Big Blue Designing Chip to Decode the Big Bang

Jerry Beth writes "IBM is working with European astronomy organization Astron to design a chip that will be used to help gather billions-of-years-old radio signals from deep space in the hopes of learning more about the origins of the universe. From the article: 'It's part of Astron's Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope project. The SKA will be linked to millions of antennas collecting radio signals from space. The antennas will be spread over a large surface area of the globe but, in the aggregate, they will form a square kilometer's worth of collection area. [...] The microprocessors will essentially help the antennas capture the signals, filter out extraneous data and then convert the signals into data. Astrophysicists will then analyze the data to look for patterns. The weakest signals are the prize in this project, because they will be the oldest.'"

Comments

Big Bang Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know the name of the famous eunuch computer programmer?

Re:Big Bang Question

[__aaclcg7560]

Which one? The Anonymous Coward family is HUGE!

We already know the answer!

[__aaclcg7560]

Even if a chip could be designed to decode the Big Bang, we already know the answer: "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."

Re:We already know the answer!

[XenoPhage]

Shouldn't it be something like 'Nothing to see here. Please move it along.' ? 42 bytes.. The ultimate answer...

Re:We already know the answer!

[Anonymous Coward]

42

Obligatory Hitchhikers Guide to the ummm... whatever... answer to the question,... what was the question.....

Re:We already know the answer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll? Mods please use your brains once in a great bang or so. You don't design a chip to decode the Big Bang unless you have an idea on what went on before the great ka-boom. It could very well be a teaspoon of... nothing to see.

They will call it..

[_PimpDaddy7_]

Black and Blue

Thank you, exit to the right, have a great evening ;)

Re:They will call it..

[cedspam]

deep red?

Side jobs

[LiquidCoooled]

Could this be used to decode and filter out the content on myspace and find intelligent life?

Re:Side jobs

[Bugs42]

Sure, and maybe next they'll use it to filter out all the crazy women in the world and find the sane ones.

Wanna bet on which'll happen first?

Re:Side jobs

[MasterPi]

That's easy. All you need is a blinking light and a burnt-out one. You have all the women stand in a line and tell them to go into the crazy line if the blinking one comes on and the sane line if the burnt-out one comes on.

Look and calculate all you want

[emor8t]

IT ALL TRACES BACK TO GOD! Ok, flamebait aside. How long before we actually find something? I mean space is the original Energizer Bunny, it keeps going, and going, and going......

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[rainman_bc]

IT ALL TRACES BACK TO GOD!

Okay, maybe I just don't get it... I'm not religious, but I don't buy into the big bang theory either... Why can't we just theorize that time is not finite - there's no beginning and no end...

Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[imsabbel]

Because obviously time is a property of our universe, and has to bend its knee to our current law of physics (see all those relativistic effects).

If there was a big bang (VERY likely), then it also started what we know as "time".

But this doesnt exclude a bigger picture.

---
And nobody says time MUST have a beginning. Its just part of a scientific process about what we observe in the universe.

"accepting some things as being infinite", otoh, would be just that kind of dogma religious dimwits seem to like.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't we just theorize that time is not finite...?

For the same reason humans concocted religion in the first place: it comforts them. Just as we're always looking and hoping for a parent-analog to take care of us.

We can't know, or even imagine, non-existance, because we've never experienced it. For many, it's too scary and awful to even contemplate. It's why when you ask them to try to imagine and describe death, they always say things like "black" and "cold". They have no other frame of refence to describe 'non-existance'.

We invent supernatural bogeymen as a way of dealing with the unknowable, and we conjure up 'Big Bangs' as a way of getting our minds around the Universe. It's a lot easier than trying to understand infinity and nothingness.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[lucabrasi999]

Why can't we just theorize that time is not finite - there's no beginning and no end.........Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?

The reason science exists is that some people cannot just "accept" things. They must ask why. They must have proof to back up their assumptions. From what I understand about the Big Bang, these scientists have reason to believe that time DOES have a beginning.

If there are scientists with evidence that time is not finite, then it would be helpful if someone provided a link.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Eagleartoo]

I like your thinking,

• It's funny to think that the Big Bang happened what 5 billion years ago or something like that and before that what?
• Likewise God Created the heavens and the earth 6,000 years ago. . .
• Likewise I was created 24 years ago and I've never experienced anything before that!

There's a saying in Algebra, as x approaches infinity y approaches 0 or maybe that's tangents in Geometry or maybe I'm off my rocker!

I think Einstein was on to something with that relativity thing.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Reservoir Penguin]

Maybe because the other theory, namely the Static Universe that had been popular in the first part of the 20th century couldn't explain the Hubble's observations (redshift)? The Big Bang theory simply explains the facts better. That's how science works.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[roban]

In fact many people have proposed (and are still proposing) cosmologies in which time (or the universe) has no begining. Osicllatory Universe theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillatory_universe, in which the Universe repeatedly expands and contracts, are one example. The consensus today, however, is that Big Bang theory has been much more sucessfull at predicting and explaining empirical observations than have any competing theories. This has nothing to do with a preference for a "begining" of time. In fact many scientists resisted Big Bang theory out of a discomfort at that very idea.

There are Oscialltory Universe-type theories with repetetive "Big Bang" events, avoiding the need for a begining of time, but the cosmological parameters favored today suggest that the Universe will expand indefinietly, and indeed that the expansion is accelerating, and therefore that the universe will never recollapse. See the Lambda CMD Model (cold dark matter with a cosmological constant) for more details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_CDM_model.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[steveo777]

A mathematical explanation of this would involve infinites. If time were infinite it would have to include all events (things that happen, anything, like a photon moving x meters). Which would also need to be infinite. But therein lies a problem. Mathematically you cannot have an infinite inside of an infinite. You can't even argue that one is 'smaller' by any constant than the other. This is because you cannot quantify an infinite. You either have two inconceivably large numbers, one slightly larger than the other, or you have one infinite.

Time is tied to the physical realm, therefore time and events cannot be infinite. Thus they need a beginning.

Or you could just lean on physics. IANAAstrophyisist, but as I understand it, according to most astrophysicists the universe can be proved to be expanding from the same point of origin. All the science has been repeatedly backed up by discoveries made with the Hubble and other orbital telescopes.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Chakademus]

The reason scientists believe there must've been a big bang, or something very like it, is because of entropy. Time only flows in one direction, and as far as we can tell, there is no good reason why it should. Anyways, one way of figuring out which way time is flowing is the direction where entropy, or disorder, increases. I.e. you see an apple, fresh and organized, rot into indistinct mush, but never the opposite, though it is perfectly possible under the laws of physics, just not plausible. So as time flows, the disorder of the universe increases.

However, another property of disorder in a system is that a disordered system is *much* more likely than an ordered one. Thus, if we are currently in a somewhat ordered system, it is actually more like that the past up to now was more disordered than the present, and the future will become more disordered. Thus, we cannot truly tell which direction the past lies, and cannot trust our past experience. If this was the case, no science, or even normal living would be very nice. You would have no way of knowing what happened every time you do something, as past experience would not be a meaningful way of predicting things. Thus, oxygen might suddenly not enable us to burn glucose and we would die.

Thus, for us to be able to trust past experience, the past must be more ordered than the present. And as one goes back in time, there must be a time where there was absolute order (order cannot increase infinitly). This is what we call the big bang. As it would be perfectly ordered, it cannot become more ordered and thus time cannot decrease and has a beginning. The issue of size has to do with how all space is expanding, and that every galaxy is moving away from us a speed directly proportional to its distance from us, indicating that they all originated from the same point. (Galaxies have little actual speed through space, space is actually expanding between them, moving them apart. Like dots on a balloon.)

I'm not sure how well I explained it, but that's the gist of it, as I understand.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you're not a mathematician, either.

Can't have an infinite inside of an infinite? Ever heard of the Real number line?

How many numbers do you suppose fit between 0 and 1? (Hint: there are enough that they cannot be enumerated using integers, even though there are an infinite number of integers.)

Now, how many numbers do you suppose fit between 0.5 and 0.6? (Hint: the same answer is correct.)

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[jfengel]

Why can't we just theorize that time is not finite - there's no beginning and no end...

Because if you look out at the universe, it seems that everything is moving away from each other. (I'm talking about inter-galactic scales here.) You can tell because everything is slightly redder than it should be, and the further away it is, the redder it is. The effect is not unlike the way an ambulance changes pitch when it gets closer and then goes away: as it recedes, the additional distance that the source moves between peaks spreads the peaks out. In light, further apart = redder.

If everything is moving away from everything else, then at some point in the past they must all have been in the same place. And when the matter gets that dense, time moves funny. It's a bit like the special relativity stuff: when things move, they gain mass, and get shorter. A heavy gravitational field is just like acceleration, so the formulas get really hairy. At some point they get so hairy that zeros are introduced, and some numbers go to infinity, and everything goes haywire.

Sorry if that's a bit long-winded, and I've still glossed over a lot of really crucial bits, but the shorter answer is: we observe stuff in the universe that implies that the universe had a beginning, at which the conditions were very different from what we see today. You can't explain it by saying that time is infinite, and so people try to figure out the right explanation.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[roban]

Actually, in infinite set theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_set there is a hierarchy of infinities. Think about the set of all integers {...,-1,0,1,2,3,...}: there are an infinite number of them. But the set of all real numbers (essentially "floating point" numbers of infinite precision for you programmers) must be larger than the set of integers since it includes the integers and more.

You are correct, though, that the expansion of the universe is one of the main reasons to infer a big bang. The other major piece of evidence is the microwave radiation (the Cosmic Microwave Background) left over from when the universe was a hot, opaque plasma shortly after the big bang.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

> Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?

Can't we all just get along? No. Scientists (generally) don't just accept these ideas because they are more comfortable and neat-o.

Can't we just declare somethings unanswerable and unknowable? No. There is no need to just throw up our hands in mystic awe when the questions start to get hard.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[flynt]

As the others have pointed out, you're entirely incorrect here. Look up Georg Cantor, aleph-0, aleph-1, etc. There's a fascinating world of math out there, set theory is part of it!

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[flynt]

If time has no beginning, how long would it have taken to get to the moment you're reading this post? I think in general, scientists (I hate when I have to use this term to mean 'people who use data to draw conclusions', it should be all of us) will believe what the data show them. If that points to a beginning of time, so be it. If that points to 'infinite' time, that's fine to. We can, and do, 'theorize' lots of things, but accepting them ususally requires more than a theory. I don't know why we should "accept time as being infinite" though?

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[General Fault]

Wow. I think that you have all missed the point here. The Big Bang is not a theory invented to satisfy some psychological condition of needing a finite universe, in fact, the big bang does not even describe a finite universe. It does not try to predict an end to the universe or predict the existence of parallel or re-occurring universes. Even the prediction of a beginning that the big bang brings may be infinite as Stephen Hawking predicts as time and matter squeeze into an infinitely small point. That is a whole other topic, although related in some ways. There were/are many theories that describe an infinite universe in both time and size before the big bang theory became the prominent theory. So, why is it the prominent theory? Because the universe is expanding. From that simple observation (derived from the red shift of stars), one can simply reverse time (in your mind) and see everything collapse back to where it came from. If you go far enough back, you will see that everything will inevitably come from the same place. The one question I have about the Big Bang is, if everything in the universe was in one place at one time, wouldn't the universe have been contained within a black hole? Did the Schwarzschild radius grow with the universe? Is there a distance fro the center of the universe where light bends sufficiently to start returning to the center? Is that why the universe appears to be uniformly distributed around us? If the universe is oscillating, then would we see the beginning of other previous universes if we look for the light that has oscillated back and forth?

Pardon my spelling.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[roman_mir]

Okay, maybe I just don't get it... I'm not religious, but I don't buy into the big bang theory either... Why can't we just theorize that time is not finite - there's no beginning and no end... - you are not religious, but you are not scientifically minded either. We do not 'just theorize', we gather data and propose ideas - hypothesis and mathematical models. These models fit the gathered data and can be used to predict events in the future.

The current evidence shows that the Universe is expanding. We do not just theorize something for the sake of theorizing and for no reason, so we cannot just theorize that the Universe was and is and will be static forever, we know it is changing and expanding from an initial singularity.

Nothing in the Big Bang theory prevents further studies into the origins of the initial singularity. The time as we understand it only is applicable within this Universe because it is a property of this Universe and should we discover later that there are other Universes (a mathematical possibility at this point only,) the idea of time as we know it may not be applicable in them.

