Big Bang remnant discovery

[vincent]

Scientists discover possible cosmic defect, remnant from Big Bang

Scientists from the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) and the University of Cambridge may have discovered an example of a cosmic defect, a remnant from the Big Bang called a texture. If confirmed, their discovery, reported today in Science, will provide dramatic new insight into how the universe evolved following the Big Bang. Textures are defects in the structure of the vacuum left over from the hot early universe. Professor Neil Turok of Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics first showed how textures form in the 1990s, highlighting that some would survive from the Big Bang and should be visible in today's universe. Textures can be observed by the hot and cold spots they create in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) which fills the universe and was released in the Big Bang 14 billion years ago.

The Big Bang theory proposes that the cosmos began in a very high density, high temperature state, cooling as it expands. In the early hot universe, physicists believe that the different types of elementary particle (particles such as a quark from which larger particles are created) behaved identically. As the universe cooled, the vacuum changed and the symmetry between the particles was broken, in a phase transition analogous to the freezing of water. During this kind of phase transition, quarks become distinct from electrons and neutrinos, for example.

Just as misalignments in the crystalline structure of ice lead to defects, misalignments in the symmetry-breaking pattern form cosmic defects. Textures, such as the one which may have been discovered, are one type of defect.

Professor Turok provides the following analogy: "Imagine a large crowd of people with everyone standing. To any person in it, the crowd looks roughly the same in all directions. Now tell them all to lie down. People would tend to lie in the same direction as their neighbours, but over large distances the direction chosen would vary. In some places, people would be unable to decide which was the best direction to lie in: if everyone lies down pointing directly away from you, you are forced to stand. You are now a defect in the symmetry, a texture."

It is believed that textures collapse and unwind on progressively larger scales, creating intense energy as well as gravitational potential. This unwinding also creates areas of extreme cold or hot, such as the very cold spot in the South Galactic Hemisphere discovered by the IFCA team in 2004. Marcos Cruz and his colleagues, Dr. Patricio Vielva and Professor Enrique Mart?nez-Gonz?lez with the IFCA, pursued numerous possibilities for the existence of the cold spot. In particular, they thoroughly explored the possibility of being due to systematic effects, foreground contamination from our own galaxy or due to the scattering of cosmic microwave background radiation by large galaxy clusters.

Each time they came to the same conclusion: there were not any convincing arguments for any of these possibilities. They also hypothesised that it could be a texture and with the assistance of Dr Mike Hobson, a member of the Astrophysics Group at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, and Professor Neil Turok, they were able to examine this possibility in detail.

Professor Turok performed large scale simulations using the COSMOS supercomputer at Cambridge to more accurately compare the theory with the event. Dr Hobson ranked the relative probabilities that the cold spot is due to a texture rather than just an extreme statistical fluctuation. The researchers concluded that the texture hypothesis is the most plausible explanation for the cold spot but acknowledge that additional tests are necessary.

"The possibility that this is a texture is very exciting," said Professor Turok. "If it is, it will revolutionise our understanding of how the fundamental symmetries between the particles and forces were broken as the universe emerged from the big bang. The current data is suggestive but not yet compelling. There are a number of follow-up tests which can be made with future data. It's a very testable hypothesis and we will know the answer within the next decade."

Dr Hobson said: "The prominent cold spot in the image of the cosmic microwave background taken by the WMAP satellite is a very puzzling feature that has attracted a lot of attention in the cosmological community, but has not as yet been convincingly explained.

"Our work investigates the exciting possibility that the cold spot is due to the presence of a cosmic texture; some current particle physics theories predict textures to be produced as the universe evolves, but they had never been observed. Somewhat to our surprise, we found that the cold spot, and in fact the cosmic microwave background radiation over the whole sky, is indeed consistent with such a texture model. Although the current data are not yet compelling, we suggest future observations that should be able to test our hypothesis definitively. If the cold spot is indeed proven to be a texture it will completely change our view of how the universe evolved following the Big Bang."

The paper "A Cosmic Microwave Background feature consistent with a cosmic texture" can be found in the 25 October 2007 edition oSciencei>.

