How does the cosmic engine work?

Answer 1

In 1086, the child emperor of China desired an astronomical clock be built that surpassed all others and commanded a man by the name of Sung Su to build this clock. Sung Su, in turn designated a man by the name of Hong Kung-lien as the chief designer. An astronomical clock is a clock that does much more than tell the time of day, by using special mechanisms and dials the clock will give specific astronomical information, such as the position of the sun, the moon and astrological stars and their elliptical phases, among other things. The clock designed by Kung-lien and built by Sung Su is essentially a water driven astronomical clock, and is known for the escapement mechanism incorporated into the clock and is the earliest known endless power transmitting chain drive. The clock stood 10 meters high, (about 30 feet), and indirectly fueled by both water and Mercury. Sung Su named this astronomical clock, the Cosmic Engine.

Astronomical clocks usually use a geocentric model of the solar system. They were built as much for their spectacular show as for the information they provided. Thew were, as was the Cosmic Engine, marvels of mechanical invention in an attempt to bring order and understanding to the universe in which we live. These clocks were popular in the world before Copernicus changed the way we view the world and the universe of which we live. Today, we no longer believe that Earth is the center of the universe, even if some of us may think we are, we understand the universe to be a different place than the one for those who relied upon astronomical clocks such as the Cosmic Engine. Ironically, even though we know more about the mechanics of the universe than Sung Su knew in 1090, we are still somewhat centric in our thinking, thus astronomers today are prone towards referring to the universe as some great cosmic engine.

Not being mechanically inclined it is difficult to explain the mechanics of a water driven astronomical clock, but if not mechanically inclined it should be correctly assumed not very quantum mechanically inclined either, so to explain how the Cosmic Engine known as the universe works is even more difficult. The accepted theory today in many ways correlates and nicely parallels the great myths and religious texts since time immemorial. The story goes something like this:

In the beginning there was nothing, or there was only God, which scientists like to call a singularity, being a point of infinite density. Then one day God spoke and said: "Let there be Light!", or as scientists like to call it; The Big Bang Theory. Then God made the sun, the moon and the planets all in six days and on the seventh God rested, or as the scientists like to say; Space and energy poured forth from the singularity and time began, the universe expanded and cooled and coagulated into matter and this remains an ongoing process as solar systems form across the universe. It is this process of infinite expansions for an infinite universe that in modern times has become known as the cosmic engine. While the universe seems to operate on a level more applicable to quantum mechanics, we as people still tend to think pretty linear in our understanding of what we experience. Thus, a universe that works on infinite levels becomes reduced to a motor that works with very finite mechanisms.

It is a fitting paradox given the somewhat paradoxical nature of how we understand the beginnings of the universe. Whether it be God or a singularity we essentially believe the universe began with a beginningless beginning. A paradox indeed! If we can begin with beginningless beginnings why can't we create finite models to explain the infinite, and so, as models go, why not the cosmic engine? When we attempt to translate three dimensional ideas such as lines of force expanding out and then radiating back in or conversely lines of force converging in and radiating back out, into a one dimensional number line, this act of coagulation and resulting return of properties back into infinity, it comes to resemble an engine of sorts, by drawing in the fuel of infinity and then exhausting it back out as a tangible product.

The current belief today is that the universe, over very large distances is homogeneous and isotropic. This belief is known as the Cosmological Principle. What this means is that the same properties exist everywhere in the universe and the universe looks the same from any given point. Einsteins Theory of General Relativity has been the single most powerful mathematical tool we have for describing the universe. One of the many things Einstein's theory was able to do was predict an expanding universe. From this theory of relativity scientists have been able to make many observations, and it is common with theoretical physics that the theory is ahead of the observations which helps the physicist decide what observations they should be making. So, in the late 1920's and early 1930's Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason discovered that the spectral lines from other galaxies are higher than our own. This is known as the cosmological red shift and what it means is that as time goes by galaxies grow further apart. Hubble and Humanson also showed that the greater the distance of a galaxy the greater the red shift and this is known as the universal recessional movement or the Hubble flow. The velocities of recessions (v), of remote galaxies are related to their distances from earth (r), via Hubble's Law:

v = H o r

The H0 is Hubble' constant and the actual value of this constant remains a controversial issue in modern astronomy because of it's extreme importance; it tells us the rate at which the universe is expanding. Values of the Hubble constant range from 40 km/s/Mpc to 100 km/s/Mpc depending on the method of calculation. (NOTE: 1 Mpc = 1 megaparsec, a unit of distance = 3.09 x 1019 km.). What this law suggests is that the universe is expanding uniformly. This is not to say that galaxies or clusters of galaxies are expanding as they are held together by their own gravitational forces, but rather the intergalactic space between widely separated galaxies or clusters of galaxies is expanding over time.

