A world born from nothing. Origin and Evolution of the Universe: The Big Bang Theory

There are two views on how the material world arose. Religions attribute to God a leading role in the world order. In particular, the Bible speaks of several days, during which God first created light, then water, then firmament, then living beings - up to man. Now the Churches claim that "six days" is a metaphorical term, where a day is not equal to days, but lasts much longer. Another, radically opposite view of the origin of the visible, material world is scientific. The evolution of the Universe, according to scientists, began with the Big Bang (also referred to as the Big Bang), which occurred 10-15 billion years ago.

What was there before everything that exists? Modern astronomy believes that it was shrunk to minimum dimensions a sphere within which, under the influence of the highest temperatures and pressure, the free ones moved. It is still unclear what caused the Big Bang. However, this explosion itself led to the expansion of the universe, and this process continues to this day. What does it mean? That the same amount of material particles occupies an increasing volume over time.

Will the material world expand forever, or will someday its growth in volume slow down, stop altogether, like we observe during a grenade explosion? Perhaps, after this, the evolution of the Universe will stop, and be replaced by the stage of "folding", narrowing to the original point. We are not yet ready to answer this question with certainty. But the picture of the world created by scientists can already describe successive phases in the growth and transformation of matter. The first era - the hadronic one - lasted only one millionth of a second, but during this time the process of annihilation of antibaryons and baryons took place, protons and neurons were formed.

The second and third stages of the evolution of the Universe - lepton and photon - also lasted only a few seconds. At the end of the second era, a neutrino sea formed, and the photon era ended with the separation of matter from antimatter (which happened due to the annihilation of positrons and electrons). The universe was expanding, which led to a decrease in the energy density of particles and photons. The photon stage was replaced by the stellar stage, which continues to this day. However, the formation of stars, galaxies and groups of galaxies took place (and is taking place) unevenly.

Millions of years passed after the Big Bang, while the simplest particles turned into atoms - mainly hydrogen and helium (these atoms are the main component of the Universe), atoms combined into molecules that entered into compounds and formed crystals, substances, mineral rocks. During the stellar era, which this stage the evolution of the Universe ends, galaxies, planets were formed, life on our Earth was born. Can we say that the "epic fireworks" is over, and we are standing on cooling coals among the dissipating smoke?

Scientists have come to the conclusion that the evolution of the universe continues. Whirlwinds of a gigantic accumulation of hydrogen flatten matter, transforming these accumulations into whirlpools. This is how spherical, elliptical and oblate galaxies are born (depending on the speed of rotation of the colossal - one hundred thousand light-years - circulation). Ours belongs to the last type of galaxies - Milky Way. Stars are formed inside galaxies under the pressure of hydrogen clumps. They also go through long stages of evolution: from white-hot supernovae to "red giants", "white dwarfs" and the same processes are happening with our Sun, while the Cosmos continues to expand.


Thanks to the survival instinct, humanity and our civilization have existed for thousands of years. Although over the past few decades scientific communities there is increasing concern about possible global catastrophes - events with a high risk factor that can not only harm the planet, but also destroy life on it.


The era of black holes is described in the book The Five Ages of the Universe by Professor Fred Adams as an age in which organized matter will remain only in the form of black holes. Gradually, thanks to the quantum processes of radiation activity, they will get rid of the matter absorbed by them. By the end of this era, only low-energy protons, electrons and neutrons will remain. In other words, you can say goodbye to our beautiful blue planet.


According to many religious movements that put forward various hypotheses, the end of the world is approaching (Judgment Day, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the coming of the Antichrist). Everyone agrees on one thing: the end of the world is inevitable. Scientists refute most hypotheses, but also agree that this can happen.



When one thinks about the reigns of such dictators as Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Kim Jong-un and other classic political dictatorships, it is easy to assume that such a scenario can also be considered the beginning of the end of civilization.


As a result of another doomsday scenario, man-made nanorobots will get out of control and destroy humanity.


