“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.
@ur momisugly grumpyoldmanuk says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:40 am
“In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes”.
I’m confused. Doesn’t this imply that there is a mechanism in the known physical universe for FTL travel?
________________________________________________
No, it doesn’t say that, though it seems that way. What happened, according to the theory, is that the universe jumped in size from about the size of a marble to something large enough to contain our galaxy in the space of about 3.10^-36 seconds, at something like 1×10^-35 seconds into the existence of time (the numbers are off the top of my head; I can go back and get them, but the point is, very very soon after the universe came into existence, while matter was all plasma so dense that photons couldn’t pass through it, the whole shebang (h/t Stephen Hawking) expanded “exponentially”. A truly dizzying amount.
It’s the expansion that you have to have a picture of, to understand that no one is saying that the speed of light can be exceeded, or that it was, or that some “law” is not a “law” or has exceptions. Think of the “fabric” of Time/Space as being the skin of a balloon—not the volume of the balloon which we fill with air, but only the skin. All of existence, all the dimensions we’re familiar with, 3D + time, or if you prefer by Superstring Theory, 10 (or 36), but all of perceivable reality, is the skin of the balloon—not the portion we fill with gas.
Picture that with a pen, we mark two points on the balloon. When we inflate the balloon, they appear to move apart. From the perspective of the universe, they aren’t actually moving—Spacetime is simply stretching so that the distance between them grows. Light still propagates at the same speed (or perhaps does not…but that’s another theory and the difference is as yet imperceptible, so if it’s getting slower, we haven’t been able to prove that yet), but the fabric of Timespace can stretch such that two points in the universe can become farther apart faster than light may travel.
However, as far as the Inflationary Theory works, or as far as I understood it, the conditions for that sort of inflation to take place existed only then, early on in the life of the universe. Could such conditions happen again? You’ve got me. I suppose that hypothetically, it could happen again, and space expand such that the distance between two locations stretches faster than light could travel between them—which doesn’t violate the cosmic speed limit—but probably not.
Yet, who knows? I can’t recall right off what the theory states was the driving force for the inflation. I read of the theory when Alan Guth first proposed it, or shortly after. Professor Linde hadn’t refined the theory as yet when I first hear of it. Part of what sparked the idea behind the theory was the way the behavior of the four forces: Strong, Weak, Electrical, and Gravitational, appeared to have changed as the energy-density of the universe dropped. The Strong remained as a separate force to hold the nuclei of atoms and the sub-atomic components together, the Electro-weak force was the result of two, and gravitation remained an outsider. The other three forces appear fairly closely related in behavior and interaction with matter and light. Not so with Gravity, which is weaker than the weak force—-but operates over the greatest distances. The strong force which is the strongest, but operates over the smallest distances.
As I recall it, it was theoretical observations about the interactions of the forces and changes in their behavior and the lack of symmetry that led Alan Guth to first propose the inflationary theory.
But though it creates the paradoxical condition where places can become separated in distance faster than the speed of light can travel between them, the theory doesn’t violate the General Theory of Relativity, which is where we find that the Cosmic Speed Limit is the speed at which light propagates.
Does that help or confuse?
@P@Dolan – “Does that help or confuse?” – Both! But I appreciate your explanation, along with Lief’s explanation. I see that Grumpy’s question and my follow up are based on too little knowledge.
It is hard for a layman to wrap their head around a concept of something expanding, but not expanding into anything.
From the T/Q/U maps, Dr. S., what is E- mode dominate? Wow horizontal and vertical patterns and and and diagonal patterns..
http://bicepkeck.org/B2_2014_ii_figs/B2_instrument_fig24.png
Figure 24: Polarization maps and coverage maps used to calculate map depth (color scales in parentheses). The maps are Stokes Q and U in the three-year data set, with full coadds on the left and differenced chronological jackknife maps on the right. The Q maps show a horizontal and vertical pattern, while the U maps show a diagonal pattern, together revealing the dominant E-mode polarization of the CMB. The jackknife maps contain no signal but only noise. They are used to calculate the depth in our polarization maps. The lower left panel shows the integration time per 0.25°×0.25° pixel and the 70% contour used in the older definition of the map depth, while the lower right panel shows the variance-weight map used in the definition adopted here.
And in the color version of these maps reminds me of granulation and other solar features.
http://bicepkeck.org/B2_2014_i_figs/tqu_maps.png
Carla says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:21 pm
From the T/Q/U maps, Dr. S., what is E- mode dominate?
http://background.uchicago.edu/~whu/polar/webversion/node8.html
JTF talk about your right handed and left handed gravitational vortex structures whew.. what a scale..and polarized orientations too..curious..
