in stars, and no fusion. no fusion, no building blocks, as it were.

it has not escaped my notice that all the proponents of the big bag put into a single room cannot yet explain or define the workings of gravity.

nor to my satisfaction, how it got here. you may notice, that gravity big bang, big bang gravity, is the very most basic form of a tautology, and is untenable as explanation.

ball in your court.

john jay

[Adam Robert Ryan]

When two protons collide with enough energy to overcome their mutual electromagnetic repulsion, they become bound together by the so-called strong nuclear force. Then one of the protons is transformed into a neutron and a positron, which is ejected from the nucleus of what is now deuterium. You can get all the neutrons you need by similar processes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay

[Adam Robert Ryan]

Am I right that you are working your way toward the teleological argument for the existence of God? This can be a pretty persuasive argument for the universe having some kind of Designer, but note that it as much an argument for Deism as for Abrahamic Monotheism or for any other religion.

[john jay]

adam:

1.)thanks for the note on neutrons. interesting this transformation, ain't it.

2.)as to the teleological argument for the proof of god you mention, ... , no, i am not working my way up to it in any formal manner.

i am somewhat leery of "proofs" based upon human logic and reason, believing it of limited utility in proving divinity. i do believe in the existence of good and evil, and in a supreme source of good and evil.

i suppose that is an admission that i believe in god. notice that i said i believe in god, find comfort in that believe, but such belief is as limited a proof as anything i can imagine.

i have read the classic aristotelean proof of god until i have turned blue, and when you get down to it, find it limited.

what i am saying, as well as i can, is that i do not believe that: 1.)the big bang is conclusively proved, and 2.)even if persuasive and interesting, as it is, it is in no respect any kind of definitive refutation of the existence of god.

that scientists think it is simply "faith" based assumption on the part of those who do not want to get to the issue of process, design, logic, ... , and, of course on the issue of "designer."

i simply note that no less a mind than that of charles darwin was content to refer to the "creator" in several places in my late edition of "the origin of species." with a capital "c."

darwin said quite clearly any number of times that he did not mean to speak of creation in his theory, only to explain the observable changes in species over time and to explain the mechanics of it all.

his mind was firmly rooted in the physical & material world that he could observe. the metaphysical and religious impact of that observation he left alone.

what's good enough for darwin is good enough for me.

as to the big bang "proving" that no god exists because the universe sprang from nothing ... . in my view, simply a limp of faith. most definitely not any sort of "leap" compelled by logic or reason.

john jay

[Adam Robert Ryan]

John,

I personally find the teleological argument convincing and every religion I've ever been exposed to unconvincing. I suppose this makes me the last Deist on earth.

Adam

[john jay]

adam:

i walk a lot along country roads in the middle of the north east oregon wheat belt, which travels roughly north to south on the western slopes of the blue mountains.

it sort of progresses northerly until subsumed by the great palouse to the north.

i watch the seasons, the flora & fauna (we have a lot of raptors and such around, because the agriculture supports a lot of mice and other little furry critters), and the seasons.

i see sufficient proof every day of a divine hand in all this.

how shall i put this?

maybe this is suitable. .... .

it seems to me that science and religion have been wrong enough on enough important issues in the past, that they should not be too full of themselves in terms of confidence in the absolute surety of their positions, and ought to take a little firmer grasp in their daily lives & profession in the simple humility that an acknowledgment of limited knowledge should bring them. they ought to take a little more studied view of the various infirmities presented in the path to knowledge that humans have followed.

science especially is pretty heady right now with its new found prowess, and needs to remember, that a lot of things have come in the past 100 years or so ... hardly a historical basis for the conceit most scientists display.

on the big bang.

on the weather.

on the surety with which they approach the rather thorny issues presented by "death" and "treatment" panels. medical ethicist right now seems a bit of an oxymoron.

just a little humility, and more interest in grace, and a realization that they are not so very much smarter than anyone else.

they are people. not gnostics.

john jay

p.s. as to my views on religion. i do not attend church. i read milton on occasion. and, walt whitman. i may get into whitman's contemporaries & colleagues, i should live so long.

i enjoyed the bible last summer, front to back, word for word.

the koran was very disappointing, almost pedestrian in comparison.

i have enjoyed a rudimentary exploration of the talmud.

i am thinking of dropping in for services at a local small synagogue. i like the jewish mind. it is very lively, quite subtle and adroit. yet, supremely human & humanistic.

if that all makes sense.

[john jay]

adam:

i doubt very much that you are the last deist.

hold a convention.

see who comes.

john

p.s. don't forget to have a gift for the person who travels the longest distance to get there.

[john jay]

p.s. perhaps it would be appropriate for two gifts, for the longest distance both spiritually & physically.

the contest on the former might be interesting.