When you use the term 'infinite', you assume infinite time, and our understanding of time within our reality, this notion may be totally inapplicable to the original singularity and to the events preceeding the original singularity.

Cheers.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[vertinox]

Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?

First, the human mind and computers cannot actually calculate infinity.

There is not enough brainpower nor matter in the observable universe to calculate such an amount.

Rather than to go insane at the thought of infinity or to try to create a machine that consumes all matter outside the observable universe, we simply create a placeholder.

Secondly, infinity does not actually exist in the physical universe.

As time does not exist other than as a unit of measurement and mostly as a matter of opinion and comparison of atomic decay. Time itself cannot be measured by polling a static unit of measurement like you can with matter or energy... As in... There are so much quantity and quality of matter or energy at any given point. Whereas time is merely a measurement of the comparison of what matter and energy are doing and for how long.

Considering it is also relative depending on how fast the energy or matter is traveling doesn't help the situation.

Even if there is infinite matter and energy in the universe, it would be impossible for anything to observe it all at once because of the space time problem.

Infinity might as well not exist if you can't observe it and even if you could would it really matter? Since, nothing else could exist as a single point of time, matter, and space no information could be transfered before the big bang.

However, this does not take an account of what is happening outside our observable universe or if there other universes. As in... There was a big bang, but there happens to be other big bangs or various other similar events happening elsewhere but so far away that light or xrays from those parts of the universe will never reach us... EVER!

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[vertinox]

We can't know, or even imagine, non-existance, because we've never experienced it.

The problem is that you cannot experience non-existence.

You simply cannot, because otherwise you would be experiencing some type of existence.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

That said... On the bright side, you won't notice yourself not existing or wanting to exist and a minute or a millennium or a trillion years will be the same to you.

That said... Given infinite time (or time beyond our comprehension rather) the probability for us to spring back into existence gets higher. Eventually, we might come back into existence as we see ourselves existing now means that it is possible that we can just spring into existence from nothingness.

However, whether that means we get born 49 days from your death (Tibetan Buddhism) or in a trillion years from now on the Planet Grabash as a 20 tentacle methane breather monsters or perhaps even as yourself all over again if the universe suffers a big crunch and simply recycles itself exactly the same way as now due to Anthropic principle (and the universe could not exist in any other way that it did or we wouldn't know it because we wouldn't exist) well... I really don't know.

There is no way to really tell what happens after death other than know the probability of spontaneously popping back into existence is probable.

You of course won't be able to pass along this information to yourself after you die so it maybe a moot point unless people in the future have kept this information about this idea.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[steveo777]

I'm aware of infinite sets and the like. (though I didn't get great grades back in Discrete Math) I was referring more along the lines of conceivable or tangible infinites. Events are tangible because... well... they happen. And so is time, we live in it, it can be measured.

Integer and real number sets are bit different. One can argue that there are 'more' real numbers than integers, but this isn't necessarily true either. Because integers go on forever, just like the amount of real numbers between 0.1 and 0.2, as an AC was trying to say. One will approach infinity faster, but they both operate the same. Similarly one could point out the infinite amount of reals between every consequent set of integers. At any rate, comparing number sets doesn't seem to apply to the tangible. But I'm open to discussion and correction.

I suppose it's the theoretical equivalents of saying you can't have an infinite amount of hydrogen atoms inside a bottle with infinite volume. One needs to be limited by the other in this case, therefore neither can be infinite.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[BlueFireIce]

Today most people agree that there was a beginning, where the real argument is at is in when and how.

Someone said something about the Oscillatory Universe and though at one time it was the hot new thing, when they started looking they found there to be to little mass in the universe to stop the "expansion". But expansion is not the only answer to the red-shift in light.

The first answer most people give is stellar motion (expansion). Which is the loss of light energy and its wavelength stretched or red-shifted from the light source moving away.

There is also gravitation, in which the star's own gravity may lengthen the wavelength of the light and/or from starlight passing near a massive object, like a galaxy.

Second-order doppler effect (Transverse doppler shift) can also explain the red-shift. As a light source moving at right angles to an observer will always be red-shifted. And when you use this for an answer, it implies that the universe may be in circular motion instead of expansion. However it could be all of them, it does not have to be just one answer.

As far as there being a beginning, it's just a matter of thermodynamics, as someone else said everything is falling apart which means it had to start at some point because if it was infinite all energy would be at equilibrium, meaning it would be the same everywhere, which is just not the case.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

The one question I have about the Big Bang is, if everything in the universe was in one place at one time, wouldn't the universe have been contained within a black hole?

No.

Is there a distance fro the center of the universe where light bends sufficiently to start returning to the center?

There is no center of the universe.

Is that why the universe appears to be uniformly distributed around us?

The universe is thought to be uniformly distributed around us ("isotropic") either because it started out distributed evenly, or perhaps more likely because inflation smoothed out whatever irregularities once existed.

If the universe is oscillating, then would we see the beginning of other previous universes if we look for the light that has oscillated back and forth?

It's possible for light from earlier in the universe's history to circumnavigate the universe and reappear from another direction. However, in light of inflation, it is thought unlikely that the universe is closed or small enough for us to see that. Also, cyclic universe theories with "previous universes" usually imply that no light from a previous universe will make it through a Big Bang event to be seen by us (even if we could see through the cosmic background radiation).

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[pln2bz]

Maybe because the other theory, namely the Static Universe that had been popular in the first part of the 20th century couldn't explain the Hubble's observations (redshift)? The Big Bang theory simply explains the facts better. That's how science works.

Actually, observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation that were supposed to "prove" the Big Bang Theory were more in line with static universe predictions. The Big Bang predictions ranged from 5 to 7 and then to 50 Kelvin, whereas the static universe predictions centered closer to 3 Kelvin -- which is pretty much where the observed value ended up. Just because the Big Bang theorists were able to integrate this observation into their model does not mean that the data supports the Big Bang Theory.

Around 30 years ago, a researcher named Halton Arp attempted to publish a paper that showed that not all redshifts are cosmological. His paper was refused by The Astrophysical Journal without any criticism of his methodology and no attempt to refute his observations. There are actually numerous undeniable observations that indicate that high redshift quasars are between us and lower redshift galaxies. It's not a very popular topic amongst Big Bang advocates however because it disproves much of what they've been saying for so long. If you can demonstrate that quasars are being ejected from the centers of spiral galaxies, as is being proposed by Arp, and that these quasars are in fact proto-galaxies (baby galaxies) that expand in mass as they decrease in velocity away from the spiral galaxies, then it becomes hard to determine which redshifts are cosmological and which are due to this other effect.

It may appear to you that the Big Bang Theory "explains the facts better", but then why are scientists constantly making observations that violate theory? A week doesn't go by without another surprise in the news media. Astrophysicists will then speculate about what's causing these strange observations, but the media oftentimes passes this speculation off as if it is fact.

There are many very important unsolved mysteries in the universe that the Big Bang has so far failed to explain:

Why is the surface of the Sun only 6,000 Kelvin while the corona gets up to 2,000,000 Kelvin? If the Sun is nothing more than a nuclear reaction, which gets hotter as you move towards the core, then how is it possible that the energy does not heat up the surface in the process of heating up the corona? Astrophysicists have proposed something called magnetic reconnections, but this phenomenon has no scientific basis. It is not supported by either plasma physics or electricity and magnetism.

Why are sunspots dark? They are supposed to be the deepest regions which we can observe into the Sun, and yet they are also the darkest.

Why does the Sun appear to be getting hotter?

Why does the solar wind accelerate as it leaves the Sun past the planets? What is accelerating these particles?

How is it possible that neutron stars can stay together? There is a law of physics called "The Island of Stability" that requires that neutrons packed this tightly together should fly apart from one another. Neutron stars therefore violate the laws of known physics.

What is dark matter and dark energy? We're supposed to believe that these two things account for about 95% of the universe's matter. Many experiments have tried to directly observe dark matter, but not a single attempt has been successful so far. Until they are observed, they are nothing more than mathematical abstractions.

This is just a small sampling. There are many other problems with traditional astrophysics -- especially with the Sun. Astrophysicists treat all of these problems as if they are minor, unimportant problems and that we'll eventually get to them at some later time. But all of these problems are treated with the presumption that the Big Bang Theory is actually correct. It's possible that there are other cosmologies that could explain all

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

But expansion is not the only answer to the red-shift in light.

It's the only answer so far proposed that works. The alternatives you suggest do not.

The first answer most people give is stellar motion (expansion). Which is the loss of light energy and its wavelength stretched or red-shifted from the light source moving away.

In general relativity, redshift due to expansion of space can't be completely disentangled from velocity Doppler shift. However, it is known that the cosmological redshift cannot be due to galaxies merely moving away from us in a flat, non-expanding spacetime; among other things, an expanding universe predicts different luminosity-redshift curves than a non-expanding one (guess which we observe).

There is also gravitation, in which the star's own gravity may lengthen the wavelength of the light and/or from starlight passing near a massive object, like a galaxy.

Cosmological redshift is not due to gravitational redshift of the source star; the latter has a very specific value determined by the star's mass and radius, which is not obeyed by cosmological objects such as distant galaxies. Cosmological redshift is also not due to gravitational redshift of gravitationally lensed light; the redshift of the latter is essentially zero (cancelled out by an equivalent blueshift as the light approaches the lensing body).

Second-order doppler effect (Transverse doppler shift) can also explain the red-shift. As a light source moving at right angles to an observer will always be red-shifted. And when you use this for an answer, it implies that the universe may be in circular motion instead of expansion.

Nope. We don't see any such anisotropy in the universe. (Consider that there will be two antipodal points exhibiting zero redshift, not to mention a general angular dependence of redshift that is not observed.)

Furthermore, none of these explanations can account for the cosmic microwave background radiation, even if they worked for Hubble redshifts.

As far as there being a beginning, it's just a matter of thermodynamics, as someone else said everything is falling apart which means it had to start at some point because if it was infinite all energy would be at equilibrium, meaning it would be the same everywhere, which is just not the case.

Your argument fails. See, for instance, the cyclic model of Steinhardt and Turok, specifically how local entropy density does not build up from cycle to cycle in their model. (This does not violate the second law of thermodynamics; total entropy does increase, but it gets "diluted" in such a way that local universes can continually be produced.)

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[CETS]

Are you thinking assymtope?

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[anarchyboy]

"How is it possible that neutron stars can stay together? There is a law of physics called "The Island of Stability" that requires that neutrons packed this tightly together should fly apart from one another. Neutron stars therefore violate the laws of known physics." 'the island of stability' aside neutron stars are held together by gravity and there is no problem explaining their existance. Although there is a lack of knowledge in the nature of their interiors. Also dark matter and energy have essentially been observed due to their gravitational effect. If they hadn't been detected in this way people wouldn't be trying to work out what they are. I'm also not sure how the sun heating up and the presence of cool areas on the photosphere are evidence against the big bang. Physics is very sophisticated we understand the laws of nature to incredible degrees of accuracy. Quantum mechanics and general relativity give a very good understanding of the universe at large and small scales. However solving complex problems with either theory is still difficult. With quantum mechanics and the standard model there are lots of experiments available to find evidence in a lab. Astrophysics is harder because it's predictions can not be tested in a lab, this makes finding evidence for or against theories much harder.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

The Big Bang predictions [for CMBR temperature] ranged from 5 to 7 and then to 50 Kelvin, whereas the static universe predictions centered closer to 3 Kelvin -- which is pretty much where the observed value ended up.

The static universe was falsified by many other observations, one of which is the CMBR spectrum. Its predictions for the CMBR temperature are irrelevant.

Just because the Big Bang theorists were able to integrate this observation into their model does not mean that the data supports the Big Bang Theory.

Actually, it does mean that.

Around 30 years ago, a researcher named Halton Arp attempted to publish a paper that showed that not all redshifts are cosmological.

Arp's statistical methodology is biased in a way that guaranteed to indicate excess QSOs in the directions of bright galaxies.

There are actually numerous undeniable observations that indicate that high redshift quasars are between us and lower redshift galaxies.

That turns out not to be the case.

It may appear to you that the Big Bang Theory "explains the facts better", but then why are scientists constantly making observations that violate theory?

They don't. They may violate some particular model or another of astrophysics, whereupon a better model is constructed.