Many scientists are concerned that extremely powerful gamma radiation from neighboring galaxies, as a result of a very strong explosion, could cause the death of our planet. This hypothesis helps explain the so-called Fermi paradox, which suggests that there are no other technologically advanced civilizations in the universe besides us, since gamma rays may have destroyed everything.


it controversial issue, but many believe that as a result of human activity, the resulting global warming will become the factor that can be considered as the cause of climate change and the death of life on our planet.


The sun periodically ejects hot radioactive gas clouds into space that threaten magnetic field Earth, as they are extremely powerful and reach the Earth in just a few hours. According to some scientists, as a result of the damage that man brings to his planet, uncontrolled coronal ejections from the Sun will one day destroy the planet.


The Big Bang theory is another dubious cosmological hypothesis, according to which the matter of the Universe, from stars, galaxies to atoms and other particles that appeared as a result of this explosion, will disappear in the same way in the future.


The big crunch is another scientific hypothesis for the end of our existence. As a result, the universe will shrink and explode. The big bang created it, and the big crunch will destroy it.


"Genetic pollution" is a dubious term used to explain the uncontrolled use of genetic engineering that interferes with the natural world. Interfering with genes is undesirable, since once you create new organisms, you can irrevocably harm existing ones. Spontaneous mutations may result in unwanted dominant species.


Another risk to the life of mankind can be considered global epidemics that can spread very quickly by airborne droplets and kill people just a few hours before humanity finds an effective cure.


What would the planet look like if humanity suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, like dinosaurs? Several reasons can lead to the sudden extinction of mankind. For example, all men will become gay and human reproduction will stop.


There are two scenarios for the development of the future of the Universe, and both lead to its death. Some scientists say the universe will explode, while others will freeze. One way or another, but both scenarios are absolutely non-optimistic.


More and more often sounds the threat of overpopulation of the planet. Many experts say that by 2050 this will be the biggest problem for us. The fact is that humanity will be so numerous that various life-supporting resources, such as water and oil, will not be enough. As a result, we get famine, drought, disease and endless wars between countries.


Excessive consumption already in 2015 is considered one of the risks. Since people consume much more than nature can regenerate. The manifestations of overconsumption are huge fish catches and overconsumption of meat. The same applies to vegetables and fruits.


Albert Einstein was one of the first to predict the end of the world as a result of World War III. He said that he did not know what kind of weapon humanity would use during the Third, but on the Fourth world war humanity will fight with stones and clubs.


The death of civilization is the most realistic scenario of those that predict the death of mankind. An example is the fate of the Mayan civilization or Byzantine Empire. All the same can happen to all mankind in the future.


Nuclear holocaust and apocalypse are among the most real risks that could lead to the death of mankind. This can happen because the world has accumulated a huge amount of nuclear weapons.


The new world order can be established by one of secret organizations that exist today (Illuminati, Freemasons, Zionists, etc.). Today they are under the control of society, but in the future they may become more powerful and, with their dogmas and actions, lead humanity to slavery and the service of evil.


The essence of the Malthusian catastrophe, according to Thomas Malth, author of An Essay on Population Law (1798), is that in the future population will overtake the growth and opportunities of the agricultural sector of the economy and stability. After that, there will be a decline and a decrease in the population, and disasters will begin.


This theory has been around since antiquity and most (if not all) have seen countless films in which, on a sunny day, some alien civilization will conquer the planet and try to destroy life on it. It won't happen in the near future, but it might happen someday.


Transhumanism is an international cultural and intellectual movement of the last few years, the purpose of which is to understand great role technologies in transformations and improvement of the quality of the material, physical and mental spheres of human life. Although it sounds great, but as a result of the information and technological revolution, humanity may suffer.


Experts use the term "technological singularity" to describe a hypothetical scenario in which rapid technological progress will play a cruel joke on humanity, which will create artificial intelligence and die, losing control over clones and robots.


Mutual Assured Destruction refers to the global use of weapons for the mass destruction of people and the planet. This is a real scenario, if we evaluate the current political and military situation in the world.


Those who watched the movie "Die Another Day" know that kinetic bombardment can destroy life on the planet. If you haven't seen the movie, then imagine developing a space weapon that could destroy everything on Earth in a couple of seconds. Scary? Scary. But scientists even calculated the probability up to thousandths of a percent.

