Can collapsing of the first star cause a staggering chain reaction throughout the universe?

Question

Forgive me but I am not an academic but I have an enormous curiosity and am more or less teaching myself. I stumbled upon this site totally by accident and have relished the information here - especially the things I can almost comprehend.

If I understand correctly, shortly after the moment of the Big Bang, matter is scattered smoothly through the expanding universe.

I recall a simple science experience regarding a "Super Solution" where we made tea with boiling water dissolving as much sugar as possible into the brew. After allowing to cool very slowly, we touched the surface with a toothpick and crystal sugar fell out of solution.

So here is my question: Would this moment in universal time be essentially a "Super Solution". It just seems to me that whenever that "toothpick" caused the first star to collapse, the concussion would cause a staggering chain reaction throughout the universe? I could see that many of these first stars could even sublimate from collapsing gas to enormous black holes and fairly complete primordial galaxies.

Answer 1

Different effects. The answer is no, and it was a more complicated process. The sugar is dissolved in water which is caused by molecular electric forces causing sugar to ionize. When you touch it with a toothpick I guess it disturbs something there and bring it out of solution. Also electric forces can make sugar molecules stick together.

For the universe it was mainly a function of various factors:

1) the most important is the gravitational attraction that as bodies grow becomes bigger, causing more accretion. In cosmology there were small deviations from a totally uniform density from quantum perturbations, Planck sized. After inflation those grew to macroscopic sizes. As time went out the higher density regions attracted other matter and became denser. That happened in all regions in the early universe.

2) the expansion of the universe went against it, as did all the random motion everything had traveling very fast, it tends to pull things apart (more so in the early times), but after it was slow enough, and yes, it cools (particles go slower), there's less radiation around to break up up, and gravitational effects then make those bodies grow more. So, yes, cooling is needed. When too hot everything breaks apart.

3) still the early stars formed about 100 million years after the Big Bang. It was still pretty hot.

4) finally as matter started aggregating the pressure counteracting had an affect but eventually stars stailized when the pressure equaled the gravitational force. At the core of the Stars the pressure, density and temperature were very high and hydrogen started the fusion process, emitting light and energy, and producing more of the other elements. Those early stars were probably very massive becuase it needed a lot of mass for the gravitational force to offset the random motions due to high temperatures. Those were the first stars. Later star formation formed woes massive stars.

See the history told better at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-first-stars-in-the-un/