Why Carbon Did Not Form In The Big Bang

Where did all the chemical elements in the periodic table come from? Physicists theorized that elements can be created inside dying stars and astronomers confirmed this by observation.

Essential elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and iron are created towards the end of a star’s life cycle. Much heavier and precious elements like Gold are formed in supernova explosions.

Shortly after the big bang, the explosion that birthed the universe, there was 92 percent hydrogen and eight percent helium atoms. Simple elements came into existence quick, obvious, but what about the rest of them?

Why did nature have to wait for early stars’ death in hundreds of millions of years time to produce carbon, oxygen, etc.?

Two reasons: One, by the time simple atoms formed, the universe had already cooled enough. Second, there was hardly any disposable helium.

We know, hydrogen has 1 nucleon, a proton, and helium has 2 protons and 2 neutrons, so 4 nucleons. The reactions to yield heavier elements would be:

H + He or He + He

Giving out nuclei with 5 and 8 nucleons respectively, both highly unstable.

For example: The resulting beryllium-8 has half life of only 8.19×10−17 seconds. Stable beryllium has 5 neutrons and 4 protons.

Thus, beryllium-8 would immediately decay into two stable helium nuclei, if ever it came into being.

Besides, hydrogen and helium are themselves incredibly stable. It turns out that nature preferred stability over creation of heavy elements.

Soon, gigantic lumps of hydrogen began forming due to sophisticated engineering by gravity. The lumps were spherical, because again… nature likes stability.

The first stars made light in extreme conditions upon converting hydrogen to helium, because of Einstein’s energy mass equivalence.

Towards the end, most hydrogen in the star is converted to helium. There is abundance of helium nuclei to combine with beryllium-8 in just the right time to become carbon-12.

Ultimately, it boils down to the amount of disposable helium, even if the pressure and temperature conditions are met. The collapsing star makes more elements like nitrogen, oxygen, iron and nickel as it dies.

In the big bang, helium was unavailable for extensive use. Whereas, in the star, formation of carbon is possible in the triple alpha process. And since life on earth is carbon based, we are children of the stars.

As Carl Sagan said in his series Cosmos, we are made of star-stuff.

See more here wondersofphysics

Header image: NASA ESA, Ryan Foley (UC Santa Cruz), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method

PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. 

Trackback from your site.

Comments (10)

  • Avatar

    Brian James

    |

    Sep 7, 2022 James Webb Telescope FINALLY Proves The Big Bang Theory Is Wrong!

    The James Webb Space Telescope was eagerly awaited before its launch last year! However, now that the most powerful and most expensive ever telescope is in operation, the JWST is threatening to turn astronomy upside down with a single finding! The latest pictures from the JWST have proven the Big Bang theory did not happen, sending the scientific community into a frenzy! What are these latest pictures from JWST?

    https://youtu.be/vAxgaTvYA7Y

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Allan Shelton

    |

    Of course Carbon did not form in the Big Bang, because the BBT is false.
    As Brian James above has said.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Herb Rose

    |

    All “science” based on Einstein’s theories are wrong, including fusion. The red and blue shift of light coming from distant stars shows Einstein hypothesizes are wrong and there is no creating a “neutrino” to make it right.Relativity is based on the premise that the movement of a source of light cannot effect the light emitted, therefore the shifts cannot be from a Doppler effect. This means the shift is a change that occurs in the transit of light but since time does not exist at the speed of light there cannot be change. You can try to change the definition of a photon, like they did with the neutrino, so that it has mass and doesn’t travel at the speed of light but this is just compounding stupidity to preserve beliefs.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    T. C. Clark

    |

    Einstein’s physics are now around a century old and still mostly standing. Experiments and observations have corroborated his work. Here is sun fusion https://www.youtube/watch?v=qGLec4MsOM Einstein sort of suddenly aged with white hair and I speculate that it was due to his wracking his brain trying to figure out an answer to everything.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      Jerry Krause

      |

      Hi T.C.,

      Cannot access any of your YouTube links.

      Have a good day, Jerry

      Reply

      • Avatar

        T. C. Clark

        |

        Just search sun fusion on Youtube…..there are many videos……same with Allan Savory.

        Reply

  • Avatar

    T. C. Clark

    |

    https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGLec4MsOM&t=2s

    Reply

  • Avatar

    James

    |

    The big bang theory is wrong.

    Reply

Leave a comment

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Share via