There are many very important unsolved mysteries in the universe that the Big Bang has so far failed to explain:

You continue to confuse Big Bang theory with other areas of astrophysics, such as stellar astrophysics. Please note that Big Bang cosmology has nothing to do with any of the questions you raise below.

Why is the surface of the Sun only 6,000 Kelvin while the corona gets up to 2,000,000 Kelvin?

There are a couple of proposed resolutions of the coronal heating problem; magnetic recoupling is one of them.

Astrophysicists have proposed something called magnetic reconnections, but this phenomenon has no scientific basis. It is not supported by either plasma physics or electricity and magnetism.

On the contrary, it is easily explained by those theories and is in fact known to be the mechanism responsible for solar flares.

Why are sunspots dark?

They're cooler than the rest of the Sun.

Why does the solar wind accelerate as it leaves the Sun past the planets? What is accelerating these particles?

Thermal energy and magnetic fields.

How is it possible that neutron stars can stay together? There is a law of physics called "The Island of Stability" that requires that neutrons packed this tightly together should fly apart from one another. Neutron stars therefore violate the laws of known physics.

The Island of Stability ignores the enormous gravitational field present in a neutron star. The laws of known physics predict that neutron stars are stable (up to a certain mass).

What is dark matter and dark energy?

We don't know. Dark matter may be the axions predicted by QCD or the neutralinos predicted by supersymmetry. Dark energy may be the cosmological constant introduced by Einstein.

Until they are observed, they are nothing more than mathematical abstractions.

Just like quarks? There are plenty of things in science that are only observed indirectly. Dark matter makes specific predictions which can be tested against observation (and many dark matter models have already been ruled out). Ditto dark energy, although less is known.

Astrophysicists treat all of these problems as if they are minor, unimportant problems and that we'll eventually get to them at some later time.

Ignoring the "problems" you've raised that aren't actually problems, you're still wrong; astrophysicists aren't ignoring actual problems such as the coronal heating problem. It's an active area of research.

But all of these problems are treated with the presumption that the Big Bang Theory is actually correct.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Shimmer]

We can't know, or even imagine, non-existance, because we've never experienced it.

Of course we can. Before you were conceived, you did not exist. How was that "experience" for you? I think it's safe to say that death will be like that too.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[LoyalOpposition]

Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?

That comes from observing the universe, and, particularly, from the observed fact that stars are moving away from each other in a "uniform" manner. "Uniform" is in quotes because some stars tend to clump together, e.g. in globular clusters, and galaxies. Now, there are movements that wouldn't imply a beginning. Asymptotic ones don't. However, the movements of the stars aren't any of these. At some time in the past, barring a colossal misunderstanding of physics, everything was in the same place. When that happened the gravitational field was intense. Really, really intense. One of the things Einstein found was that time moves slower the more intense the gravitational field. At the point in time in the past when everything was in the same place, time didn't progress at all. That was the beginning.

-Loyal

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

That article is interesting.

Sometimes people find it hard to understand why the big bang is not a black hole. After all, the density of matter in the first fraction of a second was much higher than that found in any star, and dense matter is supposed to curve space-time strongly. At sufficient density there must be matter contained within a region smaller than the Schwarzschild radius for its mass. Nevertheless, the big bang manages to avoid being trapped inside a black hole of its own making and paradoxically the space near the singularity is actually flat rather than curving tightly. How can this be?

The short answer is that the big bang gets away with it because it is expanding rapidly near the beginning and the rate of expansion is slowing down. Space can be flat while space-time is not. The curvature can come from the temporal parts of the space-time metric which measures the deceleration of the expansion of the universe.

That implies something like a real world application of one of Zeno's paradoxes, wherein summing an infinite series can result in a finite sum.

Mention of space being perfectly flat with the needed curvature coming from time implies a time dilation effect going on. In other words, while the big-bang was a set number of seconds ago, based on the current meaning of second, the closer to the big bang the universe was the smaller the unit of a second was.

To view that another way, imagine time being reversed. In that case, time is traveling toward the big bang. However when we get closer to the big bang the units of time get smaller. The closer we get to the big bang, the slower we are approaching it (subjectively), resulting in it talking an infinite amount of subjective time to reach the big bang.

That makes a perverse sort of sense. More or less the opposite time dilation effects occur for an object approaching a black hole's Event horizon. To the object is takes a finite amount of time. To a distant observer, the object appears to take take an infinite amount of time to cross the event horizon.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[alexhard]

The fact that time has a beginning doesn't mean it's not infinite..

The only way I can imagine time ending is in a big crunch and from what we know about the universe now, it doesn't seem possible..so, time pretty much has no end, and is thus infinite

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[BlueFireIce]

All the ones I listed are just other choices, not saying anyone of them is right, but they all do occur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift/. Which ever you believe to be the cause I guess is your choice.

Using the cyclic model which is a unproven theory to try and debunk the laws of thermodynamics is foolish I believe. In theory it may be able make up for it, but it is far from being proven, and until then the known laws take precedence for me. But I guess you like me, were just giving other choices.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[rainman_bc]

If time has no beginning, how long would it have taken to get to the moment you're reading this post?

Time in that sense is relative to now. One minute ago. yesterday. Five years ago. Two years in the future.

Our calendar is based on relativity - cycles of the earth, cycles around the sun. Every unit of time is simply relative. Time can best be expressed as a function from now, not so easily as a function from the beginning of time.

We express our calendar as a function of time from the birth of Christ. We pick a static point in time, and measure our relative distance from it.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[rainman_bc]

you are not religious, but you are not scientifically minded either. We do not 'just theorize', we gather data and propose ideas - hypothesis and mathematical models. These models fit the gathered data and can be used to predict events in the future.

The big bang is still just a theory, unproven. I'm merely asking why it's one of the more accepted theories out there - I'm getting some great responses thanks!

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

All the ones I listed are just other choices, not saying anyone of them is right, but they all do occur

Of course they all occur, but they do not explain the cosmological Hubble redshift.

Which ever you believe to be the cause I guess is your choice.

It's not a matter of "choice", or opinion: the alternatives you mention are demonstrably false explanations of the Hubble redshift.

Using the cyclic model which is a unproven theory to try and debunk the laws of thermodynamics is foolish I believe.

The cyclic universe theory does not "debunk the laws of thermodynamics". In fact, it is fully compatible with the laws of thermodynamics. That's the point: it is a demonstration that the laws of thermodynamics do not imply that time has a beginning. There are models compatible with thermodynamics in which time has a beginning, and others in which it does not. The question is open.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[rainman_bc]

If everything is moving away from everything else, then at some point in the past they must all have been in the same place.

That may be an assumption made a priori, but I'll challenge that... Just because we observe bodies moving away from a point doesn't necessarily mean that they started there or even had an explosion there... It could be anecdotal evidence...

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[pln2bz]

I'm going to ignore all of your comments that are nothing more than *assertions* that you are right. These are merely expressions of how strongly you feel about this stuff -- not arguments.

The static universe was falsified by many other observations, one of which is the CMBR spectrum. Its predictions for the CMBR temperature are irrelevant.

I'd like to hear *why* a prediction for the temperature was irrelevant. Is it irrelevant because it was wrong? Or is there a good reason for why this temperature was considered a free variable?

The point is that there are other explanations for the microwave signals being noticed. In fact, here's a pretty good one (http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=knb8h x39):

The simplest answer, from the highly successful field of plasma cosmology, is that it represents the natural microwave radiation from electric current filaments in interstellar plasma local to the Sun. Radio astronomers have mapped the interstellar hydrogen filaments by using longer wavelength receivers. The dense thicket formed by those filaments produces a perfect fog of microwave radiation--as if we were located inside a microwave oven. Instead of the Cosmic Microwave Background, it is the Interstellar Microwave Background. That makes sense of the fact that the CMB is too smooth to account for the lumpiness of galaxies and galactic clusters in the universe. We cannot "see" them through the local microwave fog.

The only reason that the Big Bang version is preferred over the others is because we teach the Big Bang to physics students. It acts to create consensus in fields where a little bit of disagreement could only be a healthy thing. Why are Big Bang advocates so allergic to debate? Debate causes us to question our assumptions. In the process of debating things, you are forced to ask yourself what you truly know. Debate is a *good* thing. What's actually bad is when a particular theory becomes so accepted that there are few dissenting voices -- because there is always still the possibility that the theory could be wrong.

Just because the Big Bang theorists were able to integrate this observation into their model does not mean that the data supports the Big Bang Theory.

Actually, it does mean that.

A theory can have no predictive capabilities and yet fully describe all of the observations that have been made. In such a scenario, it would forever seem as if we are just barely on the edge of understanding the theory of everything, and yet new mysterious observations would happen all the time and little to no technology would ever derive from this theory. This is pretty coincidentally the situation we have with the Big Bang Theory.

Arp's statistical methodology is biased in a way that guaranteed to indicate excess QSOs in the directions of bright galaxies.

Actually, a recent publication supports his statistics (from http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/0612 04arpejection.htm):

In a recent paper by astronomers Lopéz-Corredoira and Gutiérrez (astro-ph/0609514), a statistical investigation was performed to test if there are overdensities of QSOs along the minor axis (rotation axis) of nearby galaxies, as predicted by Arp's model. To this end, the authors selected 71 nearby edge-on spiral galaxies that were sufficiently well-studied and compared the positions of QSOs from a large database. The edge-on constraint was necessary to ensure a clear direction of the rotation axis. Indeed, the authors found an overdensity towards the minor axis. Depending on the magnitude of the quasars, the overdensity was found to be between 13% and 38%, with a statistical significance of 3.9 sigma (chance of this finding being a fluke is roughly 1 in 10,000). While the authors are cautiously describing this result as "te

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[jfengel]

Well, there are a couple of other options:

1. The Earth is in an unusual place in the universe, from which everything else is moving away, but not necessarily the center. Mathematically, it could happen, but only at a select number of spots in the universe, and physicists usually assume that there's nothing special about the Earth. Any observations we make here are about the same as we'd make anywhere else, and we're not special. Assume the Earth is special and the whole theory falls apart.

2. Galaxies could have changed course over history. That too could be, but simplicity suggests that the universe has followed roughly the same laws over time. (That's the temporal version of the assumption we made in #1, that our time is nothing special). Again, if something happened in the past that we can't observe today, the whole theory is upset.

Overall, it means that you're right: we take anecdotal evidence from one point in the universe and assume that it applies everywhere and at every time. I can't particularly justify that assumption except to point out that any other assumption (that earth is somehow special or that now is somehow special) is more complicated.

We justify it because we believe that the location is essentially random, and that we're not at a specially picked spot. We also accept it because from what we can observe, other parts of the universe do appear to operate the same way, so the evidence isn't completely anecdotal.

Particular spots could make that anecdotal evidence wrong, but the odds are extremely low that out of the entire enormous universe, we'd happen to be in a very particular spot. You could believe that it happened anyway, or that a conscious designer put us in exactly that spot for a reason. Feel free to go with those assumptions and see if they lead you any place useful; that's what science is all about.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[roman_mir]

No theory regarding the physical word is proven ever. Gravity for example is not a proven theory either. It is just the best hypothesis that fits the empirical data and can be used to make predictions into the future (like calculations of orbits of planets for our interplanetary probes.)

The Big Bang theory uses the best hypothesis that fits the empirical data and that can be used to predict phenomena before it is even observed, no other hypothesis today can fit the empirical data and make future predictions as well as the Big Bang hypothesis.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[rajafarian]

How long before we actually find something?

I got a Physics degree in my attempt as a teenager to find out how I got to be. I lost interest in Physics as a path when I discovered this saying when I was in college:

One night, a neighbor strolling by Nasrudin's house found him outside under the street lamp brushing through the dust. "Have you lost something, my friend?" he asked. Nasrudin explained that he had lost his key and asked the neighbor to help him find it. After some minutes of searching and turning up nothing, the neighbor asked him, "Are you sure you lost the key here?" "No, I did not lose it here. I lost it inside the house," Nasrudin answered. "If you lost the key in the house, Nasrudin, why are you looking for it out here?" "Well, there's more light out here, of course," Nasrudin replied.

Quite honestly I don't think that current science will ever find the answer as to how the universe got to be (not that I think we should stop trying, though!) because everything is mind mind itself.

However, as far as "physical" Reality goes, I think that if we could look, and perhaps we will someday, that we would find the universe to be like a fractal, infinite in every direction and if we had an infinitely powerful microscope and an infinitely powerful telescope that we would find them to be exactly the same. Just like Xaos!