When we reverse this understanding of expansion we get the Big Bang Theory which can be understood as the explosion of space at the beginning of time. If the universe is expanding then it makes sense that in the beginning all this matter, energy, space and time, was located somewhere in a very small volume. A singularity or point of infinite density of fact. The big bang would be an explosion of this singularity. The universe began with that explosion and the four forces, (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak), became distinguishable in that instant. Hubble's Law provides some answers as to when the universe began but it would be pointless to ask where that was, even though when reversing expansion it should be traceable to one given point. It is pointless to ask such a question because the big bang happened everywhere, here, over there, and where you are, because in that great beginningless beginning, all locations we now see as separate were once the same location.

Everything in the universe comes down to multiples of two. It's either this or its that. In terms of astrological categorization they are matter and energy. The matter of the universe is contained in either luminous objects as stars, planets and galaxies or in dark matter which is decidedly non luminous. Scientists tend to describe matter in terms of atoms, which in itself is a surprisingly complex universe unto itself. The atom, which is Greek for indivisible, is divided into a nucleus containing protons, (positive charges), and neutrons, (neutral), surrounded by electrons, (negative charges), in an orbit around the nucleus. The energy of the universe consists of radiation scientists like to call photons. Most of the photons in the universe belong to the cosmic microwave background.

The importance of this matter/energy equation lies in our understanding of the universe we live in and how that universe came to be. Today we live in what scientists like to call a matter dominated universe, but in the very beginning the universe was different and was much more a radiation dominated universe. When we reverse the mechanics of an expanding universe and thanks to general relativity we know that the average mass density of the universe increases as the volume of space decreases and at the same time photons become less red shifted so they had shorter wavelengths and higher energy than they do today. This movement towards a more matter dominated universe than radiation dominated universe probably took place in the first 2500 years after the big bang. Then, some 300,000 years later, fundamental changes in the universe began as photons became low enough to permit protons and electrons to combine to form hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen atom is the most abundant element in the universe today. The epoch known as the era of recombination is when atoms first were formed.

Since hydrogen atoms do not absorb low energy photons the universe began to change from opaque to transparent. In the first 300,000 years, the universe was more like some big primordial ball of fire or an opaque plasma of protons, electrons and high energy photons. A plasma is a mixture of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons formed when the temperature is so hot, electrons and protons are too energetic to come together or stay together so as to form atoms. Once hydrogen and helium were able to form the universe became transparent. Resulting from the decrease of interaction between matter and photons, the temperature of matter in the universe differed from the temperature of background radiation. In the universe today the temperature of matter varies anywhere from a few tens of kelvin in interstellar medium to hundreds of millions of kelvins in the interiors of giant stars but cosmic microwave background has a temperature of about 2.7 k.

It should be noted, however, that while scientist tend to say the cosmic microwave background is isotropic, there are variations in the radiation field above and below the 2.7k average value. It should also be noted that physics as it applies today did not work the same way as it did that very instant the universe began. There is what is known as Plank's time which is essentially that moment of the big bang and the birth of the universe where gravity remained separate from the other three fundamental forces. This is what is known as a spontaneous symmetry breaking event, and in the early history of the universe this was the first, where gravity is denied access into that great big primordial ball of fire that was the early universe. The next spontaneous symmetry breaking event came when the expansion and cooling of the universe wound up kicking out the strong nuclear force and facilitating an extremely rapid expansion known as inflationary epoch. The third spontaneous symmetry breaking event came when the universe cooled enough so that electrons and the weak nuclear force could separate allowing quarks to remain confined to individual protons and neutrons. Quarks are fundamental particle constituents of protons and neutrons. This is what is known as the period of confinement. Finally, the universe cooled down enough to allow what scientist like to call nucleosynthesis, which allowed deuterium nuclei to exist freely and combine with remaining free protons and neutrons to form helium nuclei.

