Word: lyttleton
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Last week cosmologists were arguing a new theory, originated by Mathematical Physicist Raymond A. Lyttleton of Cambridge University and elaborated with the help of Mathematician Hermann Bondi of the University of London...
...Parts in 1 Billion Billion. Lyttleton and Bondi belong to the British school of cosmology, which holds that matter is being created continuously in the form of hydrogen atoms appearing in empty space. Each hydrogen atom consists of one electron and one proton, and physicists have generally assumed that the positive electrical charge of the proton is exactly equal to the negative charge of the electron. Lyttleton and Bondi point out that this is only an assumption...
...page paper, Lyttleton and Bondi suggest that it is the protons that have the bigger charges. In a "smoothed-out" universe of newly created hydrogen, the atoms will all be slightly positive, and they will repel one another by electrostatic force, as all objects do when they have the same kind of electric charge. Thus the smoothed-out universe of hydrogen must expand as fast as it is created...
Peaceful Condensation. The real universe is not a smoothed-out gas. It contains condensations: galaxies and clusters of galaxies, each made of billions of stars and surrounded by clouds of gas. Inside these units, say Lyttleton and Bondi, there is no electrostatic repulsion. Instead, some of the hydrogen atoms between the stars are ionized (i.e., separated into a proton and an electron) by light and other radiation. These ions form a kind of electrical conductor: free protons move to the outside of the unit until they have carried away enough positive electricity to make the interior electrically neutral...
...Lyttleton and Bondi believe that cosmic rays are the protons that were expelled from galactic units to make their interiors electrostatically neutral. Those expelled from big units have the highest energy, perhaps many billion billion volts. They cross intergalactic space at close to the speed of light. They are not bothered much by the thin hydrogen gas between the units; they can travel through it for trillions of years without encountering anything that will check their progress...