Big Bang Breakthrough Team Back-Pedals On Major Result

An anonymous reader writes A few months ago researchers announced they had discovered proof of the big bang. Now they're not so sure. Further research suggests cosmic dust might have skewed the results. "Back in March, the BICEP2 team reported a twisted pattern in the sky, which they attributed to primordial gravitational waves, wrinkles in the fabric of the universe that could have been produced when the baby universe went through an enormous growth spurt. If correct, this would confirm the theory of inflation, which says that the universe expanded exponentially in the first slivers of a second after the big bang – many believe that it continues to expand into an ever-growing multiverse. Doubts about the announcement soon emerged. The BICEP2 team identified the waves based on how they twisted, or polarised, the photons in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the earliest light emitted in the universe around 380,000 years after the big bang. Other objects, such as the ashes of exploding stars or dust within our galaxy, can polarise light as well."

Comments

Not the Big Bang

[TrekkieGod]

There's a ton of evidence for the Big Bang, the existence of the CMB at all being one of them. That result was meant to be evidence for Inflation, which is used to explain why the universe appears evenly distributed everywhere you look, among other things.

Re:Not the Big Bang

[careysub]

There is tones of evidence against the Big Bang also.

It is one of MANY theories, they group it under the STANDARD THEORY, because that is politically they want to push as fact, when in fact, it is not fact, and they do not teach other theories that are equally as valid. THAT is the problem with academia.

The "tones" - frequencies and modulations in the cosmic medium - support the Big Bang model quite strongly.

The signal-to-noise ratio demonstrating the reality of the Big Bang in scientific data collected over decades is enormously higher than that of the posts appearing here today where numerous ACs spout contentless skepticism and derision, and to the extent they reference facts at all, they get them hilariously wrong.

Any AC who claims lots of evidence against a well-established scientific model, but it unable to cite a single scrap of same it simply polluting Slashdot and wasting everyone's time (including his/her own).

Re:Not the Big Bang

[careysub]

Cosmic inflation has always puzzled me - so the distance between particles of matter is slowly widening, without the particles themselves actually moving, why can't we observe this at the molecular level? Or do we? Even if its only a miniscule expansion at the smallest scales it must surely show some sign, and wouldn't it have some effect on say chemical interactions?

There are three different expansive phenomenon in modern cosmology - the initial inflation of the original symmetry breaking event, the subsequent vastly longer and slower expansion (measured by the Hubble Constant) that followed where the Universe coasted under influence of gravity alone, and then the recently discovered (and cosmically more recent) cosmic acceleration.that is now offsetting gravity.

The first event lasting a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second did indeed push all the particles then existing apart very fast, while creating lots of new particles.

The second phase of coasting, and the modern phase when cosmic acceleration kicked in, is currently pushing things apart on a cosmic scale, but not gravitationally bound structures, much less the far more strongly bound electromagnetically bound ones (atoms and molecules, and molecular agglomerations) or nuclear force bound structures.

Eventually, under current models, cosmic acceleration will strengthen to the point where it will start ripping apart these galaxy clusters. then galaxies, then star systems, then stars and bulk matter, then molecules and atoms, then nuclei,and finally composite subatomic particles themselves.

Re:Not the Big Bang

[mbone]

The speed of light is the ultimate speed limit relative to the underlying spacetime. If spacetime itself expands or contracts, that speed limit may not apply. That is, in fact, also the basis of the Alcubierre warp drive.

Re:Not the Big Bang

[Opyros]

The law of physics in question states that no information can be propagated faster than light. This does not conflict with space itself expanding superluminally. I'd suggest this Usenet FAQ, Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? for a more detailed answer.

Re:Inflation was BEFORE the big bang

[mbone]

No, it wasn't.

Backpeddle?

[jythie]

I am not sure "back pedal" is really the right word here. They did some research, published a result, other researchers pointed out potential problems with the conclusions, the original team listened to the criticisms and took them seriously.

Re:Backpeddle?

[Tanktalus]

This.

Real science is always open to upending. If they weren't willing to listen to critics, they'd be called a religion.

Excersise for the reader: are there any other scientists not willing to listen to their critics?

Re:Backpeddle?

[Charliemopps]

I am not sure "back pedal" is really the right word here. They did some research, published a result, other researchers pointed out potential problems with the conclusions, the original team listened to the criticisms and took them seriously.

