"Big Bang Signal" Could All Be Dust

An anonymous reader writes Scientists have shown that the swirl pattern touted as evidence of primordial gravitational waves — ripples in space and time dating to the universe's explosive birth — could instead all come from magnetically aligned dust. A new analysis of data from the Planck space telescope has concluded that the tiny silicate and carbonate particles spewed into interstellar space by dying stars could account for as much as 100 percent of the signal detected by the BICEP2 telescope and announced to great fanfare this spring. The Planck analysis is "relatively definitive in that we can't exclude that the entirety of our signal is from dust," said Brian Keating, an astrophysicist at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of the BICEP2 collaboration.

Comments

Dust?

[TWX]

So is the Universe coming, or going?

Re:Dust?

[Ukab the Great]

Yes.

Re:Dust?

[gstoddart]

The universe already came, now we just need to figure out where it's going. ;-)

Re:Dust?

[TWX]

So, you don't pay for the universe, you pay for it to go away?

Re:Dust?

[sconeu]

Both. It took an aphrodesiac-laced laxative.

Re:Dust?

[Killer Instinct]

Its coming...with one hand apparently...

Re:Dust?

[Tablizer]

evitaleR si emiT

Re:Dust?

[Beck_Neard]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this article.

The dust only accounts for the swirl patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), not the CMB itself. In other words, the 'imprint' of gravitational waves in the CMB might be an erroneous discovery, and this is not unexpected at all, since gravitational waves have yet to be demonstrated.

But the CMB is still there, and it's still pretty strong proof of the big bang, as it always was. Nothing about this news disproves the big bang.

Re:Dust?

[FatdogHaiku]

So is the Universe coming, or going?

Coming from what?
Going to what?
Well, I don't care as long as my signal is good for the two new Big Bang Theory episodes tonight!
(Headline had me freaked for a second)
And if existence does end I hope the next one is not a re-run... I'm tired of re-runs...

Re:Dust?

[JeffAtl]

I don't think the word theory (in a scientific context) means what you think it does.

Re:Dust?

[TapeCutter]

evitaleR si emiT

Pro Tip: Turn your keyboard around.

Re:Dust?

[Black Parrot]

In summary, all the space theories that are still just space theories, include:

All space theories.

Re:Dust?

[buchner.johannes]

The dust only accounts for the swirl patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), not the CMB itself. In other words, the 'imprint' of gravitational waves in the CMB might be an erroneous discovery, and this is not unexpected at all, since gravitational waves have yet to be demonstrated.

It is unexpected depending on your expectations on the BICEP2 paper. If you read the paper, they go through a lot of checking in the analysis to demonstrate that the signal is real. From that perspective it is a believable demonstration. If you are very skeptical, you would say the dust maps they used are perhaps not up-to-date or accurate. Naturally, scientists are skeptical. So we were anticipating the release of the dust maps by the best detector, the ESA Planck mission.

What they demonstrate in their paper (the topic here) is, perhaps unexpectedly, that there are no dust-free windows of the CMB, i.e. in all galactic latitudes, dust creates B-modes. In a range of extragalactical surveys it is common to do surveys at high galactic latitudes, where the effects of dust (from star formation), such as absorption and extinction, are small. This is demonstrated to be not possible for CMB B-mode measurements. Unfortunately this means that the analysis of B-modes will require a more complex analysis, and perhaps it is not even possible to detect B-modes of the desired magnitude due to the Milky Way foreground noise.

Re:Dust?

[davester666]

Yes AND no.

Re:Dust?

[Bengie]

Don't forget relativity and the speed of light, which are directly linked with the correctness of "a universe that is expanding". Why you ask? Because we currently measure far away galaxies as moving faster than c away from us because of red shifting, which is based on the speed of light, and relativity is based on the speed of light. Unless the speed of light is currently wrong by vast margins, we know the Universe is expanding very rapidly.

Re:Dust?

[Barsteward]

no, theories in the science sense are almost taken as a law because they have enough evidence to be pretty much valid, you probably mean "hypothesis" because in science terms its an idea that needs investigating. (more or less correct definition for a layman)

Re:Dust?

[RockDoctor]

I think you need to revise your understanding of Doppler shifts. They're not dependent on the speed of light, but are properties of any periodic phenomenon occurring in systems with parts in relative motion.

The apparent superluminal redshift of distant galaxies does not mean that they're travelling at any significant speed in their local context (in the same way that the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are not in rapid relative motion), but that the space between the observed distant galaxy and ourselves has been expanding for a long time and an accelerating rate.

Re:Dust?

[RockDoctor]

evitaleR si emiT

Pro Tip: Turn your keyboard around.

I tried that, but no matter how hard I hit the thing, only a couple of the keys on the underside would press, and I couldn't make any intelligible words.

funny!

[uslurper]

The big bang was the first "FIRST" comment

“We were, of course, disappointed,”

[glennrrr]

Well that is an understatement I'm sure.

Re:“We were, of course, disappointed,”

[i kan reed]

Well, even the summary makes it complicated. The dust can account for 100% of the signal, and occam's razor suggests that's the best assumption for explaining their measurements. But dust can also cause other signals, and what science calls for here is an experiment that can differentiate the two hypotheses. Which sounds hard, because what can you measure changes in besides the light, which would be affected by magnetic dust?

Maybe neutrons? Or neutrinos(good luck)? The distinction might still be measurable.