Dominate E-modes and B-modes with swirly handedness
“”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.””
‘Smoking Gun’ Reveals How the Inflationary Big Bang Happened
.
By Alan Boyle
“””BICEP2’s detectors were built to look for patterns of polarization in the cosmic microwave background radiation, the glow left over from the Big Bang. A characteristic pattern known as the B-mode, which is twisted like a pinwheel, would point to the imprint of gravitational waves from the cosmic blow-up.
http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_12/257761/140317-coslog-bicep4_6330cdd624fb0c7ac5706207bf311d70.nbcnews-ux-960-520.jpg
Image: Polarization BICEP2 Collaboration
A map of temperature differences in the cosmic microwave background reveals characteristic pinwheel patterns in the polarization of light, which points to the imprint of primordial gravitational waves.'””
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686
Dear Mr. James Willis,
Re: “Important questions to be sure.”
Here’s question for you: Do you know where you are going when you die?
Religion (mine, anyway) answers that question.
Pretty important. Where your soul will spend eternity… .
Hoping you seek until you find the Truth!
Janice
******************************************************************
Dear Mr. “Harlani,” (per you, this is not your real name),
Re: your 4:16pm attempt to discredit the Bible in order to rationalize your not believing in an Intelligent Designer
1. “No version of the Big Bang Theory in any way corresponds to the various creation myths in the Bible.”
Comment: I was only referring to the “bang.” Not the Big Bang Theory as a whole.
2. “…raqiyeh”, … something solid pounded out of metal, as a copper bowl … . … Thus in Genesis & elsewhere in the Bible, earth is flat with the vault of heaven over it, like a domed stadium.
Comment:
a. A vault made by God (as defined by Judeo-Christianity) can be very large. If that “metal” were of certain types, it could expand.
b. Illogical conclusion here: “Thus,… earth is flat… .” This is conclusion is NOT warranted by the Bible’s text. Perhaps, you are merely unaware of that, but this tends to indicate your bias.
3. Re: “… the storehouses of rain, … windows, … immoveable pillars, ‘the fountains of the great deep’ … .”
Comment:
a. You mistake poetic description for literal description.
b. “Control levers” are your personal invention. God wills or God speaks — and it is so. There are no “control levers” mentioned in the Bible. Your deliberate mischaracterization using ridiculous imagery belies a deep-seated bias, here.
4. Re: Light, Sun, and Moon
Comment: The Sun is not necessary for there to be “light.” Failure to mention Moon-Sun reflectivity does not meant the author disagrees with or is unaware of that concept.
5. Re: Plants before Sun
Comment: You ignore a major premise upon which the author of Genesis is relying. Thus, you mistakenly conclude that what appears to you to be an impossibility was overlooked or unknown to the author. That premise is: God can do ANYTHING. Thus, God can make plants continue to exist even when there is no Sun. To be perfectly candid (and as you know) I believe those plants only had to exist for 24 hours without sunlight. God can do anything; including create a world in 6 days. I do not have the faith you have in the accuracy of the carbon or beryllium isotopes dating beyond about 6,000 years.
You have your beliefs, dear Mr. Harlani. I have mine. You consider my beliefs to be “junk.” I consider you to be mistaken out of an emotional bias against any evidence the implications of which are that you might, in the end, have to bow the knee to God. I’ve been praying for you ever since we first “met.” And, no matter how you snarl and growl at me and, at times, mischaracterize me, I’ll continue to pray. So far, lol, it is pretty clear that the answer is: “Not yet.”
Do you know why I will continue to pray earnestly for you (and a TON of others on WUWT)? I love you. How can I, after how you have spoken to me in the past? The answer is: Jesus. HE loves you and, through me (admittedly, a far-from-perfect instrument), expresses that love.
With agape,
Janice
P.S. To respect our generous host’s wishes, I am going to avoid, if at all possible, talking about religion further, here. If you have religious questions or concerns, there are MANY intelligent, informed, loving, believers near where you live. Find one and ask her or him.
I thought there was nothing faster than the “speed of light”. Opps?
You can call me a Big Bang denier. There is nothing convincing to me that the universe is finite.
lsvalgaard says:
No, there is no ‘into’. All of infinite space expands.
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How does infinity get to expand if it is already absolute infinite?
Ben D says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:03 pm
How does infinity get to expand if it is already absolute infinite?
