Nuclear Fusion, Radioactive Decay, what is the starting point?

My, lots of people added stuff while composing my last post. I wonder how many more will beat me to this one?

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how does the big bang model account for the creation of hydrogen

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Non-maths hand-waving description. The Big Bang started off as a very dense very hot region of space time that was rapidly expanding. Like any expanding ball of gas, as it expands it cools and the density falls off. As it cools some of the energy is converted to particles - initially quarks, electrons, muons and the like (10^-35 seconds after Big Bang). At first they had a lot of energy and zipped around the place bouncing off each other; as they cooled they eventually got slow enough that they stuck together and the quarks formed nucleons - protons and neutrons (and some other heavy particles that decayed to protons and neutrons) (1 second after Big Bang). These nucleons were moving so fast they too bounced off each other, and then as they cooled they began to fuse into helium and small quantities of lithium (1000s after Big Bang). But, with the expansion happening so quickly the universe very rapidly cooled until there wasn't enough energy to maintain this fusion and we were left with just hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium.The Big Bang behaves pretty much like an expanding ideal gas, and so it can be modelled very well. This allows the conditions to be known pretty well, which with the knowledge we have of nuclear and particle physics allows us to predict the primordial quantities of hydrogen, helium and lithium with quite reasonable accuracy. Hoyles proof that most helium is primordial is a substantial part of the evidence for the Big Bang (along with the observed universal expansion and cosmic microwave background) which was probably quite galling as Hoyle didn't like the Big Bang theory - in fact, he coined the phrase as a derogative term for the idea.Alan

And your fun factoid for the day, kids, is that 5,000,000 TONS of mass gets turned into energy by this reaction, in the center of our Sun, every SECOND. That requires a true buttload of hydrogen - 138 times that mass (?). Every second. In a puny little G0 star.

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An atom of one type can change to an atom of another type by losing or acquiring protons. Losing protons is called fission, and acquiring protons is call fusion. Fission is what happens naturally to Uranium as it decays to Lead, and you can detect the emitted protons with a Geiger counter. It's also the process used by commercial nuclear reactors and atomic bombs. Fusion is what happens in hydrogen bombs and in the cores of stars.

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Actually, that's not entirely correct. Fission is the process whereby a large nucleus splits into 2 (or very rarely 3) lighter nuclei and a number of nucleons (usually neutrons). Fusion is the process whereby 2 or more light nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus.Nuclear decay, such as in the uranium series to lead, is a different process (or rather number of processes) which are much less drastic than fission or fusion. These processes include alpha-decay (in which a 2p2n cluster in the nucleus tunnels through the Coulomb barrier as a 4He, alpha, particle) and beta-decay (in which a neutron is converted to a proton and an electron - which is ejected from the nucleus as the beta particle). It is these particles, or gamma rays as the daughter nucleus settles back to ground state, that the GM tube detects.Alan

Yeah, I know. I was torn by how many new terms to introduce, and you're right, the boiling down was overexuberant. I might have misinterpreted the original question - I thought he was saying he'd never heard of fission, fusion or decay, and I wanted to keep it simple.--Percy

keeping it simple was very beneficial...
I have heard of these processes but never fully realized there implications.[This message has been edited by Jesuslover153, 04-10-2003]

Thread moved here from the Human Origins forum.

Our universe begins like any other universe, from the movements of membranes of matter and anti-matter, then Bosonic-fermion dynamics (the priciple of equivalance) kicks in and creates a plasma density lensed by other sources such as stars; quasars which produce galaxies,
and manifolding properties thats soul purpose is to exchange energies to promote balance in the universe.
Singularities are a local events to keep the evolution of the galaxy in line, and process these quasars.This event in mathematics involves the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic, the weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, and the gravitational force.
The mathematical principles of these forces can be applied to space-time co-ordinates {x,y,z,t}. The basis of the information before you comes from advanced research and development papers I have in storage.
Quarks are the fundamental building blocks of the elementary particles
such as the neutron, proton, and the electron is based on leptons.
Gravitons are superparticles at subspace above what is called, hyperspace. Our universe in enveloped in a space-time bubble of gravity to protect us from the lethal radiation at the hyperspace level.
If you really want to know, look up these terms on your search bar on
your computers, it has practical and helpful explanations to break it
down for the layman. For all accounts I am a creationist, christian.[This message has been edited by Kirk Gaulden, 05-09-2003]

JL153
You may disregard the post by "KirK"I know that the real, deep explanation of the cosmology would look like gibberish to most of us (it is very odd and difficult mathematicall) however that post IS gibberish.

that pushes spacetime into either and as it cools the fundamental
elements to form. kirk edward gaulden

Light plasma densities of singularities and quasars from wormhole inside
a hydrodynamic magnetic laser proton decays into neutrons hydrogen atoms and dueterium by fusing protons and electrons superparticle multi-torsion and bosonic-fermion dynameterics.
kirk edward gauldenEdited by catman62@bellsouth.net, : mistake in spelling

Gazuntheit!

This is obviously a Babelfish translation of a Japanese advertisement for condoms.

My amateur understanding is:
energy created in the big bang gives rise to upquarks, downquarks and electrons
3 quarks = 1 proton (up up down) or 1 neutron (ddu)
1 proton + 1 electron = 1 Hydrogen atom
2 protons + 2 neutrons + 2 electrons = 1 Helium atom
several hyrdogen atoms squashed inside a star = iron, oxygen, gold etc depending purely on the numbers.
All the best