Re:“We were, of course, disappointed,”

[radtea]

Which sounds hard, because what can you measure changes in besides the light, which would be affected by magnetic dust?

The spectral shape of the dust signal and the CMB signal are different, so multi-frequency analysis can be used to tease out the various effects. There are various technical reasons the BICEP2 team chose a single frequency (150 MHz) but additional measurements at different frequencies (353 MHz is mentioned in TFA) would allow untangling of the two, albeit with some loss in sensitivity. This sounds like the approach that will be taken in future by various teams investigating this.

The BICEP2 team got bitten by designing their experiment around a flawed theoretical understanding of the dust distribution in our galaxy, which is too bad, but this is the way science works: we publicly test our ideas, and let others see if what we've done can stand up to scrutiny. I've worked on experiments in the design phase where the design team has missed important backgrounds: it's easier than you'd think. And I once worked on an experiment that had been taking data for two years before it was found that there was a background process that precisely aped the signal (it had been missed originally because of a dropped sign in a calculation that caused two terms to nearly cancel when they should have added up.)

In the best case we find these sorts of things before we publish. In the worst case--such as this one--after.

Re:“We were, of course, disappointed,”

[amaurea]

There was little reason to be worried about those shells. And there still isn't. They are dominated by synchrotron radiation, which is only important at frequencies quite a bit lower than where BICEP2 observes. And while one might expect there to be a lot of dust in them too, they don't actually show up when you go and measure the dust. Even when you measure the dust polarization. Look at figure 2 in this recent Planck article, for example. The BICEP2 region itself is in the masked region, but the radio loop that passes through the BICEP2 patch should cover a large part of the sky and hence be visible outside the mask. It isn't really visible. If it is there, it is probably not important compared to the rest of the dust. It also isn't visible in the course-grained polarized dust maps published today that actually covers the BICEP2 region.

On the other hand, there are rumours that Planck is preparing an article about radio loops, so there might be something interesting after all. Or they might be writing to report the loops are unimportant. In a few months we will know much more. But it can't be as important an effect as you're making it out to be.

But...

[pushing-robot]

Is it, at least, magic dust?

Re:But...

[TapeCutter]

Sort of, it's star dust, so there's a chance that five billion years from now it will have evolved to the point where it will be looking at the remnants of our solar system with its own telescopes.

Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Tablizer]

Conservative deniers are going to have a field day with this: "How can we trust scientists on evolution and global warming when the Big Bang turned out to be nothing more than God's dirty windshield!".

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[i kan reed]

Honestly the young earth creationist types(who are the only anti-science conservatives relevant in this case) don't pay that much attention to hard data and observational methodology at all. Certainly light that was moved magnetically over the course of billions of years of travel is not evidence that they'd be particular inclined to use, even in that case.

Their objections fall more into the category of dismissing things with "common sense" objections that reflect very little understanding of the idea being challenged.

Re: Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that like its a bad thing.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[gstoddart]

Honestly the young earth creationist types(who are the only anti-science conservatives relevant in this case) don't pay that much attention to hard data and observational methodology at all.

LOL ... no shit.

Their objections fall more into the category of dismissing things with "common sense" objections that reflect very little understanding

Pretty much by definition this is true.

The only way you could be a young Earth creationist is to be well outside science and understanding.

Because it's pretty much "I reject your reality and substitute my own". They have no interest in anything like "facts", just their own beliefs.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Charliemopps]

Conservative deniers are going to have a field day with this: "How can we trust scientists on evolution and global warming when the Big Bang turned out to be nothing more than God's dirty windshield!".

Apparently Liberals area already all over it. You can't fix stupid.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[ihtoit]

Less their own beliefs, they have their God to do their thinking for them and their Pope to speak for them.

These "beliefs"are pretty much spoonfed to them piecemeal, just slow enough that they don't form curiosity about what they're being told.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Oligonicella]

This also goes for crystal rubbers and Gaea believers who trend leftward. Each side has its flakes.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[i kan reed]

A. The pope, in line with Catholic Orthodoxy, is not creationist. Not in the totally nutter, young earth science denialism sense, anyways.
B. Everyone believes at least a few objectively wrong things. Getting on religion for the grandiosity of the incorrect claims it makes just seems silly. In the end, big things matter less to be wrong about, not more.
C. It doesn't all come from "believing what they're told." It comes from personal feelings, intuition, common sense, and a host of other inputs as well. This is coming from a neurological perspective, not just hypothetical counter-argument. For example, there's a part of the brain responsible for causing religious experiences. Atheists tend to have much smaller brain regions for that.
D. If I should instead appeal to your ego: religiosity and intelligence both predict many of the same positive life outcomes, even though they, themselves, are inversely correlated. That's good reason to believe that religion is filling an important role for people who might be worse off without it. You can imagine yourself getting its benefits elsewhere.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an "old earth" creationist. The Earth is obviously old. But I do beleive in a Creator. Science shows us several things in this regard.

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe was created by an intelligent Creator is the sole, logical conclusion.

God for me is faith. Science still can prove, one way or another, the origins of the universe with science. Science is a useful tool given to us by God via our increased knowledge as we grow as a species. God and science go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

Atheists tend to have much smaller brain regions for [a part of the brain responsible for causing religious experiences].

Yes indeed. Evolution does trend towards improving species.

Re: Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[mschwanke97402]

ROTFLMAO!!!! I rarely use that acronym. Well done sir!

