if this is true, it's huge
(captain obvious)
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-det...151753508.htmlWashington (AFP) - Waves of gravity that rippled through space right after the Big Bang have been detected for the first time, in a landmark discovery that adds to our understanding of how the universe was born, US scientists said Monday.
The waves were produced in a rapid growth spurt 14 billion years ago, and were predicted in Albert Einstein's nearly century-old theory of general relativity but were never found until now.
The first direct evidence of cosmic inflation -- a theory that the universe expanded by 100 trillion trillion times in barely the blink of an eye -- was announced by experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The detection was made with the help of a telescope called BICEP2, stationed at the South Pole, that measures the oldest light in the universe.
If confirmed by other experts, some said the work could be a contender for the Nobel Prize.
The waves that move through space and time have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang."
Their detection confirms an integral connection between Einstein's theory of general relativity and the stranger conceptual realm of quantum mechanics.
NASA said the findings "not only help confirm that the universe inflated dramatically, but are providing theorists with the first clues about the exotic forces that drove space and time apart."
John Kovac, leader of the BICEP2 collaboration at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said years of observations using the telescope at the South Pole preceded Monday's announcement.
"Detecting this signal is one of the most important goals in cosmology today. A lot of work by a lot of people has led up to this point."
View gallery
A projector screens a picture in the planetarium Hamburg, northern Germany, on August 26, 2013 (AFP …
- 'Mind-boggling' find -
The telescope targeted a specific area of sky known as the "Southern Hole" outside the galaxy where there is little dust or extra galactic material to interfere with what humans could see with the potent sky-peering tool.
By observing the cosmic microwave background, or a faint glow left over from the Big Bang, small fluctuations gave scientists new clues about the conditions in the early universe.
The gravitational waves rippled through the universe 380,000 years after the Big Bang, and these images were captured by the telescope.
"It's mind-boggling to go looking for something like this and actually find it," Clem Pryke, associate professor at the University of Minnesota, told reporters at an event in Boston to announce the findings.
Rumors of a major discovery began to circulate Friday, when the press conference was first announced.
However, scientists said they spent three years analyzing their data to rule out any errors.
"This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar," said Pryke.
- New insights to why we exist -
Harvard theorist Avi Loeb said the findings provide "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," Loeb said.
John Womersley, chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which funds British research into cosmology, said the advance adds to our knowledge of one of the three key pillars of modern cosmology -- inflation, dark matter and dark energy."Without inflation we would not be here," he said.
According to theoretical physicist Alan Guth, who proposed the idea of inflation in 1980, described the latest study as "definitely worthy of a Nobel Prize."
Chris Lintott, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford, said that finding evidence of this super-fast inflation the would be considered "most significant cosmological discovery in nearly two decades, and a huge triumph for physics."
"It's like all our Christmases at once," he said.
"I doubt many cosmologists will get much sleep tonight."
if this is true, it's huge
(captain obvious)
Incoming bible thumpers brushing this off...
Non issue, Gods work is amazing.
So good that the god himself is irrelevant.
amen, brother. this discovery doesn't move me one bit.
if the big bang created all space, time and matter, where the did the matter for the big bang come from? Why was there this random infinitely dense matter in the middle of nothingness? where did this infinitely dense matter come from in the first place?![]()
you do realize one of the major proponents of the big bang theory was a catholic priest, right?
here i'll even google it for everyone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
here i'll even link the incoming gifs
![]()
where did god come from in the first place? its a stupid cyclical excuse which is a subs ute answer for "i dont know"
this discovery is another bull ass theory...them noogahs ain't discovered
Trill dropping truff bombs.
So where did God come from?
a big bung
Did he rape any children?
I think God would be proud of them making this discovery IMHO.
There should be more discoveries to come.
I see no contradictions.
Why must there be?
in the end i really dgaf. we'll all end up in a hole with nothing to show, and if we have something to show, we won't know because we're ing dead. no use debating over these things because once you die, you're done. just maggots and for all eternity.
and the oft chance that there is some deity in the afterlife, all i can hope is that i am judged based on who i am as a person and not what i believe in.
and every one else can take their beliefs and cynicism alike and go themselves.
Last edited by The Reckoning; 03-17-2014 at 07:21 PM.
Actually we are converted to pure energy. Nothing goes away, it just changes forms.
any belief in a god is pure speculation. for millennia god has been the subs ute answer for the more accurate "i don't know."
its like, fine there was a big bang. how was that superdense matter put in place?
answer: we don't know
given answer: god
years ago, this crazy bolts of electricity in the sky? wtf are they?
answer: i dont know
given answer: god/zeus
oh god more afterlife talk.
but energy can't be destroyed. such a misuse of scientific law. if dead things to to heaven, what energy are newborn babies from, using that same train of thought?
i just find it hilarious that people spend their entire lives sitting behind a computer or wherever making offhand snide remarks about others' beliefs then die and end up in a hole. sounds like a good life to me.
You won't get an answer from the Jeebo s...
Fascinating.
I'd say it takes just a few seconds to type lol.
But I find it sad that people get suckered by churches to give 10% or more of their earnings to the lawd their entire lives.
...not to mention getting up early on Sunday mornings......what a waste.
funny considering you type that from behind your computer screen, and will one day die and end up in a hole![]()
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)