Satellite reveals universe's first trillionth second

[radioactive]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0603/16wmap/

[FLO]

Great find Martin,

A couple of excerpts:

"It amazes me that we can say anything about what transpired within the first trillionth of a second of the universe, but we can," said Charles L. Bennett, WMAP principal investigator and a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University. "We have never before been able to understand the infant universe with such precision. It appears that the infant universe had the kind of growth spurt that would alarm any mom or dad."

According to this picture, researchers say, only 4 percent of the universe is ordinary familiar atoms; another 22 percent is an as-yet unidentified dark matter, and 74 percent is a mysterious dark energy. That dark energy is now causing another growth spurt for the universe, fortunately, they say, more gentle than the one 13.7 billion years ago.

Incredible 8)

[FLO]

Heres the map:

[radioactive]

Steve it sure is real mind boggling stuff to me at least I can't pretent to start to really understand most of it as we are dealing with such massive scale right from the very outset. That said to know that the big brainers out there can tell us about this period in time is just astounding each to his/her own and all that but these guys blow me away

With my limited brain power its just great to go head up in awe/fascination at it all !

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

OK here's my interpretation of it.

Start with imagining nothing. Not even empty space, nothing at all. No, not even time, got ya there?

Next the quantum fluctuations. This is where Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is at work. The principle states that it is not possible to know both the velocity AND the position of a particle at any given time. That means we get let off the hook, it is not possible to know what happens here so we skip this bit.

Then the "let there be light" moment where science and religion sort of agree which is wierd. This is the same theoretically as the infinite improbability drive of "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy". Because it is theoretically possible for a whole universe to spring into existence from nothing, then it will, you just have to wait a long time for it to happen, but when time hasn't yet been invented that's not really anything we can measure. Remember that, before the big bang, there was NOTHING. The fact that it DID happen is incontrovertible, we are, after all, here aren't we?

Inflation is where the sums didn't add up, similar to the dark matter that we have (we have?) today. It was added to make the theory work.

After the inflation bit the big bang really gets going. There are things around today that can point towards the actual big bang event. The main evidence is that of the cosmic background radiation.

Because of the enormous number of stars, there is a star everywhere you look in the sky. This means that there are enough stars to make the whole sky lit up. However some of these stars are very distant and therefore travelling away from us at extreme speed. The speed changes the wavelength of the light arriving here in the same way that a police siren changes pitch as it passes us. For the very distant stars the light is changed to infra-red light which we can't see. This is the red shift often used to measure the distance between us and remote stars.

If you can measure extreme infra-red you will detect the edge of everything as it speeds away from us. This is the light shining at us from the stuff which was at the outer edge of the bang and because it was generally uniform at the time of the bang, the light that set off towards us is extremely red shifted into the radio spectrum and we "see" it as radio waves. These arrive at us from all directions equally adding evidence to the big bang theory. The big bang theory could have been a load of poo if cleaning the poo out of the antenna had got rid of the background hiss, but it didn't. A teaser for another time perhaps.

The dark matter expansion is, again, because the measurements don't fit the theory. Dark matter and dark energy are accepted fiddle factors which are used to make the sums work. It could be that previous measurements were less accurate than we think and that's why we need these factors, or it could be that these things exist. This remains unproven either way, rather like politicians finances, we may never know the truth and the reality may be stranger than fiction.

Was I even close?

Not even a bit?

Captain Chaos

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Can I use the word skullduggery here?

Are you perchance baiting this?

I personally have a problem in differentiating between philosophical and scientific points of view. If I can't see a scientific basis for an assumption, then I don't "get it". If the argument is purely philosophical, as in a moral dilemma, then the two don't get in each other's way.

Captain Chaos

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I am convinced that " does what it says on the tin" theology is inadequate to explain what I have experienced so far, if that is what you were alluding to. It could explain the total wonder of the universe, but that leaves the boss as a vindictive agent insofar as life is concerned. I prefer a "playful" Star Trek Q style alien as the potential superbeing based on experience. But that's not something that can be discussed here, or anywhere, without finger pointing, and that is certainly not what I am here to do.

To detach philosophy from personal assumptions in the abstract is OK for the purposes of discussion, but you need to get your philosophy back where it fits your psyche before you go to bed.

Dave Allen quote omitted for fear of offence.

Captain Chaos

[Astroman]

CC's explanation of the current cosmology model is about as succinct and elegant as I've ever seen. Excellent synopsis, (and synapses, BTW), CC. Couldn't have said it better myself.

A somewhat longer version is contained in the book by Timothy Ferris entitled The Whole Shebang. ISBN 0-684-81020-4

[FLO]

OK here's my interpretation of it...

... Was I even close?

Uurrr .... hmm .... I'll need to get back to you on that one.

Great post CC

[FLO]

More here:

http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~apod/apod/ap060323.html