[image: OTUS+&+EPHIALTES.jpg]
*Otus and Ephialtes: the two towers*
Iphemediea, the granddaughter of Poseidon AND the wife of Poseidon's son
Aloeus, was secretly enamored of her grandfather/father-in-law from the
start. This fondness evolved into an abiding adoration that soon
intensified into a mad passion. For a while she hoped this obsessive
desire would subside on its own and so chose not to act on it. However,
as obsessive desires tend not to flit away on their own accord, Iphemediea
soon found herself crouching by the sea shore in the throes of unbearable
torment . She desperately threw water on her lap repeatedly until
Poseidon, himself, arose from the waves. Expecting rebuke, she turned away
from him shamefully. However, he spoke no word of reproach. Instead, he
embraced her and they made love. By this coupling they conceived the twins
Otus and Ephialtes. Quite soon after her sons' birth, Iphemediea
realized that these were no ordinary twins. She would have hardly expected
them to have been, considering their lineage. They quickly matured into
giants, but not the unsightly and utterly undesirable creatures that giants
tended to be. They were, instead, so handsome as to be nearly as beautiful
as Orion, himself. By virtue of their parentage, they were also
invulnerable. Having been gifted with beauty and invincibility, both Otus
and Ephialtes became insufferably cruel and arrogant. They behaved so
atrociously toward mortals and gods alike that their own father attempted
to constrain them, but to no avail. They continued to terrorize mortals,
chase women, insult gods and make nuisances of themselves without the least
consideration for others or any fear of retribution. However, the real
trouble began as soon as they learned of the Gigantomachy, the struggle
between the gods and giants in which the former prevailed. They resolved
at once to attack Olympus itself and avenge their vanquished "kindred."
The brothers moved to place Mount Ossa on top of Pelion in order to access
Olympus. Ares saw their actions and promptly descended to Earth to thwart
them. He woefully underestimated the pair. They quickly wrapped the god
in chains and placed him in a bronze urn, where he remained for thirteen
months until Hermes eventually rescued him. Otus and Ephialtes then
completed their work and climbed into Olympus, where they intended to make
war with the gods immediately. However, as soon as they caught sight of
the goddess Artemis, their desires prevailed over their ambition to destroy
the gods, at least temporarily. Knowing their intentions, Artemis fled
immediately to Earth with the lustful brothers in furious pursuit. Being
a shade swifter than the giants, Artemis did maintain a lead over them.
However, the strain of the chase was exhausting her, while seeming not to
affect the giants at all. She dove into the sea and swam to a heavily
forested island. As they were Poseidon's sons, Otus and Ephialtes were
able to run across the water toward the island where Artemis sought
refuge. Once there, they lost sight of Artemis and ran wildly through
the forest to find her. During their frantic search, they encountered
the most beautiful white hind they had ever seen. As their unrelenting
pursuit of Artemis had made them ravenously hungry, both brothers fashioned
javelins by uprooting trees and gnawing the tips down to points. While
the hind drank from a stream, Otus went around to one side of it and
Ephialtes moved to the other. They hurled their javelins simultaneously
at the animal, which swiftly leapt away. The two javelins then flew
through the air and into the chests of each brother. Otus and Ephialtes
lay dead while the hind transformed back into Artemis. Each giant was
killed by the only one capable of killing him: his twin brother. Artemis,
with the secret assistance of Aphrodite, preserved Olympus from utter ruin.
THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
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2020-2021: XLI
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Monday, November 8, 2020
Remote Planetarium 120: The Big Bang I
Let us begin by trying to imagine the incomprehensible. No space. No
time. No matter. No energy. Nothingness. A timeless oblivion of no
dimension. Such were the conditions that prevailed before the Big Bang.
In fact, that previous sentence is nonsensical because the word "before,"
being temporally relative, cannot be applied to the situation preceding the
Big Bang. As Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) once said, "Asking what occurred
before the Big Bang is tantamount to asking 'what is one degree north of
the North Pole."
For reasons that neither philosophers nor cosmologists understand, from
that nothingness arose the Universe approximately 13.8 billion years ago.
