“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.
No, within the framework of part of string theory. Large parts of it have been falsified, other parts have gained credibility, which does not mean they have been proven true, only that they are now considered better candidates for the truth. The problem then remains now, in which catagory does your book reside?
Precisely the first posulate of Christianity, which says that that is true of everybody.
The second one is, that core can be replaced.
Strangely, this still leaves you as you, but a changing you, now getting better instead of worse.
It used to be said of this universe that anything who’es probabilities were less than one over ten to the fiftieth power was impossible, that being the number of electrons in the universe. As of this week, there appear to be an unlimited number of electrons in this universe. Does that mean anything is possible? Well…no.
First, anything can only be possible as constrained by the nautural laws of this universe, so a lot of things simply aren’t possible. Second, some things, while physically possible, may be statistically impossible anyway. Example, the old million monkeys thing, now replaced by infinite monkeys. No matter how many monkeys there are, can there ever be a time when one of them starts typing Shakespear, starting with his first works, and going in order through all his works, all with the correct original spellling and punctuation? Some things, while physically possible, appear to be simply statistically possible, no matter how many monkeys you have or how long you take (there appears the problem of time limitation anyway).
Another possible example, that “other Leif”, who thought something different. Well, it is now believed that the human brains possible different connections between neurons are almost infinite, with more possibilities then anything else in the known universe. Thus, for “other Lief” to think one different thought, one must realise that to do that would involve a change of causality going back to the first divergent thought that was the start of a long change of divergence leading up to that thought. Also, something would have stimulated it, even if there is another earth with another Leif, it is simply impossible for that other earth to be exactly identical to this one (including its view of the stars for instance), and to be populated with exactly identical copies of all human beings on earth, who, for all their lives, think exactly the same things over there as thier copies do here, and thus provide the exact same intellectual and emotional stimulations over time as have happened to “localised Leif”.
Some things are simply impossible, even in an infinite universe, especially a time constrained one.
Whoes going to clean up after all those monekeys?
I will still postulate the possibility of a universe that is infinite in time as in, always was, no beginning to space/time, as well as infinite in size and that the Big Bang was a local event, cause as yet unknown. This does not preclude a Supreme Being Who is infinite as well. It also limits what we can interpret from the signatures left in the microwave background as a result of this local event. The zero sum energy for that infinitely small local section of the infinite universe may still hold true and the fluctuations re QED occured here, within that infinite universe, if they occured at all.
Legatus says:
“First, anything can only be possible as constrained by the nautural laws of this universe, so a lot of things simply aren’t possible.”
We can only know what we can observe and test for in our infinitely small corner of an infinite universe. Rules may be different elsewhere while being relatively homogeneous overall, like the small discrepancies in energy distrubution we see in the microwave background that gave rise to that part of the Universe that we can detect.
The problem is the we cannot wrap our minds around infinity, or God, and our vanity influences us to believe that we always have the answers. The good part is that our inquisitveness and perserverence does not allow us to stop asking questions and looking for answers.
So Isvalgaard (et al?) has it that we (in our Galactic Group sense) exist in an ever expanding Infinite Universe in which our view of Worlds beyond is limited by the ever increasing speed of their recession from not only us but from each other too.
Such a view however requires our conception of the continued growing of a space already Infinite
in size and having no `Outer Limits`.
(S)He also has it that in the Space beyond the furthest visible to us Galxay lie more Galaxies, ad infinitum yet still perceives of a `Beginning of Time` which occurred 14 billion years ago and which must have required either an ejection of the outermost at infinite speed or a `Steady State` style of eruption that has been in existence, ad infinitum, for them to be at infinity now.
So, no, I don`t see it that way and can sleep more comfortably on the concept of `Our Universe`, co-existing most likely, with others at different stages of evolution, in an endless inert and timeless void in which there is no `Ether of Universal Space` to convey radiation let alone visible light but in which the spent remains of previous Universes eventually coalesce and re-ignite as did ours some 14 Billion years ago in which the outermost material etc. would have been expelled more violently to greater velocity than those inside and which thus destines them to that ever greater separation we can just as well call Expansion with the Red Shifts being caused by both differential speeds of expulsion and likely stretching of the Ether (and Time) out of the same cause.