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

Oh hey, I'll just fix that for you:

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe was not created.

Cheers!

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[i kan reed]

On the other hand, evolution almost certainly selected for its existence in the first place as a means of causing eusocial behavior, a claim I lightly corroborate with the fact that that region of the brain is activated by communal experiences.

But now we're getting into lazy evo psych where I come up with ad-hoc explanations for things and use it to justify my biases. So I don't think I'm going to go out of my way to defend the claim.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[houghi]

For example, there's a part of the brain responsible for causing religious experiences. Atheists tend to have much smaller brain regions for that.

Or ... People have that part of the brain region lesser developed, because they are athesists.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[neoritter]

Apparently, you know very little about Catholicism.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[PvtVoid]

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe was created by an intelligent Creator is the sole, logical conclusion.

At least the first point above is just plain wrong, and the second is either wrong or meaningless, depending on exactly what you mean by "create itself".

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[i kan reed]

We're not raised atheist, most of us, you know, right?

And your brain doesn't morphologically change much after early development. I mean, I won't say you're wrong with certainty, but it seems less plausible.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Obfuscant]

Science still can prove, one way or another, the origins of the universe with science.

This is perhaps the textbook example of how science is misunderstood. Science cannot prove how something that was not directly observed happened. It can only disprove certain proposed mechanisms based on current observation and understanding.

So, when someone says that "the CBR proves the big bang theory is correct", what they actually should say is that "the CBR is consistent with the big bang theory". I.e., the former doesn't disprove the latter.

A good analogy is found in art. I have a painting on my wall here. It looks like a Van Gogh. It is painted in the same style as other paintings that are believed to be his. A chemist has taken a paint chip and measured the properties, and found it is consistent with paint used in Van Gogh's time. Another scientist has dated the canvas and it comes from that time period. All the science data is consistent with a painting by Van Gogh.

But it isn't a Van Gogh. It's a forgery.

All I can say is, were I a God able to create a Universe from a single word, I'd certainly be able to forge it to look like it was billions of years old. Or I could just as easily create the physical laws with the knowledge of the result.

I mean, if you are designing some object to be 3D printed, are you not the creator of that object even if it takes three hours for it to print out? You told the CAD program what you wanted, and the CAD program told the printer, it just took a bit of time. That's how Algore created the Internet, after all. He didn't do the actual work, he just spoke it into existence, so to speak.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[amaurea]

Just so it's completely clear (the parent is probably aware of this): The dust levels do not cast the Big Bang into doubt. We have enormous emounts of evidence for the Big Bang, with the most important ones being:

1. The cosmic microwave background
2. The fact that it follows a black-body spectrum
3. The pattern of wiggles in it
4. The apparent velocities of galaxies
5. The red-shift of distant objects
6. The relative abundance of light elements in the universe
7. The clumpiness in the distribution of galaxies
8. Distant objects look systematically younger than near ones
9. No stars older than 14 billion years, but lots of stars nearly that old

And that's just off the top of my head. And all the millions of data points that make up the of the above groups are consistent with each other and with a simple 6-parameter model. None of the points above are invalidated by the higher than expected levels of polarized dust, which are about measuring a very weak sub-pattern in the pattern of wiggles in the cosmic microwave background. Most of the wiggles are much stronger than the dust, and have been measured at multiple frequencies.

No, what the new results call into question is the amplitude of the gravitational wave background. If BICEP2 were right, it would have a pretty high value - so high that local experiments in our solar system might detect them directly in the near future (20 years or so). And such a high value would say a lot about extremely high energy physics in the very early universe. With the cosmic microwave background itself we can only see back to about 380000 years after the start of the Big Bang - what happens before then is something we have to infer indirectly because the microwave background is in the way and won't let us see further bakc than that.

But if we can measure the gravitational wave background (even indirectly through its imprint on the cosmic microwave background), then that lets us see back much further, to a tiny fraction of a second after the beginning of the big bang. That might tell us about a hypothetical but popular phase in the very early stages of the Big Bang called inflation (do not confuse this with the normal expansion of the universe - that's not in doubt), and woud at the same time probe physics at energies far higher than what we can reach in particle accelerators. That's what all the excitement was about. And that's what's called into doubt. The gravitational waves might be weaker after all. Perhaps they aren't even there (the primordial ones, that is. We already have very robust indirect measurements of gravitational wave emission from inspiraling neutron stars). That's significant. But it's not the same as saying the Big Bang was just dust. That would be like saying the Earth doesn't exist because we were wrong about the shape of its core.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[JeffAtl]

True, but this will be reported as proof against the Big Bang.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[towermac]

Nice open mindedness. Really. But you make one mistake. Your reasoned response assumes that the people they are talking about actually exist, at least in any real numbers.

I've known plenty of thumper Baptist young earth types, and not one of them would engage in any debate on this, or question this research, or anything like that. In fact, they tell their kids the same thing everyone else does about this: "Make good grades and you could be the scientist doing this for a living, and a darned good one." (Depending on how strict they are, they might not say darned.)

There's a handful of these people that these, what are they; radical libs? keep going on about, and they've been here forever. And nobody ever listened to religious nutters before. What it is, is liberalism, unchecked. It's like liberalism is a powerful tool, and when used for a just cause, it's unstoppable and undeniable because it's truth and justice and all that. The last really good one I can think of is King leading the civil rights movement.

