Andreas Ioannou Kassetas

SUNDAY

Everything seems identical in Hyper-hell

We don’t know if someone pulled the trigger. A tremendous BANG and the show begins. A new being is born. It includes a becoming, it includes the future.

Fourteen billion years later the infant has grown up. An eccentric granddaughter, the Human Thought, goes back in time to what “used to be”. With an acute insight goes back to the beginning, to the newly born Universe – MAYBE the first and only one, something unique, or MAYBE, just another one among other Universes

We have to make do with a MAYBE. But our thought may be able to “see” some of the things that happened on the very first day of its Universe the darkest day of all.

The first day of Creation is very short. From the timeless zero, up to the 10^-43 of the first second. The Thought views in slow motion few of the events, talks about them using terms tested of the reality of its own time, effecting products of Abstraction , “ particle”, “space-time“, “ movement“, “ interactions“.

And Human Thought, uncovering the events and the objects in way of its choice, “sees” these beings; the particles move and influence each other.

On the first day of Creation, everything seems identical and the heat is terrible. There are only identical particles; they are constantly moving and influence each other in exact same way. The four different interactions of Physics as we know them today appear as one.

The Universe of Sunday is the smallest and hottest thing ever existed. Very small compared to the dimensions of human experiences. So small that our imagination has difficulty trying to conceive pictures with moving particles. A space-time that towards the end of the day, has the size of an atom.

And such intense heat that hell appears cooler. 10³² Kelvin is beyond the wildest human fantasies.

Hyperhell reflects the movement of the newly born particles. It’s an environment that maybe is what determines the uniform shape of the particles and their interactions. All these within the concept of a “MAYBE”.

The only relatively certain thing is that on the following days the new Universe will be growing and becoming cooler.

MONDAY

Unification

The second day is less hot and relatively longer. It last from the 10^-43 to 10^-35 of the first second.

The infant keeps growing up. Primeval particles with a shape that cannot actually be defined move and influence each other. Contemporary though can “see” particles of matter common ancestors of leptons and quarks but also their antiparticles; these belong to Antimatter.

Their interactions are conceived “today” in two forms. One is the gravitational who first of all has declared her Independence. The other is Electromagnetic, Weak and Strong unified. But the Creator has revealed some of his intentions. The forces must be separated.

We don’t know – maybe we will never found out – if the Creator is some kind of God or something we have made up, Indo-European with a beard, Afro – American with short hair, a woman from Asia or something else, something indescribable.

In any case a “being” able to pull the trigger for the tremendous Bang and to drive things – according to the originate plan – to galaxies, atoms of carbon, pine trees or beings with the ability to invent him.

There is a third version completely different, insisting that the whole procedure was a game between Chaos and Order, a game that Order had no representatives, a game with rules indescribable by our human brain.

TUESDAY

Death in the form of photons

The third day of Creation ”dawns” at the 10^-35 and lasts up to the billionth of the second

Primordial particles appear as quarks and antiquarks in equal numbers, neutrinos and antineutrinos, electrons and an equal number of positrons, and here starts a play of Shakespearean dimensions: Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia and Hamlet.

Every encounter of a quark with its antiquark means annihilation of both. Quarks die together with their antiquark Juliets and their death heats up, if transiently, the rest of the constituents of Cosmos.

The same happens with each electron. Every encounter between an electron and a positron results in the annihilation of both and death takes the form of photons. Of course the Universe at large continues to grow bigger and cooler.

Round about that time, it appears that Creator set aside all hesitations and made the big decision. The initial symmetry between Matter and Antimatter would have to be disturbed, if slightly, in favour of Matter

The decision effected an immediate surplus of quarks. Some “Romeo” quarks will never meet their “Juliet” antiquarks and will survive in order to make up stars, mulberry trees, the Peloponnese, Mani, boys and girls.

On the third day of Creation, the Universe is bound for the Matter option. However, this is going to be a difficult journey. That is because Hell persists. With radiation temperature remaining at tremendously high levels, every constituent photon can give birth to Antimatter. Photon energy is such that as soon as a photon passes away its place is taken by a pair of particles: an electron and a positron - antimatter monster.

For as long as the temperature remains over the threshold of 5,9.10⁹ K, Antimatter positrons will keep coming back together with their little twin brothers. Hell forces retreats to Antimattter.

