- He was trying to understand why there was no trace of some exotic particles that should have been created in the Big Bang. Instead he discovered what might have made the universe bang to begin with. A potential hitch in the presumed course of cosmic evolution could have infused space itself with a special energy that exerted a repulsive force, causing the universe to swell faster than the speed of light for a prodigiously violent instant.
If true, the rapid engorgement would solve paradoxes like why the heavens look uniform from pole to pole and not like a jagged, warped mess. The enormous ballooning would iron out all the wrinkles and irregularities. Those particles were not missing, but would be diluted beyond detection, like spit in the ocean.
This bit in the BBC article in particular is the most exciting part to me:
- The results also constrain the energies involved - at 10,000 trillion gigaelectronvolts. This is consistent with ideas for what is termed Grand Unified Theory, the realm where particle physicists believe three of the four fundamental forces in nature can be tied together.
But by associating gravitational waves with an epoch when quantum effects were so dominant, scientists are improving their prospects of one day pulling the fourth force - gravity itself - into a Theory of Everything.
If this holds up I can't even imagine what happens next. I hope that this and the other things like the relaunch of Cosmos gets people excited about science and space. I guess this works towards confirming the multiverse theory, this once again shows observation following theory.
fireballs619 first brought up the potential of this discovery here.
This is awesome. Personally, I've long doubted the existence of gravitational waves, suspecting that gravitational information might be instantaneous. It looks like the Higgs Boson and this have crushed my theory. If you haven't read Guth's book, The Inflationary Universe, I highly recommend it.
Naw, we have already confirmed that gravity propagated with a finite speed... the speed of light. There were some refutations, but they haven't held water. It was only a matter of time before we developed the technological sensitivity required to measure gravitational waves. Personally, I believe we'll directly detect dark matter within five years. We are so close to a grand unification, I'm all for throwing money at an "LHC v2.0" just to see if we can tease some new particles out at those higher energy levels. As a Texan, I still can't get over the politically-based demise of the SSC...gravitational information might be instantaneous
Yeah, I had been aware of PSR B1913+16, but didn't think it was decisive evidence of waves. This pretty much settles it. Dark matter is another one that I have been doubtful of, but now I'm starting to doubt my instincts. :)Naw, we have already confirmed that gravity propagated with a finite speed... the speed of light.
If they have a copy at the library I will have to read that once I get done with what I'm currently reading. mk, is the tmi page broke or is Zork now a challenge before you're allowed to access it?
Can't express how excited I am. The universe is amazing beyond comprehension ... r/askscience has an ongoing Q&A with cosmologists and other experts. Good compendium of links and explanations.
So would cadence of ocean waves be an example of this in practice? How fast do these waves move? Is gravity the dark of space?
This should hold up, I've already checked out the paper... the science is there, unless they are flat out lying about their experimental data. I would like to emphasize that this is not a "direct detection" of gravitational waves. This is detecting an artifact of (primordial) gravitational waves, which is almost as good, but should only serve to justify LISA and future generations of gravitational wave detectors. As the article states, this does absolutely confirm inflation, and is a major victory of cosmology. Also, this doesn't necessarily confirm or nix the multiverse theory, that's something still shelved in the category of "unknowables", at least with today's technology and physics. It's an exciting time to be alive, but we're not done. :)
Does this finding confirm any specific theory of inflation? Also, pending confirmation from Planck, what would you say is the next logical step in advancing this discovery?
Well, it's a relatively slow day at work (sorry for the delay in response, just got hassled after beginning my response), and the paper is here. I haven't read through the whole thing completely, but the data is solid. It doesn't confirm one specific inflation theory, but constrains the boundaries to a smaller region of inflationary conditions. So there are several variants of inflation that are now known to be false. BICEP, the main telescope that gathered the data their premise is built on, looks at one swath of sky, about 20 x 20 degrees. If we built a similar telescope and stared somewhere else, that should further constrain the known conditions of inflation, and the longer you gather a dataset, it will further constrain the limits. A telescope with these capabilities in space would also eliminate some of the noise floor, but there are some huge engineering challenges to overcome before we could launch some type of BICEP analogue. Edit/Disclaimer: I don't work in cosmology, and I've only taken one General Relativity class, but will gladly field questions, and accept objection. :)