Posted on 06/20/2014 11:53:10 AM PDT by PoloSec
Scientists who claimed in March they had a major discovery about the Big Bang are now saying they might have made a mistake.
The Associated Press said that in a paper published Thursday, the researchers stood by their initial conclusion — that they had found long-sought evidence for a rapid ballooning of the universe a split-second after its birth.
Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll
But they said they could not rule out the possibility that a crucial signal they believe came from deep in the cosmos was actually caused by dust in the Milky Way galaxy. If true, their claim for detecting the evidence of so-called cosmic inflation right after the Big Bang would evaporate.
The March announcement was big news because it appeared to provide evidence for the inflation theory, which is widely believed by scientists. The theory says the universe expanded extremely quickly when it was far less than one-trillionth of a second old.
Using data from a telescope at the South Pole, the research team said it had found a specific pattern in light waves within the faint microwave glow left over from the Big Bang. That pattern had long been considered evidence of inflation. John Kovac of Harvard, leader of the collaboration, called it "the smoking-gun signature of inflation."
But since the announcement, some other scientists have published analyses that suggested the signal may have actually come from Milky Way dust.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I think the data was on Lerner's hard drive.
Too funny. It’s like when on Big Bang Theory that Sheldon thought he had discovered evidence of monopoles when it was just electromagnetic noise from the can opener.
The original claim wasn’t “this is evidence of the Big Bang”.
The original claim was “this is evidence for cosmic inflation”.
Just to be clear.
“Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama’s Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll “
?
“What difference does it make... now?”
Or, even if logically consistent, is it a testable hypothesis?
This science is unsettling.
Is what a testable hypothesis?
... Pres..ent Obama's Job Performance...
I had suspected all along that the ballooning of the universe was related to his job performance, but this finally confirms it!
Why don’t they just consider the science settled and move on to more important things. Apparently that’s the new standard for the scientific method.
Obviously these guys aren’t climatologists because counterpoints are allowed without being personally destroyed by your Marxist peers.
it would be nice if the “97%” of “scientists” hyping the global warming nonsense would admit that their computer models are worthless. But i’m not holding my breath.
Inflation, pieces of the Big Bang.
Yes, I know that you can get astronomical data that is consistent with parts of the theory, and I think that’s great. But, at some point, I wonder how much of the theoretically consistent conjectures about what happened in the first 10^-30 seconds of the universe’s evolution becomes “testable.”
Cosmic Inflation has nothing on the rates from the federal reserve...
Bazinga! :)
NSS!
Sounds like Sheldon...
And if the inflation lasts longer than 12 hours you should see a doctor.
The narrowness of many “ scientists’ “ minds is frequently only eclipsed by the magnitude of their ‘mistakes’...
“this is evidence for cosmic inflation”
Inflation into what? Never been clear on what it’s inflating into.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.