As Tuesday unfolds, photons flood the young Universe accounting for a larger part of the (energy) content than Matter and Antimatter. The energy in the form of radiation is quantatively superior to the energy in the form of mass. Consequently there are two clashes. The one between Matter and Antimatter is relentless. The other clash aims at the Matter/Radiation quantity prevailing over the Matter/Mass.

The two clashes will be a game of Death - Birth among the three preordained directions.

The first is for Matter to prevail over Antimatter in the Great War. And not just prevail; evolution will lead Antimatter’s children, positrons and antiquarks, to almost complete elimination. The second direction is for the Matter as Mass to become quantitatively superior to the Matter-radiation.

Finally, the third direction is for the Universe to grow up proceeding from the simplest to more and more complex forms.

For all of those directions there some fundamental rules, something like “Creator’s Commands”. Certain of those demand maintaining quantities such as mass-energy , the electric charge, the momentum , the angular momentum. Whatever may happen, no matter how many simultaneous deaths of Romeos and Juliets, births of monsters or formations of future protons, their quantities will have to remain stable; no decrease or increase is allowed.

Towards the end of the third day, the Electroweak interaction also ascents as unified form of the Weak and the Electromagnetic. The end of this day is when quarks see the last of their freedom, without them “suspecting” that from tomorrow they are to be imprisoned for life on the strength of some divine decree or by virtue of an inner dynamic within Reality itself.

WEDNESDAY

He makes protons with quark clay

Wednesday is long and narrow… A corridor at the end of which the Universe celebrates its first birthday. It turns “one second”.

As the day rolls on and heat is gradually reduced, several things happen. One of them is the disruption of a pre-existing unity. For as long as the temperature remains above 3.10 ¹⁵ K, the unity between the Weak and the Electromagnetic interaction is obvious. Governed by the same law and manifesting themselves with the same intensity, the two forces are one… the Electro weak.

However, as the day goes on and the temperature goes down the two interacting forces will become separated. In the centuries to follow they will “go about” as two distinct forces. In a very distant future certain creatures in the by now mature Universe – intelligent beings possessing an ability to see into the invisible - will reveal the distant common past of the “two” forces.

The Sapiens Sapiens of that distant future will succeed in “seeing” that in Hell conditions the two forces are one… the Electroweak.

A hundredth of a second after its birth, the Universe of Wednesday is a cosmic fluid of mass and radiation at a temperature of 10¹¹ K . Besides photons, neutrina and antineutrina, a multitude of electrons and positrons is also in existence.

The infant Universe is still extremely dense. It is opaque even for the neutrino that keep in a state of thermal balance, being forced into collisions with photons, electrons and positrons into which they bump all the time.

The time is 0,11 of the first second and the temperature has fallen to 3.10¹⁰ K. Still, it continues to be above the electron threshold. This means that in the “Cosmic maternity hospital” radiation continues to give birth to twins, the one of them a negatively charged electron and the other a positively charged Antimatter monster. Therefore in spite of the endless annihilation deaths in the war between Matter and Antimatter, there has not been, as yet, any noticeable reduction in numbers.

As the day turns to dusk, a dramatic event, crucial in determining future developments, takes place. “Creator makes protons with quark clay”, having already provided for the glueing together by inventing the excellent gluon glue.

Quarks are trapped for good, three of them inside each proton. Two identical Up and one Down quark will live there for ever. All three of them – inseparable and immortal – will journey together in the ever expanding Universe, held together by the excellent gluon glue, the most powerful of the four known interactions. Inside each proton of the pen with which all this is written, billions of years later, there are two Up quarks and one Down quark imprisoned for eternity.

On the same day – Wednesday - Creator also makes neutrons. Two Down quarks and an Up one and the first neutron of the Universe is here.

By the first birthday of the Universe the four interactions have become distinctly separated. Each one has taken on a specific role. At the birthday party, newly born protons and neutrons move about in the corridors. Together with electrons and neutrina they now represent Matter.

There are still monsters about, mainly positrons and antinetrinos. In addition to them there exists a multitude of photons representing Matter/Radiation. All of those particles together with the rest of the agents constitute the one second old new World. The infant Universe wishes itself a Happy Birthday.

THURSDAY

Loveless Helium nuclei

Compared to the previous days, Thursday is much more transparent for human Thought. It lasts about three minutes. From the first birthday until the end of the prehistory of the Universe.

