I should just leave. And yet, I can't tear myself away.
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.
That's one heck of an expansion rate.
Reminds me of the Carter years
Coming up on the primest prime.
Excellent Summary, and thanks for the ping!
If they ever grow to the point of gravitational collapse where they decrease past the Schwarzschild radius, the resulting event horizon at the Schwarzschild radius will cause them to disappear. (Until they experience Hawking radiation and evaporate)
No kidding!
We've already tested this part of the theory over a decade ago. You have heard of the W+, W- and Z particles, haven't you????
You got 666.
Fitting for a heathen like me. :-)
Is this actually what we saw when the Z Machine hit 2 Billion Kelvin?
Honestly, I don't know what the results were. I have not looked at the data nor seen any papers on it.
"We've already tested this part of the theory over a decade ago. You have heard of the W+, W- and Z particles, haven't you????" - Netheron
You'd be hard-pressed to show a link to any such lab test, since we haven't heated anything up to 10E13K yet, as far as I'm aware.
To cut directly to what you're asking: Not to my knowledge. We have not recreated and observed the conditions of the Planck Era. Our projection of circumstances back before the differentiation of the Grand Unified Field is based on extrapolation from quantum mechanics
648 posted on 03/20/2006 8:06:56 AM CST by AntiGuv (™)
You are also reduced to claiming that matter somehow cooled in a way that we've never seen in the lab or in the field... - Southack
This is a blatant lie. I never claimed that. What I did was cut to the chase and get to the point that you were actually hoping to make. We have seen energy loss due to particle transformation in any number of experiments. I just declined to take advantage of your utter ignorance when I knew that your real issue was the thermal state problem. - AntiGuv
Fair enough. Thanks. I find it intriguing that we are at least to the point where we *could* see if our theories fit what we see in the lab (to that...mmm..."degree").
Speaking of which, has anyone yet hypothesized that Gravity is a negative Force...responsible for drawing in the energy required to orbit an electron, bind neutrons/protons, and otherwise "power" the weak, strong, electromagnetic force, et al?
Can pant suits emit Hawking radiaton?
The question "do we have any examples in the lab of matter cooling due to particle transformations rather than through heat transfer?" is totally nonsensical in the current state of the universe. I don't have the time or patience to waste my time explaining to you why.
But, maybe, if I feel like it, I'll get back to this later. :)
On the contrary, it's a valid question. You're supporting or postulating a unique, never-seen mechanism for cooling. My above question exposes that fact.
I used to accuse other posters of Southacking, er, doing that thing.
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