Liberalism is sort of leaderless now, but still alive and well, lashing out at Boy Scouts or Christians or Alaskan rednecks or the rich or whoever it is today. But those are not really the causes of our problems today. And the victims seem to pretty much mind their own business, until society screws with them one way or another. Mostly, with exceptions. I'm thinking of the handful of 'nutters?', or they're just lashing out, in a handful of school boards in the south. Almost, about, maybe,... to get a reference to faith into the public school science curriculum. Think about that; that is the extent of their political power now. It's sad really.

I just hate the way they are piling on lately. Thanks for the springboard.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[amaurea]

This is perhaps the textbook example of how science is misunderstood. Science cannot prove how something that was not directly observed happened. It can only disprove certain proposed mechanisms based on current observation and understanding.

That's still a bit misleading. It is right that science can't prove how something that was not directly observed happened. But it also can't prove how something that was directly observed happened either. The difference between direct and indirect observation is arbitrary and insubstantial.

Not only can you not how something happened. You can't prove if it happened either. In fact, you can't prove anyting in science. You also can't disprove anything. Proof and disproof are too strong words, and only apply to pure logic and math. As soon as the real world is involved, you can only make things seem more or less likely.

What we call an observation is really just a hypothesis: "I think this instrument works like this. I think I conducted the experiment correctly. I think my visual experience of seeing the instrument corresponds to the instrument actually being there. I think I read off the value 2.73. I think this should be interpreted as a decimal number. I think my memory is reliable. I think I wrote down the value correctly...." and so on. It's all a big network of hypotheses, with sensory impressions forming the outer surface of the network, and internal links being derived hypotheses such as the laws of physics etc.

Science is the process of critically examining that network, prodding it and looking for strain caused by hypotheses that contradict each other (hypothesis 1: "All apples fall up", hypotheses 2-100: "I saw an apple fall down"). When this happens, a scientist tries to come up with an alternative hypothesis that causes less contradiction ("Apples fall down"). And he then prods it to see if he can make new contradictions spring up. When a part of the network is low on contradiction, we are more confident in the hypotheses there, and vice versa. That is what we mean by scientific knowledge and scientific certainty. You are never 100% sure about anything. But some hypotheses are consistent with so many other hypotheses that we are pretty damn sure about them.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[i kan reed]

That's pretty crazy there, pal. Just an FYI.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[towermac]

" a God able to create a Universe from a single word"

Doesn't seem plausible. Oh, I believe in a Creator. But I think creating the universe was likely really really hard. Work of a 'lifetime' even.

"forge it to look like it was billions of years old"

Don't see the point of that. Remember; you created the 4 dimensional space-time manifold, so thus obviously exist outside of it. From your perspective, everything happened at once; everything is always happening. By touching something in ancient Egypt or striking dinosaur poop with lightning, you would instantly see the results today and 10,000 years from now. I'm just pointing out that 'forge' is kinda weak.

"Or I could just as easily create the physical laws with the knowledge of the result."

But foreknowledge of the result does not negate the perfection of those laws, or the lack thereof. They either are, or are not, perfect. Whether or not God cheated and looked ahead is irrelevant. I'm going to go out on a limb, and state that the universe and it's laws are perfect. Our science will keep progressing, and we will never find a broken ragged edge to the universe.

If there is such a thing as a perfect law, idk; E=MC2 or whatever, that implies that any old physical laws can't just be easily created. Rather that the laws of the universe have to be exactly what they are, and nothing else. Not that that deserves any special credit; these are the laws of a working universe, and a requirement if you're in the universe building business in the first place. It's all or nothing.

I'll cut to it: I'm with the raw materials guy. The universe came from something. And thermodynamics trumping all other laws, if there is such a hierarchy, has a very good logic to it. It comes down to the very most basic; there is no such thing as magic. Which leaves me with one conclusion: God killed himself to make the universe. It's made out of him. So in the sense that the universe is alive, then so is he. Sort of in the same sense that the deer is still alive in the muscle tissue of the wolf. This is where the religious types that used to like me recoil in horror. ;)

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Black Parrot]

I'm an "old earth" creationist. The Earth is obviously old. But I do beleive in a Creator. Science shows us several things in this regard.

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe was created by an intelligent Creator is the sole, logical conclusion.

God for me is faith. Science still can prove, one way or another, the origins of the universe with science. Science is a useful tool given to us by God via our increased knowledge as we grow as a species. God and science go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other.

Suppose we discovered that our universe was created by a non-supernatural being that lives in a "parent" universe.

Would we worship that being?

Would we unquestioningly do whatever it wanted?

Would we look to it for ethical guidance?

Would we look to it for the meaning of life?

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Black Parrot]

Just so it's completely clear (the parent is probably aware of this): The dust levels do not cast the Big Bang into doubt.

I was surprised, and even mildly offended, that the recent discovery was being hyped as "proof of the big bang". The long-ago discovery of the CMB is one of the handful of science's greatest achievements.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[buchner.johannes]

Oh hey, I'll just fix that for you:

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe was not created.

Cheers!

Thermodynamics is a theory valid for a large number of particles, and deals with the emerging phenomena based on a statistical basis, i.e. what constitutes rare phenomena. This is not enough to deal with the early universe. Even if it was, there might be an infinite "time" or "tries" before our universe exists so we can observe it.
Also, the term "create" is vague. Arguable, one can speak of creation as early inflation expands the universe and cools the soup of radiation into massive particle. In that sense some earlier state *did* create the universe as we understand it (time, space, and matter).

