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Four Keys to Cosmology
Scientific American ^
| February 2004
| George Musser
Posted on 08/31/2005 8:19:37 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
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This isn't a new article, but with its links to related articles in Scientific American, it's a good general background.
To: VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; RightWhale; ...
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2
posted on
08/31/2005 8:24:32 AM PDT
by
PatrickHenry
(Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
To: PatrickHenry
I remember that when I took an introductory astronomy class in college 25 years ago, my professor explained the Big Bang, etc., told us that the scientists had everything figured out all the way down to a tiny fraction after the Big Bang, and that the only thing they could not explain was that millionth of a second after the Big Bang and the Big Bang itself. Now, they are backtracking. They knew less than they thought.
3
posted on
08/31/2005 8:27:01 AM PDT
by
Brilliant
To: PatrickHenry
Gradually the universe imposed order on itself. The familiar particles of matter, such as electrons and protons, condensed out of the radiation like water droplets in a cloud of steam.... Matter steadily wrested control of the cosmos away from radiation. Several hundred thousand years after inflation, matter declared final victory and cut itself loose from radiation... Over the ensuing eons, matter organized itself into bodies of increasingly large size: subgalactic scraps, majestic galaxies, galactic clusters, great walls of galaxies. Wow-- I had no idea that matter was so smart. ;)
4
posted on
08/31/2005 8:29:07 AM PDT
by
mikeus_maximus
(Hillary for Prez! -(The Whitehouse wants its china back; China wants the Whitehouse back))
To: PatrickHenry
To: Brilliant
That's OK. Life will get boring once we know everything. ;^)
6
posted on
08/31/2005 8:29:47 AM PDT
by
AntiGuv
("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick)
To: All
7
posted on
08/31/2005 8:29:49 AM PDT
by
PatrickHenry
(Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
To: PatrickHenry
cosmic history started with inflation -- a celestial reboot that wiped out whatever came before and left the cosmos a featureless place Cute. Bogus.
8
posted on
08/31/2005 8:30:50 AM PDT
by
RightWhale
(Cloudy, 51 degrees, scattered showers, wind <5 knots in Fairbanks)
To: Brilliant
They knew less than they thought.Correction: they knew less than you thought your professor was telling you.
9
posted on
08/31/2005 8:34:57 AM PDT
by
Physicist
To: Brilliant
Anything this highly theoretical is bound to be changed at least somewhat over time as new evidence is discovered. Your teacher really should have put things in perspective at the time that this is extremely difficult stuff to work with, and that we're working with a very small subset of the information necessary to accurately work backwards in time to the moment of the Big Bang. What we can do is develop models that fit what we know about particle physics and which explain how we get to where we are now in terms of the conditions of the universe around us. It all requires a lot of extrapolation based on imperfect knowledge of the system and the rules governing it.
Completing work on the Grand Unified Theory would make the whole thing a heck of a lot easier.
10
posted on
08/31/2005 8:35:19 AM PDT
by
NJ_gent
(Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.)
To: PatrickHenry
11
posted on
08/31/2005 8:35:37 AM PDT
by
js1138
(Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
To: PatrickHenry
The big bang is best thought of not as a singular event but as an ongoing process, a gradual molding of order out of chaos....
The radiation varied from place to place in an utterly random way; mathematically, it was as random as random could be.
Order out of chaos, or chaos out of chaos?
It's probably just me, but these sort of conflicting statements make it hard for me to keep from laughing.
To: mikeus_maximus
I had no idea that matter was so smart Are you made out of matter?
13
posted on
08/31/2005 8:38:43 AM PDT
by
RightWhale
(Cloudy, 51 degrees, scattered showers, wind <5 knots in Fairbanks)
To: Brilliant
Now, they are backtracking.
Not really, they can still describe everything right up to the tiny fraction after the big bang. As for their theories on expansion, they remained open-minded and insisted on observation to verify their theories and once observation proved the theories wrong, they abandoned them.
The scientific method is a wonderful thing.
14
posted on
08/31/2005 8:42:13 AM PDT
by
Darth Reagan
(Everyone who hires us is a psycho. You think that's a reflection on us?)
To: NJ_gent
Completing work on the Grand Unified Theory How about a extra-super grand unified theory so we don't leave God on the dock? Does anybody else get sense there are too many words devoted to shrinking the universe?
15
posted on
08/31/2005 8:43:18 AM PDT
by
cornelis
To: delacoert
It's probably just meProbably.
16
posted on
08/31/2005 8:43:27 AM PDT
by
Darth Reagan
(Everyone who hires us is a psycho. You think that's a reflection on us?)
To: delacoert
That would have to be Chaos with initial cap. Chaos is smart matter.
17
posted on
08/31/2005 8:45:36 AM PDT
by
cornelis
To: NJ_gent
Completing work on the Grand Unified Theory would make the whole thing a heck of a lot easier.This is just my opinion, but physical theories seem to explain what is know today, but fail eventually at the edges of knowledge. It could be that existence is infinitely deep, turtles all the way down.
18
posted on
08/31/2005 8:47:54 AM PDT
by
js1138
(Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
To: PatrickHenry
"
The universe was without form, and void."
It seems to me I have heard words very much like this before. I just can't seem to recall where it was. Can anyone help me?
"Inflation then filled it with an almost completely uniform brew of radiation."
I no cosmologist, but isn't this sentence a tautology? I mean, isn't "inflation" the process of filling something almost completely? So, couldn't this sentence be re-stated as follows:
Something inflated it with an almost completely uniform brew of radiation.
Something tells me that the predicate "filled it" needs a subject, and that it begs the question to say that "inflation" filled anything.
To: RightWhale
I like to think I'm animate and intelligent. But my wife may have a different opinion.
20
posted on
08/31/2005 8:51:37 AM PDT
by
mikeus_maximus
(Hillary for Prez! -(The Whitehouse wants its china back; China wants the Whitehouse back))
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