In the beginning of the universe there was probably, and it is widely accepted today that there must have been, density fluctuations or a slight lumpiness, if you will. It must have been because if not then the distribution of the universe would not be so lumpy as it is today and galaxies and clusters of galaxies would not exist today. It was through the action and force of gravity that these density fluctuations grew to become what we now know as galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

When galaxies were first forming a cloud of gas that consisted of about 76% hydrogen, the remainder helium, most likely was surrounded by and even invaded by dark matter containing tiny variations in density. In regions of higher density the gravitational pull attracts nearby material thereby gaining mass. While this contraction is happening collisions of gas particles abound, the temperature increases and much of the hydrogen ionizes. As a result, protons and electrons move in and out of the gas cloud losing kinetic energy by radiating some energy as photons while electrons collide with neutral hydrogen atoms resulting in the atoms absorbing some energy then re-radiating that as photons. These two processes are what allow the gas cloud to cool slightly and maintain a temperature of 10,000k. The gas clouds then break down into smaller clouds and the process begins again. Eventually, a stage is reached where protostars begin to form. There is a slow contraction of these small gas clouds and they radiate at a very reduced rate because of the increased opaqueness to photons. This contraction is where the gravitational pull becomes strong enough that photons can not escape taking energy with them.

As the slow gravitational contraction of protostar continues the temperature becomes high enough to allow nuclear fusion reactions to begin at its center. Once the process is complete the protostar then becomes a star and the protostellar disc that was attracted to the gas cloud will undergo its own dynamics sometimes forming a planetary system around that star. This process is one theory in the formation of galaxies, either elliptical or spiral, from a gas cloud. There are other theories and many question as to how the universe first formed and no one yet knows the mysterious nature of dark matter, so there are vast unknown unknowns, some known unknowns and even some known knowns in this cosmic engine we call the universe. What is known is this:

We can measure distance in the universe using astronomical units, light years or parsecs and the easiest way to do this is through the parallax view which is an apparent displacement of an object because of a change in the observers view. An astronomical unit is the distance between the earth and the sun, a light year is the distance traveled by light in one year and a parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit perpendicular to the observers line of sight subtends an angle of one arcsec,(1 second of arc)

The direction of nearby star will change as the earth makes its orbit around the sun which makes it appear as if the nearby star is moving against the background of more distance stars and this is called a stellar parallax. The distance, (d), in parsecs to the nearby star is given by where (p) equals the angle of the star in arcseconds. Since we know how to measure the universe we can now know the luminosity and brightness of stars. The amount of radiation emitted by a star, per second is known as luminosity. In order to understand the formation of stars their present internal structure and future evolution it is essential that we know the stars luminosity. As radiant energy leaves a star, spreading outwards into a sphere of increasing radius, the amount of energy passing through each square meter on the surface of the sphere per second is found by dividing the luminosity of the star, (L), by the surface area of the sphere and is called the apparent brightness, (b), of the star, measured in Wm-2 where (d) equal distance to the star in meters. This is an excellent example of the inverse square law for EM radiation, where as we move away from a star, or any light source for that matter, the decrease in brightness is inversely proportional the square of our distance from that star.

We also know of blackbody radiation which means we are aware of a colorful spectrum of thermal radiation because scientist have studied blackbodies that are bodies whose surface absorbs all the radiation thrust upon it and allows none to be reflected. and where the intensity of the colors in the spectrum depend only on the temperature. While blackbodies are hypothetical as they are ideal, because a perfect blackbody does not reflect any light, this is why any radiation emitted from this blackbody is entirely due to its temperature. Since blackbodies are hypothetical, scientists can only approximate them. Some examples are; an object coated with a diffuse layer of black pigment such as carbon black, an object that contains a cavity connected to the outside by a very small hole, a cavity radiator, or a star including our own sun and planets. It should be noted that blackbodies do not have to look black to the observer

Even before plots such as the H-R graph were obtained by scientists through experimentation, there was a physicist in 1893 by the name of Wilhelm Wein who derived a quantitative expression relating the wavelength or color to the radiation emitted by a hot body to the temperature of the body. This is known as Wein's Displacement Law.

What this means is that when the temperatures of bodies increase, the wavelength at which the maximum emission of radiation occurs is displaced towards lower wavelengths. Or, put another way, the wavelength of maximum emissions of a blackbody is inversely proportional to its temperature in kelvin. This law can be very useful when determining the surface temperature of stars. Because of Weins law it is not necessary to know the size, distance or even how much energy it radiates into space. The only thing we need to know is the dominant wavelength of the stars electromagnetic radiation.

