Oldest light shows universe grew fast, researchers say [inflationary cosmology gets a big boost]

Houston Chronicle (www.chron.com) ^ | March 17, 2006 | Dennis O'Brien

[snarks_when_bored]

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March 17, 2006, 12:51AM

Oldest light shows universe grew fast, researchers say

First stars arose 400 million years after big bang, not 200 million years, as once thought

By DENNIS O'BRIEN

Baltimore Sun

Scientists examining the oldest light in the universe say they've found clear evidence that matter expanded at an almost inconceivable rate after the big bang, creating conditions that led to the formation of the first stars.

Light from the big bang's afterglow shows that the universe grew from the size of a marble to an astronomical size in just a trillionth of a second after its birth 13.7 billion years ago, researchers from Johns Hopkins and Princeton universities said.

Readings from a NASA probe also show that the earliest stars formed about 400 million years after the big bang — not 200 million years afterward, as the research team once thought.

"With this new data, theories about the early universe have just taken their first exam, and they passed with flying colors," said David Spergel, a Princeton astrophysicist and co-author of the findings published Thursday.

The results are based on readings from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a robotic instrument with two telescopes that sweeps the sky every six months in an orbit a million miles from Earth.

Light from the probe also has confirmed a theory that the universe is made up mostly of dark energy, a mysterious force that continues to cause the universe's expansion, said Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Charles Bennett, the probe's principal investigator.

"This light is just invaluable. It's really the only fossil we have from that time," Bennett said.

Inflationary theorists argue that at the time of the big bang, the universe was at first microscopic. But three events changed things: fluctuations in temperature, bursts that transformed energy into matter and a rapid expansion of the universe that ultimately enabled stars and galaxies to form.

By polarizing and filtering out light from the earliest stars, the researchers were able to uncover evidence of those inflationary moments — fluctuations in brightness of the light scattered around the big bang's afterglow. "It amazes me that we can say anything about the first trillionth of a second of the universe, but we can," Bennett said.

The researchers say the findings also confirm that only 4 percent of the universe is composed of the familiar atoms that make up what we see around us.

Another 22 percent is dark matter — a gravitational force made up of cold particles — and 74 percent is dark energy, a force that appears to be causing the universe to expand.

Experts say the findings will help scientists for years as they try to unravel mysteries about the early universe.

[pageonetoo]

But I thought the earth and Universe were only 6,000 years old?

According to Bishop Ussher, maybe, but his timeline is not the standard accepted. It is derived from his studies, which were just as good as anybody else's, in his day. The only sure thing for a theist, is the old standby, "In the beginning, God created..."

He "spoke", and it came into existence... It's quite easily defended with articles like this, which defy accepted critical theory...

[AntiGuv]

The guy works in mysterious ways, and would not answer even if I asked. Quite to the contrary, he would likely punish me for my impudence, so why don't you ask instead! :)

[snarks_when_bored]

My feeble understanding of science, is that you can't make something out of nothing. How can you take mass the size of a marble and generate the relative mass of the universe, much less our solar system, or even my back yard, without adding something along the line?

Alan Guth, one of the co-developers of inflationary cosmology, has called the universe the ultimate free lunch. The 'marble' is made up of something called 'false vacuum', which has negative pressure. As it expands, it heats up and the resultant heat energy starts to congeal (as it were) into the ordinary types of elementary particles we see today.

[FerdieMurphy]

A second to God is like a lifetime to us mortals.

[Tax Government]

The Earth and the Universe came into existence last Thursday. They merely had the appearance of age built in.

Everything was created about 1/2 hour ago, when I got up.

[pageonetoo]

Well, part of the answer is that spacetime (or timespace) was compressed into the marble, and just 'stretched out' to a universal scale....

Do you actually believe that crap, guv? I don't need to "ask God"! He's already revealed the answer. It takes a lot of "faith" to believe the impossible, and it's easier to believe Him...

[beezdotcom]

Thanks, but there's already a thread on this topic (although not this specific title).

But wait, I have some math...

