Posted on 12/20/2002 9:19:45 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Although it was discovered less than 40 years ago, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation has been around a lot longer than that. A relic from the early days of the Universe more than 14 billion years ago, the CMB is the oldest radiation on record. Current cosmological models posit that the CMB should be slightly polarized but this property has never been observed--until now. Researchers have successfully detected the CMB's polarization and found that it agrees with the theoretical estimates.
Erik Leitch and John Kovac of the University of Chicago and their colleagues used the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), which is located at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, to study the CMB radiation. Over a two-year period, this array of radio telescopes collected radiation signals coming from deep space in two patches of blank sky. The resulting 271 days worth of useable data revealed the light's polarization (the direction in which the light's field oscillates as it travels toward an observer on the ground). Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists report that the CMB radiation's level and spatial distribution are in excellent agreement with the predictions of the standard theory. "If the light hadn't been polarized, that would mean that we would have to throw out our whole model of how we understand the physics of the early universe," Leitch notes. In an accompanying commentary, Matias Zaldarriaga of New York University calls the findings "both a remarkable technical achievement and a wonderful consistency check for the theory."
Yes, but to confuse the levels serves neither philosophy/religion nor science. Your denigration of science does not make your philosophy attractive.
Which doesn't bear on larger periods of time, I take it. Or should we use the uncertainty principle to understand that everything in the cosmos, past, present, and future, is somehow happening simultaneously?
It's true, but not commonly known. Now, if the polaroid sunglasses would make the fish take the bait, so much the better.
Hawking predicted "radiation" from black holes due to the creation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs at the event horizon. One of the pair would be swept into the black hole and the other would move away. In this way, black holes "evaporate" over time.
If the entire universe collapsed into a small enough region, the "Hawking radiation" which would result would probably be of sufficient magnitude to reverse the collapse, just as the Big Bang theory proposes.
For those who believe in a Supreme Being, it is only necessary to believe that that Being would choose to create a universe with an apparent history going back billions of years which is consistent with scientific observation. Is that really so difficult that a Supreme Being could not accomplish it?
For all I know directly, the entire universe was created when I was two years old. Every occurrence older than that was only reported to me by others.
BW, I'm a disciple of our Lord too, but I've got a problem with this. Just because there's a God doesn't mean science isn't worth pursuing. And your statement above... the one I quoted... reminds me of what people used to say about air, or the mathematical concept of zero, or the human circulatory system.
Just because "Why?" is the predominate question doesn't mean "How?" is pointless.
I never said that, but in titus 6:20 the God points out that there are things passing themselves off as science. That's pretty much what we have here when we see a 1 part per 100,000 difference in the distribution of background radiation at 2.7ish degrees K and conclude that it supports the big bang theory.
Questions for you, RW: these stress relievers occur in the spacetime bubble of our reality or outside of it, then intersect our spacetime to then disappear? Our 'BB' brought space and time into being, or the 'BB' happened in an already existing spacetime background?
Well, maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't... but if you don't mind my asking, do you have the qualifications to make that call?
The question is kind of irrelevant anyhow, because whether the universe Big Banged or not, science can get no grip on the whole notion of why it happened. It's not what science is about. By the same token, I find scientists who disbelieve in a Creator on the basis of their work to be as laughable as a mechanic who disbelieves in Henry Ford. "Been lookin' for his fingerprints for years," he might say. "Never found 'em... NOT EVEN ON FORDS!!!"
Qualifications! That's funny. Jesus and John the Baptist are not qualified to preach in most of the Christian churches in this country. College is a joke, been there and see the results of "higher education" in my peers.
Would be inside our continuum, and then something clicks and it's gone, taking the stress with it. But whatever causes the stress is still operating, so stress continues to build until *Pop* it's gone again. Like sand bars in the river.
On the basis of our brief interaction I would guess that you have been both resolute and successful in resisting its insidious effects.
You'd have to understand my question in the context of my ongoing conversation with RightWhale, I'm afraid. But I get your meaning.
Then why do you suppose that so many of the most brilliant minds in science have devoted their lives to studying it?
Several people have mentioned this on FR but the evos here do not appear capable of absorbing it or handling it: having everything, all the mass, energy, and everything in the universe collapsed to a point would be the ultimate black hole.
Tell me, what is the total energy of the universe? What would you say if I told you that it is something very close to zero?
Nothing could bang its way out of that, big, little, or otherwise.
What makes you think we are out of that? According to inflationary cosmology, we are in a black hole right now.
The whole notion is idiotic and PatrickHenry and several of these people who make all the noise on FR on these topics are basically a bunch of idiots.
It's aggressively ignorant statements like that that make FreeRepublic--and conservatism in general--into a laughing stock.
How about the universe has simply always been around and will always be around? Why do you need these beginning myths? Oh, the "expanding universe" you say? Turns out, at least from what I hear, that one's a myth too.
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