Scientists find cosmic ripples from birth of universe
 

Scientists find cosmic ripples from birth of universe

Published March 17, 2014


Astronomers have discovered what they believe is the first direct evidence of the astonishing expansion of the universe in the instant following the Big Bang -- the scientific explanation for the birth of the universe some 13.8 billion years ago.

Scientists believe that the universe exploded from a tiny speck and hurled itself out in all directions in the fraction of a second that followed, beginning just 10 to the minus 35 seconds (roughly one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second) after the universe's birth. Matter ultimately coalesced hundreds of millions of years later into planets, stars, and ultimately us.

And like ripples from a ball kicked into a pond, that Big Bang-fueled expansion caused ripples in the ancient light from that event, light which remains imprinted in the skies in a leftover glow called the cosmic microwave background.

Scientists still don’t know who kicked the ball.

But if confirmed, the newfound ripples would be amazing proof of what has long been mere theory about what happened in those first millionths of a second.

“The implications for this detection stagger the mind,” said Jamie Bock, professor of physics at Caltech, laboratory senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and project co-leader. “We are measuring a signal that comes from the dawn of time.”

"It would be the most important discovery since the discovery, I think, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating," Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who is not a member of the study team, told Space.com. He compared the finding to a 1998 observation that opened the window on mysterious dark energy and won three researchers the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics.

The groundbreaking results came from observations by BICEP2, a telescope at the South Pole, of the cosmic microwave background -- a faint glow left over from the Big Bang.

Beginning a fraction of a fraction of a second after the universe's birth, according to the current theory, space-time expanded incredibly rapidly, ballooning outward faster than the speed of light. The afterglow from that expansion is called the cosmic microwave background, and tiny fluctuations in it provide clues to conditions in the early universe.

For example, small differences in temperature across the sky show where parts of the universe were denser, eventually condensing into galaxies and galactic clusters.

Since the cosmic microwave background is a form of light, it exhibits all the properties of light, including polarization. On Earth, sunlight is scattered by the atmosphere and becomes polarized, which is why polarized sunglasses help reduce glare. In space, the cosmic microwave background was scattered by atoms and electrons and became polarized too.

“Our team hunted for a special type of polarization called ‘B-modes,’ which represents a twisting or ‘curl’ pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light,” said Bock.

The team presented their work at a press conference Monda at Harvard -- the discovery of that characteristic pattern of polarization in the skies, which they called proof of the gravitational waves across the primordial sky.

“This work offers new insights into some of our most basic questions: Why do we exist? How did the universe begin? These results are not only a smoking gun for inflation, they also tell us when inflation took place and how powerful the process was,” Harvard theorist Avi Loeb said.

Saw this. I hate all this photographic evidence of the Big Bang. First thing you know people aren't going to believe the TV show any more.

Wellll how we work on debunking the scientific misinformation out of bullshit mountain first?;)

Blasphemy!!!

Move along. Nothing to see here. Keep it moving. Have a nice day.

Until we find other species.... Then they can say it replicated.

Stanford professor being told the big news.

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Broncos just signed Cosmic Ripples to a three year 5.2 million dollar contract.

"My wife still has plenty of ripples from her births too, heyooooo"

There is no God, the speaker cries,
Don't let your thoughts be chained.
This Universe evolved itself,
The world is self-contained,

Just then an urchin in the crowd
a skillful pebble throws,
which accidentally lands upon
the atheistic nose.

"Who threw that stone" the speaker roars;
at which the cockney elf,
intuitively keen, retorts
"No one ! it frew itself."

So a pathetic casualty
discomforted and worse
goes home to meditate upon
this causeless Universe !


author unknown

Ruffles have ridges.

Science, **** Yeah!

Call me when they discover the Cosmic Nipples.

Exactly how I read the OP.

The State of Kansas disagrees with this.

Pretty good video explaining what this means. It's hard to understand the magnitude of this, but I've seen it referred to as the "discoveries in physics and cosmology in decades". So here ya go.

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Knock knock knock, Penny
Knock knock knock, Penny
Knock knock knock, Penny

If anybody ever cares to check on it, you should google what's called Planck time you will find amazing things happening in time iso small it's almost immeasurable. That's what they're talking about in the video and what the guy was talking about in the other video about billions of trillionths of trillionths of seconds when you get down to a certain level it's called Planck time.

