“This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar…”
From the Stanford Report, March 17, 2014 (h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard) video follows
New evidence from space supports Stanford physicist’s theory of how universe began
The detection of gravitational waves by the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole supports the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe came to be. The discovery, made in part by Assistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo, supports the theoretical work of Stanford’s Andrei Linde.
Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes. All this, of course, has just been theory.
Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration today announced the first direct evidence supporting this theory, known as “cosmic inflation.” Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the “first tremors of the Big Bang.” Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
“This is really exciting. We have made the first direct image of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time across the primordial sky, and verified a theory about the creation of the whole universe,” said Chao-Lin Kuo, an assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and a co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration.
These groundbreaking results came from observations by the BICEP2 telescope of the cosmic microwave background – a faint glow left over from the Big Bang. Tiny fluctuations in this afterglow provide clues to conditions in the early universe. For example, small differences in temperature across the sky show where parts of the universe were denser, eventually condensing into galaxies and galactic clusters.
Because the cosmic microwave background is a form of light, it exhibits all the properties of light, including polarization. On Earth, sunlight is scattered by the atmosphere and becomes polarized, which is why polarized sunglasses help reduce glare. In space, the cosmic microwave background was scattered by atoms and electrons and became polarized too.
“Our team hunted for a special type of polarization called ‘B-modes,’ which represents a twisting or ‘curl’ pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light,” said BICEP2 co-leader Jamie Bock, a professor of physics at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Gravitational waves squeeze space as they travel, and this squeezing produces a distinct pattern in the cosmic microwave background. Gravitational waves have a “handedness,” much like light waves, and can have left- and right-handed polarizations.
“The swirly B-mode pattern is a unique signature of gravitational waves because of their handedness,” Kuo said.
The team examined spatial scales on the sky spanning about 1 to 5 degrees (two to 10 times the width of the full moon). To do this, they set up an experiment at the South Pole to take advantage of its cold, dry, stable air, which allows for crisp detection of faint cosmic light.
“The South Pole is the closest you can get to space and still be on the ground,” said BICEP2 co-principal investigator John Kovac, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the deployment and science operation of the project. “It’s one of the driest and clearest locations on Earth, perfect for observing the faint microwaves from the Big Bang.”
The researchers were surprised to detect a B-mode polarization signal considerably stronger than many cosmologists expected. The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors. They also considered whether dust in our galaxy could produce the observed pattern, but the data suggest this is highly unlikely.
“This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar,” said co-leader Clem Pryke, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Minnesota.
Physicist Alan Guth formally proposed inflationary theory in 1980, when he was a postdoctoral scholar at SLAC, as a modification of conventional Big Bang theory. Instead of the universe beginning as a rapidly expanding fireball, Guth theorized that the universe inflated extremely rapidly from a tiny piece of space and became exponentially larger in a fraction of a second. This idea immediately attracted lots of attention because it could provide a unique solution to many difficult problems of the standard Big Bang theory.
However, as Guth, who is now a professor of physics at MIT, immediately realized, certain predictions in his scenario contradicted observational data. In the early 1980s, Russian physicist Andrei Linde modified the model into a concept called “new inflation” and again to “eternal chaotic inflation,” both of which generated predictions that closely matched actual observations of the sky.
Linde, now a professor of physics at Stanford, could not hide his excitement about the news. “These results are a smoking gun for inflation, because alternative theories do not predict such a signal,” he said. “This is something I have been hoping to see for 30 years.”
BICEP2’s measurements of inflationary gravitational waves are an impressive combination of theoretical reasoning and cutting-edge technology. Stanford’s contribution to the discovery extends beyond Kuo, who designed the polarization detectors. Kent Irwin, a professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC, also conducted pioneering work on superconducting sensors and readout systems used in the experiment. The research also involved several researchers, including Kuo, affiliated with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), which is supported by Stanford, SLAC and the Kavli Foundation.