Also it is not true that "The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this." It is possible to create a universe from nothing. What you do is borrow energy from a quantum fluctuation. You would have to give it back in a time proportional to the energy borrowed. Then inflate the universe by 10^26 so that the quantum fluctuation becomes a size-able scale, and quantum mechanics do not apply anymore. The energy borrowed obviously necessitates a balancing energy, which is stored (as negative energy) in the curvature of the universe. In a sense, enormous inflation allows you to run away with borrowed energy.
Sorry for being brief in my explanation, but the above is not a crackpot theory. It is one that is consistent with the data of the CMB and large-scale structure correlations (e.g. galaxy clusters), and commonly presented in cosmology talks. You can find some books on the subject if you search for "universe inflation", one by Alan Guth who came up with the basic theory.

The right answer is "We do not know yet where the universe came from."
and "We do not know yet if the quest for a 'cause' makes sense in the early universe or has a testable answer. But we will continue trying."

Now it is possible to call the "creation" of the universe a god, in the Greek sense of the word. The creator. A mechanism. But it is a long way from there to argue a currently present, omnipotent but willfully acting, personally addressable God.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[inasity_rules]

"Suppose we discovered that our universe was created by a non-supernatural being that lives in a "parent" universe."

Such a being would be "super-natural" to us, as in above and beyond the laws of our universe. As to the questions, it depends on the character of this being.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Altrag]

The first is not specifically wrong. Thermodynamics implies that the big bang's energy had to some from somewhere. The trouble is that we have no idea where it would come from, which is why no respectable description of the big bang will leave out the part about us only knowing/theorizing up to the first few nanoseconds.

Prior to that everything we know about the universe upends itself in ways that we can't even begin to describe with any consistency because all of our known (testable) laws of physics have fundamental lower limits (the Planck length in particular is a limit we don't know how to breach -- the math we've got breaks down and our experimental devices, even the LHC, are many many orders of magnitude above that still so there's no way we can peek in and see what comes out.)

Black holes face similar problems beyond the event horizon. We've come up with some very surprising theories about the "surface" of black holes such as the 2D "record" of 3D events being encoded in some fashion, but basically we've got nothing regarding their interior. Its quite possible that understanding black holes may help understand the big bang (or vice-versa.. or not) but until/unless we can come up with a way to probe those phenomena we're literally just guessing.

Its not like discovering QED or even probing gravitation where we can see the effects (or expect to see them at or near energy levels we can reasonably achieve at the moment) and are just looking for ways to describe them mathematically in higher and higher precision. We've literally got zilch to go from since our theories break down completely in those situations and any measurable effects they might exhibit are (so far) extremely well beyond our instruments' capabilities so we're not able to create new theories (other than like I said, just guessing. String theory for example might be beautiful and mathematically sound and could potentially answer some of these questions.. but until has a testable theory with a positive result that can't be equally well explained via the standard model, its really just math and not science.)

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[PvtVoid]

The first is not specifically wrong. Thermodynamics implies that the big bang's energy had to some from somewhere.

No. This is specifically wrong. Thermodynamics implies no such thing.

The Big Bang does have thermodynamic issues, but the primary problem is entropy, not energy. And the problem is that the entropy of the early universe is too low, not too high. (Inflation, BTW, is one way to explain the initial low-entropy state of the universe, but even that is an incomplete explanation.)

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Black Parrot]

So, whether something is supernatural depends on your frame of reference? In our universe it's supernatural, but in its universe it's just that dork that's wasting its life creating universes in its mother's basement?

And if we manage to create a sentient artificial intelligence in a virtual environment, to it we'll be supernatural and that other hypothetical being will be supersupernatural?

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Bengie]

I can appreciate believing in a creator of some sort because it's hard to wrap my mind around anything in physics being infinite and existing outside of time. I can assume these two things on "blind faith" in order to understand the Big Bang, but the notion of "time" and nothing being infinite is hard to just shrug off.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Bengie]

The only way I can currently get my self to attempt to understand how the current Universe may exist is that even enough time, the Universe will enter a state of maximum entropy, at which time, time will cease to exist. At this point, the Universe will no longer experience time as increasing entropy and will enter a quantum state where all possible will happen, but the Universe will only exit being in a quantum state into one of the many possibilities. Rinse and repeat a infinite number of times, and you eventually will create a Universe that can harbor life and entropy will once against be low and start increasing again.

No idea. Just one way I can attempt to wrap my mind around the idea of time not really being "real".

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[jpvlsmv]

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.

- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.

- The universe was not created.

You left out the most important 4th point:

- Ergo, the universe does not exist.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[phorm]

The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.

But where did the something it came from, come from. And where did that come from, etc.

Whatever your belief, it seems the human brain is somewhat limited when it comes to the perception of infinity. I wonder if one day we'll discover that - like colours and mantis shrimp - there's a dimension to the universe that we're simply incapable of perceiving.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Obfuscant]

What we call an observation is really just a hypothesis:

You may call your hypotheses "observations". To do that, you need to go deep into the metaphysical where eventually you have to decide if what you see is real or just a figment of your imagination. "I think my memory is reliable" kind of things.