Source

Edited October 26, 2007 by ripgut

[Hurmoth]

A little off topic, but I'll never understand why the Religious people disagree with the Big Bang theory. I'm a Christian and I don't see anything in my King James Version Bible that states the Big Bang theory didn't happen. Grant it, it is still a theory, but it makes the most sense from what I've read.

The Bible doesn't answer every question, especially considering it doesn't really go into the scientific realm, so what is there to argue with? "God said let there be light and he flicked a switch on, boom. That's the big bang theory." :laugh:

[vincent]

A little off topic, but I'll never understand why the Religious people disagree with the Big Bang theory. I'm a Christian and I don't see anything in my King James Version Bible that states the Big Bang theory didn't happen. Grant it, it is still a theory, but it makes the most sense from what I've read.

The Bible doesn't answer every question, especially considering it doesn't really go into the scientific realm, so what is there to argue with? "God said let there be light and he flicked a switch on, boom. That's the big bang theory." :laugh:

Please expand on the bolded part.

[mrchetsteadman]

Please expand on the bolded part.

Oh Jesus, here we go... :p

[Black Hawk]

Please expand on the bolded part.

Is it not a theory? :huh:

[megamanXplosion]

http://www.notjustatheory.com/

[Hurmoth]

Please expand on the bolded part.

Isn't it still considered a theory? All of my college text books still refer to it as the "Big Bang Theory".

[TheElite]

A little off topic, but I'll never understand why the Religious people disagree with the Big Bang theory. I'm a Christian and I don't see anything in my King James Version Bible that states the Big Bang theory didn't happen. Grant it, it is still a theory, but it makes the most sense from what I've read.

The Bible doesn't answer every question, especially considering it doesn't really go into the scientific realm, so what is there to argue with? "God said let there be light and he flicked a switch on, boom. That's the big bang theory." :laugh:

Muslims also believe in the Big Bang, because it states it in the Quran.

Oh Jesus, here we go... :p

:laugh:

[acies]

Isn't it still considered a theory? All of my college text books still refer to it as the "Big Bang Theory".

In science, theory is the strongest "label", more so than a fact, hypothesis ect...

[megamanXplosion]

Of course it's still a theory. Whoever says something is still a theory is someone who assumes theories can become facts, or laws, or something else once the theories had been supported well enough. That assumption is false--theories remain theories. Everyone who uses the still or just a theory argument should read this: http://www.notjustatheory.com

[primexx]

Grant it, it is still a theory

:rolleyes:

[JasonC]

A little off topic, but I'll never understand why the Religious people disagree with the Big Bang theory. I'm a Christian and I don't see anything in my King James Version Bible that states the Big Bang theory didn't happen. Grant it, it is still a theory, but it makes the most sense from what I've read.

The Bible doesn't answer every question, especially considering it doesn't really go into the scientific realm, so what is there to argue with? "God said let there be light and he flicked a switch on, boom. That's the big bang theory." :laugh:

Seriously, Read the first book in your Bible man, Genesis 1, 1....

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[shakey_snake]

Right but it doesn't say specifically how he did it.

You're barking up the wrong tree, Cmor.

[JasonC]

I have an arguement for you on the big bang, when I've finished all my reasearch, ill post it.

[funkymunky]

I have an arguement for you on the big bang, when I've finished all my reasearch, ill post it.

lol

[Knife Party]

who cares? -- humanity will still go on with life as ussual

[MGS4-SS]

I have an arguement for you on the big bang, when I've finished all my reasearch, ill post it.

I can't wait to see it.

[CelticWhisper]

In science, theory is the strongest "label", more so than a fact, hypothesis ect...

Hang on, I thought a law was the most solid scientific concept you could have. Doesn't it go something like hypothesis-->experimentation-->theory-->law? As in, Law of Gravity vs. Theory of Relativity?

I could be wrong. Go easy on me: I'm a webmaster, not a physicist.

[megamanXplosion]

The view of theories becoming laws is a common view, but a mistaken one.

Scientific laws are descriptions. They are generalizations that basically say "this happened." The law of universal gravitation essentially says, "bodies of mass attract one another with different strengths depending on the mass of the two bodies and their distance of separation." Why bodies of mass attract one another in such a way isn't explained by the law.