Today we are talking about this, well, like her universe. It just so happened that one day she appeared from somewhere, and now we are all here. Someone is reading this article, someone is preparing for an exam, cursing everything in the world ... Airplanes fly, trains run, planets spin, something always happens somewhere. People have always been interested in knowing one complicated answer to a simple question. How did it all start and how did we get to where we are? In other words, how was the universe born?

So here they are - different versions and models of the origin of the universe.

Creationism: God created everything


Among all theories about the origin of the universe, this one appeared the very first. A very good and convenient version, which, perhaps, will always be relevant. By the way, many physicists, despite the fact that science and religion are often presented as opposite concepts, believed in God. For example, Albert Einstein said:

“Every serious natural scientist must be in some way a religious person. Otherwise, he is unable to imagine that the incredibly subtle interdependencies that he observes are not invented by him. In the infinite universe, the activity of the infinitely perfect Mind is revealed. The usual idea of ​​me as an atheist is a big misconception. If this idea is taken from my scientific works, I can say that my scientific work not understood"


The Big Bang Theory

Perhaps the most common and most recognized model of the origin of our universe. In any case, almost everyone has heard of it. What is the Big Bang telling us? Once, about 14 billion years ago, there was no space and time, and the entire mass of the universe was concentrated in a tiny point with incredible density - in a singularity. At one fine moment (if I may say so, there was no time), the singularity could not stand it because of the inhomogeneity that arose in it, the so-called Big Bang occurred. And since then, the universe has been constantly expanding and cooling.


Expanding Universe Model

It is now known for certain that galaxies and other space objects are moving away from each other, which means that the Universe is expanding. In the 20th century, there were many alternative theories about the origin of the universe. One of the most popular was the model of a stationary universe, advocated by Einstein himself. According to this model, the Universe is not expanding, but is in a stationary state due to some kind of force holding it.


Redshift - this is the decrease in radiation frequencies observed for distant sources, which is explained by the distance of sources (galaxies, quasars) from each other. This fact indicates that the universe is expanding.

CMB radiation - it's like the echoes of a big bang. Previously, the Universe was a hot plasma that gradually cooled down. Ever since those distant times, the so-called wandering photons have remained in the Universe, which form the background cosmic radiation. Previously, with more high temperatures Universe, this radiation was much more powerful. Now its spectrum corresponds to the radiation spectrum absolutely solid body with a temperature of only 2.7 Kelvin.

String theory

Modern study of the evolution of the Universe is impossible without its coordination with quantum theory. So, for example, within the framework of string theory (string theory is based on the hypothesis that all elementary particles and their fundamental interactions arise as a result of vibrations and interactions of ultramicroscopic quantum strings), a multiple universe model is assumed. Of course, there was also a Big Bang, but it did not just happen out of nothing, but, perhaps, as a result of a collision of our Universe with some other, yet another Universe.

Actually, in addition to the Big Bang that gave rise to our Universe, in the multiple Universe there are many other Big Bangs that give rise to many other Universes that develop according to their own, different from the laws of physics known to us.


Most likely, we will never know for sure how, where and why the Universe appeared. Nevertheless, you can think about this for a very long time and interestingly, and so that you have enough food for thought, we suggest watching a fascinating video on the topic of modern theories of the origin of the Universe.

The problems of the development of the Universe are too large. So massive that, in fact, they are not even problems. Let's leave it to the theoretical physicists to rack their brains over them and let's move from the depths of the Universe to the Earth, where we may have an unfinished course or a diploma waiting for us. If so, we offer our own solution to this issue. Order an excellent job from, breathe easy, and be in harmony with yourself and the Universe.

So, at the moment the Universe is expanding, its matter is flying apart, the most distant objects visible in the largest telescopes are moving away from us at speeds exceeding three-quarters of the speed of light. The process of expansion and dissipation of the original huge thermal energy led to the structuring of matter. Now the evolution of matter goes in the direction of increasing local complication of dissipative structures. At least in one point of the Universe - on our planet - life has appeared, which continues to become more complicated. Both organisms and biocenoses are becoming more complex, intelligent life is building ever more complex artificial systems. Perhaps there are other such "growth points" of complexity, we can assume the appearance of some kind of relationship between them. The question arises: to what extent can this process reach? What awaits us and our entire Universe in general somewhere in the infinitely distant future?

