Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on Usage
- 1 The Nineteenth Century's Last Five Years
- Part I The Import of Theoretical Tools
- Part II A National Plan Shaping the Universe We Perceive
- 7 A New Order and the New Universe It Produced
- 8 Where Did the Chemical Elements Arise?
- 9 Landscapes
- 10 The Evolution of Astrophysical Theory after 1960
- 11 Turmoils of Leadership
- 12 Cascades and Shocks that Shape Astrophysics
- 13 Astrophysical Discourse and Persuasion
- Part III The Cost of Discerning the True Universe
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Symbols, Glossary, Units and Their Ranges
- Index
- References
8 - Where Did the Chemical Elements Arise?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on Usage
- 1 The Nineteenth Century's Last Five Years
- Part I The Import of Theoretical Tools
- Part II A National Plan Shaping the Universe We Perceive
- 7 A New Order and the New Universe It Produced
- 8 Where Did the Chemical Elements Arise?
- 9 Landscapes
- 10 The Evolution of Astrophysical Theory after 1960
- 11 Turmoils of Leadership
- 12 Cascades and Shocks that Shape Astrophysics
- 13 Astrophysical Discourse and Persuasion
- Part III The Cost of Discerning the True Universe
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Symbols, Glossary, Units and Their Ranges
- Index
- References
Summary
Among the immediate beneficiaries of ‘Science – the Endless Frontier,’ the new postwar policy of closely meshing basic research with applied scientific efforts of national interest, were astrophysicists studying the origins of the chemical elements. Cosmology, in particular, underwent a profound resurgence; a field that had previously been restricted to exploring arcane mathematical models suddenly found itself anchored to real-world nuclear physics. Increasingly detailed studies of nuclear interactions also began to shed light on nuclear processes in evolved stars. A sense of renewed excitement swept through the field!
Chandrasekhar's Early Venture into Cosmology
In 1942, Chandrasekhar and his University of Chicago doctoral student, Louis R. Henrich, had postulated that the Universe at some epoch could have been extremely dense and at a temperature of a few billion degrees Kelvin. They calculated the expected thermodynamic equilibrium distribution of nuclear species at different temperatures, and sought a range in which the chemical abundances of heavy elements came close to those observed in Nature. The conditions for this to happen, they estimated, were a temperature of order 8 × 109 K and a density ρ = 107 g/cm3. Although their work constituted a valiant attempt, they concluded that their paper, “should be regarded as of a purely exploratory nature and that such ‘agreements’ as may have been obtained should not be overstressed.”
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- Chapter
- Information
- In Search of the True UniverseThe Tools, Shaping, and Cost of Cosmological Thought, pp. 157 - 177Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013