Infinity is a slippery subject. The simplest way to think about the expansion is this:
The distance between ANY two objects [sufficiently far apart already so their mutual gravitational attraction is negligible] increases with time. That way there is no concept of edges, debris fronts, ‘into’, or other dubious things, so no confusion will arise.
Thanks, Leif. This is great news!
Congratulations, Dr. Linde!
Big thanks, Dr. Chao-Lin Kuo.
Well, that’s pretty damn cool. I think I’m more excited about the gravity wave images than the inflationary model predictions bearing out, been waiting for some way to observe gravity waves for a loooooong time now.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Infinity is a slippery subject. The simplest way to think about the expansion is this:
The distance between ANY two objects [sufficiently far apart already so their mutual gravitational attraction is negligible] increases with time. That way there is no concept of edges, debris fronts, ‘into’, or other dubious things, so no confusion will arise.
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Ok, but that would not mean infinite space is expanding, rather that there is a finite bubble of some sort within the finer infinite spacial underlying background that is expanding.
Ben D says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:17 pm
ok, but that would not mean infinite space is expanding, rather that there is a finite bubble of some sort within the finer infinite spacial underlying background that is expanding.
It is that ‘spacial underlying background’ that is expanding. The objects within that are essentially sitting still.
May be I don´t understand something, but AFAIK the CMB that we see was created 100,000 years AFTER Big Bang. The earlier Universe was simply opaque.
The “polarization waves” they detected could be anything, not necessarily gravity waves. I´d rather expect these are some plasma waves close to the moment as the Universe became transparent (it was plasma before).
However, the Stanford mafia seems to gain power. May be they can overcome any skeptical point of view.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:21 pm
It is that ‘spacial underlying background’ that is expanding. The objects within that are essentially sitting still.
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Ok, then I am suggesting that there is an even more underlying background within which this spacial underlying background is expanding in which the objects within are essentially sitting still.
Iow, my definition of infinity is an absolute,,,it can’t expand. However to avoid a never ending to and fro here, I will accept you have a different definition if infinity.
Navy Bob says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:59 am
I love this part: “The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors.” Can you imagine members of another too-familiar “discipline” doing that?
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Nay.
They needed 3 years not for “analysis”, but for observations.
Their signal is masked by noise. To average the noise out, they needed a long observation time.
They did not wait to show their results if that is what you meant.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:24 pm
Carla says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:21 pm
From the T/Q/U maps, Dr. S., what is E- mode dominate?
http://background.uchicago.edu/~whu/polar/webversion/node8.html
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Thank you Dr. S., for that link, good explanation and ref. for this topic.
So from the question..then he was saying that the E electric field dominates the B mag. field in the Cosmic Microwave Background CMB? For the area of the view? And gravity waves oh my.
Good night
Confusion reigns supreme in the world of theoretical physics and cosmology.
The mathematics of imaginary numbers and the borrowing of imaginary particles
from an Aether they say does not exist to confirm their standard settled science
model. Leaves one some what nonplussed.
Then recently the cosmologists discover that their model can not work, as most
of the universe is missing. Thus they invent dark matter, this proved not enough
so they invented dark energy. More imaginary friends to make their settled science work.
Punishing people for having different ideas outside these settled sciences is endemic.
Big bang BS, from their ideas we must be traveling outward from the bang at umpteen trillion times the speed of light into an empty vacuum or as Leif mentioned a false vacuum, another
imaginary concept.
The failure of science to to come to terms with gravity, and explain what it is and what causes it
is major impediment to physics and cosmology, they all need to tear up their theories, go back to square one and start again.
Quietly waiting for 50 years for science to break out of their 1920 consensus. Not hopeful at this time, as they seem happy with their imaginary friends.
At the end of this inflationary period, the universe was only the size of …
… a fist,
a basketball,
a room,
a solar system,
a galaxy.
There are various sizes given. But is was still very small, very hot, very weird and it only lasted for 10^-32 seconds.
It was still 300,000 years later before real atoms gave off real light.
But in that unbelievably short time of 10-32 seconds, the main physical forces did not exist and only one something force existed. It is important because we want to have a grand unification theory and if we understand how to use that theory, we could blow up Russia and the rest of the Universe at the push of a button.
Maybe someone was working on a physics experiment 13.7 billion years that went a little off-track.
Addendum to my 5:55pm comment:
3. Re: “… the storehouses of rain, … windows, … immoveable pillars, ‘the fountains of the great deep’ … .”
Comment:
a. You mistake poetic description for literal description.
Add: The “vault” referred to above, as analogized to an earth-metal container, falls into the category “poetic description.” That is, the “vault” is not a literal metal container.