This is where the theory of relativity comes in to explain why that description holds true. Einstein proposed an explanation to the effect that mass warps the fabric of spacetime and if that warp is large enough then the warp influences other bodies of matter, and the body of matter with the lesser mass will be pulled toward the greater body because the greater body had a more immense warping of the fabric of spacetime. You can sort-of visualize the explanation by stretching a blanket in all directions and placing a basketball in the center (thus causing the center of the blanket to droop) and if you drop a tennis ball on the blanket it will move toward the basketball.

As you can see, the theory explains the group of observations while the law merely offers a generalized definition. In essence, theories and laws are separate things. Theories do not become laws as they become more established, they remain theories because they remain explanations rather than descriptions.

The hierarchy structure you presented was fairly close, but it needs to be separated into two separate hierarchies...

Hierarchy One: Related phenomena (facts) --> Generalized description of related phenomena (law)

Hierarchy Two: Related phenomena (facts) that haven't been generalized by laws + relevant laws --> Educated guess as to the explanation that makes predictions (hypothesis) --> Multiple tests and experiments related to those predictions to try falsifying the educated guess --> Well-tested explanation (theory)

In science, theories are the best thing you can have. Theories are the only things that have both reliability (to a certain extent) and explanatory power. Scientists and engineers consider laws useful but they are merely descriptive and don't satisfy the mind's curiosity like a theory does.

[Hurmoth]

Seriously, Read the first book in your Bible man, Genesis 1, 1....

Right I've read it and it doesn't say God didn't use The Big Bang to create the heavens and the earth. The Bible doesn't give scientific details on how God did anything.

[CelticWhisper]

The view of theories becoming laws is a common view, but a mistaken one.

Scientific laws are descriptions. They are generalizations that basically say "this happened." The law of universal gravitation essentially says, "bodies of mass attract one another with different strengths depending on the mass of the two bodies and their distance of separation." Why bodies of mass attract one another in such a way isn't explained by the law.

This is where the theory of relativity comes in to explain why that description holds true. Einstein proposed an explanation to the effect that mass warps the fabric of spacetime and if that warp is large enough then the warp influences other bodies of matter, and the body of matter with the lesser mass will be pulled toward the greater body because the greater body had a more immense warping of the fabric of spacetime. You can sort-of visualize the explanation by stretching a blanket in all directions and placing a basketball in the center (thus causing the center of the blanket to droop) and if you drop a tennis ball on the blanket it will move toward the basketball.

As you can see, the theory explains the group of observations while the law merely offers a generalized definition. In essence, theories and laws are separate things. Theories do not become laws as they become more established, they remain theories because they remain explanations rather than descriptions.

The hierarchy structure you presented was fairly close, but it needs to be separated into two separate hierarchies...

Hierarchy One: Related phenomena (facts) --> Generalized description of related phenomena (law)

Hierarchy Two: Related phenomena (facts) that haven't been generalized by laws + relevant laws --> Educated guess as to the explanation that makes predictions (hypothesis) --> Multiple tests and experiments related to those predictions to try falsifying the educated guess --> Well-tested explanation (theory)

In science, theories are the best thing you can have. Theories are the only things that have both reliability (to a certain extent) and explanatory power. Scientists and engineers consider laws useful but they are merely descriptive and don't satisfy the mind's curiosity like a theory does.

Awesome. Science rocks.

Thanks!

[JasonC]

Right I've read it and it doesn't say God didn't use The Big Bang to create the heavens and the earth. The Bible doesn't give scientific details on how God did anything.

Thats because the big bang is made up by scientists....either God created everything... or everything was created from .. wait....NOTHING.

[shakey_snake]

I have an arguement for you on the big bang, when I've finished all my reasearch, ill post it.

Thats because the big bang is made up by scientists....either God created everything... or everything was created from .. wait....NOTHING.

Terrific "arguement"[sic]. :no:

You need to stop embarrassing yourself.

[MGS4-SS]

Thats because the big bang is made up by scientists....either God created everything... or everything was created from .. wait....NOTHING.

Sorry for this, but...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

:laugh:

[JasonC]

Keep laughing...we'll see whose right in the last days...