Planet Four Talk

Big Bang Theory

  • wassock by wassock moderator

    Saw a news item a while back, discovery of the gravity wave signature of the big bang kinda thing, which set me to ponder the background microwave radiation. As I understand it this is the remmnant of what was effectively the "let there be light" moment when the universe cooled sufficiently for atoms to form and enabled photos to travel. This initial crop of photons has been travelling ever since, their wavelength stretched by the expansion of space to what it is today.

    It would seem to me that the number of photons produced at this point, which now make up the background, would be finite. And that every time one of them interacts with something ( or is measured) it is changed or destroyed. Thusly the amount of matter in the universe could be determined if you knew how many photons there were to start with compared with how many are left. The difference being down to how many of them had bumped into something.

    Conversley it may be that the second glass of absinthe was not a good idea.

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  • p.titchin by p.titchin

    Bit heavy to ponder over breakfast! If I remember right, photons were 'trapped' for a few hundred thousand years ATB, by the electrically charged particles which did not slow down enough to be captured by atomic nuclei until the temperature had dropped to a few thousand degrees.Until then the photons hardly moved before being deflected or absorbed. So- the initial number of photons which survived to be able to travel unhindered is not the same as the number existing immediately after the 'big bang'. I don't know if the amount of the missing photons could be calculated.- anyway- on with my cornflakes! 😃 ~Pete.

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  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    I thought this gave a nice summary of the discovery (also you might see a familiar face from the Zooniverse/Planet Hunters team)

    Also I think this blog post gives a nice summary why the discovery is important.

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

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  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator

    zzz ... ZZZ ... yawn ... I'll wait before I get too excited about this. You can't build a strong house on a weak foundation, but you can of course build a great news story on such foundations. I'm not a big fan of 'massive new theory with evidence has arrived for a bit until we find something even more massively interesting to sell you' type stories.

    For example, inflation is a great idea, but we're still "learning more about the inflationary era (including whether inflation happened at all)". Likewise, invoking scalar modes and tensor modes when working towards " the energy scale E at which inflation happens" is fine, but as the man says "I’m presuming here that inflation is the right story, but of course we don’t know that for sure".

    You can wake me up when they are sure ... zzz ... if you want ... ZZZ ... 😉

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  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator

    PS: Great articles though. Thanks for posting Meg. 😉

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  • wassock by wassock moderator

    Thanks for the links Meg, back to mild and bitter for me I think.

    There's, to the eyes of the layman at least, a sense that if enough time and dosh is thrown at finding some postulated effect or new member of the particle zoo then eventually it will be found. I remember seeing somewhere the lab book of some notable scientist (Boltzman?) Lots of pages of experimental data crossed through, then a set which confirmed what he was trying to prove with "PUBLISH" writ large on the page

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  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator in response to wassock's comment.

    I used to do alcohol a lot in the days when I did nowt else (because I was full of alcohol). Strictly coffee nowadays; Get loads done but can't sleep. ** 😛 **

    Sadly, I think there's an element (if not a large portion) of truth in what you say. Although I do like to keep up with astronomy/cosmology ideas, I always keep my salt pot close to hand. I think some scientists want to be the new Kepler, or Newton, or Einstein, and totally reshape our thinking about the universe, but it's just not going to happen. Well, not with me anyway.

    I know how my universe works and it works fine for me. Hope yours does the same.

    Long Live Planet Four and the P4 Science Team. Hail the Citizen Scientists. (And gravity is a push - hahaaaar) 😉

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  • JellyMonster by JellyMonster

    A post entittled 'Big Bang Theory' could go on for some time. Most scientists now talk about this subject as if it were fact. Like most, I have many unanswered questions - maybe later?

    Kith - I like your idea that gravity is pushing rather than pulling.

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