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.
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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.
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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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