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Listening To the Big Bang – In High Fidelity
First time accepted submitter vinces99 writes "A decade ago, spurred by a question for a fifth-grade science project, University of Washington physicist John Cramer devised an audio recreation of the Big Bang that started our universe nearly 14 billion years ago. Now, armed with more sophisticated data from a satellite mission observing the cosmic microwave background – a faint glow in the universe that acts as sort of a fossilized fingerprint of the Big Bang – Cramer has produced new recordings that fill in higher frequencies to create a fuller and richer sound."
...you didn't warn me, now my ears are bleeding.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I hate that Sheldon guy, who the hell wants to hear his voice better?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Just what I needed this morning, some random loud sound WITH NO OBVIOUS VOLUME CONTROL ON THE DAMN PAGE. Seriously, how hard can it be to include a volume control?
at the time of the big bang, would there have been anything to hear? Technically, was there any sound?
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started Wait....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Tasty over tones hear
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What else did you expect?
Turn it up to 11 for authentic experience.
Sheldon in DTS is annoying enough...
what if you play it backwards??
Privacy is terrorism.
that obnoxious theme song. It's so cheesy and unnerdy. I edited it out of all episodes so I will never hit fast forward too late.
If a Big Bang bangs alone in the universe, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Are you sure that's the right term? Somehow I doubt it's actually a recording :)
Honestly? The Dolby THX sound was the first thing I thought of.
Oh Great! Well, Disney bought LucasArts which owned THX, so now Disney is going to claim Copyright ownership of the Universe!
And you - YOU - had to post your comment giving them prior art or something!
Great! Just great!
That the first few seconds sounds like the intro to Doctor Who?
Pardon my apparent ignorance, but how would there have been any sound if there was nothing for sound waves to travel through? (i.e., "In space, no one can hear you scream." -- Alien)
nobody can hear you bang.
I guess they're a little spoiled for bandwidth over at faculty.washington.edu, and don't realise that a 15mb, 4000x2020 JPEG scaled down to 1000 pixels is not the best use of teh tubes.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
There is no sound in space. To pretend that there is, the density, temperature, and atmospheric pressure would make it vary greatly. So really this is just made up bullshit.
..Britney Spears???
I dont see whats so great... All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
Can you hear a whisper sounding like "y'hiy ôr "?
Last Warning!
This is from the Warner Bros movie The Matrix.
Starting at 0:55
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_O3k-RpV2c
It's entirely possible.
It's the true name of god, spoken at the beginning of creation to bring about the universe and all we know,
Whatever you do, don't play it in reverse!
it turns out I got Rickrolled! WTF Mr. Cramer?
Since the first billion years or so of the big bang was utterly silent by definition.... space-time hadn't expanded enough to allow the universe to cool enough to form atoms. The vibration of such atoms is required to hear sound. I suppose you could argue that vibration of individual particles was possible before that, but it still wouldn't be regarded as "sound"
I notice that you have posted illicit audio copies of my copy-written creation of the universe.
Please remove them immediately, as specified by the provisions of the DMCA...
If you fail to do so, legal penalties, up to and including extreme smiting may be incurred.
Sincerely yours,
God (Esq)
The Om is the sound of the universe, it's roots are in ancient Hinduism. That was the first thing that popped into my brain. Time for quiet meditation then yoga and vegie-burgers anyone?
The Blade Itself
The universe is throbbing, not merely expanding. Expanding alternates with contracting in multi billion, perhaps trillion, year cycles. The god concept prevents people from realizing that. Religious belief is behind the big bang theory - creationism in a lab coat.
If you mean that sound propagates in other media than air, you're right. But, remember that in those early stages of the universe there was not an abundance of materials for sounds to propagate through. At best there was a plasma, and even that isn't guaranteed by most theories.
So, in all, sound is a definite no-no, for the early universe.
Then again, there wasn't anyone to listen to it anyway so the whole argument reduces to the "if a tree falls in the forest" conundrum.
The parent poster knows of what he speaks. It is the one, unified, universal truth. All hail the hypnotoad!
Parent poster here.
You are right. My post was hastily made.
If there was a plasma after the Big Bang there were most certainly sound waves to be detected (if anyone was around to actually care). What you correctly point out is that the frequencies involved are low-pass filtered. Once they are below audible frequencies, are we still considered to think of them as 'audio'? I'm not so sure, but that's merely a gut feeling. Do we think of earthquakes as audio? Why, or why not?
Also, my point about plasma was a bit rash. Of course there would be a plasma when energy is reduced to the level that matter could actually exist at all, the Big Bang being quite energetic after all. But at those densities, I don't know if plasma is the correct term. Maybe it is, and I would happily be educated on this point.
So, in summary, I'm happy with your clarification. You are right in any and all points you bring. Thanks for expanding on the topic, it is all very interesting.
I understand that the sound wave lowers pitch due two propagation over time (basically), I get that. But what were the fluctuation noises in the first 1-2 seconds of the sound bit?
..."let there be light" in God-speak, no wonder that our guys didn't get the tree warning.
I speak England very best
I hate when people say "hi-fidelity". Fortunately, not many people use it now. I only hear people use this to imply: "I paid more for my speakers then you did". The word doesnt have any meaning and in fact makes me think of products from the 50's to 70's. It like finding a tuner that says "In Stereo" on it... as if this is some soft of selling point. It would be more interesting if I was told it was recording in quadrophonic sound or captured on reel to reel, because then I would at least know what hi-fidelity was referring to.
Also, none of these sounds have any meaning. Sound doesnt travel without a medium and the big bang did not occur in a medium. So you could play a sound from the radiation of a star and tell me "the stars are singing in the heavens"... but it doesnt have any real meaning. I guess you could take timelaps video of ice melting and then call it "HD video of the SUN"... but its not really is it.
That's cool.
THINK! It's patriotic