If compared, how does this not make MS Research and their $billions silly?

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to ignore all of your comments that are nothing more than *assertions* that you are right.

That is of course incorrect. Pay attention. I answered most of your question and gave the reasons why most of your claims were wrong.

I'd like to hear *why* a prediction for the temperature was irrelevant. Is it irrelevant because it was wrong?

It's irrelevant because the steady state theory is wrong. It's easy to make up a theory that gets one thing right for the wrong reasons. It's harder to make one that gets everything right.

The only reason that the Big Bang version is preferred over the others is because we teach the Big Bang to physics students.

You've got it backwards. The Big Bang is taught to students because it is supported by the evidence, and the alternatives are not.

Why are Big Bang advocates so allergic to debate?

They aren't. No one has produced an adequate replacement; there is little to debate. You certainly have not proposed any reasonable alternatives to the Big Bang. In fact, virtually all of your objections had nothing to do with the Big Bang.

A theory can have no predictive capabilities and yet fully describe all of the observations that have been made.

That's true, but it's also true that the data supports such a theory. Furthermore, Big Bang cosmology made a number of predictions that were subsequently confirmed.

Actually, a recent publication supports his statistics

That's interesting. Their publication does not support Arp's statistics, since those are known to be incorrect, but they could support his conclusions with their own statistics. I haven't read the paper myself. Wait and see how it plays out in the literature before jumping to conclusions.

(Incidentally, note that quasars in front of galaxies only falsifies models of quasars, not the Big Bang; AFAIK, not even Arp is disputing that galaxies at high redshift are distant and receding.)

The image shows two distinct clusters of stars coincidentally aligned outwards in filaments originating from Earth. I guess we *are* the center of the universe for some galaxies, eh?

The universe is not homogeneous and isotropic on that scale. It is, however, homogeneous and isotropic on cosmological scales. The formation of filamentary structures is not a "problem" for the Big Bang; in fact, computer models predict such structures.

What I love about dark matter is that although it responds to gravity, it does not emit any electromagnetic radiation. People should be very wary of theories that involve mechanisms which cannot be directly observed using any technology known to man.

And why do you think that every particle in the universe has to emit electromagnetic radiation? Neutral particles do not, but they certainly exist. Suppose nature handed us a particle like a neutrino, but heavier. How else but by gravitation would we know it's there? For that matter, what about quarks? They can never be directly observed. Do you doubt their existence?

We must ask ourselves: do they hold prominence because we cannot *disprove* them? An objective scientist would always maintain this question in the back of his mind, but this does not appear to be a problem for astrophysicists today.

I am quite certain that you have never met an actual astrophysicist, so I'm amused by your assertions regarding what they do or do not think. I do know a number of astrophysicists, and they certainly would prefer a direct detection of dark matter. There are numerous experiments underway to attempt to do so. However, that may not be possible, and an objective scientist will entertain that possibility too. The fact of the matter is that dark matter explains a number of independent astrophysical phenomena in a consistent manner. There is no reason to expect an ad-hoc fudge to do so.

Sometimes, they tell us that matter must obey rules in the universe. At

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Overall, it means that you're right: we take anecdotal evidence from one point in the universe and assume that it applies everywhere and at every time. I can't particularly justify that assumption except to point out that any other assumption (that earth is somehow special or that now is somehow special) is more complicated.

It's not just that; it's actually quite hard to construct models in which the Earth is special (e.g. "the center of the universe") and yet also agree with observations.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[glitch23]

Well there has to be a beginning, it's an almost certainty. The stars and galaxies that exist almost had to start from something since we can observe changes now. The fact that the universe's expansion can be traced to a single point also implies (I refrain from saying "proves" since I'm more humble than evolutionsists who claim they interpet everything correctly) there was a central location where everything originated. Even if the objects still existed in the beginning and just in a different shape or whatever still means there was an initial state for all objects in the universe. Something set them in motion (for our solar system the motion seems to be pretty exact in order for life to be sustained on Earth).

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[barn3y]

Why can't we just theorize that time is not finite - there's no beginning and no end.........Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite? Many scientists have theorized exactly that, the best example of which is the Steady State theory. The current general consensus seems to be that the Big Bang theory is the best fit to the observable universe.

The reason science exists is that some people cannot just "accept" things. They must ask why. They must have proof to back up their assumptions. From what I understand about the Big Bang, these scientists have reason to believe that time DOES have a beginning. If there are scientists with evidence that time is not finite, then it would be helpful if someone provided a link. IANAS (I am not a scientist), but I have read a good book which covers the development of scientific theories of time. Worth a read.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

From the society's point of view looking for how the universe began is not really the point of this basic research. It is just a ploy to make very smart people learn about these stuff so they will have the experience and expertise to work on stuff we actually need.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[pln2bz]

Furthermore, Big Bang cosmology made a number of predictions that were subsequently confirmed.

I'm interested in hearing more about this, but unless you are more specific, it's not very convincing.

(Incidentally, note that quasars in front of galaxies only falsifies models of quasars, not the Big Bang; AFAIK, not even Arp is disputing that galaxies at high redshift are distant and receding.)

If it can be shown that there are redshift components *other* than just recessional velocity for any observed star, then we must re-evaluate the use of redshift for determining the distance to all stars that cannot be distanced using parallax or whatever other distancing techniques exist. To assume that whatever is altering the redshifts of quasars is *only* happening for quasars and not any other types of stars is very typical of the compartmentalization that occurs in astrophysics today.

The universe is not homogeneous and isotropic on that scale. It is, however, homogeneous and isotropic on cosmological scales. The formation of filamentary structures is not a "problem" for the Big Bang; in fact, computer models predict such structures.

But these filamentary structures both coincidentally point to *us*. I'm sure you would agree that this can only happen so many times before it becomes a problem.

The fact of the matter is that dark matter explains a number of independent astrophysical phenomena in a consistent manner. There is no reason to expect an ad-hoc fudge to do so.

Just because something *can* explain something doesn't mean that it does. You admit that there are gaps in our knowledge about things like dark matter, but you do not allow these gaps to affect your confidence in the theories.

There are certainly no electric effects observed to be strong enough to cause the weather.

This statement is not supported by observational evidence of planets in our solar system. And this is a common problem that astrophysicists make when trying to understand phenomenon throughout the solar system: they ignore that similar phenomenon on multiple planets might have common causes. Instead, they assume that all bodies in space are isolated even though we know that planets can, for instance, "touch" each other with their plasma tails.

Atmospheric density on Mars is only 1% of that on Earth and yet Mars has dust devils that reach 5 miles into its atmosphere and dwarf Earthly tornadoes. How is wind happening within this virtual vacuum on Mars to the extent that it can cause these dust devils? Mars occasionally is engulfed by global dust storms that elevate particles up to 40 miles above the surface of the planet. Since this is a virtual vacuum, how are they possible? What is lifting the dust particles into the atmosphere? Without any "fluid" to push around other than the dust itself, thermal and mechanical explanations are less convincing than they are here on Earth.

An image or two can say a lot:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0509 16dustdevil.htm

These observations inspired scientists to study dust devils here on Earth, and sure enough they exhibit strong electric fields of 4,000 volts per meter. Now, if you see a weather phenomenon with electrical characteristics on both Mars *and* the Earth, then you'd be smart to ask if the electricity is driving the dust devils on both planets.

Most scientists believe that the Mars dust storms are thermal in nature because they appear to coincide with the planet's closest approach to the Sun. In fact, this is the case for the biggest dust storm ever observed on Mars in 2001. However, it is also true that that dust storm coincided with a point in Mars' orbit when it was in the path of Earth's plasma tail (the magnetosphere). The thermal explanation for dust storms fails to explain why they ever stop and NASA scientists have admitted as much.

On V

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not. The astrophysics literature is full of new theories. Astrophysicists are just hostile to stupid theories, like the ones you support. Actually, "indifferent" would be a better word than "hostile"; scientists tend to ignore crackpots.

Thank you. I love this paragraph!

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm interested in hearing more about this, but unless you are more specific, it's not very convincing.

Big Bang cosmology predicted the CMBR and its blackbody spectrum. Its inflationary extension later predicted the angular anisotropies that are now being observed. Inflation also predicts the large-scale statistical distribution of galaxies. Big Bang cosmology also predicted the Hubble expansion, the observed luminosity-redshift relation, and the light element nucleosynthesis ratios. The expansion of the universe is corroborated in many other ways, including high-z supernovae and the temperature of the CMBR in the early universe as measured by low-energy atomic transitions as well as independently by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect.

If it can be shown that there are redshift components *other* than just recessional velocity for any observed star, then we must re-evaluate the use of redshift for determining the distance to all stars that cannot be distanced using parallax or whatever other distancing techniques exist. To assume that whatever is altering the redshifts of quasars is *only* happening for quasars and not any other types of stars is very typical of the compartmentalization that occurs in astrophysics today.

There is no real evidence that anything is "altering the redshifts of quasars" at all, and it has not been shown that there are any redshift components other than recessional velocity. Indeed, all of the alternative redshift explanations you proposed are wrong, as well as all of the tired-light alternatives that have been proposed by others. Astrophysicists did not arrive at the expanding universe explanation because they ignored the alternatives; the alternatives simply don't work. Furthermore, the expansion of the universe is not predicated on redshift alone; there are numerous independent lines of evidence in its favor, some of which I have already mentioned.

But these filamentary structures both coincidentally point to *us*. I'm sure you would agree that this can only happen so many times before it becomes a problem.

In fact, the large scale structure of the universe is rather isotropic, as well as the CMBR. We are not "the center of the universe".

This statement is not supported by observational evidence of planets in our solar system.

It certainly is, both by observations of planetary weather and of electric effects in the vicinity of planets.

And this is a common problem that astrophysicists make when trying to understand phenomenon throughout the solar system: they ignore that similar phenomenon on multiple planets might have common causes. Instead, they assume that all bodies in space are isolated even though we know that planets can, for instance, "touch" each other with their plasma tails.

Astronomers do not ignore the transport of matter within the solar system; they discovered it. It simply isn't large enough to produce any of the effects you claim.

Atmospheric density on Mars is only 1% of that on Earth and yet Mars has dust devils that reach 5 miles into its atmosphere and dwarf Earthly tornadoes. How is wind happening within this virtual vacuum on Mars to the extent that it can cause these dust devils?

Dust devils of that size are possible because the Martian atmosphere is so thin (and also because Mars has vast uninterrupted stretches of desert).

However, it is also true that that dust storm coincided with a point in Mars' orbit when it was in the path of Earth's plasma tail (the magnetosphere).

The Earth's magnetosphere is ridiculously small at Mars's orbit, let alone within Mars's atmosphere.

The thermal explanation for dust storms fails to explain why they ever stop and NASA scientists have admitted as much.

Don't be absurd. Thermal turbulence doesn't predict that Martian dust devils are perpetual motion machines any more than it does terrestrial dust devils.

These observations inspired scienti

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[pln2bz]

Big Bang cosmology predicted the CMBR and its blackbody spectrum.

And yet failed the first galactic shadow test. I'm really curious how you will respond if it is shown for a second and third time that the light is *not* coming from far away. Will you stick to your guns in spite of the evidence, or will you become curious about other cosmologies as an objective person would?

Its inflationary extension later predicted the angular anisotropies that are now being observed.

Anisotropy certainly doesn't *prove* Big Bang any more than plasma cosmology could (which EU Theory heavily draws upon). A cosmology based upon plasma would by default include this sort of stuff because this is what plasma does. This is a common problem with Big Bang arguments: they oftentimes claim that their theory is proven by things that can result from other cosmologies as well.

Inflation also predicts the large-scale statistical distribution of galaxies

If you come up with a theory whose purpose is to explain the current structure of the universe, then you should not be surprised when it in fact does just that. The math can be made to work, but working math does not mean proof of physical concepts.

Big Bang cosmology also predicted the Hubble expansion ... Which Hubble would have never proposed if he had observed the unusual redshift distribution of quasars *first*.

the observed luminosity-redshift relation ... Which is violated by an objective observation of quasars.

and the light element nucleosynthesis ratios. ... Which due to the proposed existence of dark matter and dark energy really only relate to some supposedly minuscule amount of matter. But that aside, once again, there are *other* explanations for why these ratios might be observed. It could just be a natural result of stellar fusion. Hoyle apparently talks about this in his book "A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality", but I have not read it.

