The World We Live In…

1. The World We Live In… What is the Universe? How old is it? How big is it? What is it made of? What laws of nature govern it? What was happening to it in the past? What will happen to it in the future? Assembled by Sergei Zverev

2. What is the Universe? • The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.

3. How old is it? • Our Universe (which means the space, time, matter and energy) was born in a Big Bang 13.7 billion (13,700,000,000) years ago from a singularity, a point in space-time in which gravitational forces cause matter to have an infinite density and zero volume. • Before the Big Bang time and space did not exist. Right after the Big Bang all matter and energy were concentrated in an extremely small volume of space. • The Universe was expanding since the Big Bang, and the rate of expanding as well as it’s properties were dramatically changing.

4. Demonstration which shows that our Universe is not thought to be a set of objects moving in a space away from a certain point at which the explosion occurred Our Universe is three-dimensional but you can picture a universe that consists onlyof the surface of a balloon (get a balloon, prepare it in advance: inflate it and draw the galaxies on the surface; make sure you have plenty of galaxies; let the air out). You inflate the balloon just a little bit and note the galaxies on the surface of the balloon. Then start inflating the balloon more and more. You will see that, while the balloon is inflating, the galaxies are moving farther away from each other and, if you measure the distance between the galaxies before and after the inflation of the balloon, you will see that more distant galaxies will appear to move apart faster.

5. In this model it is easy to see that every galaxy will observe the same effect, and no one galaxy is in a special location. Then you can ask yourself if you can find the center of expansion on the surface of the balloon, and you will not find it. This will help you make a conclusion that there is no location on the surface of the balloon that can be identified as the "center" of the universe or a point of the Big Bang “explosion.”

6. How big is it? • Our Universe is approximately 96 billion light years across (96,000,000,000 light years). • One light year = distance traveled by light in free space in one year = 9.4605284 × 1015 meters, which is approximately 1013 kilometers. • The Universe is approximately 9.6 × 1023 kilometers wide or 6 × 1023 miles wide: 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles

7. ZOOM FROM MACRO to MEGA to MICRO COSMOS

8. This is a trip at high speed, jumping distances by a factor of 10. We will start with 100 (equivalent to 1 meter), and will increase the size of observable area by a factor of 10, or 101 (10 meters), 102 (10x10 = 100 meters), 103 (10x10x10 = 1,000 meters), 104 (10x10x10x10 = 10,000 meters), so on, until we get close to the limit of our imagination in the direction of the mega cosmos. Later we will return, a little faster, back to the point where we started and continue our trip in the opposite direction reducing observable distances by factors of 10 into the micro cosmos. We will see how much the human race still needs to learn...

9. 100 1 meter Distance to a bunch of leaves in the garden

10. 101 10 meters Starting our trip upwards .... We can see the foliage

11. 102 100 meters At this distance we can see the limits of the forest and the edifications

12. 103 1 km We will pass from meters to kilometers... Now it is possible to jump with a parachute

13. 104 10 km The city could be observed but we really can’t see the houses

14. 105 100 km At this height, the state of Florida is just coming into view...

15. 106 1,000 km Typical sight from a satellite

16. 107 10,000 km The northern hemisphere of Earth, and part of South America

17. 108 100,000 km The Earth starts looking small...

18. 109 1 million km The Earth and the Moon’s orbit in white...

19. 1010 10 million km Part of the Earth’s Orbit in blue

20. 1011 100 million km Orbits of Venus and Earth...

21. 1012 1 billion km Orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter

22. 1013 10 billion km At this height of our trip, we could observe the Solar System and the orbits of the planets

23. 1014 100 billion km The Solar System starts looking small...

24. 1015 1 trillion km The Sun now is a small star in the middle of thousands of stars...

25. 1016 1 light-year At one light-year the little Sun star is very small

26. 1017 10 light-years Here we will see just stars in the infinity... a light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year at a speed of 3.0 x 108 m/s or 190,000 mi/s

27. 1018 100 light-years A lot of stars and Nebulae...

28. 1019 1,000 light-years At this distance we are travelling in the Milky Way, our galaxy

29. 1020 10,000 light-years We continue our travel inside the Milky Way

30. 1021 100,000 light-years We begin reaching the periphery of the Milky Way

31. 1022 1 million light-years At this tremendous distance we can see the entire Milky Way and other galaxies as well

32. 1023 - 10 million light-years From this distance, all the galaxies look small with immense empty spaces in betweenThe same laws are ruling all bodies of the UniverseWe could continue traveling upwards (up to 100 billion light years) with our imagination, but now let’s return home

33. 1022

34. 1021

35. 1020

36. 1019

37. 1018

38. 1017

39. 1016

40. 1015

41. 1014

42. 1013

43. 1012

44. 1011

45. 1010

46. 109

47. 108

48. 107

49. 106

50. 105