Nobel photos

[Gonz]

NEW YORK — Two Americans won a Nobel prize Tuesday for taking baby pictures of the universe.
George F. Smoot of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and John C. Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland were recognized for depicting the universe as it was 380,000 years after its birth in the big bang.
Their feat, precisely measuring the faint light that revealed the seeds of today's galaxies and superclusters, affirmed the big-bang theory to even the most stubborn skeptics.
Smoot and Mather won the physics prize as chief architects of a NASA satellite observatory named COBE, for Cosmic Background Explorer. Launched in 1989, the spacecraft measured feeble remnants of light that originated early in the history of the universe, about 380,000 years after the big bang.
"It's the farthest out we can see in the universe, and it's the furthest back in time," said Phillip F. Schewe, a spokesman for the American Institute of Physics.
The big-bang theory predicts that this primordial light should display a classic "blackbody" spectrum, an indicator that the whole universe started out at a uniform temperature before expanding into the much less homogeneous state we now observe. That is exactly what COBE found.
"It is one of the greatest discoveries of the century. I would call it the greatest," said Per Carlson, Nobel physics committee chairman.
The prizes, which include a $1.4 million check and a gold medal, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

Since science isn't my strong suit maybe somebody can help me understand.

How exactly does one catch a particle of light form a bazillion years ago & photograph it? How is it different than light from, say, 99% of a bazillion years ago? This sounds cool as hell but it also sounds like somebody has watched too much Star Trek.

source

 

[Sharky]

Dammit, I had just managed to unboggle my mind from the concept of Jupiter-sized planets orbiting their stars at <24 hour periods.

So, they are saying that by peering out into the universe, they can see back in time to its origination?

When will they tell us where the universe is located?

My brain hurts.

 

[A.B.Normal]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5896048467372201322

he 2003 BBC documentary "The World's First Time Machine", directed by Ben Bowie and featuring Ronald Mallett, premiered in the USA on The ... all » Learning Channel on December 3, 2003. This documentary features some of Dr. Mallett's current time travel research. It has since been shown numerous times on The Science Channel. «

44min 17sec

 

[Camelyn]

Since science isn't my strong suit maybe somebody can help me understand.

How exactly does one catch a particle of light form a bazillion years ago & photograph it? How is it different than light from, say, 99% of a bazillion years ago? This sounds cool as hell but it also sounds like somebody has watched too much Star Trek.

source

They didn't.... Just the press making a good headline at the expense of accuracy again

The COBE satellite measures the "background radiation" of the universe. According to the theory, immediate after the big bang, the universe was equvalent to a hot, glowing ball of light that emmited radiaton. As the universe expanded and cooled, the radiation emitted cooled and its wavelength got longer; from short gamma rays to X-rays, then to ultraviolet and visible light, and finally down to the long wavelenghts of microwaves. This is what COBE measured, the microwave background radiation, and thus the temperature of the universe.

In simplified terms, they used this data to show that the temperature and distribution of the background radiation supports the big bang theory, and to show where slight variations in temperature indicate "clumpy" areas, where matter was able to come together to form galaxies, and galaxy clusters.

Thus a "picture" of the early universe.

 

[Gonz]

Another fine example of piss poor journalism. I still can't decipher their article to say what you got (which makes sense).

I'm still unsure of how they are able to postulate they they were able to see & label light from an specific time frame...especially one so far back.

 

[chcr]

The problem is that you have science reporters and science editors reporting on sciences that they don't understand themselves and then tyryng to couch what they didn't understand in laymen's terms. It doesn't make sense and since they don't really understand it they can't make it make sense. They print a bunch of gobbledygook and mumbo-jumbo and hope that most people will go "ooh, shiny" and that the number of people who will realize that it was nonsense will be relatively low (and not include anyone who can actually fire them). Cam understands the science so she could explain it much better.

They determine how old light is by determining the source's distance. The speed of light is constant and the farther away something is, the faster away from us it's moving. As imaging equipment improves, we see things farther and farther away, thus we are actually looking farther and farther back into time.

Note that while this offers some (more) evidence that the big bang may be correct, it by no means proves it.

 

[Gonz]

Note that while this offers some (more) evidence that the big bang may be correct, it by no means proves it.

But, but, but

affirmed the big-bang theory to even the most stubborn skeptics.

