Dear Shirley et al
I haven’t really been following the Story of Science programme as I kept losing interest.
But I will try and help you with your query.
The Universe is made of energy and matter.
Matter is divided up into atoms.
Atoms combine to make molecules,
Molecules combine to make the things we recognise,
Like water
Or two atoms of Hydrogen, plus one atom of Oxygen.
H2O
If you burn Hydrogen with Oxygen the result is a colossal release of heat plus water as Steam.
You have seen this when the NASA Rocket Engines fire.
I hope you are happy with this concept.
Now to split water back to Oxygen and Hydrogen,
You need to add energy.
We do it by “Electrolysis”
We add energy by the way of electricity.
To change water back to Hydrogen and Oxygen again.
When the Earth was formed it was a ball of molten rock.
As it cooled it started to solidify.
In fact I am sure you know the Earths core is still molten.
As shown by Volcanoes.
Nowadays the surface receives all its natural energy from the sun.
This is kept in by the various gases and particles in the atmosphere.
Some is converted to matter by Photosynthesis in plants so produce vegetation and edible products.
Now all these conversions do not actually produce new matter just new molecules from the available atoms and other molecules.
But this is still important as in helps with the original query,
What happens to energy?
An awful lot of this energy is stored as Gas, Oil and Coal.
The problem we are having is that we are now releasing these energies and by products at an ever increasing rate
It is possible to directly change matter into energy this is how the sun works.
And also our Nuclear Bombs and Atomic Power Stations.
I hope you are all with me class.
Thus I believe the current global warming is helped (sic) in more ways than one by mankind.
Adding increasingly more and more energy and by products into our environments.
So bringing an unnatural unbalance in the stability of the world.
Now to the Big Bang.
This is my way of understanding it.
In the beginning of our current Universe
A previous one collapsed and all the energy and matter was forced into the mother of all black holes.
This caused energy to change to matter, matter to energy until it became unstable and exploded.
The result of this has been shown as our universe as still expanding.
I believe it will reach a limit and then collapse again.
Resulting in another Big Bang
Again and again.
Phew
Les
This has been posted on both “theclevercloggs” and the “Shirley Goode” blogs
