Big news from the dawn of time: A team of researchers working at the South Pole announced Monday that they had detected ripples from gravitational waves – the first evidence of cosmic inflation.
Cosmic inflation is, to borrow a phrase from my colleague Joel Achenbach, something that “makes the big bang even bangier.” It’s the idea that the universe exponentially grew in a fraction of a second, rather merely rapidly expanding. The researchers at the South Pole were able to detect gravitational waves (ripples that squeeze space as they travel) and what they deemed the first direct evidence of this inflation occurring billions of years ago.
Andre Linde, a physics professor at Stanford University, is “the founding father of inflation,” according to Chao-Lin Kuo, co-leader of the research team that made the new discovery and an assistant professor of physics at Stanford. Kuo says this in a video that captures the moment Linde hears the news. In the video, released by Stanford and flagged by Jason Kottke, Kuo surprises Linde at his front door with word of the discovery.
Andre Linde’s reaction is fabulous. The twinge of self-doubt shows his humility.
There are some folks who will deny this scientific reaffirmation. Those who don’t believe the big bang theory certainly won’t be swayed by the Antarctic experiment. I certainly don’t have the scientific background to discuss it. If far greater minds than mine say its true, I will probably just have to accept it as probable fact. I do understand that there is further evidence that the universe was created in a split second more than 14 billion years ago.
Cosmic inflation is what happened when the universe went from being microscopic to macroscopic in a matter of seconds. People can debate the existence of God or a higher power having a hand in all this. Is the existence of something greater than ourselves contradictory in the grand scheme of things? I think not. It just shouldn’t be taught in schools.
I’ve been reading about astrophysics lately. You know what’s changed in recent decades? It used to be thought that one of two things would happen – either the Universe would slow down rate of expansion and suck back inwards towards a single point, or it would keep expanding forever and tearing apart it was totally cold. But now …
As we get better ideas of how much matter is in the universe, and how quickly it is and will be expanding, we can’t pin it down one way or the other and it seems we could have the right balance of forces for everything to keep expanding outwards infinitely, as far as we can tell.
(One thing that’s become better understood is that it’s not that the Big Bang was an explosion, and the motion we see of everything getting further away from each other is that explosion slowing down. Some force not understood, and generally called “dark energy”, repels things from each other in space – in the absense of gravity, repels things from each other and causes inflation of the Universe. And the rate of expansion is accelerating, not decelerating).
The Universe DOES look like a giant lab experiment the more that we see of it.
BTW, since I or we are geeking out here, “Cosmos” which just started on FOX and National Geographic last week is a great science show.
Yes it is. Definitely good pocket protector material. (I didn’t become a geek until I was 38–before that I was fairly cool but not wildly so.)
I especially liked the dog part of this week’s show.
This week’s show was especially good. The first one started slowly, but heated up and became interesting.
Meanwhile, “Through the Wormhole” on the Science Channel also remains great.
This is amazing theoretical work and wonderful to contemplate. To think that our entire universe may be one speck in the overall cosmos is truly breathtaking. As humans, we may not have the brain “horsepower” to understand all this, but it’s mind expanding to even contemplate it.
It also puts our petty worldly trials and tribulations into perspective.
It will all be for naught when our sun decides to nova.
That’s billions of years away; I assume we’ll have colonized other galaxies by then.
Maybe, maybe not. If the Republicans are still in charge, there won’t be any $$ for further manned space exploration.
Someone else would put that as “If the Democrats are in charge we won’t have any money left over for further manned space exploration” …
We’d better get off the planet eventually. From watching Cosmos I learned that in 5 previous eras the dominant forms of life on earth were rendered extinct by environmental factors (volcanic ash, asteroid collsions, etc.).
@George S. Harris
George, how do you figure that the Republicans are in charge now when the Democrats control the White House and the Senate, as well as the Governor’s Mansion and the State Senate in Virginia, and have both of Virginia’s seats in the US Senate?
By the way, I enjoy “Through the Wormhole” and “Cosmos” very much also. We even have the kids watch those shows.
Yeah, I love sharing those with my grandson too. He’s big on “Through the Wormhole”.
What network and what night?
Cosmos is on FOX Sunday nights at 9:00. And then again on National Geographic the next night, I think at 9:00.
Through the Wormhole is on at various times on the Science Channel.
Each of them is available on a typical cable On Demand setup.
I got Cosmos covered. You can also watch on your computer. Wormhole, not so much.
Actually, you can find lots (maybe all) of full episodes of Through the Wormhole on youtube.
I won’t recommend any particular episode because they’re darned near all great.
Republicans? Democrats?
PRIVATE space exploration is growing. It will be private business that gets us to the asteroid belt and beyond.
Which raises a thorny question. Are we going to pretend that whoever gets somewhere and plants a flag in it now “owns” that piece of the Universe?
That’s what we did with territories on Earth. Most “wealth” was created this way. it enabled creation of a complex economic system, but drove Karl Marx crazy.
Hopefully we can figure out a more reasonable approach next time?
Why should the universe be any different than say, the West or a Pacific island?