That is Leif Svalgaard (approximate spelling), solar scientist.
Anyway, here is the reasons for that belief:
A survey or mapping a while back showed that a large part of the universe which was mapped showed the universe was “flat”.
This discovery of inflation shows that what we see is true everywhere, same natural laws, same flatness.
Flatness means that if you travel in a direction, your path will not curve, you will continue forever in a straight line.
Forever means infinite.
We have no observation that shows non flatness. None zip zero nada.
Second, we have evidence of 13.8 billion years of stuff happening.
We have no evidence before that. None zip zero nada.
Saying the universe is finite or that there is a before is going outside the data. Saying that is saying “I reject your reality and substitute my own”. You can do that if you are God and things become true just because you want them to be. You can prove me wrong by showing me that you are God. Good luck with that.
The universe doesn’t care what you believe or what will help you sleep at night, it refuses to change (stubborn!). Example, people used to believe that the sun went around the earth, the sun did not care and stubbornly refused to move. We discover what is, our belief or wishes do not make it so. Your belief is irrelevant.
The above is only subject to change IF new, contrary evidence is found. It has not been yet, we are stuck with the only evidence we have. “We are stuck with this preposterous universe”, actual quote at the discovery of the big bang.
There are suggestions of a possibility of “eternal inflation” or other universes, but nothing yet definite at all, just the possibility that we might have some future way of seeing a footprint of another universe(s) “before” this one (or a possible footprint that may not be definite). That cannot yet be determined, so you can believe anything you want about that, so long as you realize that that belief is also irrelevant. “What is, is, and what ain’t, ain’t”.
lsvalgaard says:
March 21, 2014 at 7:40 pm
Brilliant, I must say.
Welcome an actually possibly overly optimistic Dane, not the usual melancholy variety.
Thank you for your clarification of i.d. and response Dr. Svalgaard.
However, according to The Science of the time, `Flat` was our World until it was proven round(ish) by adventure and so effectively finite for those who believed it must stretch into infinity previously.
So you are at least consistent might I say and I do have respect for that.
Nevertheless your exposition requires the impossible expansion of an already infinite (Universal) Space and the increasingly infinite speed of matter which occupies it as you appear to build from the so far inexplicable Red Shift in light received from distant Galaxies and for which I believe different reason will be found or at least theorized.
Such reason will I believe constrain our Universal theories to the more likely Physics we experience here in our `Local Group` and which we should expect to be in force wheresoever we might find to have come into coalition in like manner until such expectation is proven wrong.
Additionally would it not require an explosion of infinite force to project time/space/matter into infinity itself?
And, with having slept well on putting into words I had been rolling around for many years despite the emergence of those more esoteric theories now put into greater question upon the arrival of `The Crowbar` I now realize I have observed support for the earlier view I held of those ejected too waves of gravity eventually overcoming the inertia of the BB and taking us back to square one and so comply with the Conservation of Energy and thus Matter we still have carved in stone.
So that only leaves The Chicken!
david(swuk) says:
March 24, 2014 at 3:57 am
would it not require an explosion of infinite force to project time/space/matter into infinity itself?
Your main problem is the [false] assumption [and I admit that that is fueled by the popular literature on this] that the Universe began as a very [finite] small ball and is now expanding into infinity. This is not the case. The Universe is and has ‘always’ been infinite and so has infinite positive energy to power the expansion which began and still goes on everywhere. It is very likely that the [negative] gravitational potential energy just balances the positive energy [in matter] and that the total energy content of the Universe is exactly zero.
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2014 at 6:00 pm
————————————
Semantics. Replace “starts infinite” with “never was finite”.
lsvalgaard says:
March 21, 2014 at 6:58 pm
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.