The day starts with protons and neutrons and ends with Helium nuclei, after electrons and their little twin monster brothers have been considerably reduced in numbers and neutrino have found escape avenues.

At the crack of dawn, the by now considerably reduced solidity, in combination with the relatively lower temperature, will allow neutrinos to increase their free passage time to such a extent as to behave as free particles and not to be restrained in conditions of balance as was the case up until Wednesday.

From the early morning of Thursday the Universe becomes transparent to all neutrinos and they themselves the biggest vagabonds of the World. They will eventually be able to go through lead plates without the slightest trace of dissolution; they will enter planet Earth and come out the other side with astonishing ease.

The temperature keeps falling. It is now roughly fourteen seconds after the Beginning and the genocide is in progress. The temperature of Radiation is now only 3.10⁹ K, namely below the “threshold”.

This means that the electron – positron maternity hospital is no longer in operation. The electrons born up until then dematerialize together with the positrons, the last Antimatter monsters.

Almost all electrons are exterminated but a significant aspect of future developments will be based on almost. This means that certain electrons – about one in a million – will survive, so that there is no violation of the command which demands the conservation of the electric charge .

Those electrons must continue to exist, so that their negative charge neutralizes the positive charge of an equal number of protons and so that the total charge of the Universe remains at zero. Creator’s commands constitute inviolable laws.

An extremely small number of electrons that have survived the genocide will at some point participate in the game of the cosmic fertility playing a role either accidental or pre determined …This we do not know.

Thursday, however, is, first and foremost the day of Nucleosynthesis, scarred by Creator’s first failure.

Protons are already in existence. Each one of them constitutes a potential Hydrogen nucleus in the Universe of future Atoms. Furthermore, each proton also seems to be available to coexist with other protons or other neutrons in order to form more complex forms of matter.

Its availability leads Creator to new syntheses. Two protons and two neutrons make up a most stable particle destined to play a leading role in the history of Matter. It will be called Helium nucleus or Helium-4. It comes into being with a mass smaller than the aggregate of its four component particles. A loss of mass that equals the energy released at their fusion.

Because Helium nucleosynthesis kept in reserve a big surprise for Creator. Far from requiring a certain quantity of energy, some kind of labour at any rate, for its making, it generously offered energy to the rest of the Universe.

It was a new mechanism of energy release which did not defy the energy conservation Command. The energy rendered did not come from nowhere but from some equivalent mass that ceased to exist. Through a similar mechanism of fusion future stars will succeed in illuminating the World.

On the fifth day of Creation identical Helium nuclei crop up. This initial nucleosynthesis was to become a model for the creation of heavier nuclei according to the original plan, in the direction of an ever increasing complexity.

The plan, though, will fail. The reason is that the new particle is disconcertingly stable. Introverted, loveless and with an elite attitude, refuses to take part in the play. Evolution is held up against it. Two Helium nuclei will not fuse ever if they are in direct contact with each other. Helium-4 refuses to unite with Helium-4 or even something else and therefore the original plan is prevented from implementation. Creator, our Thought’s creature, experiences the first failure.

It is Thursday night and the primal nucleosynthesis has now been completed. The Universe contains nothing but Hydrogen and Helium – besides leptons of course; in other words, it is sterile.

Still, Creator shows no signs of discouragement. He already has plans in store for tomorrow; plans for the creation of Atoms. Initially, He will try even if only with Hydrogen and Helium. As for more complex particles he has already conceived the idea of a second attempt in the interior of Stars. All this, of course, is scheduled for the coming Saturday.

FRIDAY

The Atom Age

The escape of photons, the definitive domination of Matter/Mass over the Matter/Radiating energy in terms of quantity and the coming to the foreground of the first Atoms constitute the main events of a very long “day” lasting 700,000 years.

As the Universe continues to expand, radiation “cools off” and the (energy) of photons subsides. Slowly but steadily they gain independence from Matter/Mass and start roaming the Universe just like neutrinos . Namely, interaction with Matter/Mass ceases to be their fundamental characteristic and motion has now become their basic play. The fact that their energy decreases does not mean that their number decreases too; they are as “many” as before.

However, each of them now possesses less energy on average than before. In numbers they are one million times more than baryons, the main, that is, carriers of the World mass. Things, though, develop in such a way that, at some point, the equivalent energy of baryons becomes superior. This is the final outcome of one of the big clashes. The quantitative domination of Matter/Mass over the Matter/Radiating Energy will brand the Universe for the rest of its journey to the future.