For the Universe, two options are possible, the choice between which depends on the average density of matter in it. If the density of matter is less than some critical value, the Universe will expand indefinitely. If more - the forces of gravity will be able to stop the expansion of celestial bodies and the expansion will be replaced by compression. The critical density can be estimated by knowing the gravitational constant G and the Hubble constant H:

r crit \u003d 3H 2 / 8pG ~ 10 -32 kg / m 3

What is the actual density of matter in the Universe, more precisely, whether it is more or less than the critical one, is unknown. If only visible, luminous matter is taken into account, the density turns out to be significantly (30 times) less than the critical one. However, many facts point to the existence of a much larger invisible, "hidden" mass. Now it is believed that the average density of the Universe is most likely still slightly less than the critical one, but there is no complete certainty in this. It is possible that it is exactly equal to the critical one, and this is not an accidental coincidence. So it makes sense to consider both options for development.

Consider first the first - the "open", infinitely expanding universe.

Continuous expansion is accompanied by energy dissipation. Local "reservoirs" of concentrated energy - stars - consume their nuclear fuel, dump and disperse part of their mass at the end of their life and turn into dead, slowly cooling remnants or (if there is sufficient mass) into "black holes". The next generation of stars can form from the discarded gas, but they become less and less until this process stops altogether. The complete extinction of all stars should be completed in about 10 14 (one hundred trillion) years. There will be dead cooled stars and black holes that form galaxies as well as planets, a small amount of very diffuse gas and dust, and radiation that is constantly losing energy.

On the next step there must be a loss of planetary systems by stars and a loss of stars by galaxies. Both will be the result of close approaches of the stars, when gravitational interaction leads to an exchange of momentum so that individual objects are ejected from the associated system. In this case, the planets will be torn off from their stars, most of the stars (about 90%) will be ejected, “evaporate” from galaxies, and the rest, having lost momentum, will gather into a massive black hole. This process is still going on, but very slowly. It should end in 10 18 years. By this time, there will be no galaxies, only evenly scattered extinct stars and black holes will remain.

Last steps evolutions are associated with quantum effects and consequences of still largely hypothetical ideas arising from theories of unification of fundamental interactions. The theory of "grand unification" - the unification of strong and electroweak interactions - predicts a finite proton lifetime equal to 10 30 -10 32 years. If so, then after a time interval of this order, the protons will decay and all the matter of the stars will turn into electrons, positrons and neutrinos.

There will still be massive black holes. But it turned out that they are not eternal. Black holes are able to "evaporate" due to quantum effects. In accordance with the uncertainty principle, near the "horizon" at the boundary of a black hole, pairs of particles may appear, one of which remains under the horizon, and the second is emitted, carrying away mass and energy from the black hole. This process for massive black holes is very slow (the slower, the larger the mass of the hole) and its completion requires a time of the order of 10 100 years. After that, apart from incredibly rarefied electrons, positrons, neutrinos and photons, there will be nothing left.

What happens if the average density exceeds the critical one? In this case, the expansion will be replaced by compression. How it will happen depends on how long before that the expansion will continue. If the density is only slightly higher than the critical density in the process of expansion (and in reality, if it is still higher, then only slightly), then by the time the compression begins, the Universe will consist only of dead stars, black holes, neutrinos and photons. When compressed, the energy of photons will increase (due to the "violet shift") and increase in more than it decreased during expansion. The photons will heat up and vaporize the dead stars. As the density increases, all scattered matter will be absorbed by black holes, and in the end, all black holes will merge into one giant one. In this case, not only all matter will merge and collapse, but space itself will collapse. Whether such a collapsing mass can go into a singularity with infinite density and how it could do this is unknown, modern science cannot describe it. True, it is possible that before the density becomes infinitely large, some mechanism unknown to us so far can lead to the so-called "bounce" of the Universe, and the process of its expansion will begin again.