If you have a scientific mind you will be amazed.

Yes I am thoroughly amazed and even more convinced that God created all of this and in no way could all this have evolved from primordial slime.;)

I say this most whole heartedly, you are the proof that your statement is completely wrong.

That's a good deal for a quality Guard. Solidifies our line and crystallizes our draft philosophy. I like it.

Planck's time is the time it takes for light to travel Planck's length. Actions across lengths less than this boundary have no meaning because distance/relativity stop and quantum mechanics take over at Planck's length. The smallest length (Planck's length) divided by the fastest speed (the speed of light), is the time it takes for the fastest thing to travel the shortest distance. Thus, times shorter than Planck's time do not make sense.

nsfw (maybe)
 

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I've never understood how/why science and religion are contineuly at odds over creation/birth of time theories. Seems to me the only way to truely understand either would be to concede at least some truth to the other.

They represent two different methods of answering two different questions using the same set of data.

So what made the tiny speck that created the universe? Where did it come from? Haha

It boils down to religion revolving around God being perfect. If God was perfect then there's no need for evolution because it would have been done right the first time.

Like you I don't see the big deal either. God made creatures capable of evolving as the situations evolve. Seems pretty perfect to me.

Most likely your mother, however we will never know who the father was.


Hee hee haw haw.
(Of course I'm just joshing)

Heh...the universe has stretch marks...

Thank God!

I thought there was only one question "how "

and when

Take out God from the equation and you have a much easier equation.

So what made that god that created the universe? Where did he come from? Haha

Never understood why science had to be an either or proposition for the existence of god. I believe in evolution, and god, and never felt conflicted. There will most likely never be proof either way, let believers believe, and unbelievers not.

Alpha and Omega?

This

no, you don't.

When the time is right, you can ask Satan. Hahaha

Yes you do.

They don't conflict.

Evolution conflicts with a literal interpretation of the bible, not the idea of god itself.

Science explains the natural world.

The article even points out the obvious "scientists still don't know who kicked the ball".

I would also like to point out I'm playing devils advocate on this, not trying to convince anyone the existance or non-existance of anything.

But when you rally simplify the entire arguement, science says creation happened basically by chance; while religion points more toward a designed /planned event. As far as I know it could be either. The Big Bang theory could have just been a random gas explosion, or a designed gas explosion. the findings mentioned in the OP are not proving / denying the nature to the primal question, "why".

please elaborate.

Equations:

God plus spark = universe

spark = universe

that's not elaborating, it's a cop-out. What caused the spark?

Devils advocate still, not arguing I believe one way or the other. Some people think when you close your eyes for the final time, you either see a light or nothing. I can't speak to which one happens, in my experience the only thing I can control is how many people come to my funeral and if they'll be cheering or crying.

But

The first line of the old testament /Judao-Christian-Muslim bible, "In the beginning, god created the heavens and earth". The OP seems to suggest or prove even, that first sentence took longer to read than the actual creation or beginning, of time and space.

This science is following the bible pretty close. And we're not even including any other religions.

Right behind that ripple is the first time we got ****ed by the broncos

Who said there is a cause?

And that's one of the most common cop outs that most Aetheists have against the belief of God and creation. Why does God have to be created, again?

Why does the universe have to be created, again?

Eh. You start getting into tangled philosophical arguments. Why is there something instead of nothing? Why is there life instead of no life? Again, we're talking belief here. If one believes god created the universe, you can't tell them they're wrong.

If they are going to post things that are explained by supernatural forces I feel inclined to explain with natural forces. Maybe its a character flaw, but really its very simple to just reverse the argument and ask if the universe is not eternal why is god? If the answer is "cuz I believe that" then that my answer is as well.

I call bullshit.

And whoever thinks the universe just goes on forever is an idiot !

In your opinion do you fall off the edge?

http://www.redefiningthesacred.com/i...lloffworld.jpg

Can we get a universe created where the Chiefs win another Super Bowl and the Broncos go 0-16 every year?

No you idiot. Everyone knows theres no gravity out there!

Do you believe in the multiverse?

