Posted on 08/19/2009 7:20:29 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Scientists have peered further back in time than ever before using instruments designed to search for a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein almost a century ago but not yet proven to exist.
An American observatory hunting for ripples in space and time called gravitational waves has produced its most significant results yet, despite not having directly detected any.
Tycho's Supernova
The non-discovery offers insights into the state of the Universe just 60 seconds into its existence. Previous research has been unable to look back in time further than about 380,000 years after the big bang.
The new window on the dawn of time has been opened by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a network of three detectors that have been seeking evidence of gravitational waves since 2005.
These waves, which are believed to stretch and squeeze space and time as they pass, were predicted by Einstein in his theory of relativity. Violent events, such as a supernova explosion or the collision of two black holes, should make the biggest and most detectable waves. While their existence is accepted by astrophysicists, they have never been directly detected. LIGO has not yet found any gravitational waves either, and this has important implications for astrophysics and cosmology.
Certain theoretical models of what happened in the first moments of the cosmos predict that gravitational waves should be visible in LIGOs data. As none have been detected, the non-findings narrow down possible explanations for the growth of the Universe.
The research, which is published in the journal Nature , also offers proof that gravitational-wave observatories will open up new horizons for astronomy, allowing scientists to examine aspects of the cosmos that have previously been hidden from view, such as supernovas and black holes. The first 380,000 years after the big
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
How do we know that that universe wasn’t created in a lab by beings who created their own version of “Large Hadron Collider” and in their time frame our universe will exist for a nano-second and blink out, but to us it lasts for Billions or Trillions of years?
If you inflate a small “chunk” of space time using massive amounts of concentrated energy you may be able to create a “pocket” or basement universe. We could be someone else’s science experiment.....
I believe Theodor Seuss Geisel did some preliminary research in this area which he published in a paper titled, “Horton Hears a Who.”
;<)
186,200 miles / second
How to explain then that subatomic particles traveling at near the speed of light, decay much more slowly, compared to the rates at which they decay when at rest relative to us. They do so at just the rates that would be expected given time dilation. In that case the clocks that are measuring the phenomena are at rest.
Remeber the very best clocks are based on just such subatomic decays.
You almost got it, but no cigar, because there is no epicenter, at a particular point, today. Put another way, *everywhere* is that epicenter. Everything is moving away from everything else (over long enoungh distances, locally things can be and are moveing towards each other).
You think Einstein smoked weed? If he did, I want some of what he was smoking.
Now Einie himself thought the quantum mechanics guys were smoking dope, even thought much of their work was stimulated by his earlier work on the photoelectric effect, for which he received the Nobel Prize. (There's a Politics of Science story there, BTW). Eventually he came around, kinda sorta as was his wont, to their way of thinking.
Hi, Habibi. Sorry, I did not get to it today.....but I shall. It will only take an hour or so to put on paper, once I get rolling - but this was a BUSY day here. Go with God!
“How to explain then that subatomic particles traveling at near the speed of light, decay much more slowly, compared to the rates at which they decay when at rest relative to us.”
I am not a physicist or astrophysicist, but those who are and who write arguments against the dilation of time theory believe that there again, gravity “relative to us” is affecting the rate of decay, not “time”. The affect is an “apparent” alteration of time only because we do not actually measure the energy/wave form we call “gravity”, though in many ways we claim to measure its affects - sometimes.
There is no difference in the gravity. Both the "at rest" (Meaning not moving anywhere near the speed of light), and the "high fraction of "c" (like 99.99%) particles are in the same gravity field. That of the earth. The only difference is the relative motion.
OK, now this is the PBR thinkin’ more than me, but wouldn’t the image in the mirror merely be of the place the scientists were standing at the moment of the big bang?
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