I'm talking about the difference between using a thermometer to measure temperature and measuring the thickness of a tree ring. One is a direct observation, the other indirect. Only those who spend years contemplating their navels would argue that the two measurements are the same.

hypotheses 2-100: "I saw an apple fall down"

If "I saw" is a hypothesis to you, then there is no reason to continue.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[Obfuscant]

Doesn't seem plausible.

What you mean is that you cannot comprehend how one could exist, therefore it is implausible. The arguments against there being a God typically depend on human comprehension, or lack there of, and the belief that what a human cannot comprehend cannot exist. You think it would be really hard for a God to create a universe, therefore a God that can create a universe easily isn't plausible.

This is the same kind of failure that has people using "password" for a password. "Nobody would ever guess that's my password, so it's super secure." Their inability to comprehend doesn't create the truth, it only obscures it.

Don't see the point of that.

Another "cannot comprehend why, therefore it isn't true" argument. I can easily come up with a reason I'd do it. It will give my creations a great deal of pleasure trying to figure things out. A secondary reason would be that by making it clear I had made it all, I create a strong impetus for y'all to worship me. Just look at the various gods that y'all have imagined based on correlations of things like "if I behead a virgin the crop god will bless us with a good crop". I don't want that kind of forced worship.

I'm just pointing out that 'forge' is kinda weak.

"Forge" is in the eyes of the beholder. Of COURSE I know it isn't really billions of years old, but I made it look that way to YOU with your limited senses. Aren't y'all having a wonderful time arguing about what really happened?

But foreknowledge of the result does not negate the perfection of those laws, or the lack thereof.

Huh? Where did I say it did. I was simply pointing out that your billions of years old universe could have just as easily been the product of a creator who created the physical laws and let them take their natural course. Who dares say my laws lack perfection?

If there is such a thing as a perfect law, idk; E=MC2 or whatever, that implies that any old physical laws can't just be easily created.

It implies you cannot imagine anyone or anything finding it easy. I cannot imagine anyone running an ironman for fun, much less because it is easy, and yet people do it.

Which leaves me with one conclusion: God killed himself to make the universe. It's made out of him.

Interesting result from logic that is based on "I cannot comprehend it being any other way". Very reminiscent of the cargo cults, where people couldn't imagine any other explanation for boxes of food falling from the sky.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[david_thornley]

Thermodynamics is a statistical science that summarizes the actions of zillions of molecules in a very useful form. I think you're looking for conservation laws here, and I'm not convinced they apply under Big Bang conditions. By Noether's theorem, conservation of energy is a consequence of physical laws being invariant over time. If physical laws do change over time under some circumstances, there's no real reason to believe in conservation of energy (and, if energy isn't conserved, laws of physics are changing over time), and some pretty weird things happen in the first itty-bitty fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[david_thornley]

CBR is more than consistent with the Big Bang theory. It is a predicted result of Big Bang theory, and not of other theories. It's pretty strong evidence (not proof, of course, there being no way to prove that the Universe isn't a fancy illusion, or a simulation, or hastily faked up by the FSM for a wild party).

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

But where did the something it came from, come from. And where did that come from, etc.

Why did it have to come from anywhere? Our existence implies that something was there at any point in our current time, and any point related to that, dimensionally speaking, prior, if indeed "prior" is a relevant term.

Perhaps the universe is infinite in other dimensions (like time) as well as space. If it is, so what? Does Captain Crunch taste any different? No.

The important thing, to me, is to note that we do not know, and therefore it is pointless to claim that we do. Speculation, of course, is very interesting, but only serves to winnow out the things physics tells us are nonsense. Keeping in mind that physics is evolving as well.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

It came from God... God created it.

There is absolutely zero evidence for this, so I see no reason at all to take it seriously.

So, it was always there then. You believe in infinity.

No. I don't "believe" in anything. I was simply correcting the simplistic, errant logic of the post parent to mine.

My confidence rest with the idea that our physics is currently unable to describe what went on prior to a certain point in time, if "time" is the relevant dimensional term, even assuming that we've got the facts straight back that far from the scant evidence that remains. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. I am curious to know the answer(s), if there is/are one/multiples I can understand, but it bothers me not all that I don't presently know, and may never know.

Although I'm comfortable, as I said, I find informed speculation interesting. What I have extremely low confidence in, though, are attempts at answers made up by pre-scientific societies. I find the idea that they had any means to know straight-up ludicrous. Having been raised in a country that positively reeks of Christianity (the USA), I have made it my business to learn as much about it in particular as I could. That process served only to significantly lower my confidence in its basic premise.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

If you can't "wrap your mind around" how your average bunny rabbit could rule a world of vicious, hungry, intelligent tigers, does that make you "appreciate the idea"? Are you willing to extend "blind faith" in this direction as well?

I think the premise that you can "appreciate it" because "you don't get it" is just politically correct appeasement.

Why not just go with "I don't get it" and so "it's not worthy of confidence, only speculation, and that utilizing the knowledge we do have, until or unless I do"?

As to infinity, if you don't understand it, what's the problem? Pizza still tastes like pizza, and science proceeds apace regardless. Not understanding something in no way makes the mythologies of pre-scientific societies in any way likely to provide answers.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

Ergo, the universe does not exist.

Assumes facts not in evidence, to wit, that creation is required in the first place. Consider: everything we have and know about was not "created", it was always present in some form or other. Assuming that this is not the case for a time/dimensional configuration for which we have neither evidence or understanding is, at best, fact-free speculation - certainly in no way an inevitable logical conclusion.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

It is possible to create a universe from nothing. What you do is borrow energy from a quantum fluctuation.