The possibility of a "bounce" has been considered and described by theorists. Cyclicity is likely here, when expansion and contraction cycles alternate. Moreover, each next cycle is approximately twice as long as the previous one. Thus, the duration of the expansion stage can become so long that it also includes the proton decay stage. Then a new contraction will begin in a state where there are no hadrons, and the energy is determined by the photons formed during the decay of protons. In this case, the duration of the next cycle will no longer double, but will lengthen at least 1000 times. In the end, the next cycle will practically not differ from the infinite expansion. In general, the theoretical analysis of such a pulsating Universe leads to many very interesting consequences, but it should be remembered that the "bounce" itself remains a hypothesis.

Let us now see how the evolution of structures and, above all, life fits into all these scenarios of the evolution of the Universe. The dynamic dissipative nature of the structures requires for their existence a flow of dissipation of energy and matter and the corresponding concentration gradients. At the beginning of the expansion, the concentration of energy and matter is very high, and the gradients are small, which prevents the formation of complex structures. A decrease in concentrations and an increase in heterogeneities in the distribution of these concentrations leads to the emergence of more and more complex structures - this is what we see around us now. However, further dissipation of matter and energy should lead to a decrease in the gradients and intensity of energy flows, which will be insufficient to ensure the existence of complex structures such as life. It is obvious that in the development of the expanding Universe there must be some peak of structural complexity, after which it will decline. Has our Universe reached such a peak, or is the maximum yet to come? It is impossible to say exactly, but in any case, we are somewhere in the region of the maximum, which should be very gentle, stretched out over tens of billions of years.

It must be said that if our Universe is not “open” and the expansion is once replaced by contraction, nothing will change in the development of its structuring. At the expansion stage, in the same way, there will be a peak of maximum complexity of structures and then simplification. At the stage of compression, there will be no new complication of the structure - the cycle is asymmetric. For the appearance of structures, dissipation is necessary.

Let us now see how our own destiny connected with our little planet might look like. The increase in the number of people, the growth of the artificial habitat has already reached its limit. It is necessary to stabilize both the population and the level of consumption of various primary resources. Moreover, for many types of resources, it is not stabilization that is needed, but a sharp reduction in consumption. For example, the reserves of metal ores of zinc, tin, mercury and lead, with current consumption, will only last about 20 years. There are more others, but all the so-called non-renewable resources should be depleted.

Generally speaking, this is not very scary. The name "non-renewable" is conditional. Any substance somehow changed or diffused can be concentrated again, purified and involved in circulation, only as rich natural concentrates are depleted - ore - it will cost more and more energy. Energy costs are associated with its scattering, dissipation. It's still the same general law: the emergence and existence of stable structures requires an increase in the dissipation of energy, a decrease in its quality - the production of excess entropy. The Sun provides us with the necessary flow of energy. Consequently, the possibility of complicating the structure of the human environment is, in principle, limited by the magnitude of the energy flux from the Sun. And the very existence of this structure is possible only while the sun is shining.

The sun will shine for a long time, but not forever. It should go out, having previously swelled up and, without an explosion or with an explosion, dropping a significant part of the substance. Assuming that humanity does not disappear sooner and achieves enormous technological power, it can be assumed that it will be able to move ahead of time with its planet (or without it) to another suitable star, and so on. However, each extinction of a star leaves a dead remnant, which is excluded from further transformations. The amount of gas from which new stars can form is rapidly decreasing, and eventually the stars will all go out. A very developed humanity will be able to stay here for a very long time, economically burning hydrogen reserves in a thermonuclear furnace major planets, but in the end, both intelligent life and all the information accumulated in the created structures will disappear along with our Universe.

This conclusion leads to the current level of knowledge. What will happen "after"? "Later" will not be, because together with our the universe will die and our time and our space. But modern science says that our universe cannot be the only one. Fluctuations of something primary can give rise to an infinite number of other universes, possibly with a different dimension and in general with other properties, in which development can also lead to self-knowledge.