The point is that it is important when trying to prove something that you make sure that there are no other explanations and you should put effort into identifying anomalies. This doesn't appear to be important to Big Bang proponents. They are far more interested in generating data in support of the theory.

At this point in time, I have to interrupt myself from further investigation of your evidence. It's my belief that we can draw conclusions about whether or not to believe complex arguments on the basis of an evaluation of just a few pieces of that evidence. I see where you're generally going here and I'm unimpressed. I was hoping that you were going to be throwing stuff at me that was harder to refute.

all of the alternative redshift explanations you proposed are wrong ... Astrophysicists did not arrive at the expanding universe explanation because they ignored the alternatives; the alternatives simply don't work.

This is another interesting facet of Big Bang theory -- that we're not supposed to believe our eyes over the theory. I can look at those two pictures and determine that quasars are in *front* of spiral galaxies. You have yet to explain why my eyes are wrong other than to assert that they are. Are you alleging that these are not quasars?

Don't be absurd. Thermal turbulence doesn't predict that Martian dust devils are perpetual motion machines any more than it does terrestrial dust devils.

I'm talking about the global dust storms. Nobody has even proposed a model yet for why they ever stop other than the EU guys.

It is easy to construct a computer simulation of a storm system driven by thermal effects which behaves the same way real storms do. Where is the simluation of the same system driven by electricity?

Good question. Does it not exist because it *can't* be made? Has anybody actually tried?

To

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet failed the first galactic shadow test.

No "shadow test" has been failed. You are probably referring to the study of Lieu et al. on the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. You may have missed their followup paper in which they present evidence that the "anomaly" is due to diffuse non-thermal electrons in the cluster.

Anisotropy certainly doesn't *prove* Big Bang any more than plasma cosmology could (which EU Theory heavily draws upon).

No evidence can ever prove any theory; scientific theories are never proven in the mathematical sense. They can be proven beyond reasonable doubt in the practical sense once they amass a large amount of independent supporting evidence.

A cosmology based upon plasma would by default include this sort of stuff because this is what plasma does.

In fact, plasma cosmology does not predict the observed acoustic peak anisotropies. Inflationary cosmology does.

If you come up with a theory whose purpose is to explain the current structure of the universe, then you should not be surprised when it in fact does just that.

Again showing no understanding of science. All theories are designed to explain observed phenomena (including EU theory). You cannot dismiss a theory or the evidence supporting it for that reason.

The math can be made to work, but working math does not mean proof of physical concepts.

The way science works is that a theory makes predictions, and observations either support or contradict those predictions. "Working math" means a prediction which is supported by evidence, which strengthens the theory.

Which Hubble would have never proposed if he had observed the unusual redshift distribution of quasars *first*.

Hubble redshift is not contradicted by the redshift distribution of quasars or of other galaxies. You keep acting as if Arp has disproven Hubble redshift, which is far from the case.

Which is violated by an objective observation of quasars.

Quasars aren't used for luminosity-redshift tests; they're not standard candles. Supernovae and Cepheids are.

Which due to the proposed existence of dark matter and dark energy really only relate to some supposedly minuscule amount of matter.

So?

But that aside, once again, there are *other* explanations for why these ratios might be observed.

It's always possible in principle that some alternate explanation exists. What is important is whether such an explanation actually exists.

It could just be a natural result of stellar fusion.not predicted by stellar fusion, which is one of the reasons they are counted as successes for Big Bang cosmology.

By the way, I notice you had nothing to say regarding some of the other evidence I presented.

The point is that it is important when trying to prove something that you make sure that there are no other explanations and you should put effort into identifying anomalies. This doesn't appear to be important to Big Bang proponents.

This is nonsense. Historically there have been many challenges to Big Bang cosmology. You happen to have come along after they all were proven failures, which is why you imagine that no one has ever considered alternatives.

At this point in time, I have to interrupt myself from further investigation of your evidence. It's my belief that we can draw conclusions about whether or not to believe complex arguments on the basis of an evaluation of just a few pieces of that evidence. I see where you're generally going here and I'm unimpressed. I was hoping that you were going to be throwing stuff at me that was harder to refute.

Of course you're unimpressed. You ignore all the evidence in favor of the Big Bang, and invent non-existent contradictions of it, peppered with liberal claims about alternatives that don't actually exist. EU cosmology has not presented viable alternative explanations of the Hu

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[pln2bz]

No "shadow test" has been failed. You are probably referring to the study of Lieu et al. on the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. You may have missed their followup paper in which they present evidence that the "anomaly" is due to diffuse non-thermal electrons in the cluster.

Well, I wouldn't expect them to give up. I'm sure that you guys can figure out all of your anomalies to an extent that you are satisfied. I'm especially anxious to witness the creativity that will be involved in explaining the Deep Impact mission results. That's the point of EU Theorists: that there is no contradiction or complication that can possibly cause you guys to start seriously considering competing cosmologies. It appears that there is no longer any observation that could falsify Big Bang Theory any more. When there is a problem that cannot be solved, it is merely compartmentalized and labeled for future reference until an explanation appears that is as satisfactory as can be for that cosmology. It never compromises the assumptions. It appears that nearly all of the components of the theories have had to go through various transformations over time. You can make the case that this is a natural process of creating theory, but the case can also be made that this should temper your confidence in your theories' assumptions to begin with. That side of the argument is never really discussed. The philosophy of science arguments seem to be losing importance as the math becomes increasingly complex and the phenomenon increasingly disjointed. The evolution of the discussion here is emblematic of the process that is causing this result. But the problem is not a technical one; it's a problem of maintaining context, objectivity and balance. Like I've said before, these types of problems don't require a degree in astrophysics to understand. But it's inevitable that astrophysicists will steer the discussion to areas that are less understood by whoever they are talking to, and then derive pleasure out of watching the person struggle under the load of the information thrown at them. This allows them to feel as if they are winning the argument without actually having to consider the merits of any philosophical arguments about their own methodology.

I'm not here to allege that astrophysicists and Big Bang Cosmologists can't resolve their math problems. I'm here to allege that you guys are passing off quite a bit of theory as fact and using the complexity of your subject matter to disguise this. I also believe that people can be wrong (even astrophysicists) and that it was a mistake to allow modern physics to devolve into the conformist culture that it is today.

It's commonly stated that things like aether theory and steady state universes have been thoroughly discredited. But this is again an expression of over-confidence for the queen of the sciences have in fact constrained the curiosity of people to investigate those things because of the momentum that the BB Theory has acquired within the educational system. The theory evolves into a self-fulfilling prophecy that can absorb whatever anomaly is thrown at it no matter how absurd or unnatural the solution. And when phenomenon are observed that can more simply be described without the burden of Big Bang Cosmology or stellar evolution or whatever, those explanations are overwhelmingly not considered.

You want to insist that we can never be confident in any theory just because of the mere possibility of alternatives, but this is nothing but hypocrisy; you're not attacking other theories the way you're attacking the opponents of your pet theory.

Why would I? The Big Bang monopoly is the *reason* why all of the others aren't as advanced as it. There is no desire in your field to advance all of the theories. You guys have allowed yourself to become preferential to one possible explanation even though others exist. I view it as a unique failure of science. I have no idea how to fix it, but I doubt that it will be fixed any time soon because it's clear that there is no recognition that balance would be a positive thing in the first place. As you said, the Big Bang is pretty much true anyways. Why bother, right?

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I wouldn't expect them to give up. I'm sure that you guys can figure out all of your anomalies to an extent that you are satisfied.

You ignore the fact that there is actual evidence for these explanations.

That's the point of EU Theorists: that there is no contradiction or complication that can possibly cause you guys to start seriously considering competing cosmologies.

The only thing that would cause astrophysicists to seriously consider competing cosmologies is the existence of a serious competing cosmology. EU is not it. It doesn't just lack competing explanations; the ones that it proposes are manifestly false. You've bought their propaganda hook, line, and sinker.

It appears that there is no longer any observation that could falsify Big Bang Theory any more.

You can falsify specific Big Bang cosmologies, but you can't turn the fact that the universe is expanding into a non-fact. You may as well complain that you can't falsify the theory that opposite charges electrically attract each other. The observational evidence establishes otherwise. Now, new evidence may falsify a specific theory of charged particle attraction; e.g., Maxwell's equations may be proven to be inaccurate by that new evidence. The way that works is not "it turns out that opposite charges don't attract after all and we have to throw out all electromagnetic equations". It works by, "Maxwell's equations are inaccurate in a certain regime that hasn't been well probed before — since otherwise their inaccuracy would have been already revealed — and need to be replaced by new equations that make small corrections in that regime.

That is the way that old theories are falsified and replaced by new theories, not by your fairy-tale version where everything we know is wrong and has to be rewritten from scratch. That doesn't happen and cannot, because new discoveries do not get rid of old evidence; the new theory has to be compatible with everything that has gone before. When Newton was disproved, people didn't go back to Aristotle; Newton was subsumed within Einstein, Schroedinger, and Heisenberg; Newton's laws were shown to be very good approximations to the new theories.

Hell, even if charged particles started repelling each other tomorrow, that will not falsify the evidence that they used to attract each other. Likewise, we may find that the universe has stopped expanding, which would falsify all the Big Bang models currently in use. But that won't change the evidence that the universe used to expand; you simply cannot make that go away. Any new theory will have to take that into account.

You can make the case that this is a natural process of creating theory, but the case can also be made that this should temper your confidence in your theories' assumptions to begin with. That side of the argument is never really discussed. The philosophy of science arguments seem to be losing importance as the math becomes increasingly complex and the phenomenon increasingly disjointed.

No one forgets that scientific theories are provisional. But philosophical arguments cannot make the evidence go away. In your hypocrisy, you wave your hands and ignore the evidence just because you don't like the theory, when you don't apply your vaunted philosophical arguments to insist that we are overconfident in, say, the laws of electric force. In fact, you don't make any scientific case at all; you yourself said that you'd prefer to make philosophical arguments instead of discussing scientific evidence. This is because you don't understand the science, you don't care for the evidence supporting Big Bang cosmology, and you don't want to admit that EU theory is falsified by the evidence.

It took 50+ years for Big Bang cosmology to be fully accepted, and that happened because the amount of evidence which accumulated in its favor became overwhelming — all the more so because of the spectacular failures of every alternative ever p

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[pln2bz]

The only thing that would cause astrophysicists to seriously consider competing cosmologies is the existence of a serious competing cosmology.

I'm not sure who you expect to come up with these competing theories. All of the astrophysicists are trained in Big Bang. Few astrophysicists are actually taught much in the way of electricity and magnetism. It's no surprise then that the astrophysical thought experiments have considered electricity to be unimportant. Then, when the electrical experts try to chime in and explain that some of your observations look extremely similar to things they know a *lot* about, you claim that you already have models that work and you use your limited knowledge of E&M to make statements about *their* domain of science. I'm completely unimpressed and I'm disappointed.

EU is not it. It doesn't just lack competing explanations; the ones that it proposes are manifestly false. You've bought their propaganda hook, line, and sinker.

You're missing the big picture. It shouldn't really be the responsibility of electrical engineers to develop theories of the universe. The only reason this is happening right now is because people noticed that you were trying to disregard the strongest force in the universe in your attempts to describe the universe. But really, it should be the responsbility of astrophysicists themselves to create their own competing models, and compare the models against one another. The fact that you really only have one competent model is a failure and is the fault of astrophysicists themselves. If somebody with electrical credentials suggests to you that you may be underestimating electrical phenomenon, then the logical response for the entire field would be to start requiring more electrical education in school so that you can be sure that they are wrong.

You can falsify specific Big Bang cosmologies, but you can't turn the fact that the universe is expanding into a non-fact.

But you're not *just* asserting expansion. You're also asserting that the expansion relates to the *entire* universe. And yet, there's no guarantee that we're seeing the entire universe. And for as long as man has had telescopes, he has for the most part assumed that he was seeing everything there was out there through them. I just don't see why this is any different. What has changed from when we thought that the Milky Way was all there was?

That is the way that old theories are falsified and replaced by new theories, not by your fairy-tale version where everything we know is wrong and has to be rewritten from scratch. That doesn't happen and cannot, because new discoveries do not get rid of old evidence; the new theory has to be compatible with everything that has gone before.