———————-
If we are talking about broken eggs your argument is acceptable (in a Wittgenstein/conveying meaning sort of way). When talking about God the illogical nature of the argument is a bit more glaring (It is not logical in either case, it conveys meaning in the first). Your last statement just sounds hubristic but help me understand. Is your argument thus “I am not perfect, therefore God does not exist.”? Really?
Thank you for the responses! I have one more thought that poped into my feeble head. Forgive any bad terminology. The redshifted photon actually became redshifted when it was a probability field. That field collapses into a photon on obersvation. If the field is very large (like the ones we are talking about) does it collapse faster than the speed of light? Or does the distant part of the field not realize immediatly that it has been detected? Perhaps never will with all this expanding 😉 and then one photon can become 2, but niether can know it.
Legatus says:
“We have no observation that shows non flatness. None zip zero nada.
Second, we have evidence of 13.8 billion years of stuff happening.
We have no evidence before that. None zip zero nada.
Saying the universe is finite or that there is a before is going outside the data.”
Given an infinite universe of which we can only see an infinitely small portion, saying there is no possibility of anything else or different conditions is like an ostrich saying the universe must consist of only the hole into which he has stuck his head.
lsvalgaard says……
It is very likely that the [negative] gravitational potential energy just balances the positive energy [in matter] and that the total energy content of the Universe is exactly zero.
……………………………..
and so is not your ever-expanding infinite Universe into which we have been thrust what I alternatively see as that inevitable and endless Void of absolute nothingness beyond our (and likely others(still expanding we might hopeUniverse of Matter, Space, Time and a force of Gravity which logically would need to be the equal of the force which created it.
Unless that is there is another agent at work injecting more space but zip, nada, `it all material into the brew.
Bubbles?
Or just a load of froth!
for….”might hopeUniverse of Matter, Space,……………………………………….”
please read – might hope large but eminently finite Universe………………..
ta…..
Joseph Murphy says:
March 24, 2014 at 5:22 am
If we are talking about broken eggs your argument is acceptable (in a Wittgenstein/conveying meaning sort of way). When talking about God the illogical nature of the argument
I don’t your god has anything to do with this or that ‘logic’ applies to her.
Or does the distant part of the field not realize immediatly that it has been detected? Perhaps never will with all this expanding 😉 and then one photon can become 2, but niether can know it.
When you move at the speed of light, time does not exist and there is no ‘collapsing’ [as that implies time – before the collapse, after the collapse].
Jim G says:
March 24, 2014 at 8:11 am
Given an infinite universe of which we can only see an infinitely small portion, saying there is no possibility of anything else or different conditions is like an ostrich saying the universe must consist of only the hole into which he has stuck his head.
General Relativity requires that a ‘flat’ [or more precise: a ‘non-closed’] universe is infinite. We have no data that indicates a problem with General Relativity.
david(swuk) says:
March 24, 2014 at 9:08 am
and so is not your ever-expanding infinite Universe into …
There is no ‘into’ as all of the infinite Universe expands. This simply means that the distance between any two points increases with time. In this way of thinking all the problems and paradoxes vanish.
lsvalgaard says:
” We have no data that indicates a problem with General Relativity.”
We have no data from outside of our infinitely small observable portion of the universe, is the point you must have missed. One might also consider that we have no such data from inside our little corner of the universe…… with present technology. Both caveats should caution one to keep their mind open to other possibilities.
Jim G says:
March 24, 2014 at 2:46 pm
Both caveats should caution one to keep their mind open to other possibilities.
General Relativity is built on the [equivalence] principle that the laws of physics should take the same mathematical form in all reference frames. The rest is derived from this principle. GR is not constructed from ‘data’, but has been found to agree with whatever data we have. The only other alternative is that the laws of physics does not take the same form for all observers, and that alternative does not seem viable to me. Of course, if you deny the equivalence principle, then anything goes, although whatever you come up with must still do as well in agreeing with the data as GR. This is not a question about ‘open mind’, but about hard mathematics.
