For the second year in a row an article from this CosmologyScience.com website was voted one of the best science blog articles of the year at 3-Quarks Daily. This is thanks to friends, colleagues and you readers.
This year articles from two authors on CosmologyScience.com were nominated:
“Observation of two early yet mature galaxies: Rare objects or is Big Bang model inaccurate?” by the brilliant Louis Marmet of Canada’s National Research Council,
and
Its official – no “Faster than Light” Neutrinos at CERN.
CERN (not OPERA) Research Director Sergio Bertolucci announced yesterday at a Japanese conference that they have re-run the Neutrino experiments on four different machines and all neutrinos seem to be obeying the speed limit.
“Although this result isn’t as exciting as some would have liked,” said Bertolucci, “it is what we all expected deep down. The story captured the public imagination, and has given people the opportunity to see the scientific method in action – an unexpected result was put up for scrutiny, thoroughly investigated and resolved in part thanks to collaboration between normally competing experiments. That’s how science moves forward.”
This article Voted 3-Quarks Daily Semi-Finalist 2012
COBE Satellite (Credit: NASA)
iPhone-4 (Credit: Wikipedia)
What gives more detailed images (higher resolution) – an iPhone or the COBE satellite camera used to propel Big Bang into the leading Cosmology concept?
News Flash: (June 17, 2012) This article was just voted one of the best science blog articles of the past year at 3-Quarks Daily. Thank you for your votes.
Well lets find out by trying this puzzle: See if you can figure out what fairly well-known astronomical phenomenon this is a photograph of :
COBE Astrophotography Surprise
Here’s a hint. This first photograph of the mystery phenomenon is presented with the same angular resolution as the camera on the COBE satellite: Cosmic Background Explorer – Differential Microwave Radiometer (COBE-DMR).
(“Angular Resolution” simply means how much detail is in an image. A camera with more megapixels has a greater angular resolution; more resolution = more information.)
The COBE satellite’s data / images were described as “echoes of Big Bang” and used to first claim cosmic microwave radiation is purely from “background,” not from stars or galaxies or space dust or gas. COBE’s “background” radiation map was used to eliminate the “ Steady-State” cosmology – Big Bang’s popular competitor at the time.
Can’t see anything? Try this sharper version of the same image with a resolution identical to the best NASA technology (WMAP) for cosmic microwave radiation. Continue reading
Gigantic pillars of Big Bang are creaking and starting to collapse like colossal dominoes. These are tumultuous times in Cosmology.
The voice you hear getting louder is Brünnhilde practicing Götterdämmerung in describing the fruitless and essentially completed search for a scattershot conjecture called “Dark Matter.” What a contrast with a mere five years ago when Dark Matter was expected to be found rapidly. Continue reading
Great Ideas Invited
This is an invitation for you to submit your own Cosmology hypotheses for publication on this website.
You should get thoughtful responses from the several thousand readers of this website.
Spin-Charge Separation Graph
Credit: Nature, Schlappa et al
Amazing news: Researchers in Switzerland have separated an Electron into two smaller quasi-particles – a “Spinon” and an “Orbiton;” meaning they have physically separated the spin and the orbit properties of an Electron.
Until now, standard physics generally accepted that an Electron was a fundamental particle – that it was not made of smaller components.
However, as early as 1980 theorists had predicted an electron could be made of three smaller pieces: A “Spinon” (providing spin), an “Orbiton” (providing the orbit) and a “Holon” (carrying the charge).
Astronomical Image Enhancement Engineer Brant Widgeon explaining . . . It is not always made clear that astronomical images are altered or “cleaned-up” before we see them. You know the colors of gasses and dust are “adjusted” so we can more easily see different astrophysical phenomena. You might be surprised to learn everything that goes into making the celestial beautiful.
Currently the speed of light in a vacuum is just a hair under 300,000 kilometers per second (more precisely 299,792,458 kps).
Because the speed of light (known as “c” to mathematicians and physicists) does not exactly match 300,000 kilometers per second, it makes calculations for physicists and mathematicians unnecessarily tedious.
Cosmology Professor Emeritus Jayant V. Narlikar
“To claim that you have simulated the Big Bang is like a schoolboy claiming after winning a high jump medal that he is close to jumping on to the moon.”
Esteemed Cosmologist Professor Emeritus Jayant V. Narlikar reports from a Cosmology Conference on the latest developments in Dark Matter, Gravitational Waves, FTL Neutrinos, Big Bang cosmologists hugely overstating their conclusions, and a few other topics. Continue reading
Cherenkov Radiation Credit: Wikipedia
A recent criticism of the apparently Faster-than-light (FTL) Neutrinos inspiring a lot of discussion is the claim that if Neutrinos are going FTL – they must cause Cherenkov radiation.