Probably. There is some photographic evidence that supports it. I can't imagine this is the only universe. I'm kind of partial to the bubble multiverse.

Bubble Universes

In addition to the multiple universes created by infinitely extending space-time, other universes could arise from a theory called "eternal inflation." Inflation is the notion that the universe expanded rapidly after the Big Bang, in effect inflating like a balloon. Eternal inflation, first proposed by Tufts University cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, suggests that some pockets of space stop inflating, while other regions continue to inflate, thus giving rise to many isolated "bubble universes."

Thus, our own universe, where inflation has ended, allowing stars and galaxies to form, is but a small bubble in a vast sea of space, some of which is still inflating, that contains many other bubbles like ours. And in some of these bubble universes, the laws of physics and fundamental constants might be different than in ours, making some universes strange places indeed.

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/024/...jpg?1354898128

And now we are back on topic :)

Because the universe isn't the alpha and the omega?

It's pretty mind boggling, isn't it?

Because it is what you believe or you have actual evidence of such?

Absolutely. It's mans greatest achievements that we have come to discover things so vastly far away and those so vastly small as well. I can't imagine anything more interesting or awe inspiring. I saw a quasar 10 billion light years away. Thats

6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. Thats impressive in my book.

The Kansas legislation does not approve this.

Yet we know so little about the deepest depths of our oceans.

Lawrence Krauss has answers to that.

"Krauss's latest book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, explains the scientific advances that provide insight into how the universe formed. Krauss tackles the age-old assumption that something cannot arise from nothing by arguing that not only can something arise from nothing, but something will always arise from nothing."

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Okay.

I need to tell my bank account to read his book.

Not really a fan of Richard Dawkins or his posse.

I was just about to say, maybe the universe is round like the earth and we haven't made it all the way around yet.....

Oh and to continue being devils advocate (although I'm being dismissed). If the answer is just because I believe it; to both the religion and the universe, maybe natural sciences formed from nothing without design and by accident is just as hard to comprehend as a little invisible guy in the sky.


Perhaps, the eternal universe is the eternal being, both "super natural" and "natural science" joined together and explained by two opposite sides of our human comprehension.

It. Is. Very. Much. So.

This thread is nuttier than squirrel shit.

But is it more squirrelly than coyote shit?

No, Science does not say the universe happened by chance. Science says that we don't have enough information to know how the universe came to be. It's not an "either religion or science" choice regarding the beginning of the universe. The Big Bang theory doesn't actually address the creation of the universe. Because science currently doesn't have the technology to find any evidence of what happened before the universe began expanding. The Big Bang theory only addresses the time frame of several seconds after the universe was the size of a marble, to present time when the universe is measured to be 13 billion light years wide. It makes no claims of what might have happened before the universe began expanding.

The Big Bang(if true) wasn't simply a big explosion. There is no confusing the Big Bang with a random gas explosion. Before that point, there wasn't even empty space.

The findings in the OP were never meant to explain the "Why". The findings were meant to show that one of the major predictions for evidence of the Big Bang has actually been verified, giving more validity to the Big Bang theory as a whole.

I'll never know why some see it as an either or. :doh!:

Why can't the Big Bang be Gods plan? Why can't evolution be Gods plan?

Science is based on fact. Religion is based on faith. They are not competing on the same turf.

do you realize how stupid you sound?

wow, you have officially solidified your idiocy. We know the universe is expanding right? We have a theory that it started by the big bang, right? So, what caused the Big Bang? The Big Bang theory is basically saying that everything was created out of one explosion and that explosion created all matter and energy and time and space. So, what caused the Big Bang? If that is "the beginning" then what was happening or not happening before this "beginning." If there was nothing happening, if there was no matter, no energy, no time, no space, how did this explosion start?

If you saying everything came out of nothing, how exactly does that work? The Big Bang theory is the biggest magic trick in all of creation if that is what you are saying. But I'm sure you don't believe in "magic" or the supernatural, right? So how did the big bang start?

Let me answer this for you--you don't have a friggen clue.

Here's another question........what is the universe expanding in to? What was here before?

It's really hard to fathom something that has no end. That's why I think the universe is inside something else. Which is inside something else , which is inside something else.