Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA27717 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 26 Jan 2002 01:31:50 GMT Message-ID: <00e801c1a5fe$a14f75a0$2cc2b3d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <C900EB12-11D8-11D6-B35B-003065A0F24C@harvard.edu> Subject: Re: necessity of mental memes Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:15:54 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> On Friday, January 25, 2002, at 03:13 , Dace wrote:
>
> > Just one problem here. The big bang was pitch black. Light
> > didn't appear until 300,000 years after the big bang
>
> No, Ted....
>
> Not that you were there, or nothin', but microseconds after the
> big bang, there was light.
>
> "The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very
> hot place. One second after the Big Bang, the temperature of the
> universe was roughly 10 billion degrees and was filled with a
> sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons),
> photons and neutrinos."
>
> From http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bbtest2.html
>
> - Wade
The early universe was dark for the same reason the interior of the sun is
dark. Really, Wade, you shouldn't assume I'm just making this stuff up off
the top of my head. It's common knowledge among physicists, astronomers,
cosmologists, etc., that light didn't appear until 300,00 years after the
big bang (though I recently saw this figure upped to 400,000, unfortunately
without any explanation for the revised figure).
If radiation and atoms were the branches of a tree, its trunk would be
plasma. As long as photons and electrons are welded together, there can be
neither light nor anything for the light to illuminate. It was the
separation of this primiordial energy into atoms and light that set off the
wave now known as cosmic background radiation (still registering at three
degrees kelvin).
Ted
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