A major “discovery" primordial stochastic gravitational waves.

[Laurie61]

Just received this with link to press conference  - 

A major “discovery" or “bound" will be announced regarding first ever detection of primordial stochastic gravitational waves from BICEP-2 CMB telescope. Kindly find

> the details below.

 Dear friends and colleagues,

>

> We invite you to join us tomorrow *(Monday, 17 March)* for a special

> webcast presenting the first results from the BICEP2 CMB telescope.  The

> webcast will begin with a presentation for scientists 10:45-11:30 EDT,

> followed by a news conference 12:00-1:00 EDT.

>

> You can join the webcast from the link at

>      http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/news_conferences.html

>

> Papers and data products will be available at 10:45 EDT from

>      http://bicepkeck.org

[nebulanebula]

The BBC have just posted this : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26605974 

[Laurie61]

It does look as if they have a genuine discovery 

From the link above -

Scientists say they have extraordinary new evidence to support a Big Bang Theory for the origin of the Universe.

Researchers believe they have found the signal left in the sky by the super-rapid expansion of space that must have occurred just fractions of a second after everything came into being.

It takes the form of a distinctive twist in the oldest light detectable with telescopes.

The work will be scrutinised carefully, but already there is talk of a Nobel.

"This is spectacular," commented Prof Marc Kamionkowski, from Johns Hopkins University.

"I've seen the research; the arguments are persuasive, and the scientists involved are among the most careful and conservative people I know," he told BBC News.

The breakthrough was announced by an American team working on a project known as BICEP2.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

if this is confirmed, the Nobel prize must surely be in the bag for Alan Guth.

Here's a readable primer on Inflation Theory if anyone wants one, it was a bit of a mystery to me until I read it.

[AstroJon]

I was particularly interested in the statement that this is consistent with grand unified theory and thus rules out more exotic models. Perhaps this will lead to advances in the quest for a theory of everything.

If these results are confirmed then I agree a Nobel prize is a certainty. This really is a huge discovery.

[reddoss]

This is very exciting stuff, and as yet we are unable to detect gravitational waves directly despite the millions of dollars spent on building huge interferomic detectors both in Europe and the USA. 

[Cath]

The deeper we look, the deeper the mystery gets.

We appear to exist due to an unimaginable large 'thing' we call the universe, which itself came into being by expanding at a collosal rate from an unimaginable small 'thing', of which we have absolutely no idea about.

You couldn't make it any stranger if you tried lol. Just how weird is it going to get?

[Laurie61]

I feel a "quote" coming on 

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine - it is stranger than we can imagine.”

― Arthur Stanley Eddington

[Ags]

The Nobel should go to the team who successfully explain inflation.

[Kropster]

The real question is what they mean when they talk about 'when the universe came into being'!.....explain that bit!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

The real question is what they mean when they talk about 'when the universe came into being'!.....explain that bit!

There is a bit of a discussion about that in the thread in the Physics forum, if anyone is interested.