BICEP2 is the second stage of a coordinated program, the BICEP and Keck Array experiments, which has a co-principal investigator structure. The four PIs are Jamie Bock (Caltech/JPL,) John Kovac (Harvard), Chao-Lin Kuo (Stanford/SLAC) and Clem Pryke (UMN). All have worked together on the present result, along with talented teams of students and scientists. Other major collaborating institutions for BICEP2 include the University of California, San Diego; University of British Columbia; National Institute of Standards and Technology; University of Toronto; Cardiff University; and Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique.
BICEP2 is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF also runs the South Pole Station where BICEP2 and the other telescopes used in this work are located. The Keck Foundation also contributed major funding for the construction of the team’s telescopes. NASA, JPL and the Moore Foundation generously supported the development of the ultra-sensitive detector arrays that made these measurements possible.
Technical details and journal papers can be found on the BICEP2 release website: http://bicepkeck.org
Video by Kurt HickmanAssistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo, right, delivers news of the discovery to Professor Andrei Linde.
Legatus says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:18 am
And the idea of guessing its, say, shape outside of our view from data seems unlikely, right? I mean, is there any way in the future that we can even detect anything “outside” our time limited view?
The flatness is a property of space itself so should apply everywhere. Actually, as time passes we see more and more. Unfortunately the Universe is now expanding faster than what we can see, so eventually everything will disappear from view.
I guess that TV show that had a spacecraft speeding toward the edge of the universe is now so last week
There is no ‘edge’
Legatus says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:25 am
Sooo, the universe went from no size (?) to infinite in a very short period of time.
No, it has always been infinite.
lsvalgaard says:
March 19, 2014 at 12:05 pm
If the Universe were designed for life, it would be a poor designer that lets her creation self destruct.
Leif, that is a silly argument. You are assuming you know enough about the system to know how to improve it. If you had such knowledge I would be comfortable calling you God. 😉
To anyone: I am still having trouble with the red shift. It is the result of the space it is traveling through expanding and not a result of the actual motion of the object emmitting the light(?). Does the photon get stretched in all directions and not just the direction of travel? Would this cause its amplitude to change? Are the photons 1000 times bigger? If gravity counteracts the expansion, does it have a shrinking effect or does not allow the expansion phenomena to take place at all?
Legatus says:
March 20, 2014 at 10:33 pm
You ought to read the whole of Genesis 2. It most certainly is another creation story, at odds with the one in Genesis 1. The order of creation in Gen 2 is plants, man, animals, woman.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul…
19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Leo Norekens says:
March 21, 2014 at 6:49 am
It is indeed embarrassing that so many creationists, & others who mix science & religion to the detriment of both, comment on this blog, which is why I reply to them. Warmunistas try to label CACA skeptics as anti-science through guilt by association with creationists & religious opponents of evolution. The ID advocates & other creationists here only provide ammo for climastrologists.
@lsvalgaard
There is no “edge”.
No, it has always been infinite.
Leif – are not these two statements in contradiction?
If the universe “has always been infinite”, this means that after the big bang the universe expanded into an already existing space.
Meaning that there is in fact an edge – the edge of the universe which at 10e-35 seconds was the size of a grape and which now is somewhat bigger – but not infinite.
Standard cosmology as I understood it is that space itself was expanding with the big bang. So there is in fact no edge since beyond the edge is no universe, no space, no physics.
Going from a flat cosmology to an infinite universe takes you into Fred Hoyle territory which is problematic for a lot of reasons.
milodonharlani says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:17 pm
Leo Norekens says:
March 21, 2014 at 6:49 am
It is indeed embarrassing that so many creationists, & others who mix science & religion to the detriment of both, comment on this blog, which is why I reply to them. Warmunistas try to label CACA skeptics as anti-science through guilt by association with creationists & religious opponents of evolution. The ID advocates & other creationists here only provide ammo for climastrologists.