We came to the conclusion that everything real and concrete around us is finite in time and space, just as human life is finite. Infinity has moved into the realm of the fundamentally unattainable. Now we can admit the existence of many worlds, perhaps an infinite number, arising and growing from fluctuations in some primary entity, like bubbles in a foaming liquid. These worlds are independent and unable to exchange information. We are able to cognize our world, which has its own specific metrics and space-time structure. It obviously has a "beginning" and an "end". We put these words in quotation marks, because in the "beginning", at least, the very concept of time did not yet exist. From the moment time appeared as a characteristic of our world, it develops from birth to death as from an initial structureless state to a final also structureless state through a very long stage of “maturity”, characterized by the emergence of a very complex structure. Now there is a process of continuous complication of the structure of the Universe, which, apparently, will continue for many more billions of years.

Questions for chapters 5 and 6.

1. What we know about the problem occurrence life?

2. How is the evolution of organisms, species and the biosphere connected?

3. Cause and mechanism of evolution of life according to Darwin. Difficulties of Darwin's theory.

4. How is the Darwinian theory currently “corrected”?

5. Features of the biosphere as a system. What ensures its sustainability?

6. Relationship between the evolution of life and the general evolution of our Universe. Unity of common mechanisms.

7. Features of the evolution of man as a biological species and the evolution of the biosphere after the appearance of man.

8. What are the main adverse effects of human impact on the biosphere?

9. Why is it dangerous to create an artificial environment favorable for human life - intensive Agriculture, cultural parks, "wasteless" industry with closed cycles - what will the densely populated "developed" countries aspire to?

10. What are the possible options for overcoming the global environmental crisis?

11. Is there life on other planets of the solar system?

12. Is there life in other parts of the universe?

13. What is the future fate of our Universe?

14. What could be the future fate of mankind?

General conclusion

We drew a modern scientific picture of the world and showed in general view how it was built by man. The idea of ​​the world as a whole as an ordered system and understanding of one's place in it is necessary for a person for his existence. The man began to arrange the world as soon as he realized himself, creating a system of myths. Later, science became the basis of the system of the world.

The science - sphere of human activity, the function of which is the development and theoretical systematization of objective knowledge about reality. The need for such systematic knowledge, streamlining the environment is inherent in the very nature of man.

The two sides of science - obtaining facts that characterize the surrounding world and their systematization - are inextricably linked. Getting new objective scientific data in the absence of any initial theoretical concept is just as impossible as the construction of a purely speculative theory. At first glance, it appears that scientific activity should start with an "unbiased" accumulation of facts, but looking more closely, it is easy to see that this is practically impossible. The answer to the question: "Where should I start?" is as difficult as answering the question: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?".

Science answers the question: how the world is arranged? The work of science is to find connections between facts, in discovery patterns, which allow predict new facts. At the same time, science relies on certain fundamental concepts, which, to a certain extent, are outside the realm of science and play approximately the same role as the basic postulates in geometry. These are the concepts objective existence, unity and you just peace.

Knowledge of patterns allows you to explain and predict new facts through logical reasoning, however, the logical extrapolation of the regularity beyond the area in which it was established empirically, sooner or later leads to contradictions with existing facts. It is not always possible to logically link new facts with the old ones by means of a simple empirical generalization within the framework of the existing general view of the world. In this case, forward movement is possible only with the help of radical revision main provisions, the inclusion of new ideas that are born intuitively on the basis of subconscious processing of all previous experience.

The concrete product of science is a sequence of theoretical models natural processes and phenomena. Model always approximately reflects the phenomenon, since exhaustively complete knowledge about the object is not achievable in a finite period of time. However, despite this, it is possible to construct adequate, that is, correctly describing all aspects of the phenomenon, models that are important for us, which follows from fundamental concepts.

More specific concepts are involved in building a picture of the surrounding world, the main of which are the concepts stationarity and non-stationarity, element, continuous and corpuscular, space, time, interaction.

Space and time, according to modern ideas, form a single spacetime continuum, whose properties are inextricably linked to the properties matter. At the same time, to describe the structure and evolution of many structures of our world, it is usually sufficient to consider matter distributed in space independent of it and changing in independently current time.