EU Theorists take issue with many of your *early* assumptions like gravitationally collapsing solar systems and stars, and things like black holes and neutron stars. Nobody has ever created undeniable observational proof of gravitational collapse, black holes or neutron stars. And yet, these thought experiments were allowed to solidify into accepted dogma even though there's been nothing that has completely confirmed them to the degree that is expected in other non-speculative sciences (geology and archaeology don't qualify). EU Theorists are merely proposing that those things for which you cannot produce conclusive proof of are still fair game for alternative explanations. The real problem here is that you guys allowed yourselves to become overconfident of your thought experiments. Rather than actively encouraging creative problem-solving and objective introspection, a conformist attitude prevailed.

Re:Look and calculate all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure who you expect to come up with these competing theories.

So you claim that there are competing theories, but nobody exists to come up with them? Curious. I thought EU was a competing theory. Who came up with that?

All of the astrophysicists are trained in Big Bang.

So? You can't replace a theory without understanding it. Every physicist who ever invented a new theory was well versed in what came before.

Few astrophysicists are actually taught much in the way of electricity and magnetism.

Nonsense.

It's no surprise then that the astrophysical thought experiments have considered electricity to be unimportant.

"Electricity" is not unimportant. However, it has nothing to do with powering stars or any of that nonsense, simply because the electric fields capable of doing such a thing do not exist.

I'm completely unimpressed and I'm disappointed.

Once again, this is meaningless. You are unimpressed because you don't know enough electromagnetism to realize that what the EU cranks are claiming is patently impossible according to the very laws of electromagnetism that you claim astrophysicists don't understand.

It shouldn't really be the responsibility of electrical engineers to develop theories of the universe.

It's not. Electrical engineers are unqualified to do so. Some of them think they are qualified to do so, because they understand electricity, but they do not understand astrophysics. Astrophysicists understand both.

The only reason this is happening right now is because people noticed that you were trying to disregard the strongest force in the universe in your attempts to describe the universe.

"You"? Once again, I am not an astrophysicist.

Astrophysicists do not ignore the electromagnetic interaction, you jackass. Virtually every astronomical observation ever made is based on the electromagnetic interaction. Electrical effects go on in plasmas in stellar interiors. Many if not most solar astrophysicists are plasma physicists, a point you ignore in trying to set astrophysicists apart as some insular community which "ignores the truth" about electromagnetism. The astrophysics community is not ignorant of electromagnetism.

But really, it should be the responsbility of astrophysicists themselves to create their own competing models, and compare the models against one another.

For the third time, they do create competing models and compare them. That is in fact the entire enterprise of theoretical astrophysics. You simply happen to favor a stupid model that doesn't actually compete with anything, and because you favor it, you pretend like nobody ever looks at any other models? Otherwise, how else can you explain why nobody likes your favorite model? It can't be because it's WRONG, so it must be because scientists don't ever look at other models.

he fact that you really only have one competent model is a failure and is the fault of astrophysicists themselves.

There are plenty of competing models of, say, stellar interiors, or cosmological dynamics. However, all the stellar models are based on fusion, and all of the cosmological models are based on expanding universes, because the evidence proves that those effects are going on.

Why aren't you complaining that all models of gorge formation are based on erosion, or all models of continental drift are based on plate tectonics? "The geologists only have one model of gorge formation, so it is up to the brave engineers to step in and show them how it's really done"? There are certain ideas that have moved from "hypothesis" to "fact" on the basis of evidence.

If somebody with electrical credentials suggests to you that you may be underestimating electrical phenomenon, then the logical response for the entire field would be to start requiring more electrical education in school so that you can be sure th

Most over-desgined chip ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of transistors for a chip that contains a single read-only register that contains the number 42.

42

[hansamurai]

They should just call it Deep Thought and get back to us in 7.5 million years.

Re:42

[LouisZepher]

Cute. Too bad there isn't a -1 Obvious Joke mod, as that's pretty much the same thing I thought of when I saw the title. I can't say much myself, as I make numerous Adams' references here all the time. However, I try to make my references a tad more obscure and not as expected. "Nobody expects the Shoe Event Horizon! Our chief weapon is swollen ankles. And fallen arches. Our chief weapons are swollen ankles and fallen arches! And blisters..." - for example.

That said, I don't think our descendants will like the answer, but if we can get some clever agents and bicker back and forth about the answer, we'd be on the gravy train for life.

Re:42

[Anonymous Coward]

All I heard was:

That was witty, but not as witty as I would have been had I been the one to post first! Allow me to educate you on how much smarter I am than you, you insipid drooling mongoloid. blah blah bliggedty blah blah. Isn't my vast array of esoteric, obscure and trivial knowledge of British sci-fi comedy minutiae that was written by someone else that I'm only repeating without any original thought whatsoever just because something reminded me of it overwhelmingly impressive ladies?

With so much pussy that must be coming your way, I'm surprised you have time to post on slashdot.

Re:42

[Mister Whirly]

Try to make them so obscure, that even Douglas Adams fans won't get them...

Re:42

[LouisZepher]

*Shrugs* Whatever. If combining a Monty Python joke with Adams' material isn't original enough for you, bite my ass. My post served mainly to suggest making obvious jokes *more* original by making them in less-than-obvious ways. Simply quoting the source material gets old rather fast, even if used in an otherwise clever manner.

I did not intend to offend the original poster. In fact, I chuckled lightly when I read his post, and said to myself "Well, I'm glad there's others out there that think like I do..." My post was simply advice, a tip, if you will, on how not to kill a good joke. But of course, we know where the joke is, as his neighbor has told us...

Molest me not

[Weaselmancer]

...with this pocket calculator stuff.

How else can it be applied?

[Scothoser]

This is very interesting, but it doesn't explain what is being filtered, and how it is being filtered. Assuming the signals that are being filtered are radio waves, that would indicate that the processor would need to be powerful enough to catch the weak waves (as indicated in the article), while still providing enough power to filter out the noise.

I trust the astronomists already know how to do this, but it would be interesting to see what the process would be.

Then it brings up the other question: What else can this processor be used for? If it needs to be produced in the millions to make it financially viable, where else will it be sold?

Perhaps it could be used to filter out wireless microwave radio signals, allowing for better reception in a cell phone, security within a wireless network through filtering, and elsewhere. Imagine having a hard-coded chip that will filter out background wireless "noise" and look for a specific signal from a wireless signal. Assuming it couldn't be easily hacked, it could potentially provide some excellent security to wireless networks.

Re:How else can it be applied?

[stevesliva]

Then it brings up the other question: What else can this processor be used for? If it needs to be produced in the millions to make it financially viable, where else will it be sold?

Nope, IBM offers a SiGe foundry process. If you pay for the wafers, IBM will make them, whether you want 10 or 10,000. Yes, you may be designing a chip for a limited design run, but you're also designing a telescope that you'll only build once...

Re:How else can it be applied?

[n8ur]

IANARA (I Am Not A Radio Astronomer) but I wonder if these are very fast correlator chips that are used to synchronize (I'm sure there's a much better technical word) multiple data streams so that the data from all the antennas in the array can be massaged to make X small antennas look like one gigantic one (in resolution). Apparently it's a process that's much faster to do in silicon (across many parallel channels) than in a general purpose CPU.

I visited the Parkes radio telescope in Australia about two years ago and specialized correlator hardware was a big part of the processing system. They had designed (IIRC) three generations of multi-channel correlator hardware.

Intelligent Life? Myspace

[Man in Spandex]

We all know that's impossible! Vin Diesel has over 8000 friends, Blasphemy!

Astron

[pkcs11]

LOL, Asstron.

Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Josh Lindenmuth]

I can't help thinking "why?". At some point, doesn't it make sense to stop spending Billions of dollars of taxpayer money on Big Bang research? How much does it benefit us to know what happened .3 seconds after the big bang vs. 3 seconds vs. 10 million years? I'd rather see all this money fund research into advanced propulsion systems, robotics, and solar power technologies that will help us explore the Universe, rather than just gaze at it with ever more powerful equipment.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Pojut]

well, on the one hand people want to know where we have been ("we" being existance)

I'm with you on this though...I don't care where we have been, I care where we are GOING

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[quark101]

That's a very short sighted view of things. This is the same sort of "Blue Sky" research that places like Bell Labs did tremendous amounts of. Just because there isn't a potential application now doesn't mean there won't be one in 5, 50, or 500 years. What about quantum mechanics? why do we really need to know what happens at those scales? Who really cares about it? How is it going to impact me? Oh, yeah, that's right, this same kind of 'pointless' research that underlies all of modern semi conductors and almost the entire technology industry. Who knows? Maybe big bang research will be the underpinnings of the next major technological revolution. Maybe it won't. The only way to know is to do the research and to see where it leads.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[lucabrasi999]

I don't care where we have been, I care where we are GOING

How can you know where you are going, unless you understand where you come from?

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[i7dude]

it is easy to get lost in the ambiguous nature of the project's goal. put that aside for a minute. think about all of the advanced in communication and antenna theory, receiver design, and other technologies that will need to be developed in order to reach the ends of the project. while unearthing the big bang may not provide you with a tremendous amount of excitement; maybe you will sleep a little easier knowing that all of the technology advancements that go into research like this can/will be applied to other more practical areas of our lives.

many of the advances in technology that influence our lives today were unintended consequences of other research.

dude.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Pojut]

I don't need to know that I'm polish if I am driving straight into a brick wall.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[dunkelfalke]

because.

practical research won't work without basic research.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Pojut]

By the way. +5 points for the Blazing Saddles reference;-)

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Red Jesus]

There are three ideas here and each is worth addressing individually:

At some point, doesn't it make sense to stop spending Billions of dollars of taxpayer money on Big Bang research?

At some point, yes. Diminishing marginal returns eventually bring down everything. But I wouldn't say we've gone too far; this program doesn't sound like it would cost anywhere near a billion dollars and the chips will probably be useful in other weak-signal applications.

How much does it benefit us to know what happened .3 seconds after the big bang vs. 3 seconds vs. 10 million years?

Newton couldn't have developed his universal law of gravitation without the observations of Galileo and Kepler that planets are attracted to each other. But now we use his law of gravity all the time. Relativity drew on the results of experiments that involved light reflecting back from the moons of Jupiter; now we need relativity to calibrate the electron guns in our televsion sets. Our understanding of nuclear physics got a huge boost from studies of the stars and the fusion processes going on out there. And nuclear power (and weapons) have impacted society in a grand way. How much does it benefit us to know what happened 0.3 seconds after the Big Bang? It helps us because the closer we get to the Big Bang, the closer we get to observing quantum gravity (in whatever form it takes). And while quantum gravity might not seem terribly useful right now, I have little doubt that it will have useful applications eventually. Basic research is important.

I'd rather see all this money fund research into advanced propulsion systems, robotics, and solar power technologies that will help us explore the Universe, rather than just gaze at it with ever more powerful equipment.

I can't help thinking "why?". At some point, doesn't it make sense to stop spending Billions of dollars of taxpayer money on Space exploration? After all, if looking at the universe with a cheap telescope is a waste of time, wouldn't going out and touching it in an expensive spaceship be an even bigger waste?

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, there are plenty of people - with the resources - who don't agree with you.

Remember kids: You not "getting it", that doesn't imply "it"'s bad. It just means that you don't "get it".

There are lots of things which I consider a waste.. But I'm also aware of that since my interest lay elsewhere, I'm probably not qualified to have an informed opinion.

Expensive wines, for instance.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[cohomology]

I don't think it's a waste of time.

1) It's part of Western culture in investigate the universe and not be satisfied with "God did it."

2) If you want a "practical" reason, signal processing chips like this would help the GNU software radio project.

3) Going to the moon wasn't practical, but it got me interested in science when I was a kid.
What got you interested in science and technology?

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[metlin]

Because.

Because we are human beings and it in our nature to question.

Because as a sentient species, we strive to find purpose in our existence, and the existence of all things around us.

Because there is more than one way to find the truth - theoretical physics, experimental simulation, exploration using spacecrafts etc.

See, at the end of the day, there is no one methodology set in stone. It does not matter how we do it, what matters is that we are doing it. That you consider Big Bang research a waste is an opinion, an opinion that someone else may not share. Of course, you may also find some religious folks saying the same thing, because apparently they already know the truth through their faith.

So, why do we need to do anything at all? Just pick your religion and do what it says and everything is going to be peachy at the end. I mean, the truth is apparently all in some book (or books) out there.