I fully agree. My father is a church minister, I have faith and attend church with my family most Sundays. But at the same time I love cosmology and contemplation of deep space and deep time, and the profound scientific questions that stretch and challenge the human intellect, such as the big bang and inflation. 6-day literal creation diminishes God-given human intellect, and represents the same thing as the equally narrow-minded CAGW relative to real climate science, taking into consideration climate over deep time, evolution of multicellular life half a billion years ago in an atmosphere of 20,000 ppm CO2. Warminusts are narrow-minded fundamentalists of a more dangerous sort than Christian ones.
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:49 pm
@lsvalgaard
There is no “edge”.
No, it has always been infinite.
Leif – are not these two statements in contradiction?
If the universe “has always been infinite”, this means that after the big bang the universe expanded into an already existing space.
Meaning that there is in fact an edge – the edge of the universe which at 10e-35 seconds was the size of a grape and which now is somewhat bigger – but not infinite.
Standard cosmology as I understood it is that space itself was expanding with the big bang. So there is in fact no edge since beyond the edge is no universe, no space, no physics.
Going from a flat cosmology to an infinite universe takes you into Fred Hoyle territory which is problematic for a lot of reasons.
——————————————-
I don’t see the contradiction. Something that starts as finite or with an edge would have this problem (namely a paradox of going from finite to infinite). But, I don’t see the contradiction for a system that starts infinite, has no edge, and is expanding (or contracting).
I think I see the problem. “Before” the inflation, the universe had no edge because there was nothing to have an edge with. That is, there was nothing outside it, no empty space, because what we know as empty space isn’t really empty. Our empty space has occasional atoms in it, light moving through it, time operates, and other natural laws operate. Plus, subatomic particles can pop into existence (and then back out of existence) and do all the time. Anything “outside” the universe “before” the big bang therefor does not count as anything. It has no definition we can describe, nothing exists there because nothing can, there being no natural laws to exist with.
There is a sort of “edge” to it, however, time. “Before” the big bang, we can detect nothing, and from our point of view, there may be nothing to detect. That would be because the natural laws we know did not operate there, so we have no way to describe anything “then”. I have to put quotation marks around “then” because we have sent up satellites to go around the earth with very accurate clocks on them, and their time differed with the time of clocks on earth, thus showing that time is a property of matter, gravity, etc, IE this material universe. Before 13.8 billion years ago, there was no material universe as we know it, and thus no time as we know it. Time started 13.8 billion years ago.
Thus, to describe “outside” or “before” we are trying to describe something which we have no way to describe (or detect), because we only know (and can see) this universe and its time, natural laws, etc. Whatever may be the cause of this universe, we would have no frame of reference to describe it.
This universe, I think we are stuck with it. I guess infinite will just have to do.
That is just it, there is no order of creation here. The first chapter is describing the order, which is why it has “days”. The second chapter starts with saying that all that is finished, and furthermore, does not state any days. Then it describes the planting of the garden, specifically stated as planting, not creating, in an empty place, creating man, putting him in it, and then this. 19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field. Note what is missing there, WHEN he formed them, or how. He did create them, in chapter one, in a certain order, so it is stating a correct thing, he created them, and since it does NOT state WHEN in the second chapter, it is not a contradiction to say he created them and then brought them to the man, because he did, it just took…a while. Specifically, as stated in chapter 1, it started with plants, then through other stuff finally to the animals, which, therefore, coming from the original plants as they did through the long process of evolution, they originally came from the ground, or the material stuff of this earth.
One problem is the language problem. Hebrew is an inclusive language, our language is an exclusive one, time wise. That is, when they say “day”, they mean day or any fraction of it. We, however, have clocks and stuff, when we say day we mean all of it, otherwise we divide it into parts and name those instead. Thus, the second chapter, not stating “days” and thus not stating an order, is using inclusive language when it states that God created the animals and brought them to Adam. He did, the inclusive part is, that includes the entire creation of them back to the first cynobacteria.