Initially, everything comprising the cosmos was contained within a sphere
smaller than an atom. That micro-kernel inflated rapidly and then expanded
more slowly to mature into the Universe we inhabit today. Such are
the assertions within the "Big Bang Theory," that developed within the
early to mid 20th century. Our aim over the next two days is to discuss
aspects of this theory and so to explain how astronomers developed this
theory based on their observations.
Today, we focus on a single second.
___________________________________________
Helpful -we hope- review:
*The four fundamental forces:*
*Gravity*
the weakest of all four forces, gravity is the attractive force
exerted between all massive objects. General Relativity models gravity
as being the result of space-time distortions caused by the presence of
massive objects.
*Electromagnetism*
the force mediated between charged particles. The force between
unlike charges is attractive and between like charges is repulsive.
Though considerably stronger than gravity, electromagnetism is also of
extremely long range.
*Weak nuclear force*
the force principally known for governing radioactive decay, the weak
nuclear force acts only over the range of an atomic diameter.
*Strong nuclear force*
the strongest of the four fundamental forces, the strong nuclear
force binds subatomic particles within the nuclei of atoms. As is true
with the weak nuclear force, the strong force is limited to the range of an
atomic diameter.
_________________________________________________
*A CURSORY TIMELINE OF THE UNIVERSE'S FIRST SECOND:*
*The Planck Epoch*
Nobody knows precisely what transpired at the very first moment after
inception. Cosmologists have been unable to develop a physical model to
replicate the conditions at the creation event. The first moment for
which we do have a model is 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang. That
number, written out, is
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 During the unfathomably
brief time span between the Big Bang and that moment, known as the *Planck
epoch*, the Universe could have consisted of a singularity, according to
General Relativity. The four fundamental forces we currently recognize,
Gravity, Electromagnetism, the Strong and Weak Nuclear forces, were all of
equal strength and may have been unified as a single force.
*The Grand Unification Epoch*
From 10^-43 to 10^-36 seconds
Gravity, the weakest of the fundamental forces, "detaches" from the other
forces which remain unified, at least until the end of this epoch. At the
beginning of the Grand Unification Epoch, the Universe's diameter was
10^-35 meters and its temperature was approximately 10^32 degrees Celsius,
or 10000000000000000000000000000000 C, a value known as the Planck
temperature.
*Inflationary Epoch*
10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds after the Big Bang
The Universe inflates exponentially, prompted most likely by the separation
of the strong nuclear force. The cosmos expands from a microscopic
object to a sphere with a 10 centimeter diameter within the slightest
fraction of a second. Within this epoch the Universe grew by a factor of
10^26.
*Electroweak Epoch*
10^-36 to 10^-12 seconds
After the strong nuclear force separates from the other forces, rapid
interactions manufacture many exotic particles including, most importantly,
the Higgs boson. The Higgs field serves two functions: to impede
particle motions and to impart mass onto them. Suddenly, a Universe
that was wholly radiative now contains massive objects. This epoch is
called "electroweak," because electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force
are still combined into the electroweak force.
*Quark Epoch*
10^-12 to 10^-6 seconds after the Big Bang
The Universe "cools" to the chilly temperature of 10 quadrillion degrees.
Quarks, electrons and neutrinos form. The four fundamental forces split
while quarks and anti-quarks annihilate each other. However, the Universe
contains a slight excess of quarks, 1,000,000,001 for every 1,000,000,000
anti quarks. This imbalance, albeit small, is sufficient to leave enough
quarks to create all the matter contained within the cosmos. The process
by which quarks persist after this annihilation is known as *baryogenesis.*
*Hadron Epoch*
10^-6 to 1 second after the Big Bang
Finally, the Universe cools to one trillion degrees. Quarks are now able
to combine to form neutrons (neutral subatomic particles) and protons
(positively charged subatomic particles). In this heated epoch,
electrons also combine with protons to form neutrons and in the process
emit nearly massless neutrinos. Meanwhile neutrons and neutrinos under
recombination to form proton-electron pairs.
All of the above happened within a span of time equal to that required to
count to the number one. These highly complex and furiously rapid
interactions formed the cosmos that will persist for trillions of years.
Tomorrow, we continue the timeline and then learn how humans,
fashioned of these particles, determined that all these events actually
occurred at the beginning of time.
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