That's how ridiculous your statement sounds to some of us, because you feel that it is a waste of time. It is a question of what you want to understand and know, and how you want to get to that understanding.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[wanerious]

I can't help thinking "why?". At some point, doesn't it make sense to stop spending Billions of dollars of taxpayer money on Big Bang research? How much does it benefit us to know what happened .3 seconds after the big bang vs. 3 seconds vs. 10 million years? I'd rather see all this money fund research into advanced propulsion systems, robotics, and solar power technologies that will help us explore the Universe, rather than just gaze at it with ever more powerful equipment.

Well, I *hope* it's just you. Just like I don't get what makes a cat do particular things from time to time, I don't get people who aren't fundamentally *curious*. Even stipulating that there may *never* be a single practical application or utility derived from cosmology, it speaks poorly for our species if we have the capability to probe our fundamental origins from our little speck in the cosmos but lack the effort. In all cases, when we probe the Universe with more precise instruments, we find mysteries that we not only cannot explain, but that we never before *imagined*. The subtlety and beauty of the Universe demands enough respect for it that we at least peer through the crack in the door.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Bjarke Roune]

How can you know where you are going, unless you understand where you come from?

Lots of people say that, but I've never understood it. Mind explaining why it is that you need to know where you were in order to know where you are going to end up? Maybe knowing where you were is nicer or helpful in some way, but that is not the question - why it is necessary to do so?

Basically, why is it that your question is not in the same category as:

How can you know that you car is pink, unless you understand why your mother is hungry?

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[lucabrasi999]

How can you know that you car is pink, unless you understand why your mother is hungry?

I disagree. Let me explain my reasoning this way: I am a fan of history. I just finished reading Alexander the Great by Peter Green. Now Dr. Green COULD have started with the birth of Alexander. But, he didn't. He went back about 100 years prior to the birth of Alexander to give a background of the ancient Macedonians. What was the history of the Macedonian state? What were it's leaders like? What was the political situation leading up to the birth and eventual ascension of Alexander as King? I would argue that without some sort of background and review of the personalities and actions of those personalities up to the point of Alexander's ascension, it would be almost impossible to understand why Alexander made the choices he did.

People do not act in a vacuum. An action by one person or one random "act of G(g)od" usually results in a reaction by a person. Alexander made his choices based on his environment.

Now you are probably asking "So, what does the history of ancient Macedonia and Persia have to do with the Big Bang?" Bear with me. Our solar system does not act in a vacuum. If a star explodes 100 light years away from us, it will eventually impact our life in some manner (maybe just a supernova, maybe more).

Now, take the solar system and expand it to the galaxy level. Unless we understand how our universe ended up in the state it is in, how can we understand what is happening now? The vast majority of the objects in the universe appears to be moving away from each other. Why is that happening? What is the impact on us?

We can take pictures of hundreds of galaxies that are colliding (given their distance and the speed of light, the collisions are probably already completed). What would happen if the Milky Way ran into Andromeda? How would that impact us? What about the black holes? How could they impact our solar system?

Unless you understand what has happened (and IS happening) to the other objects in the universe, how can you explain what will happen to our world? We must understand our galactic environment before we can fully understand what choices we have to make in exploring the universe.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Bjarke Roune]

I am more asking than saying the opposite, so there is not much to disagree with :-) I think you points are all valid, and they show that there is benefit to knowing what has come before in order to understand the present. Also, it is certainly not impossible that research into the Big Bang could eventually help with other more practical areas of physics, and I certainly understand the motivation of simply wanting to know.

My question was a bit more demanding than that, though. The question I responded to gives the impression that it is *necessary* to know what has come before in order to understand where things are going. I still do not see how this is necessary, as long as one has general knowledge of the kinds of things that the present kind of situation can lead to. Of course that understanding could come from a complete knowledge of history (galactic or otherwise), but I do not see how that is necessary, even if it is helpful.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Deliveranc3]

Well it depends how you look at it.

All of the "be an individual" and "don't conform" marketing seems to neglect the point that societies are hard.

They're hard to build and hard to maintain but they have some pretty increadible advantages.

We arguably have the technology to begin colonizing other solar systems right now (Ion drive, artificial wombs, computer control systems, etc.) and in the meantime the threat of people who don't think of the common good gaining the power to destroy everyone remains.

Pure research is an excellent idea and I think that pure research facilities transform into technological research much more easily than vice versa.

It's about time we had a few new big projects to match the moon landing, we have several economic superpowers now and they need something to do other than fight and play with themselves...

Another big issue is that manufacturing is increasingly computerized, and while it might seem possible to drain all the jobs into management, law and advertising it might be better if we put the impetus towards something that might matter in 20-50 years.

Does anyone remember the Kellogs ads from 1969?

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Deliveranc3]

Don't you get the impression that cosmologists are getting bored?

It seems that more and more of the research is being done by computers with a few experts analysing new findings.

One of the elements of science that people don't really appreciate is that it needs to be predictive, theories need to predict results and then find them upon testing to be accepted.

The feeling of ennui and knowing everything is setting in because researchers don't have a theory to cling to anymore (String theory went Kaput).

While it's useful to generate more data no one seems to be seriously evaluating it anymore (Think craploads of data which is sorted using old paradigms) and it needs to be carefully studied, if some element goes against current theories and is not used to develop a new theory it simply becomes unusable as a test for the next theory.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[master_p]

I think what the guy meant that we should first try to develop advanced propulsion systems and antigravity, travel to the stars and then find out what happened .3 microseconds after the big bang.

I couldn't agree more with that guy. Finding another Earth is a pressing need...we do not realize it yet, but perhaps in a few hundred years we will.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you get the impression that cosmologists are getting bored?

Are you kidding? We're finally entering the era of precision cosmology where specific models can finally be tested or ruled out.

It seems that more and more of the research is being done by computers with a few experts analysing new findings.

Computers are being used more and more in all fields of science, both to make predictions and to analyze data. What is your point?

One of the elements of science that people don't really appreciate is that it needs to be predictive, theories need to predict results and then find them upon testing to be accepted.

I think everyone knows and appreciates that fact; it's the point of science.

The feeling of ennui and knowing everything is setting in because researchers don't have a theory to cling to anymore (String theory went Kaput).

There is no feeling of ennui or knowing everything; cosmology is more exciting today than it ever has been. We're finally getting evidence for inflation, dark matter, and the completely unexpected dark energy. There are tons of theories being generated to try to explain these phenomena. New experiments are being planned all the time to test their predictions and rule out as many of these theories as possible.

Cosmologists never "clung to" string theory; most cosmologists have never had anything to do with it, although there is a small and growing cottage industry of string theorists who work on the subject.

Nor did string theory go "kaput"; more cosmological models have been created with it than ever (see pre-Big Bang cosmology, the braneworld models like the ekpyrotic/cyclic universe, string/brane gas cosmology, etc.) String theory is an even richer framework than quantum field theory in which to build models.

While it's useful to generate more data no one seems to be seriously evaluating it anymore

That's the most ridiculous of all the ridiculous arguments you've made. Cosmology is more active than it has ever been in evaluating new data.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[wanerious]

That's the most ridiculous of all the ridiculous arguments you've made. Cosmology is more active than it has ever been in evaluating new data.

Indeed -- it's being called the "golden age" of cosmology. It was a little staid when I was studying it in grad school, but then came the COBE results, the preliminary high-redshift supernovae hints at acceleration, and then WMAP. What a remarkable and explosive 15 years.

Re:Is it just me, or is this a waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

then came the COBE results, the preliminary high-redshift supernovae hints at acceleration, and then WMAP. What a remarkable and explosive 15 years.

One might even say inflationary instead of explosive.

A better headline

[Chemisor]

Big Blue Building a Baffling, Buggy, and Bloated Behemoth Befitting Betterment of the Big Bang theories.

Intelligent Life and MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't the two mutually exclusive?

Re:Intelligent Life and MySpace

[khallow]

No, they aren't exclusive. An intelligence that wishes to communicate covertly could do so successfully via a high noise medium like MySpace.

Impressive tech

[frostilicus2]

I think this is great. The chips will contribute a huge amount of processing power which would be unavailable from current super computers, which will allow calculations with much greater resolution so we should learn a lot.

It would be interesting to actually know the performance of the chips. From the article,

The chips will be made on IBM's silicon germanium process and have a typical peak frequency, or speed, of around 200GHz. They will be made on the 130-nanometre process. Bearing in mind that these are ASICs and they run at 200GHz each this should allow for an incredibly detailed model to be formed. Can anyone hazard a guess to how the performance would compare to "standard" efficient code running on a microprocessor?

I hope that this leads to some great science.

Re:Impressive tech

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't know if the process is good for digital logic. I think there are reasons that digital ICs are generally CMOS, but I forget the particular details. In reading the article, this looks like it may be an analog chip.

You don't have a clue about what science is

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is about understanding our world and finding truths.

If you think trying to find why the world exists and how it works is a waste of time you must clearly already know why we exist and what is the purpose of the human species. Please enlighten us because since the dawn of time nobody knows how the hell we should use our lives for.

Also many discoveries are useful after 50-100 years.

Look at how Maxwell lost his time finding formulas to calculate and study very abstract electromagnetic waves. Well you know what ? It took a lot of time but eventually these equations were the source of radio telecommunications. From your point of view nobody should have used money to support Maxwell though since during his time it was an abstract and useless concept.

Nobody is wasting time nor money until we know what our goal is. Until then, put everything in science to find out.

If they can't...

[whiskeyriver]

And if they can't decode the big bang, they'll get big blue balls.

Re:If they can't...

[whiskeyriver]

Boy. Bad joke. I apologize everyone.

God & the Big Bang

[Dareth]

As I have stated many times before on Slashdot, God and the Big Bang are not mutually exclusive.

See, God invented Mexican food first, and after that, well the Big Bang was pretty much inevitable.

You don't have to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Bang is just one of many cosmologic theories.

Re:You don't have to...

[drstock]

Big Bang is just one of many cosmologic theories. Yeah, and remember that it's _just_ a theory!

(Yes, I'm joking)

It's just you.

[Vellmont]

At some point, doesn't it make sense to stop spending Billions of dollars of taxpayer money on Big Bang research?

It sounds like it's more European countries funding this. I don't see the US mentioned anywhere, so at best the US is but one funding contributor.

How much does it benefit us to know what happened .3 seconds after the big bang vs. 3 seconds vs. 10 million years?

I dunno.. how much did it benefit us more than 180 years ago when Michael Faraday was screwing around with magnets? How much did it benefit us when Gallileo was looking at the moons of Jupiter and realized that they revolved around Jupiter, and not the earth? Are you really trying to argue that understanding the basic forces of our universe might not possibly be of some use to us?

Scientific advancement and benefits to mankind aren't always a nice straight line where the benefit to an everyday person is immediately obvious.

SKA?

[JoshDM]

Zibbity-bop doo-wop bow!

Re:SKA?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's 'scat'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scat_singing

DAMN!

[C_Kode]

I use the big bang to encode my secret plans!

pissed off

[Bizzeh]

the creationists are gonna be pissed off about this one

Re:pissed off

[DaveN59]

Umm, I consider myself to be a creationist, and I'm not pissed off. It seems obvious (to me, anyway) that the Big Bang theory and the creation story are just 2 different views of the same event. The universe was created from a singularity -- where once there was nothing now there is something. Sounds like creation to me. The more we learn about the universe we live in, the more in awe I become of God, the Creator of it all. Anyway, please hold your flames to a minimum. You won't change my fundamental beliefs about God and creation anymore than my spouting off about the Bible will change your cherished beliefs. If you choose to believe we evolved from whatever, so be it.

Re:pissed off

[KC7JHO]

Why? Because most of them don't understand the 1st chapter of Genesis? Let's walk through it a second.

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.

What are they saying here? That there is a mass that existed, or was created.

3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Bang! Light ... everywhere, Light doesn't come from nowhere it has to have a source. The sun wasn't made yet neither were the stars or other planets. Sounds like this "Mass" called earth in #2 has been turned into plasma during an explosion to me.

4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Wow here we see that things are starting to settle out, the light (or plasma or what ever) is starting to coagulate to me.

5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Ok stay with me for a sec and remember the term "Day" keep in mind the term is used thought time as a frame of reference. So here it is stating that the time period where the light was divided from the darkness (the universal material? Plasma? W/E) is called the first day.

6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Waters ... this is what the one who seen the vision of the "Big Bang" thought it looked like. Here we see that these "Waters" are starting to form into things like planets, stars, what ever but at this point they all pretty much looked the same.