If it had used days in the second chapter, it would have contradicted the first, it does not. Before you say something is a contradiction, you have to know what a contradiction is, and is not.
lsvalgaard says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:00 am
Legatus says:
March 21, 2014 at 6:17 am
Are there any measurements that could be used to tell basic things, such as whether or not it is finite, and if finite, what size it might be?
“All the data we have says that the Universe is ‘flat’. This implies that it is infinite.”
In an open universe, everything will happen. In a closed universe, everything will happen again and again. Or do I have it backwards? And a flat universe is neither open nor closed?
Joseph Murphy on March 21, 2014 at 2:57 pm
starts infinite
Another contradiction I fear. As Legatus points out, Einstein’s insight was that space and time are inseparable, two sides of the same coin.
“Start” implies non infinite in time, thus space also couldn’t be infinite either.
After reading “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene I have become a believer in string theory and its 11 dimensional topological solution it offers to the problem of singularities and boundaries. Then the big bang is no longer such a big deal, just a moment in which 3 of the 11 dimensions leak out and become spatially extended – become space in fact.
If the universe is both infinite in time (always was) as well as space then there is no before. Or, one could simply argue since there was no time before space/time came into being, there was no “before”.
Flat universe
In a flat universe, all of the local curvature and local geometry is flat. It is generally assumed that it is described by a Euclidean space, although there are some spatial geometries that are flat and bounded in one or more directions (like the surface of a cylinder, for example).
In the absence of dark energy, a flat universe expands forever but at a continually decelerating rate, with expansion asymptotically approaching zero. With dark energy, the expansion rate of the universe initially slows down, due to the effect of gravity, but eventually increases. The ultimate fate of the universe is the same as that of an open universe.
A flat universe can have zero total energy.
There is a growing consensus among cosmologists that the universe is flat and will continue to expand forever.The ultimate fate of the universe is dependent on the shape of the universe and what role dark energy will play as the universe ages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe#Flat_universe
In a flat universe, if you start off in a straight line, you will go in that straight line forever (try not to run into anything), there is no edge, and no coming around to the other side when you meet an edge.
Note the problem with wikipedia, some information is literally so last week, much of it has now been either flat out falsified, or at least called into serious question.
Legatus on March 21, 2014 at 5:39 pm
milodonharlani says:March 21, 2014 at 1:08 pm
Legatus says:March 20, 2014 at 10:33 pm
You ought to read the whole of Genesis 2. It most certainly is another creation story, at odds with the one in Genesis 1. The order of creation in Gen 2 is plants, man, animals, woman.That is just it, there is no order of creation here. The first chapter is describing the order, which is why it has “days”. The second chapter starts with saying that all that is finished, and furthermore, does not state any days.
As Weand pointed out, the Hebrew grammatical sense of the six creation days in Genesis is open ended and continuous. The problem of boundaries is similar in Genesis 1 as it is in cosmology.
Uh, with this inflation announcement, I am not sure how much string theory has not been falsified. From what I understand, much has, while other parts have gained credibility. That is why I would like to know what is now been falsified, some books etc are so last week.
Some problems with that (if I understand you):
First one Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. That sounds exactly like what it says, completed, not continuous. However, one must realise, this is talking to people, and the part that is completed is the main part of setting up a place where people can live. While some things may change, major changes, such as those listed in chapter one, are not happening. We won’t suddenly find ourselves on a world with just an ocean and no dry land, or wrapped in thick darkness under massive clouds, or suddenly have a world with only plants and nothing else, or any of that, all that massive change is over. There may, however, be much smaller, gradual changes.Also, the “evening” word (chapter 1) means a gradual cessetion of activity, as in, not all at once.
Joseph Murphy says:
March 21, 2014 at 12:48 pm
“If the Universe were designed for life, it would be a poor designer that lets her creation self destruct.”
