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Hints of 'time before Big Bang'
BBC ^ | 6-6-08 | Chris Lintott

Posted on 06/10/2008 6:05:27 AM PDT by Michael Barnes

A team of physicists has claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang.

The discovery comes from studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old.

Their model may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Education; Science
KEYWORDS: bigbang; science; stringtheory
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A team of physicists has claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang.

The discovery comes from studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old.

Their model may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow.

1 posted on 06/10/2008 6:05:28 AM PDT by Michael Barnes
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To: Las Vegas Dave; Quix

Interesting read...


2 posted on 06/10/2008 6:05:55 AM PDT by Michael Barnes
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To: LeGrande

Ping


3 posted on 06/10/2008 6:07:51 AM PDT by Soliton
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To: RightWhale

Fairly certain I see you from time to time on science related threads..


4 posted on 06/10/2008 6:08:55 AM PDT by Michael Barnes
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To: Michael Barnes

Here’s fifty cents. Go call someone who cares.


5 posted on 06/10/2008 6:12:22 AM PDT by scooter2 (The greatest threat to the security of the United States is the Democratic Party.)
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To: scooter2

Didn’t get any last night huh?


6 posted on 06/10/2008 6:18:05 AM PDT by Michael Barnes
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To: Michael Barnes

I always had this theory that the universe would expand (big bang) and then somehow collapse to the infinite, then explode again to it’s limits, contract again etc. To me, that is God’s Heartbeat. Maybe I was right... now the scientists have to work out the fuzzy details...


7 posted on 06/10/2008 6:21:46 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll.)
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Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: theDentist
How would it collapse though? From the brevity of my readings, the universe is accelerating.
Personally speaking, I like the idea of a collapse only to start all over again. The idea of "everything" speeding away from "everything" else and simply burning out and fading away into darkness is a bit, well, lonely.
But, the universe is what it is I suppose.
9 posted on 06/10/2008 6:24:56 AM PDT by Michael Barnes
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To: Michael Barnes
How would it collapse though?

Ah, if I had THAT answer, I'd earn a Nobel Prize. Not an Al Gore Nobel Prize, but a REAL ONE worthy of respect.

10 posted on 06/10/2008 6:28:10 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll.)
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To: Michael Barnes
I am reminded of the Monty Python sketch where a scientist has a fragment of bone but has no problem constructing a massive Dinosaur from it.
11 posted on 06/10/2008 6:32:12 AM PDT by vimto (To do the right thing you don't have to be intelligent - you have to be brave (Sasz))
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To: Michael Barnes

It’s almost easier to grasp a place before time and space then it is to imagine what’s it must be like inside the heads of guys that think this stuff up.


12 posted on 06/10/2008 6:32:34 AM PDT by DManA
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To: Michael Barnes

My understanding is that the point is still being debated. Depending on how much “dark matter” is out there, it is possible that the universe will collapse again due to gravity.

Asimov had an interesting theory about this- if the universe contains enough mass to collapse due to gravity, then that gravity is also sufficient to prevent light from escaping. Ergo, the universe is a black hole.


13 posted on 06/10/2008 6:34:37 AM PDT by Squawk 8888 (TSA and DHS are jobs programs for people who are not smart enough to flip burgers)
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To: Squawk 8888
Ergo, the universe is a black hole.

Now that is one to ponder...

14 posted on 06/10/2008 6:40:26 AM PDT by Michael Barnes
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To: Michael Barnes
2 ideas for people to shoot down easily just for fun

1) The universe may have an elasticity to it like water. I forget the name of it, but you know when you pour a puddle of water onto a desktop, and look at it from the side, you see the water has a depth and curves down to the desktop. It has a thickness, but it also retains shape. Same as we dee a drop of water in a spaeship, being round or oblong etc and spinning, but these droplets retain their shape until they interact with something, yes? Well, if the universe were like that, it would expand endlessly until it reached the limit of that elasticity, though it doesn't explain a reason to contract.

Which leads me to 2> Dark Matter. They're discovering many things about Dark Matter, and I wonder: perhaps dark matter has gravitation forces to it. This would allow for elasticity, and could also somehow cause a it to retract, to collapse....

Anyhow, it seems the basic theory of physics would apply to the universe as they would to a puddle of water on a desktop, or a droplet in a spaceship.

15 posted on 06/10/2008 6:47:07 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll.)
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To: Michael Barnes
"Every time you break an egg or spill a glass of water, you're learning about the Big Bang," Professor Carroll explained.

Seems to me life is exempt from the Second Law. In order to have an egg to break some animal had to organize random elements into an organized structure of the egg.

16 posted on 06/10/2008 6:48:57 AM PDT by DManA
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To: Michael Barnes
Not everyone.


17 posted on 06/10/2008 6:50:34 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: theDentist

What you call elasticity most people call surface tension. I don’t see any analogy between surface tension and the universe.


18 posted on 06/10/2008 6:50:47 AM PDT by DManA
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To: theDentist

1.) `surface tension’


19 posted on 06/10/2008 6:52:02 AM PDT by tumblindice
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To: pabianice

I wonder of Wells would have been please or disgusted over how fancy they made his time machine look.


20 posted on 06/10/2008 6:52:46 AM PDT by DManA
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