Why? That doesn’t make sense. And its never been observed so how would anyone test that?
Cherenkov Radiation Requires Charged Particles – But Neutrinos Have No Charge
The beautiful blue-violet glow of Cherenkov Radiation is only caused by charged particles, primarily electrons.
News Flash: (June 12, 2012) This article was just nominated as one of the best science blog articles of the past year at 3-Quarks Daily. In voting it just missed getting in the top 20 of the 107 articles nominated; proving more popular than several Scientific American articles.
Gamma Ray Burst Transiting Two Extremely Distant Galaxies
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) recently reported a surprise while observing two extremely distant galaxies; at a very high redshift (z = 3.57); so far away that they are seen as they were a long time ago: only 1.8 billion years after Big Bang.
The surprise was to discover that the cool gas in these presumably young galaxies was very rich in heavy elements (all called metals), a chemical composition usually only seen in older galaxies because it takes so long to make heavy elements.
ESO reports that an international team used the flash of a distant gamma-ray burst GRB 090323 as a probe to study the spectra of the two galaxies (G0 and G1). The bright light emitted by the burst was absorbed by the gas in both galaxies. The measured absorption spectrum allowed an evaluation of the density of heavy elements. Continue reading
Here’s a fun article comparing the claims that 96% of the Universe (matter and energy) is missing according to Big Bang conjecture and that 96% of the world’s cash that is missing due to derivatives.
Continue reading
Apple Bitten: courtesy Wikimedia
It is difficult to test the flavor of an apple without biting it or taking some sample out of it. You or I can test or measure its flavor by taking a bite of it or taking a small piece for examination. Either method of testing changes the apple irreversibly. Testing which harms or changes the tested phenomena or materials is called “Destructive Testing.”
When I take a photograph inside a building, where the light is dimmer, I usually use a flash.
Using a flash intentionally affects the subject of the photograph in a demonstrable way (a flash changes how someone looks in a photograph), and also in an unintended way — some people react to a strong flash of light in their eyes.
By contrast – photography without a flash does not affect the “model,” at least not with light.
Similarly, while X-rays show us the inner workings of some things, they also harm living photography subjects by damaging the DNA of living tissue.
Regarding the potentially Faster than light Neutrinos, it is vital to realize that only about one (1) Neutrino is detected by Italy’s OPERA every hour; that’s one Neutrino per hour.
Compare that to how every square centimeter on Earth (facing the Sun) encounters some 65 billion solar neutrinos per second.
When that single neutrino hits in Italy, its timed arrival is associated (extrapolated back) to a recorded proton pulse at CERN by using the time it would take for a photon to travel the same distance.
Inflation Illustration
Credit: Jeb
Here’s a very clear article in (relatively) plain English explaining problems with the Cosmological Inflation conjecture by Sean Carroll in Discovery Magazine.
While I disagree with the author’s conclusion that the final ingredients of a “settled” cosmology hypothesis will include Inflation, this article is very well summarized, explained and organized.
This began as a simple question, but it has intrigued enough people that I decided to feature it as an article and expand it so we can have some fun.
“I have heard people say that there are more stars in the universe than there are the grains of sand ‘on the beach.’
What size is the beach and are the grains of sand coarse or fine? Or does the saying go “all the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches,” something I simply can’t believe to be true.”
Carmel (Charmel) Beach has many more grains of sand than our Milky Way has Stars
Disclaimer —
You and I will work through to get an answer, but be warned — There will never be a definitive, conclusive, absolute, precise or final answer to this question.
For either counting stars or sand grains — there simply is no measurement, or accurate calculation or mathematical proof
Its even worse than that — we can’t even get approximate numbers for either with much confidence.
We can only roughly estimate the number of stars in our own galaxy. Estimates easily vary by 150 times (more than two orders of magnitude) and estimates of the number of grains of beach sand are even worse.
Muon vs Electron Neutrino Decay Tracks
Credit: Duke U. Saturday Academy
Neutrinos are fundamental particles, more closely related to Electrons than Neutrons because they are not made up of smaller particles (Neutrons are made up of 3 Quarks).
Here are some odd things about Neutrinos.
1. All three flavors (types) of Neutrinos have zero electric charge making them beyond invisible; nearly impossible to detect. They are only affected by the Weak force and Gravity; both effects are extremely difficult to detect at the atomic scale.