But Friday means, above all… “the Advent of the Atom Age”. The few electrons that have survived the genocide are destined to play a special role.

As soon as the temperature becomes low enough, namely below 3,000 K, “to allow” it, it will be possible for the surviving electrons to be held together by nuclei so as to form the “skins” of novel for their time, as well as more complex particles which, billions of years later, a certain race of the Universe will call Atoms. Naturally, Friday’s Atoms are exclusively Hydrogen and Helium Atoms.

It took 300,000 years from the beginning of Creation for the first Atoms to enter the stage of the History of Mass but this event will constitute a vital crossroads on the way towards greater complexity.

Because on the seventh day of Creation – and after the creation of heavier than Helium 4 atomic nuclei, as Stars’ children - Atoms, thanks to their electronic skins, will share the same roof with selected partners to form molecules, a fact that will pave the way for proteins, rose trees and human consciousness. And this way will (lead) to neighbourhoods , as it were, of some stars in which islands of life will develop.

Saturday is expected to be, among other things, a day of Astrophysics, Chemistry and Biology, sciences that must be fully mastered by Creator, our Thought’s creature.

SATURDAY

Galaxies, girls and golden earrings

Saturday is endless. It lasts fifteen billion years. It starts with the appearance of the first Hydrogen and Helium Atoms and ends at a little seaside tavern on the planet Earth.

On the seventh day of Creation the Universe continues to expand heading for our present. For the main, Gravity is in charge of the development of its structure. While the other three forces will take charge of the functions of Microcosm, Gravity will determine Space-time, will give the Universe a Geometry of its own, will assume central responsibility for the birth, the growing up and the death of stars. It will constitute the basis for the structuring of the World.

Three billion years after the beginning of Creation Quasars enter the stage, and after seven billion years the first star galaxies will come into existence.

Following the dismal failure of last Thursday, Creator, our Thought’s creature, will try again. The target is the same. To make heavier nuclei, that is to say to form particles containing numerous protons and neutrons. The previous attempt stopped at Helium nuclei and evolution was suspended at that point

He has now realized that in order to avoid another bitter failure He needs at least three things; a new environment of “mild hell” like the one of last Thursday, a different trick so as to induce the seemingly loveless Helium to join the game, as well as more time.

The idea must have come quite fast. The right environment could be…the interior of stars. This would also meet the third requirement as the life-span of a star allowed “plenty of time”, which was essential. As for the new trick, that meant three Helium nuclei, and not two like last time.

While the contact of two nuclei was in progress inside the furnace of a star, He made a deal with Chance so that, exactly at that point, a third nucleus made its appearance.

The offspring of the three was the Carbon nucleus, the beloved child of the Universe, the treasure. But for it, the ascent towards more complexity would not have proceeded as smoothly. Issuing from such difficult birth, Carbon will become an excellent player in the game of the cosmic fertility and not only in it. He will eventually become the young protagonist of Chemical and Biological Evolution.

In this second effort, Creator, our Thought’s creature, has been successful. In the interior of a star – a Red Giant, to be specific - the elitist Helium-4 will give birth to Carbon and at a later fusion of Carbon nuclei with Helium nuclei Oxygen will arise. Following that, Natrium, Argilium and, eventually, Nitrogen will all be born by stars in special circumstances and with good prospects.

This does not apply to Hydrogen, of course. Hydrogen does not descend from stars. It is the prime fuel on which stars draw energy so that they can, for a certain period of time, resist gravity which threatens to crush them out of existence.

In the interior, then, of each Red Giant the furnaces are in constant operation. Silicon, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Calcium, even Iron will be prepared there. Having failed at the initial stage, the original plan for the nucleosynthesis is now implemented in the stars’ magic oven.

However, in the heart of the Red Giant the temperature is continuously rising. It nears 5.10⁹ K and the new hell threatens to dissolve the patiently mixed ingredients. The food has been cooked with the greatest effort, but the oven temperature is rising dangerously and threatens to burn it.

Creator’s Command will this time apply to certain stars only. Those stars will collapse with a tremendous explosion. Many years later, Homo sapiens sapiens will give the name supernova to such later explosions which they will perceive with delay. The point, then, is that by this explosion stellar mass carrying the cooked food is sent hurling to all directions so that it goes through the same process as the Universe in the past.

