The Star-Galaxy Era in Terms of Big History and Universal Evolution

Abstract

The effort to understand the Universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." These words said by the Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg (1977: 155) undoubtedly deserve attention, although they dramatize the origins of interest to the problems of the Universe. In fact, we do not need any justification to explain the desire to understand the origins of all living beings. This aspiration to perceive the world in its entirety lies in the human psyche, it is an integral feature of the mind, at least of a certain kind of people who always want to reach out to ultimate causes (although they can never stop on this way). Moreover, in recent decades the investigation of the world in its entirety (but not of its separate aspects) has been intensified in particular within the Big History. Big History provides unique opportunities to consider the development of the Universe as a single process, to detect vectors of changes of certain important characteristics of the Universe (such as complexity and energy) at various phases of this development. Some authors analyze important general evolutionary mechanisms and patterns, which can be seen at all phases of Big History (e.g.

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“…Other aspects of the approaches need discussion. First, several scholars have argued that the tripartite principles underlying the 'Darwinian algorithm ' -of (Baker, 2017;Grinin et al, 2011;Grinin, 2019;Volk, 2020;Henriques & Volk, 2023). This argument is often based on work by others suggesting the algorithm operates among multiple potential universes (Smolin, 1997;Harrison, 1995;Vidal, 2014), in the realm of minerals (to define planetary accretion and composition), among genes or individuals (as parts of biological populations) , and between cultural variants .…”

“…Faria, 1991;Rudenko, 1969; Spiridonov, 2019;Haldane, 1949;Lyons et al,. 2014;Grinin, 2013Grinin, , 2017Grinin, , 2018Grinin, , 2020Grinin & Grinin, 2019. …”

On Trends and Periods in Big History

“…Other aspects of the approaches need discussion. First, several scholars have argued that the tripartite principles underlying the 'Darwinian algorithm' -of variation, selection and inheritance -operate in all Big History eras (Baker, 2017;Grinin et al, 2011;Grinin, 2019;Volk, 2020;Henriques & Volk, 2023). This argument is often based on work by others suggesting the algorithm operates among multiple potential universes (Smolin, 1997;Harrison, 1995;Vidal, 2014), in the realm of minerals (to define planetary accretion and composition), among genes or individuals (as parts of biological populations) (Darwin, 1859), and between cultural variants (Dawkins, 1976).…”

Size Relationships of Big History Objects: From the Universe to the Atomic Nucleus David J. LePoire

“…The largest mass at which this cooling mechanism works gives a galactic mass of about a trillion solar masses. Further discussion of this process and its relationships to other Big History eras can be found in a recent paper by Grinin and Grinin (2019).…”