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."
Don't confuse real science with things like astrology, cosmology, and quite a bit of psychology.
How does the Bible explain the polarization of the CMB?
Read it.
If you believe a book once and for all determines scientific evidence and theory, you are no different than the cardinals and you are not engaged in a scientific pursuit.
The bible shows that this conversation is not very important. Man is important not the un-understandable ordinances of the heavens. We will never know why simple things like gravity and magnetism work let alone the real natural mysteries of the universe. They are just there for us to marvel at but our own salvation and relationship with God is infinitely more important.
The point where QM jumps the track and says that a big bang could have happened for no reason at all.
Was thinking in terms of radio waves where you can arrange your antenna this way and that but you need to put in a road so you can get your gear in and out and you need to climb dangerously high towers. Or we could deal with the visible spectrum and use transparent crystals like in polaroid sheets. You definitely get the sense of electric fields propagating through space with antennas.
OK, you go spend your life trying to figure them out without regard for God. Then in a few decades or so, we'll discuss it over a cup of really really hot BikerNYC.
I knew Dr. Thermos. Dr. Thermos was a friend of mine. I don't thnk they make Thermos bottles anymore, not the real ones like Dewar flasks. Those were truly amazing, things that practically cut a hole in the continuum, a reverse black hole if they also cut off gravity and we're lucky Dr. Thermos didn't figure out how to do that, yet made in a factory.
Of course it is. We're just wondering if Einstein's gift to the world - the photon - exists to allow for equations in canonical form. Dirac's primary postulate is that Nature prefers the Canonical form, and that experimental results don't matter whether they support the equation or not.
Of course the key word in this "why". If you include the transcendent in your hypothesis, it is easy to deduce "intelligent design." Science is unconcerned with such "whys". It takes the universe to exist and to operate in ways that can be understood via observation, experimentation, and theory testing. On this level we know a whole lot about gravity and magnetism. (BTW, these two [of four] fundamental forces, are not all that simple.) If the answer, "because God made it that way," suffices for you, fine. Though, if all of our species took that attitude, we'd still be living in caves.
That's the thing, of course. "Why" is the instrumental case of "what" and implies an actor, agent, or motive.
Scientists don't waste much time on "why." Simply finding "what" or "how" is enough to keep one busy.
That's the thing, of course. "Why" is the instrumental case of "what" and implies an actor, agent, or motive.
Scientists don't waste much time on "why." Simply finding "what" or "how" is enough to keep one busy.
For a few of the posters, it seems that thinking itself may be incompatible with some of their doctrines. The odd thing is that in such cases, they choose to go with the doctrine.
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