Every day we have a choice: to take our life, our existence, freedom and moments for granted, or to express gratitude and gratitude for the good things that surround us. The most important thing that unites us - that all of us, people, live in the same world and in the same universe - never deserve the respect that we deserve. Here and now we can exist and exist as long as the term of life given to us allows us. It just is. Many times throughout the history of the universe, the laws of nature have been in the right place at the right time to ensure our existence and allow us to look back 13.8 billion years with gratitude in our hearts. Here are ten phenomena that made this possible and ten reasons to say thank you, handpicked by physicist Ethan Siegel.
Say thanks to the Big Bang
Once in the history of the Universe there was a day for which “yesterday” did not exist, when the expanding, cooling, filled with matter and radiation Universe simply did not exist. The end of everything before the Big Bang (like cosmic inflation) gave rise to a universe full of particles, antiparticles, radiation, and all the ingredients needed for our existence. Without the Big Bang, none of us would exist.
Say thank you to an asymmetric universe
There are many important symmetries, but if everything were absolutely symmetrical, the world would have a perfectly equal amount of matter and antimatter. As the Universe cooled and expanded, they would mutually annihilate, annihilate, leaving behind only scattered single particles and antiparticles. But instead we have a Universe filled with matter, not antimatter, and this is important. How this asymmetry came about is still a mystery, albeit with many possible results. However, the asymmetry of the universe is definitely what allowed us to exist.
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Say thanks to atoms
For a person to exist, heavy nuclei are needed in many possible, stable configurations. In addition, we need lightweight, stable and oppositely charged particles (electrons) to form the building blocks for everything in our world. The particles in our universe cool, contract, and bond to form these atoms, which then combine and clump together to create the structure that our universe has today.
Say thanks to the gravitational forces …
… that unite massive pieces of matter. On a large scale, they form galaxies, clusters and the great cosmic web; on the smaller ones - gas clouds, stars and even planets. This gravitational force is the most long-range and universal force of all, it was she who allowed our home and everything that is on it to form. The world would not exist without gravity.
Say thanks to nuclear fusion …
… which flows in the cores of stars. It not only illuminates the universe, filling it with high-energy radiation, but also ensures the existence of the periodic table of elements. The most massive stars that form in molecular gas clouds use gravity, burning hydrogen into helium, helium into carbon, and then into heavier elements like oxygen, neon, magnesium, sulfur, silicon, and even iron, cobalt and nickel in their cores. … Most of the heavy elements in the universe, especially oxygen and carbon, are formed in this way.
Say thanks to space cataclysms
Namely, supernovae and neutron star mergers. These incredible agonies of the most massive stars in the universe lead us to the periodic table. The most massive stars explode after only a few million years, and subsequent fusion destroys the star and blows the outer layers filled with heavy elements into interstellar space. Meanwhile, their corpses, which could become neutron stars, produce most of the heavy, stable elements on our periodic table. As long as the galaxy is massive enough to contain this material - again, thank gravity again - heavy elements are being built into future generations of stars and solar systems.
Say thanks to space recycling
Say thank you that we have had enough time and enough generations of stars so that gravity can bring them back to the molecular clouds that remained in our galaxy and collapsed to form new stars. Filled with recycled material from a mixture of pristine elements and stellar corpses, these star-forming nebulae give rise not only to stars, but also to protoplanetary disks that form the gas giants and solid worlds we know so well. If this material were thrown out, as in very small galaxies or even in our Milky Way, if we did not have dark matter, there would be no solar systems with solid planets.
Say thank you to the cosmic coincidence that made the Earth possible
9.2 billion after the Big Bang, a solid world with the right ingredients for life has formed near the young, newborn star. These ingredients included not only carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, but also complex organic molecules and large amounts of liquid water. Our solar system began with four potentially habitable worlds - Venus, Earth, Theia, and Mars - but Theia is no longer there because she collided with Earth. Venus is a hellish planet destroyed by the greenhouse effect, and Mars has almost completely lost its atmosphere and is frozen out. Only the Earth remained - a moist, living world.
Say thank you to the unique evolutionary path of our world
To get to today, we must reflect on all the incredible successes of our world. Say thanks to evolution; thank the resilience of life and the fact that it has survived all the mass extinctions that have affected our world. Say thank you to the plants, animals and mushrooms and the random interactions that have guided our lives along the path it has taken. Say thank you to the whole history of your DNA and lineage, without them you wouldn't have a chance to exist. And finally …
Say thank you today
We are all allotted a little time in this universe, but this brief moment of space and time gives us the opportunity to do what we want. Say thank you to the atoms and molecules that you are made of. Thank this moment. Thank you for the confidence that the world is not going anywhere tomorrow. Thank the Universe that created you; it is something that we all have in common, and it unites us in a truly cosmic way. Nobody can take this away from us.
Ilya Khel