Leif, that is a silly argument. You are assuming you know enough about the system to know how to improve it. If you had such knowledge I would be comfortable calling you God. 😉
To see something that is broken it is not necessary first to know how to fix it. To see why, drop an egg on the floor. I do not buy the even sillier argument that ‘god works in mysterious ways’. If I am the best she can do, I’ll label her poor designer.
To anyone: I am still having trouble with the red shift. It is the result of the space it is traveling through expanding and not a result of the actual motion of the object emitting the light(?)
Essentially yes for the cosmological red-shift at large distances.
Does the photon get stretched in all directions and not just the direction of travel?
A photon that enters your eye [or instrument] has been traveling in a straight line [apart from some minor gravitational bending and lensing] and its wavelength is stretched. Other photons are traveling in other directions and are stretched in that direction [it is more complicated than that as photons going from A to B take all possible routes simultaneously, but for this discussion that is not relevant].
Would this cause its amplitude to change? Are the photons 1000 times bigger?
The wavelength changes; that changes the energy of the photon as it becomes redder, but because it is spreading over a larger volume, the total energy does not change.
If gravity counteracts the expansion, does it have a shrinking effect or does not allow the expansion phenomena to take place at all?
The gravity that holds you to the surface of the Earth prevents you from expanding. On the large scale, gravity did slow down the expansion a bit, but ‘dark energy’ is now counteracting the slowing effect of gravity.
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2014 at 1:49 pm
“1: There is no “edge”.
2: No, it has always been infinite.”
Leif – are not these two statements in contradiction?
No, see below.
If the universe “has always been infinite”, this means that after the big bang the universe expanded into an already existing space.
No, it means at every part of the infinite universe expanded. The best way to think about this is simply that the distance between any two points A and B is expanding regardless of where A and B are [provided they are far enough apart].
the universe which at 10e-35 seconds was the size of a grape and which now is somewhat bigger – but not infinite.
No, this is a persistent myth. People who say so mean [but rarely say] that the ‘observable universe’ [which is finite, of course] was of this or that size.
Standard cosmology as I understood it is that space itself was expanding with the big bang. So there is in fact no edge since beyond the edge is no universe, no space, no physics.
See above.
Going from a flat cosmology to an infinite universe takes you into Fred Hoyle territory which is problematic for a lot of reasons.
No, nothing to do with Hoyle. If the Universe is flat it is infinite.
Legatus says:
March 21, 2014 at 4:58 pm
the universe had no edge because there was nothing to have an edge with.
At all times there was [and is] no edge.
There is a sort of “edge” to it, however, time.
Indeed, such an “edge” is there.
In an open universe, everything will happen. In a closed universe, everything will happen again and again. Or do I have it backwards? And a flat universe is neither open nor closed?
A closed universe has a finite volume [but still no edge – this of the surface of a sphere; it is finite but you never run into where the surface ends when traveling along the surface]. A flat or open universe has infinite volume and you could argue that everything will happen again [infinitely many times], but such speculation is not very fruitful.
Why is the Universe flat and not spherical?
My question involves the Universe is flat theory. If there was a big bang why would the Universe be flat? I would think that the Big Bang would result in a sphere shape mass of energy, light, matter, heat, radiation, etc. and whatever else expanding outward while maintaining the shape of the sphere.
The meaning of the Big Bang has been very often misunderstood. It is thought that something exploded somewhere and then the exploded part expanded to where we are currently. This is not correct. Before the Big Bang, there was no space or time. So, there is nothing “outside” the Big Bang. The Universe simply expanded from a very small volume into a huge volume, and this expansion is occuring even today. So, the place where we are right now corresponds to some place in a very small volume in the very early Universe. Hence, the Big Bang occured EVERYWHERE in the Universe. It occured at all places including the place where we are right now.
Why does the Universe look flat? This was one of the perplexing questions in cosmology for a long time. Today, most astronomers believe in the theory of inflation (and there are pieces of evidence supporting this). According to this theory, the Universe underwent exponential expansion about 10-30 seconds after the Big Bang. The result was that something of the size of an atom expanded to the size of the solar system by the end of the inflationary epoch.