What this tells us is that the surface temperature of a star is related to its color. A very hot stars radiation will skew towards the short wavelength ultraviolet end of the spectrum, or closer to the color blue, while a very cool stars radiation peaks at long wavelengths making it to appear closer to red. There are two specific spectral classes of which stars can be divided into. Below is a chart made by Kaufman and Friedman:

SpectralClassColourTemperatureSpectral linesExamplesOBlue-violet28000-50000Ionized atoms especially heliumMintaka(d Orionis)BBlue-white10000-28000Neutral helium, some hydrogenRigel(b Orionis)AWhite7500-10000Strong hydrogen, some ionized metalsSirius(a Canis Majoris)FYellow-white6000-7500Hydrogen, ionized metals (Ca, Fe)Canopus(a Carinae)GYellow5000-6000Both neutral & ionized metals, especially ionized CaSunKOrange3500-5000Neutral metalsAldebaran(a Tauri)MRed-orange2500-3500Strong titanium oxide & some neutral CaAntares(a Scorpii) = =

When we look at pictures of stars it can appear that the bright stars are larger than the dim ones but this is not always the case. In order to determine the size of a star one must combine the information known about the stars luminosity, (determined from its distance and apparent brightness), and its surface temperature, (determined from its spectral type). Because of the Steffan-Boltzman Law which states, the energy flux, (f), in joules per square meter of surface per second, from a blackbody is directly proportional to the fourth power of the objects temperature, (T), measured in kelvin, or mathematically:

we can deduce the relationship between a stars luminosity, radius and surface temperature where (L) = the stars luminosity, or watts, (R) = the radius of the star (m), (s) = the Steffan-Boltzman constant and (T) = the stars surface temperature kelvin. So, even a very cool star can have a very high luminosity given the radius is large enough. It was this relationship between luminosity and surface temperature that led to the discovery that a regular pattern can be observed when absolute magnitude of stars, measurements of their luminosities, are plotted against their colors, being a measure of surface temperatures. This discovery was made by Ejnar Hurtzsprung in 1911. Then, in 1913, Henry Norris Russell made a discovery independent of Hertzsprung's found a similar pattern by using a plot of absolute magnitudes versus spectral types, being another measure of surface temperatures.

The importance of this lies in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram which is one of the most important tools in all of Astrology because it summarizes succinctly many, many trends and it allows us to better know the evolution of stars.

The graph charts the luminosities of stars against the color or surface temperature. Each point represents a star whose spectral type and luminosity have been determined. That there are types of stars that are fundamentally different from others is perhaps the most important lesson learned from the above H-R graph. The four main groups of stars are; Main Sequence, Red Giants, Super Giants and White Dwarfs. Anywhere from 80 to 90% of all stars are Main Sequence stars in their hydrogen burning phase, remaining on the Main Sequence classification until the hydrogen in their cores is spent. Our sun is a Main Sequence star with an intermediate luminosity, surface temperature and radius and has enough hydrogen to remain on the Main Sequence list for at leas another five billion years. The brighter the star is the greater the mass. Conversely, the dimmer the star, the lower the mass and the masses of Main Sequence stars is directly related to absolute magnitudes. Red Giants, found in the upper right section of the H-R plot are anywhere from 10 to 100 times more massive than our own sun and at least 100 time more luminous. The high luminosity comes from a massive surface and so, it is clear these stars have low surface temperatures. The Super Giants are those rare stars that have a radii of up to 1000 times of that of our own sun and while these suns have internal thermonuclear reactions, they can act very differently than that or our sun. White Dwarfs are those stars that remain after they ceased to be Giant stars.

The luminosity class v includes all Main Sequence stars. All that comes in between is useful in determining the variance of luminosities in Giant stars, including Class II Bright Giant Stars, Class III Giant stars and Class IV sub-giant stars. Class VI would be the sub-dwarf stars but there is not a luminosity class for a White Dwarf star because those stars are in their final stage of stellar evolution and do not have any thermonuclear reactions happening internally. Thus, White Dwarfs are referred to with only the letter D for dwarf. Once a stars absolute magnitude is known from the vertical axis of the H-R diagram, the distance of the star can be calculated through a method called spectroscopic parallax.

Our sun gains its energy from a nuclear fusion reaction in which four hydrogen nucleii, or protons, combine and become a single helium nucleus and in that process releasing energy. When some of the hydrogen nucleii mass converts into energy according to Einsteins equation E=MC2, this how the energy is released. It is, what is known as a mass defect, when when the difference in mass of helium nucleus to that of the amount of mass converted to energy and given away by the helium nucleus to stabilize itself during formation, the mass of four hydrogen nucleii is greater than the mass of a single helium nucleus. The energy given away to stabilize itself is known as the binding energy of the nucleus. It should be noted that the nuclear fusion reaction actually causes two of the four protons in a helium nucleus to decay, leaving that helium nucleus with only two rather than four protons.