Measuring light, at an ever increasing distance, that has had a quadraillion years headstart seems impossible. Since it would need to go, see it & return. Something that has taken so long to go one way shouldn't be caught by something that just started, should it? (Assuming Einstein was right & there is no way to surpass the speed of light)

 

[highwayman]

Now gonz, you know star fleet has been using warp drive for years...

 

[Luis G]

But, but, but


Measuring light, at an ever increasing distance, that has had a quadraillion years headstart seems impossible. Since it would need to go, see it & return. Something that has taken so long to go one way shouldn't be caught by something that just started, should it? (Assuming Einstein was right & there is no way to surpass the speed of light)

You are assuming that your sight actually "goes to the object" when in fact you are only aware of what comes to you. It is possible to detect waves from a "bazillion" years ago because they haven't reached us yet.

 

[chcr]

Luis said it better than I did. When you see something you don't "go and see" it then "come back." What you see is the light from it reaching you. This takes a finite amount of time whether it's the lightbulb in the next room or a galaxy 400 million light years away. The difference is that the light from the light bulb takes fraction of a nanosecond while the light from the galaxy takes 400 million years to reach you. Both lights may reach you at the same moment but the light from one is 400 million years older than the light from the other. Thus you are actually looking at something that was happening 400 million years ago even though you're just now seeing it. See?

Even though someone flipped the light switch a fraction of a nanosecond ago, and the light actually came on a smaller fraction of a nanosecond later, as far as you're able to tell the light didn't actually come on until the light reached your eye that information was processed by your brain a fraction of a nanosecond after that.

 

[Gonz]

Alright, I see. It still leaves too many questions about age & timing but I see how one could propose seeing time past.

I can't get past the part where (in my mind) once the big bang happened, the light would continue away from the center (where we're not) & toward the "edge" (where we're not) so the light from the beginning should have already passed where we are & be out of sight by now, especially with the expanding universe theory.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

...depicting the universe as it was 380,000 years after its birth in the big bang.

Shame is, that isn't how it started. You want a Big Bang? God spoke, and BANG...It happened.

More scientists trying to further their agenda, and more fools swallowing it hook, line. and sinker. When this becomes news, somebody wake me up.

 

[chcr]

Alright, I see. It still leaves too many questions about age & timing but I see how one could propose seeing time past.

I can't get past the part where (in my mind) once the big bang happened, the light would continue away from the center (where we're not) & toward the "edge" (where we're not) so the light from the beginning should have already passed where we are & be out of sight by now, especially with the expanding universe theory.

Okay, I'll take a run at this. The theory holds that everything in the universe, everything you can see and everything you can't was created in the big bang (or more likely in the first farctions of time after). There wasn't a big empty space and some odd little piece of crap exploded, there was no universe before the big bang. No matter, no dimensions no light, no time. The universe came into existence at the big bang and we're inside of it, so if we could see far enough (and, of course, therefore far enough back into the past) we'd see the big bang in every direction. In fact, there is a background microwave radiation in every direction that most cosmology experts agree is the "echo" of the big bang. The theory predicted it, but it wasn't actually discovered until the sixties.

Maybe this will explain it better.

Oh, and while we're not at the center of the universe we are the center of the observable universe because we can see more or less the same distance in every direction. We are the functional center because there isn't another vantage point we can use.

 

[Camelyn]

I'm still unsure of how they are able to postulate they they were able to see & label light from an specific time frame...especially one so far back.

Think of light not as a particle, but as a wave (electromagnetic radiation). When you drop a rock into a pond, the ripples start out really close together, but the farther you go out from the source, the greater the distance between the peaks and the troughs (the wavelength). At the moment of the big bang, (the dropping of the pebble in the pond) the wavelengths are close together (gamma rays). Then they spread out, the engergy disapates, and things cool. The wavelengths get longer. Visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. At this point in time, things have cooled down enough that the ripples are farther apart than the wavelength of visible light, and what used to be visible light is now microwave radiation. So when they say they "See" the light from the big bang, what they really mean to say is that they see the microwave radiation that *used* the be the (gamma rays, and then x-rays and then) visible light of the big bang.