No. You can't have a quantum fluctuation when there is nothing to have a quantum fluctuation in. Your assertion requires the pre-existance of a universe in the first place.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[fyngyrz]

You're completely missing my point. Probably because you didn't read the thread, so you're not aware that my argument is that the idea that "something came from nothing" is specious.

I didn't say THE universe, I said A universe. I've no problem with a quantum fluctuation (or any other universe-creating mechanism) in SOMETHING ELSE or OUTSIDE or PREVIOUSLY EXISTING creating our universe. That's not at all the same as our universe being created from nothing, and it's completely misdescribed when someone says it that way.

My entry into the thread was to debunk the idea that "goddidit", and nothing else. There was an attempt to use thermodynamics to show that "goddidit", that's all.

In summary, there's no evidence that "creation from nothing" was required, because we don't have any evidence, or physics tools that will work, for what went on that far back. The presentation of "quantum fluctuations in something else" precisely makes my point: if the universe came into being (wasn't always there) then the universe still had a cause that doesn't require a mythological explanation. Common sense tells us that causation continues in some form until a level of "it was always there" is reached. If "always" is the correct dimensional term, which it very well might not be, though it may make no practical difference to us.

I can put it this way, too: Anything that was "caused" had a preceding mechanism operating in some kind of reality capable of supporting that cause. Until causes are traced back to something that was always there, again with the caveat about dimensionality. And yet, we may not have been caused at all -- the "was always here" may stop right on our own doorstep, so to speak. We just don't know.

Anyway, there is zero evidence supporting the idea of a god or gods.

Fini.

Re:Cue "All we are is dust in the wind"

[inasity_rules]

Pretty much. Just bear in mind supernatural does not imply omniscient or omnipotent. Any being that can modify/break the rules of our universe would be supernatural(i.e. above our 'natural' laws.).

Re:funny! [frist post]

[Tablizer]

Who was the first troll?

Re:funny! [frist post]

[sabri]

Who was the first troll?

The God that created the Big Fart of course...

Re: Dust? tsarkon reports

[Anonymous Coward]

Educated stupid scientists never understand 4 sided universal timecube.

Re: Dust? tsarkon reports

[The Other White Meat]

In the comments for any article related to physics, on any website, there will always be at least one comment from someone who mistakes their schizophrenia for a PhD in Physics.

I advise you, pay them no heed.

Re:Dust? tsarkon reports

[MightyMartian]

A creature once known as a netkook, but now just a moderate level crank.

Planck analysis is "relatively definitive"

[oldestgeek]

At least we know where he stands more or less.

EVEN IF!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Even if it is all dust, the discovery is "nothing to sneeze at"!

Where's the red button?

[fyngyrz]

Educated stupid scientists never understand 4 sided universal timecube.

I was just asking Tess about her act, and all she would tell me was that the show was big -- bigger on the inside than the outside. So I guess there was a lot of seating. A bunch of folderol, if you ask me. But at least we had box seats.

Re:Where's the red button?

[fyngyrz]

Whoever downmodded that, you just lost your geek card. :)

Re:Dust? tsarkon reports

[mschwanke97402]

Indeed, someone *COUGH*..tsarkon..*COUGH* might be smoking dust.

Still some wiggle room

[PvtVoid]

The Planck dust measurement in pretty damning, but it is not the final word.

(1) Planck measured the dust contamination with greatest sensitivity at 353 GHz. It was not sensitive enough to measure the dust signal at 150 GHz, where BICEP was observing. They had to extrapolate the dust contribution from the higher frequency to the lower. This is actually a pretty big extrapolation, since the dust emission at 150 GHz is less than 1% of the dust emission at 353 GHz.

(2) The uncertainty in the dust emission amplitude is still pretty high, so the Planck measurement is consistent with an "all dust" model, or with a "mostly dust" model, or with a "mostly primordial, with some dust" model. It does pretty conclusively rule out a "no dust" model.

(3) They have not released the results of a joint analysis of Planck and BICEP2, which is what is necessary to actually shed some light on exactly how much of the BICEP2 signal is likely to be dust.

But it's clear that the BICEP team was being over-optimistic in their assumptions about galactic dust, which is a bummer.

Re:Still some wiggle room

[towermac]

I'd like to bet somebody a dollar that we go to a steady-state universe in our lifetime.

It's just that the big bang is starting to feel too convenient to me. It's just a feeling.

We take it for granted, but it's just a theory. Red shift: these are the gravitational waves you've been looking for. Well, they're dimensional waves, and have the effect to the observer of stretching space, even though the universe is not expanding. It's complicated...

Any takers?

Re:Still some wiggle room

[Black Parrot]

Sure. Go ahead and send me the dollar in case one of us dies unexpectedly.

And while it's in the mail... even if there was reason to doubt the big bang, why the heck do you think we would go back to a steady state universe? The universal trend in science is to discover that the universe and all its workings are far stranger than we thought, not more intuitive.

Intuition comes from brains that evolved to operate on a certain scale of space and time. When we start getting away from that in any direction (larger or smaller scales), our intuitions become utterly useless as a guide to what we will find.

Re:Still some wiggle room

[PvtVoid]

I'd like to bet somebody a dollar that we go to a steady-state universe in our lifetime.

