Tag Archives: inflation

The Way It Began.

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Scientists have been flexing their biceps, actually their BICEP2.  BICEP2 is a small aperture telescope design with polarized sensitive bolometer detectors made from a pair of transition edge sensors coupled to orthogonal phased antenna arrays.

 

BICEP2 was operated from the Dark Sector Lab at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station from January 2010 through December 2012.

BICEP data

BICEP2 was looking at the light from the Big Bang with a slight twist.  The cosmic microwave background radiation was scanned using BICEP2’s polarized sensors.

cosmic_history_2

Scientists are looking for inflation.  The idea is that about a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe had a super-rapid expansion.  This inflation is where space-time came from.  Starting out very small and expanding outward.  Until now, it was just speculation.  Now, with a lot more scrutiny to come, the BICEP2 team thinks they have found the evidence.

So we may have found the way it began…it being everything.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

The Flat Universe Society.

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Time for a brain teaser.

This image, the best map ever of the Universe, shows the oldest light in the universe. This glow, left over from the beginning of the cosmos called the cosmic microwave background, shows tiny changes in temperature represented by color. Credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration.

Every image of the universe seems to show a nice neat circle.  So where is the edge (or center) of the universe?

Turns out, there isn’t one. There are no ends to the Universe, and all points within it are equal.

What?  Then why do all the images look like they have an edge and a center.  The reason that we can see and image distant galaxies is because of the time it takes for light from them to reach us.  We are actually looking back in time and are observing the light as it  appeared 13.5 billions years ago.

It seems that if you are on the edge of a sphere, no matter where you look, everything is equally distant from you.  If there is an edge, we don’t have the technology to see it, and then what exactly would you see?  There wouldn’t be any space-time beyond the edge of…well…space-time.  Also, since you are on an expanding sphere, which way would you go?

So don’t think of the Big Bang as a typical explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a center into space, it is more like  the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places at the same time.

So, no center and no edge.  Just a lot a matter, most of which we can’t see, flying away from every other object in the universe equally.

If your brain hasn’t exploded yet, its time for coffee.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman