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Post by Roger (over and out) on Mar 15, 2014 9:54:44 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2014 21:01:40 GMT -5
I can't say I have the ability to really understand this much, but apparently this discovery is huge. It will be interesting to hear when the report coms out on Monday. And, I did read your comment, Zak. Give some folks an inch, and they're be demanding a mile.  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2014 21:12:12 GMT -5
However, I must add, I'd like to know that answer to that, too.
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Post by raybar on Mar 17, 2014 10:19:34 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 12:31:30 GMT -5
So, in other words, would prove that the universe did start as the result of the Big Bang? Because this is still more of a theory and not exactly a fact?
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Post by raybar on Mar 17, 2014 13:28:42 GMT -5
Observation of gravitational waves would support the inflationary model of how the big bang proceeded, and, according to the articles I've been reading over the last couple days, rule out some other ideas.
There is no proof in science. It's always "to the best of our knowledge and understanding according to the evidence we have at the moment." All theories are subject to change whenever new evidence or a better explanation is found.
Some theories are so well established and so well supported by evidence and so successful in explaining how things work that they are often referred to as "fact," but there is still the understanding that, as unlikely as it may seem, they may need to be modified some time in the future.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 14:05:43 GMT -5
But this observation supports the Big Bang theory, does it not? Why is this feeling like pulling teeth to get some kind of answer?  |
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Post by raybar on Mar 17, 2014 14:22:22 GMT -5
But this observation supports the Big Bang theory, does it not? Why is this feeling like pulling teeth to get some kind of answer? Yes, it supports the Big Bang theory. Of course, these results need to be carefully checked by other researchers before they can be accepted, Specifically, it supports the inflationary model, which is a particular proposal within the Big Bang theory. Inflation - a sudden enormous expansion of the universe just a tiny fraction of a second after it began - explains certain features of the universe we see around us today. |
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Post by Roger (over and out) on Mar 17, 2014 14:25:50 GMT -5
This discovery supports - in fact pretty much confirms - the BB and "expanding universe" theory.
The known universe is believed to have come into existence when a tiny particle exploded. Scientists have tracked the history of the universe back to the first 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second.
The problem, of course - as I said in my comment on The Guardian - is that there is no such thing as a tiny particle in the absence of a universe - or anything else - against which it can be measured. If there was only a particle, then that particle would be the universe, and its dimensions would be infinite in every direction.
And the second problem is that, no matter how many point zeros you are able to track back in time, there is always going to be a "1" at the end. In other words, where did the first "particle" (which was the universe!) come from? In other words Big Bang theory doesn't actually explain anything at all. It is merely a scientific variation on the "turtles all the way down" idea.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 14:32:25 GMT -5
Okay, how would you explain it, if you had to?
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Post by raybar on Mar 17, 2014 16:29:51 GMT -5
I don’t think I’ve seen “the universe from a primordial particle” idea written by an actual scientist for a long time. In the popular press, yes, but not from researchers in the field. There are various ideas of how a universe might come into existence -- all speculative, of course, and mostly as part of a “multi-verse” but they don’t begin with a particle. (as I recall)
The Big Bang is a description of what happened after 10-34 and it explains how the universe came to be as it is. That is, it addresses what happened and how it works. Prior (if there is any meaning to “prior” in this context) to that, isn’t it better to say “don’t know” rather than “turtles all the way down.”
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Post by russell on Mar 17, 2014 17:53:34 GMT -5
One rather patchy but fully supported idea I've heard is that a virtual particle could have burrowed across the potential barrier from outside this universe into DeSitter space, which is this space, and that triggered the events of the big bang. We've seen such virtual particles burrowing in quantum physics experiments so that checks out but there's a lot of speculation in there and no one has proposed an experiment for this proposal as yet.
This problem is absent from Vilenkin's theory, which represents the universe as emerging without a cause "from literally nothing" (1982, p. 26). The universe appears in a quantum tunneling from nothing at all to de Sitter space. Quantum tunneling is normally understood in terms of processes within space-time; an electron, for example, tunnels through some barrier if the electron lacks sufficient energy to cross it but nevertheless still does cross it. This is possible because the abovementioned uncertainty relation allows the electron to spontaneously acquire the additional energy for the short period of time required for it to tunnel through the barrier. Vilenkin applies this concept to space-time itself; in this case, there is not a state of the system before the tunneling, for the state of tunneling is the first state that exists. The state of tunneling thus is the analogue of the Big Bang1 in the third definition of the beginning of the universe offered in Section 2, for it is the first state of the universe and there is no time before this state. The equation describing this state is a quantum tunneling equation, specifically the bounce solution of the Euclidean version of the evolutionary equation of a universe with a closed Robertson-Walker metric.12 The universe emerged from the tunneling with a finite size (a = H-1) and with a zero rate of expansion or contraction (da/dt = 0). It emerged in a symmetric vacuum state, which then decays and the inflationary era begins; after this era ends, the universe evolves according to the standard Big Bang model.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 22:39:18 GMT -5
Patchy but fully supported? Oh, it came from outside the universe. Right. Why didn't I think of that.
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Post by Gifthorse on Mar 20, 2014 17:23:20 GMT -5
Patchy but fully supported? Oh, it came from outside the universe. Right. Why didn't I think of that. Which universe? There could be endless numbers of parallel universes...  |
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