Your link didn't begin to explain why space is supposedly expanding between solar systems but not inside *our* solar system.
Posted on 03/16/2006 11:31:54 AM PST by The_Victor
Physicists announced Thursday that they now have the smoking gun that shows the universe went through extremely rapid expansion in the moments after the big bang, growing from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second.
The discovery — which involves an analysis of variations in the brightness of microwave radiation — is the first direct evidence to support the two-decade-old theory that the universe went through what is called inflation.
It also helps explain how matter eventually clumped together into planets, stars and galaxies in a universe that began as a remarkably smooth, superhot soup.
"It's giving us our first clues about how inflation took place," said Michael Turner, assistant director for mathematics and physical sciences at the National Science Foundation. "This is absolutely amazing."
Brian Greene, a Columbia University physicist, said: "The observations are spectacular and the conclusions are stunning."
Researchers found the evidence for inflation by looking at a faint glow that permeates the universe. That glow, known as the cosmic microwave background, was produced when the universe was about 300,000 years old — long after inflation had done its work.
But just as a fossil tells a paleontologist about long-extinct life, the pattern of light in the cosmic microwave background offers clues about what came before it. Of specific interest to physicists are subtle brightness variations that give images of the microwave background a lumpy appearance.
Physicists presented new measurements of those variations during a news conference at Princeton University. The measurements were made by a spaceborne instrument called the Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe, or WMAP, launched by NASA in 2001.
Earlier studies of WMAP data have determined that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand years. WMAP also measured variations in the cosmic microwave background so huge that they stretch across the entire sky. Those earlier observations are strong indicators of inflation, but no smoking gun, said Turner, who was not involved in the research.
The new analysis looked at variations in the microwave background over smaller patches of sky — only billions of light-years across, instead of hundreds of billions.
Without inflation, the brightness variations over small patches of the sky would be the same as those observed over larger areas of the heavens. But the researchers found considerable differences in the brightness variations.
"The data favors inflation," said Charles Bennett, a Johns Hopkins University physicist who announced the discovery. He was joined by two Princeton colleagues, Lyman Page and David Spergel, who also contributed to the research.
Bennett added: "It amazes me that we can say anything at all about what transpired in the first trillionth of a second of the universe."
The physicists said small lumps in the microwave background began during inflation. Those lumps eventually coalesced into stars, galaxies and planets.
The measurements are scheduled to be published in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Good luck. That same question has been asked five times so far. Let's hope this thread dies soon. ;-)
Per post 118, you are correct, it was a heat effect that caused the mill to spin.
They're asking that question faster than I can repost the answer.
OOOOH! Hard Data! Yum-Yum! :)
This too is true. The universe cooled as it expanded, which is how it took some hundreds of thousands of years before subatomic particles started condensing into hydrogen, helium, and lithium atoms. The pre-inflation singularity was something called a "quark-gluon plasma."
"Which is to say, the theory is hooey."
Interesting. Can I see your math? I've seen the math on the other side of the question. But, you seem to have this down, so let's see your work.
This will, no doubt, revolutionize physics. There's a Nobel Prize in your future, I expect.
Your link didn't begin to explain why space is supposedly expanding between solar systems but not inside *our* solar system.
The farther they appear to be from our own galaxy (measured by indications such as brightness of certain kinds of objects compared to intrinsic brightness of those classes of objects), the faster they appear to be moving, by reading the same spectra.
Until a better theory emerges, we will continue to assume that most of the large objects in the universe are receding from each other.
This expansion of the universe has nothing to do with the inflation that Guth and others have proposed.
It'll fit all right. You just need a 'lot' of pressure.
I haven't use TeX in 15 years. I'd forgotten what a good program (for its time) that was.
Funny somebody seemed to understand whose festival was referenced, too.
LOL, yes. She came into a restaurant bar a few years back and stood next to me with her friends. I recognized that voice, and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her... what a blimp!
My wife actually had been a drinking pal of hers back in the 70's and wasn't at all surprised at how she looked now.
That's not what the theory says, though the article is admittedly misleading on this point. What it means is that the observable horizon, from a given point, expanded to this size in a fraction of a second; space became "transparent," and this transparency is what "traveled". No matter, energy, or information actually traveled faster than light, according to the model.
An analogous situation - take a flashlight beam and wave it across the sky - you've made a beam "travel" from one star to another in a few seconds, but nothing actually travels from one star to the other in that time, even though, eventually, the beam reaches both stars simultaneously. (i.e. relativity still holds)
Sorry. To me, mass and rest mass need to be distinguished, but that just me. I thought Baez was discussing the rest mass of a photon. Maybe I'm mistaken.
"It is not expanding into anything because as far as we know there is nothing other than the universe.
It is simply expanding to a bigger universe."
This doesn't really work, you know.
I know it's what we tell ourselves, but this emperor's got no clothes.
Here were the questions:
a. explain why "inflation" stopped (or slowed),
b. much less why the universe is still expanding at ever-faster rates,
c. much less why different laws of physics existed back then (e.g. accelerating large masses vastly faster than the speed of light C).
...and here were your answers:
(a) gravity
(b) dark energy
(c) they weren't
Which of course are each individually wrong, as expected. Gravity was, by definition, greater in one place on all mass prior to any big bang inflation or expansion...yet per the ridiculous "inflation" theory that you are touting, gravity was somehow (insert magic here) overcome inside that small marble space...yet from a weaker post-expansion position, your silly theory claims that Gravity then overcame that rate of expansion and slowed it down.
Preposterous.
...and that's just your first wrong answer above!
For your second wrong answer "b" you cite something that doesn't even exist (e.g. no evidence of it in hand). Dark energy is a figment, wholly invented to solve math equations when Hubble showed that our universe was expanding (while everyone else claimed it was static or contracting).
Now, your third answer is both right and wrong, depending on context, but I suspect we'll have to go into that point in more depth later in this thread (based on expected responses).
There are only 4 dimensions. Nothing else can be shown in the lab or in reality.
and yes, that means that String Theory is rubbish.
The universe is expanding between galactic clusters rather than between solar systems. It seems they aren't at all sure what is doing this, but they are pretty sure gravity drove the inflationary phase.
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