I shall take my time to try and take this lot on board:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26605974
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26605974
I said...
http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new-evidence-of-cosmic-inflation/ - this guy explains stuff well normally. Under the Main data Strassler says "the leftmost 3 or 4 points are the ones that give evidence for B-mode polarization, and therefore possibly for gravitational waves at early times, and therefore, possibly, for cosmic inflation preceding the Hot Big Bang!"
original BICEP2 paper published 17/3/14: http://bicepkeck.org/
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/CMB/keckarray/science.html science of BICEP project "We are interested in answering some of the biggest and most exciting questions about the nature of the Universe. What was the Universe like at the beginning of time? How did the Universe come to be the way it is today? Through precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), we directly explore the Universe as it was shortly after the Big Bang, and hope to solve some of the mysteries that exist in Cosmology today."
looking easier to understand http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/a-primer-on-todays-events/
John Davison Thanks for the links Chris, I have to go through a whole OCD routine to acquire the right pace and mental frame for this stuff. You know, fresh pot of tea, rearrange the desktop, check the cat etc etc your links very helpful.
Strassler warns...
"Be More Cautious than the Media
As always, I have to caution you that although I’m fairly impressed, and reasonably optimistic about this measurement, it is a measurement by only one experiment. Until this measurement/discovery is confirmed by another experiment, you should consider it provisional. Although this is too large a signal to be likely to be due to a pure statistical fluke, it could still be due to a mistake or problem, or due to something other than gravitational waves from inflation. The history of science is littered with examples; remember the 2011 measurement by OPERA that showed neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light was far too large to be a statistical fluke. Fortunately there will be other experiments coming and so we’ll have a chance for various experiments to either agree or disagree with each other in the very near future. " http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new-evidence-of-cosmic-inflation/
Stasslers finishes http://profmattstrassler.com/2014/03/17/bicep2-new-evidence-of-cosmic-inflation/ with...
"What It Means if it’s True
If this measurement is correct, and if indeed it reflects gravitational waves from inflation in the most conventional way, then it would tell us that inflation occurred with a dark energy per unit volume (i.e. dark energy density) that is comparable to the energy scales associated for decades with the energy and distance scale at which all the known non-gravitational forces would naively have about the same strength — the so-called “unification of coupling constants”, sometimes extended to “grand unification” in which the various forces actually turn out to be manifestations of just a single force. This would be very remarkable, though not necessarily evidence for unification. There are other ways to get the same scale, which is about 100 times lower in energy (100,000,000 times lower in energy per unit volume) than the scale of quantum gravity (the Planck scale, which, roughly, tells you the energy density required to make the smallest possible black hole.)"
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/CMB/keckarray/science.html says...
"The CMB and InflationInflation is a theory which provides a neat solution to these "problems." According to the theory of Inflation, the Universe underwent a violent and rapid expansion at only 10^-35 seconds after the Big Bang, making the horizon size much larger, and allowing the space to become flat. Confirmation of Inflation would be an amazing feat in observational Cosmology. Inflation during the first moments of time produced a Cosmic Gravitational-Wave Background (CGB), which in turn imprinted a faint but unique signature in the polarization of the CMB. Since gravitational waves are by nature tensor fluctuations, the polarization signature that the CGB stamps onto the CMB has a curl component (called "B-mode" polarization). In contrast, scalar density fluctuations at the surface of last scattering only contribute a curl-free (or "E-mode") polarization component to the CMB which was first detected by the DASI experiment at the South Pole.
BICEP1, BICEP2, Keck Array, and BICEP3
Observing from the South Pole, this series of experiments aims to discover signatures of Inflation by actually detecting the CGB via its weak imprint as the unique B-mode polarization signature of the CMB, directly probing the Universe at an earlier time than ever before. Each generation represents a large increase in sensitivity to B-mode polarization. BICEP1 observed from 2006-2008 with 98 detectors, BICEP2 began observing in the beginning of 2010 with 512 detectors, and the first three of five Keck Array telescopes began observing in the beginning of 2011, each with 512 detectors. The final two Keck Array receivers were deployed during the summer season of 2012. BICEP3, with a total of 2,560 detectors, will begin observing in 2015."
History of the Universe: http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/relativity-space-astronomy-and-cosmology/history-of-the-universe/
Strassler says
"Today, we live roughly 13.7 billion (13,700,000,000) years after the start of the Hot Big Bang. Notice I don’t say that “the universe is 13.7 billion years old” or that “the beginning of the universe was 13.7 billion years ago”… we don’t know that. What we do know is just that the Hot Big Bang began 13.7 billion years ago — but we don’t know if that moment was close to the beginning of the universe as a whole, or anything about what that beginning might have been like, if there even was a beginning."
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