@ur momisugly Janice Moore:
G’day, Milady! (Go get ’em!)
7;->
Heinlein said it best: “A Black Hole is where God divided by zero!”
Happy Monday!
p@ur momisugly
@ur momisuglyp@ur momisugly Dolan – re: Heinlein said it best: “A Black Hole is where God divided by zero!”
I had forgotten that quote. Thank you!
However, consider the apparent anomaly in the article linked by Mark:
Without getting into ‘electric universe’ theories, note this observation:
A quasar of high redshift is in front of a galaxy of lower redshift. Observations of many other such instances have been documented by the (now unfortunately late) astronomer Halton Arp, including objects of different redshifts connected to each other. These observations directly contradict the starting assumption of Big Bang theories, namely Hubble’s hypothesis that redshifts in stellar objects indicate distance and speed of recession away from us. If, instead, redshifts were an intrinsic property of many stellar objects, and the universe is not expanding, what then happens to those theories and the elaborate mathematical models built upon them?
For a layman’s exposition: Halton Arp, Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Red-Redshifts-Cosmology-Academic/dp/0968368905
/Mr Lynn
Terry Pratchett explained this best. “In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
Basically, if you want to talk about this, do it the Willis way. That is, you should first know what it said, and not criticize stuff you make up about it. It is clear what is said below because that is what it actually says, if you read exactly what it says, only what it says, and do not read in stuff it does not say. A little looking up the original words helps in some cases. Also, for most of history, it was read without any science to explain it, so for much of history it was not understood, and much BS has ensued (much of it still with us today, some even recently made). When you DO know the science, it makes perfect sense.
Genesis 1 (King James Version):
“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This says there was a beginning of space/time, we now call this “the big bang”, there are multiple proofs that it happened (as far as science can tell for now). The “problem” with this big bang is, it seems statistically impossible for it to have created a universe such as the one we inhabit. This has resulted in a number of theories of multiple universe, for which there is no evidence, some evidence against it, and no way to get evidence (some methods suggested are conveniently impossible). The evidence against it, as well as one of the improbabilities, is the way this universe started with extremely low entropy. The idea of it being from a collision of other universes (for which there is no evidence) actually creates bigger problems, as these other universes would also have to have the same or lower entropy, thus doubling or tripling the problem. There are also many other improbabilities, such that Douglas Adams would actually like this universe(dark matter, dark energy??) . The fact that this universe is observationally as it is rather than any of the vastly more likely versions suggests that something intelligent with infinite computing power dreamed up an infinite number of possible universes looking for one that would come out more or less OK, and chose one which, while extremely improbably, was physically possible IF an exact sequence of events were planned to happen and the initial conditions were set up so that they would, another problem requiring infinite computing power. With the state of the science we have now, it still appears that the universe is almost infinity unlikely to have come out as we see it. Note the provision “with the state of the science now”. The above article as yet does not change this, although it does mean we are approaching the day when we will have a detailed explanation of the big bang, which we do not as yet have.
Note also, in other passages, it says “God stretched out the heavens”. The word used for stretched in some instances indicated a continuing stretching. The first stretching is described above, the inflationary model, the later, the continued stretching as described by poster “Isvalgaard” above. If it was stretched out, it must have started smaller, eventually the logical conclusion is that it started at one point, then there was a “bang”. Note one problem, “an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an outside force”, the question then arises, what made it go bang? And outside, that would be outside both space and time, right?
Infinite computing power is not possible in this universe, or any other composed of matter, energy, and the like. Thus, if that is needed for a universe to have come out in this (as they called it when confirming the cosmic background radiation) “preposterous” way, then the universe must have been created by something immaterial, not made of matter, or energy, or anything else we can detect, what is called a “spirit”. The idea that this universe could have created itself, dreamed up itself, is therefor disproved by the physical laws we see in it. The word is “falsified”.
Note, the original language this was written in indicates that the time interval between verse 1 and 2 could be any length of time, could be very long, and that the above heaven (stars, planets etc) and earth were already in existence before verse 2. Also, it does not say what condition they were in at that time, or say it was just like now.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Clearly stated, the earth was NOT like it is now, having just some together. It was hot, and liquid water could not exist on the surface, hence it was surrounded by a thick cloud (water vapor, ash, gasses). It is specified here the point of view being spoken of, earth, at what we now call sea level, “the surface of the deep”. This is the only place specified, not outer space, under water, under the surface, up in the air, or anywhere else. Sea level is thus true of the below verses as well, true for ONLY that SPECIFIED place and no other.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
The surface cooled enough for liquid water to exist on the surface, which meant the clouds got thinner, and there was light AT THE PLACE SPECIFIED ABOVE, at sea level, on earth, only. Physical proof, ancient crystals said to be from the earliest period of earths history that we have evidence of show that 100% of those crystals that formed on the early earths surface did so in the presence of liquid water. Sounds like a late heavy bombardment is too late.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
True at sea level on earth. Basically, you could see your hand in front of your face in day, and not at night, and that is all it really says.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
See above. Also, the first “day” was Echad Yom, a construction that could mean anywhere from 12 hours to infinity. It does not mean “day” as we know it.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
The ancient Hebrew writers could not understand that the waters above referred to clouds, and of course had no clue about water vapor. They thought there was liquid water up there somehow, and invented the idea that something solid, say, a clear crystal dome, held liquid water up there, and put that meaning into the “firmament” word. We know better today, this is merely saying that a stable hydrological cycle came about, water, evaporation, clouds, rain, all that. Nothing is stated here about whether the earth was flat or round, whatever later peoples though is separate from these verses, and is their opinion alone. Later passages that suggest flatness do so in the exact same manner that your paper says what time the sun will rise from the point of view of you, the observer, without going into earths rotation or all that other stuff that you can’t really see from where you are anyway.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
The crust of the earth (we are still talking about sea level on earth only here) cooled enough to wrinkle, hence dry land appearing.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Note, it was “the earth” that brought forth the plants, hence, evolution. It is NOT stated that they were created out of nothing, or anything else, but came out of earth, a material, physical, physics based process. Once again, another thing which is currently believed to be statistically impossible (we cannot do it in the lab after decades of trying, indeed, we appear to have falsified many methods), yet which appears to have happened anyway. Like this universe, physically possible, yet statistically impossible unless it was planned that a series of extremely improbable events would happen at one single place and time on one tiny point on one small planet in a very big universe, once again suggesting infinite computing power, something impossible materially. Note that the later creation of man is stated to be different than this, a special case. Note also that the second chapter simply states one creation, man only, the garden being planted in the same way we make gardens today from existing plants, seeds, and the like. The garden also appears to be different than the earth around it, just as our gardens and farms are different than the wild, uncultivated earth around us.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Them plants did their thing on the atmosphere, eventually converting it to the type of atmosphere we know today, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. That made it possible to see blue sky, sun, moon, stars, etc. These things were not created at that time, merely visible at the specified location, sea level, on earth.
The rest followed, fish, then birds (as dinosaurs at the time they first appeared, described here as birds since no dinosaurs were ever seen by man, who this was written for), then land critters (after the dinosaurs, thus likely mammals etc). Finally, mankind was created, only stating in the first chapter that they were created, not exactly how, that is stated separately in the second chapter, which goes into detail about their special case creation and the special limited area garden they lived in.
Oh, “the Flood”, this was very early, mankind lived in one small area (there weren’t very many of them yet), the ice age ended, the water rose up, they were now below sea level, about what you would expect happened. The animals on that ark were probably composed of local types suitable for later human beings, dog and cat and horse and cattle ancestors, that sort of thing. Probably around here http://www.livescience.com/10340-lost-civilization-existed-beneath-persian-gulf.html , the location of the Garden of Eden being now more or less found near the upper end of the Gulf of Oman, when they discovered the dry river beds that led into that area, the other two rivers mentioned as being at that garden already being known. That location would be above sea level in an ice age, below it when that ice age ended. Ice ages ending also end to produce great changes in the weather, hence the rain.
All that other stuff you’ve no doubt heard about, creationism, seven days, thorns only after “the fall” (there were no thorns in the garden, because it was, after all, a garden), and the like, are made up by people so ignorant that they cannot read the above even in the English, what it clearly says (like the sea level place specified), to say nothing of the original language. Oh, and those genealogies that say it was only 4000 years, well, the word “father” can also mean grandfather, great grandfather, etc. They were merely mentioning the important, notable people from back then, not everybody.
So if you want to criticize it, fire away, just criticize it for what it says, not what it does not say.
And it said, thousands of years ago, that there was a beginning, and an expansion, so the whole big bang and inflation model could have been with us for those thousands of years if the earlier people had had the wit to read the above and only read exactly what it said.
I’m sorry I haven’t had time to read thru all of these responses, so if i”m just echoing others, forgive me. Forgive me also for being a natural skeptic. My question is – what other explanation(s) could be given for what these researchers detected (observed)? They’ve assumed a “Big Bang” in the first place, so aren’t they biased towards this being evidence of that?