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.

[RoadTest]

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

Faster than you think. Seven days, in fact.

[patriot_wes]

"Most of the other stories I've seen say "less than a trillionth of a second". Some clarity on this is probably desirable."

Hey a half a trillionth here a half a trillionth there - pretty soon you're talking real time.......

McGovern I think.

[snarks_when_bored]

Faster than I think? Seven days? That's faster than less than a trillionth of a second?

Have some coffee...(smile).

[JustDoItAlways]

I don't think you can use the afterglow radiation from the Big Bang to "show" inflation happened in trillionth trillionth of a second.

The "musing" in this article is just that "musing".

The conclusion one would have to come to is that after the first trillionth of a second, all matter and energy in the universe just sat around doing nothing for the next 300,000 years because it took that long for protons and neutrons to form and anti-matter to be annihilated after the big bang. That event is what the big bang afterglow is from.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

...from the size of a marble to an astronomical size in just a trillionth of a second...

And these guys will laugh when somebody says it was created in seven days???

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

“the big bang afterglow”

I have had a few of those. Married two of them...

[snarks_when_bored]

Who laughs at that? It just seems to be the sort of thing that a guy who knows very little about the strucuture and workings of the cosmos might come up with. You can't blame somebody for having been born long before the scientific method was discovered.

[AntiGuv]

Umm, yeah, because your mythical allegory claims more than that the universe came in existence in seven days. Your mythical allegory claims that: (a) light; (b) water; (c) ground; (d) the sun & moon; (e) the birds & fish; (f) land animals; and (g) humans were created in seven days. Do you see now why these guys would not only laugh at you saying all that was created in seven days, but that they would laugh even harder at what you thought passed for witticism?

As for the only part that is actually anologous, "these guys" and your mythical allegory match perfectly: BAM! There was light.

[FerdieMurphy]

You are so right!

und Gott mit uns.

[Cronos]

42

[silverleaf]

Maybe our universe is here because nature abhors a naked singularity...

Check this out:

http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/preskill/nyt_bet_story.html

[snarks_when_bored]

For 'strucuture' in Post #47 read 'structure'.

[righttackle44]

"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."

Hmmm. Sounds like, "And God said, 'Let there be light'," to me.

[AntiGuv]

And, boy, was there ever light!

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Your mythical allegory...

I am an atheist. Evolutionism has plenty of its own mythical allegory.

Evolutionists make the fallacious assumption this planet is the starting point for all life and is the encapsulated center of the universe unaffected by anything (or anyone) beyond it. It is akin to saying the sun revolves around the earth.

Not at all scientific of them; it is a faith based theory no different in logical fallacy than creationism in the ‘appeal to false authority.’

What do evolutionists think about teaching the idea that life may have originated from outer space? They already do teach the Big Bang theory, which is really an immaculate conception.

The evolutionists have no evidence that any species, flora or fauna, evolved on this planet at all more than anyone who would say it was delivered or is engineered by extraterrestrials unobserved in our midst.

The evolutionists have no proof human life evolved from other Terran life more than those who would say humans were marooned and/or engineered here by extraterrestrials.

[nuf said]

"Light from the big bang's afterglow shows that the universe grew from the size of a marble to an astronomical size"

The article excerpt states that the universe grew to 'an astronomical size', not to a size larger than the observable universe. Does the full article support your statement?

[snarks_when_bored]

From The Australian:

---

Evidence adds bang to cosmic theory
Leigh Dayton, Science writer
18mar06

SCIENTISTS have obtained the best evidence yet that the universe expanded from the size of a marble to the vastness of known space in the first trillion trillion trillionth of a second of its existence.

This phenomenal growth, called "inflation", is part of a set of cosmic events known collectively as the Big Bang and was first proposed in 1979 by US physicist Alan Guth.

"It's something of a triumph for Guth and the people who developed the inflation scenario that 25 years later we get this level of detail and confirmation of inflation," said cosmologist Paul Davies of Macquarie University.

That key detail came from NASA's Wilkinson Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched in 2001. Using WMAP data, researchers mapped the directionality, or polarisation, of the faint afterglow of the intense heat of the Big Bang, the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Like a cosmological fossil, the polarisation reveals the shape of space preceding it, thus providing the evidence for inflation. And since the polarisation was affected by the first stars, the team determined that those stars formed 400million years after the Big Bang.

"We have never before been able to understand the infant universe with such precision," said WMAP principal investigator Charles Bennett of The Johns Hopkins University and Goddard Spaceflight Center, both in Maryland.

"It appears that the infant universe had the kind of growth spurt that would alarm any mom or dad," he said.

What caused that growth spurt? Cosmologists suspect it was the breakdown of a "superforce" that co-existed with the force of gravity. It split into the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But to find out for sure, Professor Davies says the next step is to obtain evidence about exactly what went on during the inflation phase.

             © The Australian

[AntiGuv]

I am an atheist.

Your atheism does not make the implications of your original statement to which I replied any less inane.

Evolutionism has plenty of its own mythical allegory.

Your semantic confusion and objective relativism do not make this statement any more valid, or any less inane.

Evolutionists make the fallacious assumption this planet is the starting point for all life and is the encapsulated center of the universe unaffected by anything (or anyone) beyond it.

No, they don't. This is simply false. They make no such assumption. They do, however, deduce that this planet is the starting point for all life on earth on the basis of the best available evidence. Evolutionists certainly do not assume that this planet is "the encapsulated center of the universe unaffected by anything (or anyone) beyond it." That is just an totally baseless, ridiculous statement. They simply find no evidence to indicate any extra-universal affect of any consequence.

Not at all scientific of them; it is a faith based theory no different in logical fallacy than creationism in the ‘appeal to false authority.’

It is an empty fantasy that exists nowhere but in your mind.

What do evolutionists think about teaching the idea that life may have originated from outer space?

I have no problem with the idea myself, so long as one emphasizes the "may" part and so long as one informs the student that there is no actual evidence whatsoever to support the notion and that the best evidence we actually have indicates otherwise.

They already do teach the Big Bang theory, which is really an immaculate conception.

No, it isn't. The truth as I alluded to above is that no one has any clue what caused the Big Bang. So, you are free to fantasize whatever cause makes you fell all warm and fuzzy, but you will still have no clue what caused the Big Bang. Odds are excellent that you will never have the slightest clue what caused the Big Bang. Most people have a hard time dealing with that reality, but oh well. Reality is not contingent on your personal preferences. Many people don't have the ability to deal with that either.

The evolutionists have no evidence that any species, flora or fauna, evolved on this planet at all more than anyone who would say it was delivered or is engineered by extraterrestrials unobserved in our midst.

An utterly ridiculous and inane statement. Why is it that you think that just because you have the ability to string ten words together into a sentence that your statement deserves any respect or credibility?

The evolutionists have no proof human life evolved from other Terran life more than those who would say humans were marooned and/or engineered here by extraterrestrials.

Again, what makes you think that just because you say something it merits anything more than ridicule and contempt? Seriously, when two opposite points of view are expressed with comparable intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie in between. It is quite possible, or even probable, for one side simply to be laughably wrong.

[snarks_when_bored]

Most inflationary models predict that the size of our cosmic bubble in its entirety is many orders of magnitude larger than the size of what we can see of it. I've got some numbers somewhere and would search for them were you to insist that I do so!

[Rock N Jones]

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

Comparing Santa Claus to God is like comparing a tiny marble to a universe.

So what do you believe? What would cause this tiny little marble to expand to an astronomical size in just a trillionth of a second? I believe the best explanation is “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”