allydeckhard

It actually occurred to me after I left the library that I stated that it is cooling and slowing. After thinking about the definition of temperature, I said to myself...well...what's the difference between cooling and slowing? That's redundant, isn't it? Hmm...I went over the Big Bang and CMB entries on Wikipedia and it does indicate that it is cooling. It seems to me that radiation is being converted to matter as time goes progresses, which is a bit of a restatement of what I wrote earlier. If it is cooling, then by the conservation laws the energy isn't being destroyed. Thanks to the relativistic definition of matter, this leads me to conclude that photons are being converted to matter--which travels at a slower rate than photons. Therefore: slowing (not the expansion...the energy) and cooling?

So, I studied biology...not physics. I did my homework on relativistic and quantum physics, but I don't consider myself an expert on high energy physics and cosmology. I'm writing a novel, and one of my characters is a physics student. I'd like to confirm that what he says is accurate under the consensus of modern understanding. One of the statements that my character makes is: "Matter and energy are the same thing, they are merely in different states of motion." I feel confident that my character is making an accurate statement given current understanding. I understand that--without drowning someone in a lagoon of mathematics--in the context of relativistic physics, that mass, a measure of matter, can be expressed in electron volts, etc. I also understand that, because of the equivalence principle, that matter and energy are the same 'thing'. (Whatever the heck that 'thing' is...but that's another story.) A Hicks quote states that matter is "energy condensed to a slow vibration." Although, this is a quote that makes a comment about psychedelic drugs, so one must clearly take this with a grain of salt. This clearly ties into the roots of Big Bang and relativity, which I am inexpert in. I believe in Big Bang...recognize the universe as a thermodynamic system guided by the second law...etc. Assuming that the universe is an isolated system, I want my character to say: "The universe is cooling and slowing as time progresses." Is that an accurate statement given current understanding? Any feedback about the accuracy of these statements would be appreciated. Thanks!