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.
And what of Hillary's ever-expanding posterior?
Especially since physics would seem to be childishly simple.
Sorry, but nowhere did I ascribe a force to space.
I have a few questions.
* Can objects move within expanding space?
* If not, why not?
* If so, can gravity change the trajectory of an object within space?
* If so, if gravity 'pulled' an object through space at the same rate and in an opposite direction to the expansion of that space, how would you measure expansion over time?
* If gravity 'pulled' an object faster than the expansion of space 'pushed' an object how would you measure expansion.
* If gravity 'pulled' an object through space at a rate slower than space expanded would the apparent speed of the object away from the source of gravity increase through time?
* If not, why not?
"Sorry, but nowhere did I ascribe a force to space." - Bones75
What force is doing the compressing then, and why would that force change merely because extra space suddenly existed...if, as you claim, you aren't ascribing a Force to space?
Yes, but do we really know that Space per se is expanding in between matter, or is it simply that galaxies are spiraling away (physically moving) from each other in general (at Hc)?
Furthermore, even taking the Rosales work at face value, it says that the Hubble expansion is real and has a tiny effect only visible thus far as a small but noticeable anomaly in the path of a particular space probe which has been flying out of the solar system for a long time now. This is the exact opposite of your claim to date, which is that the Hubble expansion is nonexistent, refuted by its total invisibility at the solar system level.
Supposedly, you are too blind to know you are doing either thing if you're telling the truth about what you understand. There's no way to rationalize this kind of thing to look good.
You've got the rebuttal backwards. Yes, I googled up Rosales' work, but it was RadioAstronomer's paper that rebutted Rosales, and that's what I found interesting. I posted the Google link for completeness.
Rosales, after all, was showing that expansion was occuring in our Solar System. Surely you don't think that was *my* point!
The Hubble Expansion is real; we've observed it. The Red Shift is no fantasy.
What is debatable is whether that expansion is due to galaxies/matter physically moving (e.g. spiraling away), or due to the empty space in between said matter physically expanding (e.g. the pudding expanding between the raisins).
What we *know* is that we aren't seeing precession locally. Our planetary orbits are not growing larger around our Sun.
This has caused some posters to say that spacial expansion/inflation is not occuring in areas bound by Gravity.
And it has caused me to say that if areas bound by Gravity are immune from expansion/inflation, then inflation could not have occured at the start of an alledged Big Bang/Planck epoch when all matter in the universe was very close together.
"Spiraling away" in empty space? Now there's a non-Newtonian concept!
Are they spiralling away because of the Earth's rotation, with the Earth the known center of the universe, or the galaxy's rotation? It makes a difference in how fast they have to spiral out at their crazy distances.
Einstein's repulsive gravity placemark
Interstellar sprawl.
And it's destroying the purity of the universe. Just as endless strips of fast-food joints, chain stores and convenience store/gas stations are destroying our landscape, these bargain-basement galaxies, dime-store variety black holes and all the space junk that goes with them (pulsars, gamma rays, comets and asteroids) are turning our universe into a cheap, tawdry, low-rent cesspool.
You mean a grown troll?!
I have already explained this to you, several hundred posts ago, but I will attempt to do so again. Bear in mind that I'm keeping this as much as possible in simple layman's terms, because despite pretensions to the contrary, it's clear enough to me that you have a dim understanding of the relevant physics.
(1) In the early universe, before 1 Planck Time, the four fundamental forces were not differentiated. They were a unified field. Now, many of the ordinary equations break down at this point and become incoherent, because we do not yet have a Theory of Everything (that unifies gravity with the quantum forces). But the take away point is that quantum effects overwhelm relativity in the early universe before 1 Planck Time.
(2) At about 1 Planck Time the Standard Model projects that gravity begins differentiating from the unified field. This is termed a "spontaneous symmetry break"; the reason for the successive symmetry breaks was the cooling of the universe (a much more trivial symmetry break takes place in snowflake formation, fwiw - a typical analogy). The differentiation of gravity would've taken place at about 1019 gigaelectron volts (GeV) when the universe dropped below 1032 Kelvin. As the transformations that would merge gravitation and quantum effects were limited below this critical threshold, the fabric of space & time emerged in the sense that we know it.
(3) In any event, before 1 Planck time - i.e., before the differentiation of gravity at about 10-43 seconds - we cannot extrapolate classical gravitation (as you seem hellbent to do). This is a key point that you would be wise to read over several dozen times until the words sink in. We cannot extrapolate classical gravitation until after the differentiation of the electroweak force, as explained below.
(4) More importantly, at about 10-36 seconds, the next symmetry break differentiated the strong force from the remaining electroweak field. This is projected to have taken place at 1014 GeV. In any case, it was the tremendous energy released by this symmetry break that overwhelmed the nascent gravitational attraction to spark the cosmic hyperinflation.
(5) To put it in more scientific terms (for the others, as this will almost certainly fly over your head) this 1014 GeV threshold is the minimum required to create x-bosons that mediate transformation between quarks and leptons. Because x-bosons ceased to emerge, quark/lepton transformations suddenly halted. The symmetry of grand unification (between the strong & electroweak forces) broke apart into the two symmetries that governed the strong force SU(3) and the electroweak force SU(2)xU(1). Again, this superdramatic explosion of energy caused the hyperinflationary phase from about 10-36 seconds until about 10-32 seconds.
(6) As the early universe continued to cool exponentially (because of the exponential drop in energy density due to the exponential cosmic expansion*) the final symmetry break took place at about 10-12 seconds, thereby differenting weak interaction from electromagnetism. Consequently, as the universe continued to cool, below the threshold of 1013 Kelvin that was reached at about 10-6 seconds, quarks were able to bind into protons and neutrons, after which eventually 'standard' gravitation could kick in (e.g., limiting the effects of expansion for local systems).
(7) Your ignorance is typical and expected, but what is astounding and annoying is the immense arrogance of your ignorance. It is inexplicable to me how you could think that your elementary, fragmented conceptual framework is superior to that of thousands of physics theorists. And it is not so much the absurd notion that you could have 'figured it all out' and torn the shroud off the vast physics conspiracy that I find irksome, but rather all the time that you have wasted of educated people attempting to correct your inanity, and moreover this being a futile effort as you are obviously a confirmed obscurantist. That is the very definition of The Golden Law of Stupidity: "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."
(8) Please, do yourself and the shambles of your reputation a favor by realizing that when you stand alone in splendid isolation versus the combined wisdom of centuries of scientific progress, it is probably you that is wrong, rather than humanity.
PS. I've tried to ping everyone that's taken part in this discussion back until your 'equations' were posted. My apologies to anyone I've missed or anyone who would've rather been left out.
* Please note this, because earlier you alleged that the heat just vanished into nothingness for no reason. It did not. Rather, the heat attenuated over the much greater expanse of the universe. In other words, stated in layman terms, any given finite expanse of space was cooler because the heat was distributed over a larger expanse. The overall energy was the same.
If we could put hyperlinks in our taglines, I'd keep The Basic Laws of Stupidity as a permanent reference frame. ;^)
It is inexplicable to me how you could think that your elementary, fragmented conceptual framework is superior to that of thousands of physics theorists. And it is not so much the absurd notion that you could have 'figured it all out' and torn the shroud off the vast physics conspiracy that I find irksome, but rather all the time that you have wasted of educated people attempting to correct your inanity, and moreover this being a futile effort as you are obviously a confirmed obscurantist.
I just wanted to make an observation about the above argument. It this case I am quite certain your assessment is correct, but many of histories greatest minds stood alone (at least at first). Be careful of ivory tower arguments as justification, in an of themselves, of the group being right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.