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The physical universe is defined as all of space and time [a] (collectively referred to as spacetime) and their contents. [10] Such contents comprise all of energy in its various forms, including electromagnetic radiation and matter, and therefore planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space.
The Big Bang explains the evolution of the universe from a starting density and temperature that is well beyond humanity's capability to replicate, so extrapolations to the most extreme conditions and earliest times are necessarily more speculative. Lemaître called this initial state the "primeval atom" while Gamow called the material "ylem ...
The universe could then consist of an infinite sequence of finite universes, with each finite universe ending with a Big Crunch that is also the Big Bang of the next universe. A problem with the cyclic universe is that it does not reconcile with the second law of thermodynamics , as entropy would build up from oscillation to oscillation and ...
Fresh corroboration of the perplexing observation that the universe is expanding more rapidly than expected has scientists pondering the cause - perhaps some unknown factor involving the ...
The heat death of the universe (also known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze) [1] [2] is a hypothesis on the ultimate fate of the universe, which suggests the universe will evolve to a state of no thermodynamic free energy, and will therefore be unable to sustain processes that increase entropy.
Inflation explains several observed properties of the current universe that are otherwise difficult to account for, including explaining how today's universe has ended up so exceedingly homogeneous (spatially uniform) on a very large scale, even though it was highly disordered in its earliest stages.
That might mean there are unknown forces at work in the universe, for instance, or that there is a gap in our understanding of the cosmos that could require new physics.
In physical cosmology, the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang.Astronomers have derived two different measurements of the age of the universe: [1] a measurement based on direct observations of an early state of the universe, which indicate an age of 13.787 ± 0.020 billion years as interpreted with the Lambda-CDM concordance model as of 2021; [2] and a measurement based ...