Slashdot Mirror
Swirls In the Afterglow of the Big Bang Could Set Stage For Major Discovery
sciencehabit writes "Scientists have spotted swirling patterns in the radiation lingering from the big bang, the so-called cosmic microwave background. The observation itself isn't Earth-shaking, as researchers know that these particular swirls or 'B-modes' originated in conventional astrophysics, but the result suggests that scientists are closing in on a much bigger prize: B-modes spawned by gravity waves that rippled through the infant universe. That observation would give them a direct peek into the cosmos' first fraction of a second and possibly shed light on how it all began."
In the intergalactic teacup of eternity.
one lump or two?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Traceries of the strings of string theory? Swirls of other dimensions writ large? Personally I'm looking forward to finding out what these are, for some reason the way the small is now universe wide is fascinating. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
God gave the Universe a swirly before setting off the Big Bang?
But it will end not with a bang but with a whimper.
Silence is a state of mime.
Combination of too much tequila and sex?
At least that is what came to mind.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
"and possibly shed light on how it all began" no pun intended.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
...B-modes spawned by gravity waves that rippled through the infant universe. That observation would give them a direct peek into the cosmos' first fraction of a second and possibly shed light on how it all began.....
Obviously, the swirling of the water in which the pasta noodles were being cooked to create His Noodly Appendages.
What we want to know is, Where are the meatballs?
Sheldon is just kidding.
we're seeing different effects on known matter then, than what we we observe now, it could give evidence to a measurement that either gravity, or matter, or both, have changed over time.
I've always thought static gravity and matter were too simple of explanations for unified theory. At least, on the long-term. Might be irrelevant to my, and your time frames, considering our current state of technological progress, but for continuing physics, and hopes of unification and advanced space travels, dynamic values for gravity and matter might take us in directions we've purposefully avoided because we think we have a 'good grasp of things', mathematically.
Of course, I'm also have the hunch that unification is math incomplete. Not required to be math complete, is it? Who knows...
Remember kids, the Universe is a far stranger place than you think it is.
Ah, nodded Arthur, is he? Is he?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."
"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he? Is he?" He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
"What?" said Ford.
"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly?"
Ford looked angrily at him. "Will you listen?" he snapped.
"I have been listening," said Arthur, "but I'm not sure it's helped."
Ford grasped him by the lapels of his dressing gown and spoke to him as slowly and distinctly and patiently as if he were somebody from a telephone company accounts department. "There seem ..." he said, "to be some pools ..." he said, "of instability ..." he said, "in the fabric ..." he said ...
Arthur looked foolishly at the cloth of his dressing gown where Ford was holding it. Ford swept on before Arthur could turn the foolish look into a foolish remark.
"... in the fabric of space-time," he said.
"Ah, that," said Arthur.
"Yes, that," confirmed Ford.
They stood there alone on a hill on prehistoric Earth and stared each other resolutely in the face.
"And it's done what?" said Arthur.
"It," said Ford, "has developed pools of instability."
"Has it?" said Arthur, his eyes not wavering for a moment.
"It has," said Ford with a similar degree of ocular immobility.
"Good," said Arthur.
"See?" said Ford.
"No," said Arthur.
There was a quiet pause.
"The difficulty with this conversation," said Arthur after a sort of pondering look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, "is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees. They weren't like this. Except perhaps some of the ones I've had with elms which sometimes get a bit bogged down."
"Arthur," said Ford.
"Hello? Yes?" said Arthur.
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
"Ah, well I'm not sure I believe that."
They sat down and composed their thoughts.
Ford got out his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. It was making vague humming noises and a tiny light on it was flickering faintly.
"Flat battery?" said Arthur.
"No," said Ford, "there is a moving disturbance in the fabric of space+ time, an eddy, a pool of instability, and it's somewhere in our vicinity."
"Where?"
Ford moved the device in a slow lightly bobbing semi-circle. Suddenly the light flashed.
"There!" said Ford, shooting out his arm. "There, behind that sofa!"
Arthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisley covered Chesterfield sofa in the field in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it. Shrewd questions sprang into his mind.