===================================================================
Figures of Interruption. (http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/Groupings/of%20Interruption.htm)
Why did Adam need a “help meet”? Why did Adam name her and not God?
The added information is by way of explanation, not a sequence of events.
(Here’s something that may add a bit more to the Genesis side topic. http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/attention-surplus-disorder-part-two/)
lsvalgaard says…..
In this way of thinking all the problems and paradoxes vanish.
…sorry, yours may but mine won`t:-
surely there can only be one infinite space and not the two and/or expansion of the already infinite to which you are wed.
from where comes that supra-infinite space into which your infinite Universe is ever expanding if it is not that your Universe is and always must remain finite as it expands out of initial inertia into that endless “Nothingness” I have described which must ever exist even if our “Somethingness” and indeed that of “Others” never had or could?
just because our Universe is already so large that we cannot see the wood for trees never mind its shape cannot mean that it therefore has no end or other dimension and so we must consider better the nature and effect of other forces liberated in our Cosmic hatching that will I think eventually reverse our growth.
however, your notion of increasing the distance between two points by creating more space and not moving them further apart would be an out and out winner in the Real Estate biz if it ever proved kosher………………….but as I write I transpose in minds eye your unending creation of interstitial space to a pond of (very deep) water on which are anchored many randomly spaced boats and the only way I can visualize increasing their distances of effective separation to a tender say is to create ripples of ever increasing amplitude between them. Add Infinitum.
or counter-flowing currents/w.h.y.- snakes and ladders of ever-increasing length – Indian elasticized rope tricks?????
(so back to that toilet roll of a Universe we again stumble in hope of worm-holes that would surely lighten our load)
so don`t give up the day job pal. it is still “work in progress” too,
is it not, our Sun (just next door relatively), and exactly how it performs.
david(swuk) says:
March 24, 2014 at 4:32 pm
surely there can only be one infinite space and not the two and/or expansion of the already infinite to which you are wed.
There are infinitely many infinite universes. Space is not being created, bur just stretched. Stretching a rubber band does not create more rubber. And I am not ‘wed’ to that idea. The infiniteness follows from General Relativity. Prove GR wrong and you have my ear.
lsvalgaard says:
You introduced the term ‘data’, not I. Again you missed the point. The data that contradicts relativity that you referenced as not existing may exist outside of our tiny corner of the universe or outside of the capability of our present day technology to see. As far as the [equivalence] principle, it may not be compromised, but it may be that we are not yet seeing the entire picture. Or until we know any adjustments that may need to be made to GR. You know, the Holy Grail that so many scientists seek to find, and have so far failed to find. That glitch in GR that needs to be fixed.
Jim G says:
March 24, 2014 at 5:44 pm
Again you missed the point. The data that contradicts relativity …
If the equivalence principle holds GR is clear and there are no problems at all. If you deny [as you seem to do] that the principle holds then you can get anything you want in some remote corner where the laws of nature are different. I do not entertain that idea, so have not missed your point [that you think the laws of nature vary with location], I simply do not lend it any credence.
lsvalgaard says:
If at the higher levels of energy time “unzips from space” or the speed of light differs or whatever there could be some “adjustments” required. Likewise, the granularity of energy distribution found in the micsrowave background which lead to the visible universe we see may also exist re the equivalence principle, which may work to even out differences in the infinite universe while causing local differences. Possibilities abound.
Jim G says:
March 24, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Possibilities abound.
If the equivalence principle [E.P.] holds, there are no other possibilities. Einstein once wondered if a god had any choice in creating the universe. If you abandon the E.P.anything goes. You seemed to have made your choice.
lsvalgaard says:
“You seemed to have made your choice.”
I do not disagree with what GR and Quantum theory say about the physical wolrd today, including E.P. I am withholding my future choices and keeping my mind open to further developments and future information.