Here's a diagram that might help:

And they reason they postulate that this radiation is from the big bang is because it is found in all directions, in every part of space. Hence the term Microwave Background Radiation. It's the static of the universe

 

[Gonz]

And they reason they postulate that this radiation is from the big bang is because it is found in all directions, in every part of space. Hence the term Microwave Background Radiation. It's the static of the universe

That's what I was missing. I have a minor understanding of light waves but it seems that one measurable piece (particle, wave) in a infinity of measurable little pieces was stretching it. They aren't measuring one piece (per se) but the constant. Man, that article was written even worse than I thought.

The pebble in a pond explanation I've heard & it's a good one (well, until you assume the rings are expanding in a 360° motion then it becomes enormous).

Where I get hung up (you guys did a great job answering my question) is, at some point the energy from the original expansion has to travel too far to be measureable from a static (as much as one can be staic in an expanding universe) location. Whether on Earth or a planet some 400 billion light years away, the original energy has to be far too far for our instruments or used up. Like the rings from the pebble, at some point the outer ring is going to be too far for the little fishy to see & at some greater point, that ring will become indistiguishable from the surrounding matter...absorbed into newer energy or completly worn out.

It would hepl if they'd pick a theorem & stick with it. When the rules are constantly adapting, keeping up (if you aren't one of them MIT dorks) is damn near impossible.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

It would hepl if they'd pick a theorem & stick with it. When the rules are constantly adapting, keeping up (if you aren't one of them MIT dorks) is damn near impossible.

Wanna know why they keep changing?

 

[Gonz]

Because Jehovah is fucking with 'em?

 

[Professur]

Think of light not as a particle, but as a wave (electromagnetic radiation). When you drop a rock into a pond, the ripples start out really close together, but the farther you go out from the source, the greater the distance between the peaks and the troughs (the wavelength). At the moment of the big bang, (the dropping of the pebble in the pond) the wavelengths are close together (gamma rays). Then they spread out, the engergy disapates, and things cool. The wavelengths get longer. Visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. At this point in time, things have cooled down enough that the ripples are farther apart than the wavelength of visible light, and what used to be visible light is now microwave radiation. So when they say they "See" the light from the big bang, what they really mean to say is that they see the microwave radiation that *used* the be the (gamma rays, and then x-rays and then) visible light of the big bang.

Here's a diagram that might help:

And they reason they postulate that this radiation is from the big bang is because it is found in all directions, in every part of space. Hence the term Microwave Background Radiation. It's the static of the universe

Unless it turns out that they're completely wrong (again) and they're detecting nothing more that Hawking's particles self destructing with a density they've guessed wrong (again) due to the fact that "space" or shall we say "the fabric of space" (which they haven't found yet) being denser than they postulate.

This is one of the things that's turned me off of Astronomy .. specially of recent.

 

[chcr]

It would hepl if they'd pick a theorem & stick with it. When the rules are constantly adapting, keeping up (if you aren't one of them MIT dorks) is damn near impossible.

Umm... a theorem is something else, Gonz. You mean a theory. There really aren't that many theories about the beginning of the universe. Teh nature of the universe, now, there are a lot of those. The problem with science (if your serious about it) is that there is always an element of doubt, usually quantifiable. If your theory doesn't stand up to close scrutiny then it's not a viable thery and you have to let it go. Theories change all the time. Our observatioanl equipment gets better, we learn something unrelated that changes the way we thought about it, etc. The MIT dorks don't always keep up that well either, BTW. As for Prof's complaint about "guesses," a lot of what gets published in the popular science press as theories are actually hypotheses. These are in fact educated guesses. A real theory has to be testable and furnish reproducible results. String "theory," for instance, is an hypothesis. Nobody can even think of a way to test it at todays level of technology. The problem with cold fusion was that nobody could reproduce the claimed results. So, until we know everything, if that's even possible (but that's a philosophical problem not a scientific one), theories will keep changing. They (or we) are trying to explain the universe around us in the absence of the supernatural. A lot of folks think the supernatural is an acceptable answer. My own position is that history shows that just because we don't know something doesn't mean we can't or won't figure it out. Look what we've figured out so far.

re: Jehovah is fucking with them, just one of many reasons I can't believe. How can you believe in a god whose main purpose seems to be to fuck with you?

 

[BB]

hang on, they caught a wierd image of a wave from 380,000 years ago ...

and they hang it out like some proud fisherman?

that's notin' - them swiss nut jobs are planning at causing liddle innocent black holes under the alps - luckily they have worked out the chances of destroying the planet are slim ...

y'know ... i think i prefer the nerd fishermen!