As several other posters have pointed out, whether BICEP2 is seeing gravity waves or dust has very little to do with whether or not the Big Bang is right. Even if BICEP2 is entirely explained by dust, the Big Bang is still just fine as a theory. Sorry to disappoint you.

Re:Still some wiggle room

[towermac]

Yeah, I should probably get that in the mail asap. That's why I said a dollar, something I could afford to lose.

Your point was my point, perhaps made poorly; a steady state universe would be far stranger than the big bang. I find the big bang more intuitive than steady state. Steady state blows my mind, whereas science and religion agree on the big bang. That makes the big bang far more comfortable. And that, makes me suspicious.

Nova on Catholic scientists

[CrashNBrn]

One of the more interesting Nova episodes I watched, a few years ago now, focused on a group of Catholic scientists priests (Astronomers, Physicists, Biologists, etc). It was refreshing to see that even within the Catholic Church there is room for faith and science, as they are sanctioned and paid by the Church.

There are a lot of "nutters" that do abuse Religious doctrine and pound the shit out of their bibles. At least the official stance of the Catholic church acknowledges and respects science, and doesn't discount it out of hand.

It really does shine a bad light on those fringe states that continue to push for their creationist agenda in schools, when not even the Catholic Church has that stance.

Re:Nova on Catholic scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

The Catholic Church had a hand in creating the scientific method, you know. And "scientific" names are all Latin for similar reasons. Not to mention setting up the whole university system to begin with. They came up with the theory that a rational God would create a rational universe that obeyed rules that could be understood by humans when those prior had studied things more or less as a long series of special cases of cause and effect.

While people might not agree with the "rational God" part, the "rational universe that obeys rules that can be understood by humans" pretty much sums up the pursuit of science.

Re:Nova on Catholic scientists

[TapeCutter]

The big bang theory was the brain child of a Catholic priest who was employed by the vatican as an astronomer. The priest's theory was sarcastically coined "BBT" by a well known astronomer who dismissed the idea as nonsense. The name stuck, and the priest's evidence eventually forced the astronomer to change his mind. The names escape me, I think the astronomer was Patrick Moore but can't be bothered googling.

Re:Nova on Catholic scientists

[vandamme]

Fr. Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian.

Re:How we can find the answer:

[neoritter]

I feel like you inverted the science fiction book that was the basis of Aryan propaganda of the early 20th century.

Clarke Addressed This...

[NotSanguine]

Just like a lot of things. Here you go.

Re:It's about time ...

[__aanbvm4272]

How true the red shift could be from the cosmic dust getting in the way. A sort of filter effect. Let's ask the Pope.

Re: Dust? tsarkon reports

[FatdogHaiku]

I don't understand any four sided cubes...
unless you mean inside, outside, our side, your side...
Oh Crap I think I'm channeling Dr. Seuss!

Horrible title

[Netdoctor]

I just want to say that the title on this story is absolutly horrible.

I don't think they could have dumbed it down anymore.

How about "BICEP2 Team working to qualify their results with Planck researchers"?

Not as exciting, I know, I know. I really wish news articles here would challenge us to think more.

Re:funny! [frist post]

[narcc]

Yahweh, of course.

"Lol, watch this! I'm gonna put this bitchin' fruit out there, and then tell those jerks who don't even know right from wrong to not eat it. When they do, I'll totally fuck over their entire race from now until the end of time and blame them for it!"
-- Genesis 3:2, Standard Slashdot Translation

I thought it said ...

[PPH]

....Big Band.

Never mind. Wrong kind of Stardust.

Re: Dust? tsarkon reports

[TapeCutter]

Dr Seuss makes more sense than the comment thread.

Re: Dust? tsarkon reports

[FatdogHaiku]

I agree. Theodor not only avoided incomprehensibility, He instilled a love of reading in countless people.

Re:Dust? tsarkon reports

[Black Parrot]

LoL.

Re:It's about time ...

[Black Parrot]

Bullshit. The red shift is because the low-frequency visual rays projected by the human eye has a longer range than the high-frequency ones. (The range is a limit on the number of wavelengths the rays can extend.)

A dog would see the universe entirely differently. (Who ever met a dog that believed in a cosmic red shift?)

Re:funny! [frist post]

[Barsteward]

can you do that for the rest of that shitty book of violence??

Re:Cue

[fyngyrz]

No. We can trace the assembly of a loaf of bread just fine from its now-current components. We can't trace the creation of the universe. Our physics makes nonsense of the evidence we have uncovered; therefore, we do not understand that evidence. Until we do, we can't trace the universe any further.

I have no problem with yet to be solved questions, and find no need to make up stories in order to pretend to solve them. I'll wait comfortably until we figure it out, assuming we do, which is also not a given. It may be beyond our capacities, and certainly as far as this universe goes, most of the evidence our current skills allow us to work with has long since dispersed.

However, from a thermodynamics POV, the "logic" does not lead to "god", because that answer solves nothing:

- A god does not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- A god does not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- A god was not created.

The subtext to either series of reasoning, of course, is the "it was there all the time" sally. The difference: The universe is real, here now, and assuming it was there all the time in some form isn't a huge leap of any kind, it just asserts the status quo in regions we cannot confirm.

God (or gods), however, has/have not been demonstrated to be real, and so three leaps have to be taken: First the existence in the first place, and second, the "there all the time", and third, that this is somehow relevant to us.

I choose the simple answer: The universe, in some form, was there all the time. That could be wrong; but that's what little our current physics seem to imply.