With an important difference, though. Now there are also nuclei which are heavier than Helium-4: Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Nickel, Copper, Gold, Uranium are available in the Universe, “well baked” and ready to follow up their career elsewhere; inside stars which will emerge, mountains that will rise, snails that will exist.

The “Supernova” venture constitutes an impressive choice of our “Thought’s creature - Creator” so that the cosmic game of greater complexity is carried on. Not only because the heavier nuclei must be distributed to the Universe but also because Atoms and Molecules could not be prepared in the cooking oven of any star. The evolution of Cosmos will be carried on in the cold of Space from now on.

Meanwhile Gravity, the General Manager of the Universe, appears reserved and cautious. In obedience to “Creator’s Laws – Commands”, it behaves in such a manner as to be able to retain stars within galactic configurations. It allows some stars to shine for billions of years and keeps planets in orbit around them, certain of them at such distances that conditions lend themselves to islands of life that could emerge.

Nine billion years after the Big Bang, such a star will come to life, a star with nine planets rotating around it. On one of them evolution will lead to the phenomenon of life with organisms based on Carbon.

Fourteen billion years after the Big Bang,

some biographers of the Universe

will make their appearance

Fourteen billion years after the Big Bang, some strange creatures will make their appearance on this planet. They will invent poetry, will write biographies of the Universe, will invent ways to express, through music, things that cannot be contained in words or Mathematical formulas.

Saturday night

Saturday night in a little seaside restaurant. It is July and she is telling him something about living-rooms and Astrophysics.

He looks up and his brown eyes gaze at her intently. He loves to listen to her.

“Couches are made by carpenters, spinach-pies are cooked by wives or husbands or a cook and houses are built by builders”. This is what our good old teacher Experience used to say. She still says the same. Even a cup of coffee requires a doer. And my own Thought nurtured by experience, fails to comprehend that something can make itself.

Her tone of voice anything but invites arguing.

“How were, then, protons, macromolecules and galactic configurations brought into being? The Universe presupposes a Creator and if there has not been one my Thought is impelled to make Him up; it feels the need to imagine Him and it does imagine Him”

She imagines Him invisible on the third empty chair watching them and looking happy with the thought that protons get on well, DNA’s work just fine and that the boy sitting opposite seems to be in love with the girl. She fantasizes that he twirls up his moustache – a gesture he makes whenever he is content with something – and calls in His creative mind the extermination of the positrons, the failure with Helium and the stars of Saturday. She imagines Him thinking that that idea about the Supernova was, after all, a good one. If He had not exploited it, those two people would not be here now looking at each other lovingly. But also that if anything had taken a different course there would not have been any beings like them to invent Him.

Both of them are naturally unable to detect the presence of the invisible creature. The third chair opposite them remains empty.

The girl touches the real hand of the boy and goes on.

“The Hydrogen of your skin forming compounds with Oxygen, with Nitrogen and with Carbon has protons many years old, protons which were probably made on Wednesday; immortal protons, at least by human standards. The invisible protons of your palm will continue to wander in the Universe even when neither of us is around. Of course your oxygen is much younger and, definitely, stellar offspring and so is the calcium of your solar blade. Born on Saturday, both of them were cooked in the hot stomach a Red Giant many years ago… What I am saying sounds like a fairy tale, even to me… Still, even the Iron in your blood must have come into the world in a similar way.”

He likes her touching his hand. He looks at her and speculates that the youngest thing of all is probably the gold of her earrings. It must have come into existence in extreme conditions of terribly high temperatures, shortly before the explosion of a supernova… It is nearly midnight… The seventh day of Creation is still here. Andromeda’s Galaxy, Centaurus Alpha, the solar system, the planet Jupiter, Baghdad, Salonika, the Aegean Sea, sea breeze, black-birds and creatures with five senses who become enchanted with Moon, invent the glass and the radio telescope, seek their origin but also join demonstrations . The Universe is now so big… SO BIG that the “cosmic microwave background radiation” temperature is three degrees on the Kelvin scale… Nothing to do with the Hell of the first days.

Η απόδοση στα αγγλικά θα ήταν αδύνατον να πραγματοποιηθεί

χωρίς τη συμβολή της καθηγήτριας Νίτας Γεωργούλη