It can now be considered proven that our worldunsteady, however, when describing a large number processes and phenomena, the concept of stationarity is successfully used, processes and phenomena are described within the framework of stationary model.

Concepts continuous and corpuscular began to look in a new way after the advent of quantum mechanics. The basic idea of ​​quantum mechanics is space-time discreteness all properties of matter. But at the same time, the uncertainty principle, the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum processes, smears this discreteness in accordance with continuous the distribution of the probability density of the manifestation of a particular property.

The main properties of macroworld objects can be derived from the properties of elementary particles and their interactions on the basis of the corpuscular concept, but they are successfully described and analyzed using the continuum concept using averaged characteristics.

Connections resulting from interactions, give rise to structures. The regular, ordered arrangement of elements and bodies in space we call spatial structure, the orderly process of changing spatial structure over time can be called temporary structure. In a single space-time, our world forms spatiotemporal structure.

Although all complex interactions are based on only four fundamental using only laws of these fundamental interactions, it is impossible to explain the formation of all observed structures. In large, many-particle systems, collective effects, leading to qualitatively new phenomena. By studying large systems with the help of their generalized characteristics deals with thermodynamics. The study of collective effects and the mechanism of formation macrostructures- subject synergy.

The basic concepts of thermodynamics are energy and entropy.Energy is defined as a fundamental property of matter that is preserved in all processes, quantitatively measured by the amount of mechanical work into which it can be converted under certain conditions. entropy can be defined as a measure quality energy contained in the system, or a measure of its real ability perform work without the involvement of external influences or measure system state probabilities(the degree of its disorder).

Through these concepts, two basic laws or start thermodynamics - law energy conservation and law entropy increase. The second of them states that only processes associated with an increase in its entropy can occur in an isolated system.

Our Universe as a whole is an isolated system, and therefore its entropy must increase, which is what we observe. An increase in entropy means an increase in disorder, a smoothing of all inhomogeneities, gradients, a decrease in the quality of energy, and the disappearance of structures. However, in reality, we see that the Universe is deeply structured, and evolution around us is moving towards increasing complexity. Such is the evolution of the geographic shell of the Earth and the biosphere.

The reason for this is that the expansion of the universe creates directed dissipation flow, which leads to a catastrophic growth of individual fluctuations and emergence dissipative structures. The emerging structures are associated with redundant entropy production, although locally its decrease is observed. Dissipative structures are dynamic systems, far from equilibrium, existing due to the continuous exchange of energy and matter with environment. At certain stages, they can turn into metastable or quasi-equilibrium systems.

With a concept structure closely related concept sustainability, which means the preservation of all the main qualitative characteristics of the system with any changes control parameters within some finite range. Without stability, the very concept of structure.

The evolution of structures occurs through buckling through spasmodic transition to a new stable state, to a new structure. Leaps in evolution mean discreteness in time is an inevitable consequence of the very presence of structures - discreteness in space. It can also be said vice versa that discreteness in space is a consequence of discreteness in time. spatio-temporal structuring is a common property of our world.

Evolution is now in the direction of increasing the complexity of structures, but more complex structures cover an ever smaller part of matter. The simplest macrostructures - the original gravitational inhomogeneities - covered all matter; the main-sequence stars united into galaxies include only some percentages of the entire mass of the Universe; the planets of the terrestrial group that arose together with the stars of the second generation make up only a small fraction of a percent of the mass of stars; and, finally, the most complex structure - life - is only a thin film on the surface, an insignificant fraction of a percent of the mass of some terrestrial planets. And maybe not "some", but just one, although this seems unlikely, contrary to the concept of the unity of the world. But there is no evidence to the contrary - a wider prevalence of life in the Universe - yet.

Last structural jump in complexity associated with the emergence reasonable life that has realized itself and begun to remake the rest of the biosphere, turning it into noosphere. This leap is not over yet. What the noosphere will be like and whether such a stable structure will arise at all is still unknown. the main problem facing man is not to die as a result of the loss of stability of the biosphere and its destruction due to his activities before a new stable structure arises.

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