Since nuclear fusion requires a temperature of around 10 th the 7thk, the reaction occurs only in dense and hot core of the sun. This is why such reactions are often referred to as thermonuclear reactions. All stars on the Main Sequence chart are still in their hydrogen burning phase and there are two different mechanisms to the fusion responsible for the helium production and subsequent energy release. These mechanisms are carbon cycle which is the main mechanism for stars whose core temperature is 18 million k and the proton-proton chain reaction is the predominate mechanism for those stars whose core temperatures are below 18 million k. When that hydrogen burning ceases the hydrogen at the core of the star has been exhausted and now becomes a Red Giant star. While the outer layer of the star expands and cools the inner core shrinks and heats up. The fusion of helium begins when the when the core temperature reaches about 1000 million k and is also known as the triple alpha process, converting helium to oxygen and carbon. In the more massive Red Giants the helium burns gradually where in the less massive giants it begins suddenly and is a process known as the helium flash.

Planetary nebula is the consequence of White Dwarf stars that has undergone a helium shell flash causing thermal pulses that ejected more than half of that suns mass into space. This leaves the hot carbon-oxygen core exposed and ultra violet radiation ionizes and excites the ejected gases. A nebula is an interstellar gas cloud. Since there is no longer a nuclear fusion reaction in that exposed core it becomes a degenerate, non contracting dense sphere, roughly the size of our earth. This White Dwarf star will emit a glow caused by thermal radiation but as it cools it will remain the same size but be less luminous slowly but surely fading into obscurity until it has finally become a Black Dwarf star.

There are three different processes by which nuclei can release energy, nuclear fission, which is the splitting of heavy nuclei to form lighter nuclei, nuclear fusion, which is the joining of light nuclei to form heavier nuclei, and the natural radioactive decay of the nucleus. Nuclei can emit alpha particles, beta particles or gamma rays. Below is a chart showing the effect of gamma rays on natural radioactive decay.

Our sun looks the way it does because of proto-sphere that resides at eh bottom layer of the solar atmosphere below the chromosphere and the corona. The chromosphere and corona are transparent to visible light which cause the protosphere to make it appear as if the sun actually has a sharp well defined surface, of which it, of course does not, since the sun is gaseous. What emits from the sun, and most obviously to us, are heat and light. Other forms, less noticeable to us here on earth, but still reaching us are forms of electromagnetic radiation and the solar winds consisting mainly of protons, electrons and atomic nuclei that serves as a continuous stream of particles passing the earth of up to 700km. There is also the nuetrino that literally passes through the earth and have no charge and interact weakly with matter.

There are also sunspots and sunspot cycles that affect dramatically life here on earth. A sunspot is a dark region of irregular shape in the protosphere. They can occur in isolation or in clusters known as sunspot groups. Not permanent features of the sun, sunspots last any where from a few hours to several months. Sunspots are generally thought of as regions of the photosphere of lower temperature and very strong magnetic activity. The period of sunspots varies with a period of about 11 years and during this cycle the sunspots increase from a minimum to a maximum then decrease to a minimum. Sunspot maxima occurred in 1968, 1979 and 1989. This 11-year sunspot cycle is related to a 22-year cycle called the solar cycle, during which the Sun's magnetic field reverses. Besides the aural displays that solar cycles can show, they also can wreak havoc causing power blackouts, disrupting radio communications, and making it difficult for those navigating with a magnetic compass.

This, as unlikely as it may seem, is in a nutshell how the great Cosmic Engine known as the universe works, or at least a theory of how the universe works in a nutshell. This theory essentially works on the premise of a universe that has exploded outward from some singular inwardness. There is, however, other theories of the beginnings of the universe and how it works today. One interesting theory, and in spite of its complexities is actually somewhat simpler than the lesson above and offers diagrams that easily explain how our universe might resemble an engine. This theory comes from a book called the Cosmic Engine and seems to be about tarot card reading of all things, but its simple explanations and diagrams offer an easy linear diagram of a three dimensional idea. This theory works in the exact opposite of the Big Bang theory suggesting that the universe began from the outward moving inward forming a process of coagulation or viscosity that came from the vast regions of nothingness to the more specific and easily confined somethingness. Since this model begins from the outward in any outward expression or consequence is only realized after the convergence of lines of infinite force has met its finite destiny at the center of the model. This outward expression then produces a visible, tangible model whose principle points are diagrammed using a point and four spheres, or circles.

At the heart of this theory is the idea that coagulation or viscosity is an ongoing process of change in perpetuity, inside a universe of infinite proportions making the model not just a stagnant form of logic but represents the transience of life, the inhalation of birth and exhalation of death. This particular model of the Cosmic Engine uses paristaltic progress to show the consumption of fuel through an entity.

This model is used to explain how the deck of tarot cards works but is an interesting diagram for how our universe might work. Thus, whether it be astronomical clocks powered by water wheels or vast infinite regions of matter, energy, space and time, the Cosmic Engine works much like God does...in mysterious ways.