1. Mysteries of our Universe
Sharad B Nalawade
Author of “The Speed of Time”
24 July, 2013
2. The Unanswered Questions
• Why do we exist?
• Is our Universe without any purpose?
• How did this all begin?
• What is reality?
• Do we have a freewill?
• Is scientific approach of reductionism enough?
• What is Consciousness?
• Is our nature designed or accidental?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• Can we reverse time?
3. What is Universe?
A vast region filled up with trillions of celestial objects like galaxies made up of billions of stars,
nebulas, planets, gas clusters, dust and comets. Trillions of stars and other bodies clump
together to form galaxy. Milky way is one of them. Our nearest galaxy is Andromeda.
Galaxies come in different sizes and shapes:
Barred Spiral Galaxy
Whirlpool Galaxy
Ring Galaxy Antenna Galaxy Spiral Galaxy
5. Farthest object in the Universe
The object's light traveled 13.2 billion years to reach Hubble.
The age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years. The tiny, dim object is a compact
galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the big bang.
7. Milky Way Galaxy
Diameter: 120,000 Light Years
1 Light Year = Distance travelled by light in 1 year =
2600 Crore Kilometers
Light travels 311040000 Crore Kilometers to reach
end to end
Sun takes 200 Million years to rotate our galaxy once
Sun is 4.5 Billion years old
10. From Atom to Universe
• http://scaleofuniverse.com/
11. Inside Atom
• All of universe is built from matter particles called
Fermions (ex: quarks and electrons) and force particles
called Bosons and Gluons.
• Whether you end up becoming a stone, flower, star or a
human depends on what force that binds these fermions
together. There are four forces of nature.
• Every atom is a combination of electrons and nucleus
(protons & neutrons made from quarks)
• Four forces of nature: Strong (gluons that bind quarks),
Weak (Bosons - radioactive and fusion reactions),
Electromagnetic force (light/photons) and Gravity
(graviton)
12. Higgs Boson or God Particle
• Higgs Field that provides mass to every other particle
• Predicted to exist 40 years ago
• Discovered in CERN Lab last year
• Sensationalized by Leon Lederman
13. Weird Universe
• Microscopic and Macroscopic Worlds are quite different
• Microscopic World – Atoms, Light, electrons, Energy, Strings, God
Particle, etc.
• Macroscopic World – Humans, Tree, Mountain, Stars, Galaxies
What Science says?
• Sub-atomic particles exists as both waves and particles
• Smallest length is Planck Length = 1.616199 × 10-35 meters
• Smallest Time is Planck Time = 10−43 seconds approx.
• There is no way to find both position and speed of a particle
at the same time
• The whole universe is based on the probabilistic nature
• It is impossible to predict future
14. Physics – Quantum Mechanics
• QM works at the microscopic level
• QM does not follow Newton’s laws
•Sub-atomic particles exists as both waves and
particles
• You collapse waves to particle matter by
“observation” (QM)
• Superposition means an electron or any particle can
exist in all places at the same time
• Entanglement means two particles can
communicate with each other instantly defying speed
of light
15. QM, Consciousness & Free Will
• What is Consciousness? How does the brain create
it?
• Our brain capable of creating ideas.
• Does Consciousness collapse a wavefunction?
• AI subscribes to a computational mind
• Superposition and Entanglement lead to conscious
universe
• Freewill, Chaos, Randomness or Deterministic?
16. What is Reality?
• Universal Connectedness
• Non-Locality
• Many worlds
• Godel’s Incomplete Theorem: “This
statement is false”.
• Is Math discovered or invented?
• Great minds: Srinivasa Ramanujan,
Bernhard Riemann & Kurt Gödel
17. Physics – Einstein’s Relativity
• Relativity works at the macroscopic level – stars, galaxies
• Nothing can travel faster than light
• Time ticks slowly for someone travelling very fast
• Length shrinks in the direction of its motion
• At the speed of light, Time freezes
• Nothing in the universe is at rest
• We all live in 4-D space ( 3-D Space and 1-D Time)
• Space and Time are entwined or merged with each other
• Gravity is nothing but curvature of Space-time
• Massive bodies like Sun, Earth bend space-time around
them
• Accelerated motion creates gravity
• Strong gravitational force slows down time
18. Space-Time
• Time flows from past to the future
• Travelling faster than speed of light will take you back in
time
• Space is not empty but active with particle-antiparticle war
• Space-time has 11 dimensions
• All matter in the universe comes from vibrations of 1
dimension strings in the 11 dimension space-time
• These 1 D strings vibrate and their energy produces particles
like photons, electrons, protons, etc.
• You can create matter out of nothing
• Dark energy is pushing universe and accelerating it
• Dark matter is slowing it down
• Universe will end in Big Crunch due to Entropy increase
The object's light traveled 13.2 billion years to reach Hubble, roughly 150 million years longer than the previous record holder. The age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years. The tiny, dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the big bang. More than 100 such mini-galaxies would be needed to make up our Milky Way.