Right... its even less serious that you make it out to be.

A dumbed down explanation of how it went:
Researchers: "We finally have conclusive evidence of Inflation!"
Critics: "That's pretty cool but did you consider X?"
Researchers: "Yes, but we're not ready to publish all the data yet. If we do, someone might beat us to some other stuff we're working on"
*data finally published*
Critics: "Ah, you did account for X. You're probably correct, but X could possibly be bigger than you accounted for in some rare cases."
Researchers: "Ah, we see your point now. Ok, this isn't conclusive evidence... but it's pretty darn close. There's another group that's very close to completing a study that will confirm our observation so we'll just wait for them as it will come sooner than anything we can do."

Re:This science does sound quasi-religious.

[Anonymous Coward]

CMBR isn't a sketchy concept, it's there to be observed - as it has been for several years now. The question is whether it's uniform or undulated, which is hard to determine as we're swimming through it. It's like trying to determine the shape of a cloud when you're sitting inside it.

Re:Inflation was BEFORE the big bang

[mmell]

Nothing ever happens the way I expect it to.

The bartender says "Why the long face?"

A tachyon flies into a bar . . .

Uh-huh...

[jpellino]

(1) CMB is based on data that can't be explained any other *reasonable* way and fills a gap in an otherwise too-sensible-and-supported-to-be-discarded model, (2) there are not "ideas that cannot be questioned" - in science, any existing model or theory has its chin out like a brash boxer, daring the rest of the data to "go ahead, take your best shot!" and if it does, we have a winner and new champeeen! Much of the problems with public perception of science have to do with the fact that people "know" how gravity and light behave, or the growth of a tree or the flight of a bird from their earliest days observing the world. They have little or no idea of the complexity that is behind any one of those things once you start to analyze them. That discovery is the stuff that most school science should (and now more than ever does) create in students. The sticky part then comes when science tackles something that most people will never observe - black holes, quasars, DNA, The Big Bang, TCP/IP, natural selection in vivo, etc. They then have little else to fall back on than practical experience: "It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes...", "If God had wanted us to fly...", "It's turtles all the way down!" People will sooner cling to a familiar falsehood than an unfamiliar truth. I don't blame them, but I do want to make sure the truth is available.

The advantage to science

[nurb432]

Is that it admits when its wrong. Religion, not so much.

Re:Were you there?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but my father was and he was forever complaining about "the old days" and how he always had to climb the gravity well, in both directions.

Right...

[jpellino]

All systems of thought only hold up in reference to their own systems - looking outside their relative window shows them to have flaws. Hume showed us that science as empiricism is only a good tool because the underlying empiricism supports its continued use - so it's technically a circular argument. Practically, it's the best way to stop getting hit by buses and for getting to the moon. So you have a way to discover best-for-now rules. Scientists understand they are building models the same way clothing designers understand they are building dreams. People needing to use science need to know that the gas grill will do amazing things and can also kill you. The nuances of modeling vs. explaining (or dreaming vs. wearing pants) are secondary at that point. And it's not so much "because it is that way" as it is "that's the current reach of our understanding". That first one makes it sound like we are throwing up our hands. The second makes is sound like we are resting for now, prepared to pick up the load again as needed.

Re:Science by press conference

[Baloroth]

Planck has yet to release their polarization data, so BICEP2 couldn't use it. To be clear, they also didn't use just the Planck data: the paper lists five different models for dust polarization, only one of which (DDM1) was constructed from what little Planck data they had available. All of them showed fairly tiny amounts of polarization from dust compared to their signal, hence the conclusion that it was a cosmological polarization (there were other reasons for that conclusion as well, of course). They published the conclusions they had based on the information they had available. That's how science works. You publish the results you got (with the uncertainties you calculated), the community looks at it to see if you made obvious errors, then tries to replicate or disprove it.

Re:Were you there?

[dreamchaser]

no, but my father was and he was forever complaining about "the old days" and how he always had to climb the gravity well, in both directions.

In the snow. Never forget the snow.

Proof of the big bang?

[lippydude]

"A few months ago researchers announced they had discovered proof of the big bang"

They were actually looking for evidence of cosmic inflation, as this would account for how the universe is isotropic, or the same over vast distances, something big bang doesn't account for.