If this were the case, irrespective of the original geometry of the Universe, it would appear flat to us. The analogy will be to take a balloon; we can easily see it to be rounded; now blow the balloon to a very large volume and then put a small ant on its surface. The ant will think that it is on a sheet; it cannot detect the curvature. To put this in another way, the distances that we probe are way too small to detect any possible curvature in the Universe.
If as you say “the distances that we probe are way too small to detect any possible curvature in the Universe” … how can we accept recent “proofs” of a flat universe? Are all attempts to prove the flatness or otherwise of the universe limited to data collected from the observable universe? If so, and we suppose our view to be equivalent that of a short sighted ant on earth, surely it must be an impossibility to find such a proof, unless of course information can travel faster than light.
First, you have to distinguish between “universe” and “observable universe”. Technically, “universe” constitutes everything that exists, while “observable universe” constitutes everything that exists within our horizon (that is, the volume of the universe within which light has had time to reach us). Every observation we can ever make is confined to the observable universe, and we have no way of knowing for sure what’s happening beyond the horizon. But many people use “universe” as shorthand for “observable universe”, which can create some confusion. So when we say “WMAP provides strong evidence that the universe is flat”, we really mean “WMAP provides strong evidence that the observable universe is flat”.
However, according to inflationary theory, even if the universe has some curvature, the observable universe should be flat at the level at which we’re capable of measuring it. But we don’t *know* that inflationary theory is correct. So yes, it is important to do experiments like the one performed by WMAP. If we were to detect deviations from flatness in the observable universe, then it would provide evidence against inflation.
Found on the web, flat universe.
Note, the current evidence as of days ago is that the inflationary model is confirmed, and the universe is believed to be infinite in size. This is because inflation shown to be true tells us about it’s size, even though we can observe only some of it.
lsvalgaard says:
To anyone: I am still having trouble with the red shift. It is the result of the space it is traveling through expanding and not a result of the actual motion of the object emitting the light(?)
“Essentially yes for the cosmological red-shift at large distances.”
Better conceptualized of as a wave, rather than a photon (particle), and the wave length being stretched, from our point of view, essentially looking back in time, by the expansion of space.
You may not be finished yet…
I mean, what if you are designed to live forever (not nessissarily here)? Then, things look different. One could get a lot better in that period of time. Unless, of course, one decided to be finished, to not let God continue, at which case, this is as good as you are going to get.
Children don’t start out grown up.
lsvalgaard says:
So, if the universe is flat, not curved inward (closed), nor curved outward (open), again, I know not very fruitfull, but would all possibilities occur or just those that do occur, do so over and over again? It is at least interesting to think about.
Legatus says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:17 pm
I mean, what if you are designed to live forever
Will not do, as I am already rotten to the core, and so will only get worse.
Jim G says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:23 pm
So, if the universe is flat, not curved inward (closed), nor curved outward (open), again, I know not very fruitful, but would all possibilities occur or just those that do occur, do so over and over again?
I think the former, but somewhere in the infinite universe there is another me thinking the latter.
@lsvalgaard
How can the infinite expand?
Legatus on March 21, 2014 at 6:31 pm
phlogiston says:March 21, 2014 at 6:00 pm
After reading “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene I have become a believer in string theory
Uh, with this inflation announcement, I am not sure how much string theory has not been falsified. From what I understand, much has, while other parts have gained credibility. That is why I would like to know what is now been falsified, some books etc are so last week.
Andrei Linde who created the chaotic inflation hypothesis within the framework of string theory, has been vindicated not falsified by the gravity spin wave evidence for inflation.
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2014 at 9:14 pm
How can the infinite expand?
Easy: the distance between ANY two points increases. If you frame the statement like this, then you don’t get confused by or feel uneasy about concepts like ‘infinity’, ‘edges’, ‘nothing’, …