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.

Here we are into the 2nd time period and now have seen the material left from the "Big Bang" formed into bodies or masses.

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.
11,12
13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Ok now in the 3rd time period, we are talking about the formation of the earth it's self. Were other planets formed at the same time? Most likely but do the fact that there was not yet a sun or other stars how would the recorder of the event know. Perhaps this event was the impact that caused the moon to be formed? The one who recorded the vision of the event did not say.

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.

19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Here we are in the 4th time period when the mases of the stars are igniting, to the observer/recorder of this event the moon seemed like a smaller version of the sun, perhaps if you were not ever told it was in fact a planet reflecting the sun you too would have a similar description of it?

After this the recorder begins to tell us about the creation of life, we are left to go and discover wh

Re:pissed off

[Anonymous Coward]

Creationist aside, I think I see a fundamental flaw here...

The weakest signals are the prize in this project, because they will be the oldest.

Does this mean that when I turn the gain down on my short wave transmitter, I'm actually going back in time?

This is a double-coupon

[iridium_ionizer]

This isn't a waste of money when you consider how much a next-generation (after CERN) supercollider would cost. The more we know about the Big Bang the more we will know about subatomic particles, quantum physics, and the "fabric" of the universe.

Although the chances of near-term applications developing from the science are slim, it could lead to the developments in quantum communications, subatomic "rocket" engines, and spaceships that "surf" on the gravitational waves to get around the galaxy.

Okay, so I am getting into the realm of science-fiction, but the facts remain: the Big Bang happened, it was a very large event with lots of weird stuff happening, and the effects are still floating around the universe (aka lots of data). We would be fools to not try to gather and make sense of some of that data in order to further understand the universe and so that we can make weird stuff happen (aka advanced technology) and maybe benefit mankind by doing so.

The Gist of It -

[ToxicBanjo]

It's a chip that is designed to have little noise while operating at super high frequencies (~ 200GHz) so that the faint noise of the universe can be properly detected. Cool!

The uses for this, shall I say "ultra low noise", technology could be highly valuable in the sensor and biometrics market. Less noise or interference is always better for any pattern recognition... ok, ok, except in chaos theory.

Still, I'd really like to see something on the software they will use to model the universe's noise data.

Decoding is all fine and good, but..

[slashbob22]

I would love to see Big Blue design a chip to provide a loss-less encoding of the Big Bang. I am sick of the current "lossy" versions which always seem to be missing some information here or there.

Re:Decoding is all fine and good, but..

[JeanBaptiste]

ya, I don't know who decided on black hole compression.

Decoding the Universe

[BC Guy]

Where are all of the Douglas Adams quotes??
IBM should name their computer "42".

Not necessary...

[Mister Whirly]

I can save them a lot of time and expense - the answer is 42.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guid e_to_the_Galaxy#The_Hitchhiker.27s_Guide_to_the_Ga laxy

"God and the Big Bang are not mutually exclusive."

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are.

Faith (belief without evidence) is the antithesis of science (knowledge based upon observation, experimentation, evidence or proof).

Some filtering amplifies signals

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Correlation. That's how GPS works, for instance. GPS signals are way weaker than the noise they are embedded in. However, if you know the pattern (as you do with GPS) then you can tease the signal out of the noise.

If you don't (as with space), then you need to make some guesses and do a whole lot more searching with a lot more patterns to find a match. That's no doubt where BigIron comes into the equation.

One big question

[dragonsomnolent]

And it's been bugging me for a while, but if someone somewhere knows the answer or where to find it, I would be forever indebted to you. Unless the particles that formed this planet travelled faster than light, how do we ever expect to be able to "see" the big bang using any electromagnetic energies? I'm not trying to be an ass hat, and I'm no physicist, but how can they say the universe is 15 billion years old, when it would have taken longer than 15 billion years for the dust that formed us all to get here from the big bang? Please no religous arguments, and only serious replies with information (unless you want to throw in a Flying Spaghetti Monster joke for fun)

Re:One big question

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the particles that formed this planet travelled faster than light, how do we ever expect to be able to "see" the big bang using any electromagnetic energies?

We don't. Electromagnetic radiation can't be used to look back earlier than the photon decoupling time at which the cosmic microwave background formed, some 380,000 years after the Big Bang, because the universe was a hot plasma opaque to electromagnetic waves before that time.

In principle, gravitational radiation could be used to look back all the way to the Big Bang, however. (Whether we can ever practically detect gravitational waves from that long ago is more doubtful.) The universe is effectively transparent to gravitational waves at curvatures less than near-singularity.

I'm not trying to be an ass hat, and I'm no physicist, but how can they say the universe is 15 billion years old, when it would have taken longer than 15 billion years for the dust that formed us all to get here from the big bang?

The Big Bang did not occur at some specific location in space, like an explosion throwing matter into a void. The Big Bang happened everywhere in the universe at once, including right here: in classical Big Bang cosmology, all points in space started out compressed into an infinitesimal point, and then space subsequently expanded. Think of an inflating balloon: matter isn't transported from one side of the balloon to another; points on the balloon just grow apart.

Re:One big question

[dragonsomnolent]

Thank you.

Re:One big question

[KC7JHO]

So to better get my head around this correctly, check my thoughts and tell me how far off base I am.
As I understand it in this compressed state the atomic matter was present but basically had no space between the pieces? The protons/neutrons/electrons? or what ever they were made of, and at the time of the BANG something caused this mass to decide "it needed some space" and the atoms were formed which caused enough presser to force everything to expand.

I am not trying to be foolish here I am, unfortunately, simply uninformed as the the theory of the actual mechanics of the event.
If you do not wish to answer, I can research the information in time, however thank you for any effort to explain the mechanics. (laymen terms please;)

Re:One big question

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it in this compressed state the atomic matter was present but basically had no space between the pieces?

We don't actually know the ultimate state of matter, since our theories of particle physics don't extend to those energies (not counting string theory, which doesn't have good predictions at the moment). It might have been a quark-gluon plasma or something even more exotic.

and at the time of the BANG something caused this mass to decide "it needed some space" and the atoms were formed which caused enough presser to force everything to expand.

We don't know the conditions of the Big Bang. But it probably wasn't, "It's just sitting there for a while, and all of a sudden something changed" ... more likely a natural evolution of the quantum state of the system. It's hard to even speak of "events" at the Big Bang, since our notions of space and time may not make sense there. The expansion wasn't purely due to "pressure" per se, though (pressure actually gravitates attractively).

Honestly, we don't know much about the Big Bang itself, although we are starting to get pretty close (such as understanding the early inflationary phase).

Moo

[Chacham]

"IBM is working with European astronomy organization Astron to design a chip that will be used to help gather billions-of-years-old radio signals from deep space in the hopes of learning more about the origins of the universe.

IBM blew past the idea to go by the book and use OCR on a Bible to get an old testament about this instead of channeling their radical (radiocal) efforts to chip away at this spacey idea of extratextual evidence.

The Meaning/Origins of Life.....

[IHC Navistar]

The Meaning/Origins of Life are relative depending on who asks the question:

Politicans: Votes.
Governemnt: Taxes.
Office Managers: Getting status reports.
Office Workers: Writing status reports.
Labor/Trade Unions: Complaining.
Corporate Executives: Golf.
Hermes Conrad: Requisition forms.
Nerds/Geeks: 42.
Soap Opera Junkies: 24
Rednecks: NASCAR
NASCAR: Rednecks

It's really not a hard question.....

The Square Kilometer Array

[Anonymous Coward]

It's part of Astron's Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope project.

Since when is the SKA Astron's project? Look at the length of the list of partners.

(Btw, for non-astronomers out there, this is a truly impressive proposed system. It's going to be a long time before it's operational, but I am eagerly awaiting it.)

Isn't this already being done?

[abshnasko]

And on a much larger scale? http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

No direct big bang data...

[Eric Damron]

It seems to me that there is no way to get data coming right after the big bang unless you assume that matter was thrown out faster than the speed of light. I'm just a layman but wouldn't that data have passed us by a loooong time ago?

I Predict

[sycodon]

It all has something to do with Diet Coke and Mentos.

Ooh, ooh, I know this one!

[Phoenix666]

Once decoded, it will say, "We apologize for the inconvenience."

how does the microprocessor really help?

[stewbee]

The details from the artcle (which is certainly very little) do not say how this will help in radio astronomy applications. Of all the things that I can think of that would help weak signal detection, it certainly isn't the microprocessor. Assuming that they will use a digitized radio scheme, which seems likely based on the information provided in the article, the worst device to detect weak signals is the ADC which typically have noise figures in excess of 10 dB. The next biggest culprit in RF chains are mixers. Should they not be working on improving these weakness es instead? Otherwise, the only benefit that I see is that they essentially building a type of DSP which will optimize the FFTs and digital filtering that would allow them to compute the data faster, but not really detect anything weaker.

Improving the RF chain prior to the ADC will be the biggest help in detecting the weak signals. Now if they said that these microprocessors were also used to perform clustered computing for antenna gain computations, then that could help (since this would improve the RF chain).

Oldest Radio Signal Decoded

[IBitOBear]

Scientists announced today that they not only detected the oldest radio signal in the universe, but that that signal may predate the Big Bang itself by several seconds. There has been great success in translating the semantic content. The complete transcript has been made available to the public:

"Hello? Tech Support? Yea, the box you sent me says 'Gravity Stabilizer' but inside there is just a ball with a little switch. It says 'consult manual before operation' but I presume I should just flip the switch... right?"

LOFAR

[Anonymous Coward]

The SKA is cool but a similar telescope is under construction right now. It is called LOFAR (short for the LOw Frequency ARray). The first few stations of LOFAR have been constructed and are undergoing testing / calibration right as we speak. LOFAR is a telescope that combines many simple dipole antennae to form a high resolution image of the low frequency radio sky (basically between 10 and 200 MHz). What is new about Lofar is that we combine the data from the dipoles in real time using Stella (a Blue Gene super computer in Groningen). Pointing the telescope is done totally in electronics and on the computer, there are no moving parts. (A bit like phased array radars that don't have to move their transmitter / receiver dish.) Lofar will have receiver stations spread over the Netherlands (meaning baselines in the hundreds of kilometers), France is on board as well according to TFA meaning baselines on the order of 1000 km. (I know some other European contries are interested in joining but, the politics of that are something I know little about.) Longer baselines mean higher resolving power, so we want longer baselines ;) I think LOFAR is really cool (but I'm biased as I'm a student working on a thesis about a really small part of LOFAR).

There are several research groups that will get a sizeable chunk of observing time (the Key Sience Projects), there is one about Transients, one about the epoch of reionization (after the big bang the cosmos cooled became neutral hence the cosmic background but later on after the stars ignited the cosmos became reionized - cool subject I know little about), some project that collaborates with particle phycisists a survey group and a pulsar project. Really cool stuff. On the computer science side of things we have pretty large data rates and storage requirements (no where near SKA thoug, but that will be operational about 10 years from now IIRC). And the really cool goal of triggering near real time on interesting stuff happening on the sky, something new in radio astronomy.

obligatory wikipedia reference : LOFAR

Bad idea?

[Firehed]

Chips... big bang... IBM of all companies should know by now that once you let the smoke out of computer parts, they stop working!

And The Answer is 42 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And The Answer is 42 ... What was the question again?

NO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you figure out how the universe is created, you can go and make a new one - I don't know what happened to the 'n-space' universe our universe is Expanding *into* - methinks it all must get squashed and pushed away.

Intelligent life on myspace?

[IlliniECE]

Comparing myspace to SETI is preposterous. At least there's a CHANCE that there's intelligent life out there. Searching myspace for intelligence is futile.

Defence of Magrathea Concealment Act

[xixax]

Both the The Universe Creators Association of Aetheria (UCAA) and the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and other Professional Thinking Persons have condemed this action as contrary to the Defence of Magrathea Concealment Act (DMCA) as it can only be used by chaotic minor deities to illegally copy proprietary universes or to discern the true nature of the universe.

A spokesomaan from the AUPSLOPTP is reported to have said, "What's the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us his bleeding phone number the next morning?". When contacted, a representative from the UCAA mumbled something about how hard it is to design good fjords.

Not again!...

[wolf369T]

I see a BOINC's bigbang@Home project coming up...

Re:Not again!...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a BOINC's bigbang@Home project coming up...

I'm waiting for Vivid's.