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.
Why do I feed the attention-trolls?
How can *you* make that claim?! DeSitter's Inflationary Model shows Inflation continuing until today...and certainly we still see the Universe expanding at ever-faster rates.
Are you going to prohibit yourself from using Inflation Theory to explain our ever-faster universal expansion in all of our future conversations?
Good plan.
DeSitter would never have heard of inflation, having died in 1934. He did come up with a model of the expanding universe based on relativity.
Your frame of reference is telling, but doesn't add much to the debate.
On the contrary, the math in post #381 shows that expansion is *not* below our threshold of detection.
That we don't detection said expansion is a point that you simply can't deal with.
Your math was meaningless as it did not account for gravity.
"That math shows conclusively that Inflation Theory hasn't applied itself to our Solar System."
No it doesn't. Of course, everyone else says that the math doesn't apply because Inflation Theory doesn't apply to our Solar System...a point that you'll eventually come to accept.
No one has claimed that inflation does not apply to our solar system. What has been said is that the effects of inflation are less than the effects of gravity within our solar system. Space is expanding within our system.
Nothing in post #381 adresses the article linked in post #317.
The expansion of the universe today is not inflation. You may call it inflation, but inflation is over. It's been over for about ... 13.7 billion years.
H (Hubble's Constant) is measured across the entire universe. However, our solar system, and yes even an entire galaxy is "gravitationally bound" which basically means there is no expansion going on within these small local areas.
This includes the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
That's incorrect. See post #325...that's the post that kicked off the math in post #381...and 325 was in response to the #317 debate.
Nothing you have posted addresses the article linked in post #317.
See post #611.
You're measuring the raisins, not the pudding.
That's what I was told to measure (see post #325).
By the way, from what location/space did the rasins begin, where are they today, and how do we know where they are today if we don't measure them?
Sheesh. Gone for a day and WOW!
Interesting.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0602/0602098.pdf
Just a side note:
Galactic clusters are the largest objects known that the gravitational influence within the cluster overcomes the Hubble Expansion.
I wish mine was as well!
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