[snarks_when_bored]

This process of inflation is never-ending, in most models. Here's a nice passage from one of Guth's articles:

...the exponential decay of the false vacuum is slower than the exponential expansion. Even though the false vacuum is decaying, the expansion outruns the decay and the total volume of false vacuum actually increases with time rather than decreases. Thus inflation does not end everywhere at once, but instead inflation ends in localized patches, in a succession that continues ad infinitum. Each patch is essentially a whole universe — at least its residents will consider it a whole universe — and so inflation can be said to produce not just one universe, but an infinite number of universes. These universes are sometimes called bubble universes, but I prefer to use the phrase “pocket universe,” to avoid the implication that they are approximately round.

Some researchers are also now working on the idea that not only is inflation future-eternal (i.e., there's no end to it) but it's also past-eternal (i.e., there was no beginning to it). So inflation was, is and always will be. Sound familiar?

But, clearly, this is work in progress...

[FerdieMurphy]

Whatever we think is irrelevant in respect to God and (mortal) time.

It's difficult for mere mortals like us to comprehend that God always was and always will be because we measure the short time between our birth and death in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.

That short span is like an instant.

[AlexW]

"Some clarity on this is probably desirable."

Clarity?...We don't need no stinkin clarity.
I just say that it is all Greek to me, and move on with my life, hahaha

I know, it is interesting to know the origin of life, but
we have enough problems dealing with just a few years.

[pageonetoo]

...The 'marble' is made up of something called 'false vacuum', which has negative pressure. As it expands, it heats up and the resultant heat energy starts to congeal (as it were) into the ordinary types of elementary particles we see today.

So, in other words, it does exactly what scientists have taught is impossible, historically? Instead, he makes up this nice theory to fit his suppositions. Unbelievable, at best. He can ask God...

[AntiGuv]

It's no easier to believe in God than it is to believe in Santa Claus; the former is just more customary.

[AntiGuv]

It's no easier to believe in God than it is to believe in Santa Claus; the former is just more customary.

[snarks_when_bored]

If you wish, you can view the research work of these folks as asking God. The problem is, we have to try to figure out for ourselves what His answer is since He's been pretty close-mouthed in recent centuries.

[AntiGuv]

So, in other words, it does exactly what scientists have taught is impossible, historically?

I'll ask you what I asked someone in the other thread about this: Why is it that you think that just because you're ignorant about something that everyone is ignorant about something?

[pageonetoo]

It's difficult for mere mortals like us to comprehend that God always was and always will be...

I remember laying on the nets beside the DASH hangar, hanging over the south China sea, on a tin can in 1967. In the dark, there were so many stars visible, as to be incomprehensible. The ocean waters, flowing past the ship, roiled to reveal a glowing phospohorescence, lighting sea creatures as we passed. It looked like neon lights, in the dark waters. It was a deeply moving experience.

I remember thinking of how it could not possibly have come from nothing, and I am still convinced. It is much easier to believe in God...

[AntiGuv]

Who said it came from 'nothing'? Actually, it is much easier to believe the truth, but most people are innately resistent to acknowledging the truth for some reason. Do you want to know what the truth is?

[snarks_when_bored]

It's quite likely that 'nothingness' is unstable. If even the slightest blip of false vacuum were to appear out of nothingness, that would suffice to start inflation rolling. And then, as Guth points out in the passage I quoted in Post #28,

"[e]ven though the false vacuum is decaying, the expansion outruns the decay and the total volume of false vacuum actually increases with time rather than decreases. Thus inflation does not end everywhere at once, but instead inflation ends in localized patches, in a succession that continues ad infinitum."

[pageonetoo]

It's no easier to believe in God than it is to believe in Santa Claus; the former is just more customary.

I never taught my kids there was a Santa Claus. I don't teach myths, as truth...

Ignorance is one thing, easily curable. Theory does not prove anything. it just gives thought a chance to roam!

I see no proof, just another man's thinking! Nothing new, here, move along...

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

I am searching for it, but there seems some theory to suggest that time doesnt actually exist. Nor does depth and the the universe is really only 2 dimensions and that it is the peculiarities of time/space caused by gravity taht makes our reality appear this way.

Time is just a dimension and God would surely not be constrained by it.