The universe, rather beautiful, isn't it? It's quite literally got everything, from the very big to the very small. Sure, there are some less than savory elements in there, but on the whole, scholars agree that its existence is probably a good thing. Such a good thing that an entire field of scientific endeavor is devoted to its study. This is known as cosmology. Cosmologists look at what's out there in space and piece together the tale of how our universe evolved: what it's doing now, what it's going to be doing, and how it all began in the first place. It was Edwin Hubble who first noticed that our universe is expanding, by noting that galaxies seem to be flying further and further apart. This implied that everything should have started with the monumental explosion of an infinitely hot, infinitely small point. This idea was jokingly referred to at the time as the "Big Bang," but as the evidence piled up, the notion and the name actually stuck. We know that after the Big Bang, the universe cooled down to form the stars and galaxies that we see today. Cosmologists have plenty of ideas about how this happened. But we can also probe the origins of the universe by recreating the hot, dense conditions that existed at the beginning of time in the laboratory. This is done by particle physicists. Over the past century, particle physicists have been studying matter and forces at higher and higher energies. Firstly with cosmic rays, and then with particle accelerators, machines that smash together subatomic particles at great energies. The greater the energy of the accelerator, the further back in time they can effectively peek. Today, things are largely made up of atoms, but hundreds of seconds after the Big Bang, it was too hot for electrons to join atomic nuclei to make atoms. Instead, the universe consisted of a swirling sea of subatomic matter. A few seconds after the Big Bang, it was hotter still, hot enough to overpower the forces that usually hold protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei. Further back, microseconds after the Big Bang, and the protons and neutrons were only just beginning to form from quarks, one of the fundamental building blocks of the standard model of particle physics. Further back still, and the energy was too great even for the quarks to stick together. Physicists hope that by going to even greater energies, they can see back to a time when all the forces were one and the same, which would make understanding the origins of the universe a lot easier. To do that, they'll not only need to build bigger colliders, but also work hard to combine our knowledge of the very, very big with the very, very small and share these fascinating insights with each other and with, well, you. And that's how it should be! Because, after all, when it comes to our universe, we're all in this one together.
宇宙 很漂亮,不是嗎? 基本上它包含所有東西 從大 到小都有 當然,也包含一些討厭的東西 但整體而言,科學家仍同意 宇宙的存在大概是件好事 有整個科學領域的人 都投注在宇宙的研究上 這被稱作宇宙學 宇宙學家像太空探索 並拼湊宇宙演進的過程 它現在的狀態 它未來又會如何 還有它最初如何形成 愛德文.哈勃(Edwin Hubble)是第一個注意到 其他星系正在 越離越遠 而我們宇宙正在擴張的人 這暗示宇宙中的所有東西 都源於一個 從極端熱、極端微小的一點產生的 強烈爆炸 這個概念在過去被戲稱為 「大霹靂」 但支持的證據逐漸累積 其概念和名字 其概念和名字 逐漸為人所接受 我們知道在大霹靂過後 宇宙冷卻 並行成我們現今所見的星體和星系 宇宙學家對於這個過程 有許多想法 但我們也可以在實驗室中重現 宇宙最初生成時 高溫、稠密的條件 這就是粒子物理學家所做的事 在過去的一世紀中 粒子物理學家研究了 更高能量型態的物質和力 首先是藉由宇宙射線 接著借助粒子加速器 這是能將讓次原子的粒子 在高能狀態下碰撞的機器 愈是能提供越高能量的加速器 愈可讓科學家窺探 接近大霹靂的狀態 現在大部份的物質都由原子組成 但在大霹靂結束後數百秒內 高熱使電子無法接近原子核 以形成原子 這時宇宙是由次原子物質 所組成的渾沌海洋 大霹靂後的數秒之後 依然炙熱 熱到可以克服 將質子和中子 侷限在原子核內的力量 再往前推,大霹靂的數微秒之後 中子和質子正在由 夸克組合而成 夸克是粒子物理學中 組成物質的基礎 再更往前推 能量高過 讓夸克連結在一起的能量 物理學家希望藉由提供更高能量 我們能回到 這所有作用力都相等的時候 以讓我們更容易地 瞭解宇宙的形成 所以他們需要建造更大的加速器 並將我們對所有事物 包含很大 和很小的東西 並將這些有趣的知識 分享給更多人 包含你 事情就是如此 因為畢竟 當我們說到宇宙時 我們都在同一條船上