What makes Neutrinos unique among particles is that they seem to change structure or “flavor” (called oscillation) . . . in very short distances. (Kind of like the Transformer toys – except instead of changing shape, Neutrinos seem to change mass ! – both up and down – which of course violates the bedrock principle of conservation of mass-energy.)
Update: Added Glossary and Links to: the original paper, video talk, OPERA website; and step by step explanation of experiment details.
Neutrino Beam Path
Credit:OPERA
While working on another problem, a team of physics researchers at CERN and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy found a potentially revolutionary result seven months three years ago.
They have spent the subsequent seven months three years quietly verifying – that muon Neutrino particles seem to be traveling faster than the speed of light, called Superluminal Motion.
Prof. Dr. Antonio Ereditato, OPERA Spokesman
(A very happy) Team spokesman Prof. Dr. Antonio Ereditato said “We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing,” he said. “We now want colleagues to check them independently.” (Quote credit: Reuters reporter Robert Evans)
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Dark Matter Illuminated?
Credit: SymmetryMagazine.org
NewScientist reports that “NASA’s FERMI satellite has confirmed a previous hint that there is more antimatter than expected coming from space. The bad news is that the result strongly almost certainly rules out Dark Matter as the source.”
Continue reading
Brünnhilde Singing
The voice you hear getting louder is Brünnhilde practicing Götterdämmerung. Thats because the search is all but over for “the most sought-after particle in modern physics” – the Higgs Boson.
Update: In March 2013, while there are a few loose ends, it appears that a Higgs Boson is detected. See “Closing in on Higgs Boson Certainty, But “Standard Model Higgs” Remains Distant“.
The most expensive science experiment in history, the Large Hadron Collider, has failed to find the Higgs Boson which is required for Big Bang and Expanding Universe ideas (as well as its role as a key component of particle physics “Standard Model“).
CERN Higgs Boson Experiment — Artist’s Simulation
Credit: Lucas Taylor, Wikipedia
The hypothesized particle was not (yet) found within the wide range of values for mass where it needed to show up.
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Map: Our Sun from 5,000 Light Years Away
Here you go — “Map of Our Universe”
(Update: July 20, 2011 – Today Mr. Siegel corrected his article where it had wrongly claimed my article had quoted Professor P.J.E. Peebles “out of context.”)
While Ethan Siegel generally does a good job illuminating science, he recently wrote a flawed critique of an article of mine “International Astronomical Union has no Definition for Big Bang.” This critique included a number of science errors.
Continue reading
Imagine resolving details of nearby stars and their planets.
Sub-nano-arc second resolution should be possible with this proposal for a telescope that is composed of a set of three sets of two (six total) lens-sensor spacecraft systems that send images and data back to Earth from three baselines that can begin sending ground breaking data when the spacecraft are separated by 10 times Earth’s diameter. The baselines of the six spacecraft grow over some 100 to 200 years to about 100 billion miles (roughly 1100 AU, 2 hundredths of a light year or 160 terameters).
Solar Map
Credit: NASA
Six Directions for Six SpaceCraft
Three pairs of identical telescopes are launched in six X,Y,Z axis directions to escape our Solar System and return images from each of the three paired baselines. One axis is intended to be perpendicular to our galactic plane.
I just found a critique by Ethan Siegel implying that there is some flaw in my article explaining Big Bang’s lack of an adequate scientific definition and hypothesis (titled “International Astronomical Union has no Definition for Big Bang“).
While flattering (I’ve made mistakes before and far prefer to get them corrected quickly), the critique fails to identify any flaws in my article and contains a number of incorrect or misleading assertions — including the false claim that the complete quote by Professor Peebles is somehow out of context.
It also spends most of its extensive effort with an elaborate distraction where it tries but falls short of describing a complete hypothesis for Big Bang. Since the article is copied on other blogs, its errors need correcting. So, here are some responses to the dispute article’s ideas and quotes.
Here’s a fun article on possible identification of a new particle. FermiLab - Illinois
Update (July 2011): Unfortunately, this exciting potential evaporated under more rigorous scrutiny. But, that’s exactly the way science is supposed to work. We are supposed to abandon even our most treasured concepts when data can not support it, and embrace data even when it contradicts our wishes about natural phenomena.
Update (June 2011): Rats – verification by a second team failed; it shows no similar “bump” meaning that hope for the alleged new particle is evaporating, but not disappeared. Nevertheless, the amusing term remains :-)
It describes how the evidence is getting stronger – and we may have a new particle confirmed soon.
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