"Why," he said, "is there a sofa in that field?"
"I told you!" shouted Ford, leaping to his feet. "Eddies in the space-time continuum!"
"And this is his sofa, is it?" asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he hoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.
/Life, The Universe and Everything/ by Douglas Adams...as if you didn't know)
(from
Since we all seem to be guessing about how it all started I would like to put forth my $0.02 worth. Firstly, there was no "Bang", big or little, as there would be no medium for sound to travel through. No flash of light either. No explicit location or time. The stuff of creation was hydrogen because the heavier elements are created in the fusion of stars which comes much later. Hydrogen is about as close to "nothingness" as it gets on the periodic table. Hydrogen can be infinitely compressed. Hydrogen will infinitely expand uniformly in any container regardless of size. I think we are in an infinite hydrogen cycle where black holes reduce every atomic structure above hydrogen back down to the constituents of hydrogen which then is released back into space to form stars, which create heavier elements, which eventually get sucked back into black holes. All of this is driven by one law..."Nature abhors a vacuum".
But what's under that turtle ? And why does it matter? Physics is such a 20th century science - discover something useful!
From TFA:
"...But first scientists must detect B-modes of any kind. That's what the team with the South Pole Telescope (SPT), a 10-meter dish in Antarctica, has done. B-modes can come from "foreground" radiation from within our galaxy, or when the gravity from the vast web of matter that fills the universe distorts the image of E-modes in the CMB. That distortion is called gravitation lensing, and SPT has observed lensing-induced B-modes..."
It then goes on to basically admit that other teams are better equipped to find actual B-modes in the CMB.
A fine job of pattern-matching, but not what is advertised.
Hydrogen can be infinitely compressed.
Edward Teller would like a word with you.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Hydrogen can be infinitely compressed.
No, it is quite difficult to compress it beyond a certain point without fusion or forming some type of degenerate matter like what would be in a neutron star. The ability to expand infinitely could be done with any other element too.
you have no idea how fukin dumb you sound doya?
That observation would give them a direct peek into the cosmos' first fraction of a second and possibly shed light on how it all began."
With Noodles, Spaghetti sauce and some meatballs.
Dude!!! So awesome
The Snarl is showing! Must find the gates!
Life cycle of the Universe:
Universe is born, Intelligence evolves in Universe, Intelligence figures out science, asks, "Why am I here", then goes on to create giant particle accelerators to find out, eventually grows to a type IV 4 civilization, Uses Massively Giant particle accelerators to create multiple pocket universe where they fiddle witht he input parameters to create one that matches or improve upon the initial conditions of their own universe, A universe is born, Intelligence evolves in Universe, Intelligence figures out science, asks, "Why am I here", then goes on to create giant particle accelerators to find out, eventually grows to a type IV 4 civilization, Uses Massively Giant particle accelerators to create multiple pocket universe where they fiddle witht he input parameters to create one that matches or improve upon the initial conditions of their own universe, A universe is born, Intelligence evolves in Universe, Intelligence figures out science, asks, "Why am I here", then goes on to create giant particle accelerators to find out, eventually grows to a type IV 4 civilization, Uses Massively Giant particle accelerators to create multiple pocket universe where they fiddle witht he input parameters to create one that matches or improve upon the initial conditions of their own universe, A universe is born, Humans come into being, the Multiverse craps a collective brick....
It is baby Universes all the way down..........
Much like Turtles and Elephants only with inflationary universes....
For how many more generations -- in the complete absense of -any- result from -any- gravity-wave detector -- will people continue to hold onto the concept?
We finally let go of instantaneous-action-at-a-distance some time ago. But we continue to make ineffable mystical inferences from our love of simpifying mathematics. Occam-pretty models aside, there is zero evidence that gravity is wavelike or particle-like in any way. Suggesting that it is an emergent quantum property. Whatever we see that appears to "curve space" that photons travel through, the Newtonian "gravity" model has failed utterly. It's just waiting for someone too unorthodox to stay inside the box to sweep aside generations of stubborn clinging.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson