Major Astrophysics Discovery to be Announced on Monday

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Michael Watson

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Message 1489589 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 0:49:47 UTC

A major discovery in astrophysics is set to be announced at 1600 GMT on Monday (9 a.m. Pacific Time, 12 Noon, Eastern Time). The announcement will apparently involve the detection of primordial gravitational waves from the earliest moments of the universe, during the postulated cosmic inflation.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/14/gravitational-waves-big-bang-universe-bicep
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Message 1489606 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 2:22:08 UTC - in response to Message 1489589.  

A major discovery in astrophysics is set to be announced at 1600 GMT on Monday (9 a.m. Pacific Time, 12 Noon, Eastern Time). The announcement will apparently involve the detection of primordial gravitational waves from the earliest moments of the universe, during the postulated cosmic inflation.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/14/gravitational-waves-big-bang-universe-bicep


Thank you Michael! Sounds interesting and will be all ears :)
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Message 1489641 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 5:32:18 UTC - in response to Message 1489589.  
Last modified: 16 Mar 2014, 5:32:50 UTC

A major discovery in astrophysics is set to be announced at 1600 GMT on Monday (9 a.m. Pacific Time, 12 Noon, Eastern Time). The announcement will apparently involve the detection of primordial gravitational waves from the earliest moments of the universe, during the postulated cosmic inflation.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/14/gravitational-waves-big-bang-universe-bicep


Thanks so much Michael, for this news.
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Message 1489670 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 9:02:32 UTC - in response to Message 1489641.  

A major discovery in astrophysics is set to be announced at 1600 GMT on Monday (9 a.m. Pacific Time, 12 Noon, Eastern Time). The announcement will apparently involve the detection of primordial gravitational waves from the earliest moments of the universe, during the postulated cosmic inflation.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/14/gravitational-waves-big-bang-universe-bicep


Thanks so much Michael, for this news.

+1
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Message 1489671 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 9:06:43 UTC

It should be interesting.

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Message 1489684 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 10:12:23 UTC - in response to Message 1489671.  

I'll wait for the announcement before opening the champagne bottle.
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Michael Watson

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Message 1489738 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 15:42:02 UTC
Last modified: 16 Mar 2014, 15:49:23 UTC

Yes, let's hope that the discovery lives up to the highest expectations for it. The scientists involved have reportedly described the results of their work as a 'a major discovery'. If they're employing the caution appropriate to scientists, they must really have something!
Cosmic inflation, while it has had several of its predictions fulfilled, and answers several very difficult cosmological problems, is still viewed by many as lacking empirical support. Gravitational waves of the appropriate sort could be a powerful confirmation of inflation. They may also make it possible to better define the nature of this inflation, and the physical mechanism by which it occurred.
Well, one way or the other, we should know what they have in just over 24 hours.
http://www.space.com/25066-major-astrophysics-discovery-announcement-monday.html
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Message 1489758 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 16:32:29 UTC

I just reposted the link over at Einstein, they would be very interested.
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Message 1489849 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 21:14:20 UTC - in response to Message 1489758.  

I just reposted the link over at Einstein, they would be very interested.

So will this be the end of Einstein@home?
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Message 1489858 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 21:44:06 UTC - in response to Message 1489849.  
Last modified: 16 Mar 2014, 21:50:10 UTC

So will this be the end of Einstein@home?


From the little I know of this, I highly doubt it. These are indirectly detected waves from 13.8 billion years ago, whereas E@H is looking for direct detections of recent (well, cosmically) events in the hopes that wave events could be used as a sort of telescope to indicate phenomena.
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Message 1489881 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 22:39:37 UTC
Last modified: 16 Mar 2014, 22:44:28 UTC

Another article about the possibility of the discover of primordial gravitational waves, and what this could mean for cosmology. It does a good job of explaining the subject.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/Proof-of-inflationary-Universe-To-Be-Announced-Monday-250522521.html[/url]
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Message 1489910 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 0:45:50 UTC - in response to Message 1489881.  

Another article ...

"It will tell us something incredibly fundamental about what was happening when the universe was 10–34 seconds old,"

I'm confused, how can they time to 34 decimal places when time is not constant.
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Message 1489915 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 0:55:59 UTC - in response to Message 1489910.  

I'm confused, how can they time to 34 decimal places when time is not constant.


10^-34 seconds is the (extremely short) time after the Big Bang when gravity decoupled from the other three fundamental forces, being the weakest and most different. Grand Unification predicts that as energy increases the forces merge. This has been been confirmed experimentally so far for every force except gravity.
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Message 1490039 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 8:58:41 UTC - in response to Message 1489910.  

"I'm confused, how can they time to 34 decimal places when time is not constant."

Time is not constant?
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Message 1490042 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 9:04:32 UTC

AFAIK gravitational waves from the Big Bang should have huge wavelengths, which were the target of the LISA system, abandoned by NASA and mothballed by ESA. Einstein@hone and Albert@home, which I take part in, search for much smaller wavelengths.
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Message 1490093 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 13:29:09 UTC - in response to Message 1490039.  


Time is not constant?

No, time is affected by speed and gravity relative to the observer.
At least that is what my New Jersey homie said.


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Message 1490118 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 15:14:39 UTC

The linked article suggests that gravitational waves detected as faint relics of the 'big bang' may be relatively short in wavelength-- 3000 meters to, probably, 3 cm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave
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Message 1490127 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 15:38:38 UTC

Looking forward to hear about the discovery!
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Message 1490134 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 16:12:04 UTC

Here it is. Confirmed that the major discovery is the detection of gravitational waves connected to cosmic inflation. They spent several years checking their results to make sure it was what they thought it was. http://www.space.com/25078-universe-inflation-gravitational-waves-discovery.html
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Message 1490142 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 16:37:19 UTC - in response to Message 1490134.  
Last modified: 17 Mar 2014, 16:42:32 UTC

http://www.space.com/25078-universe-inflation-gravitational-waves-discovery.html


From the article:

A team led by John Kovac, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is announcing the results today (March 17), unveiling two manuscripts that have not yet been submitted to peer-reviewed journals.


Hrm. Well, I'm sure they did their homework a little more rigorously than, say, Fleischmann and Pons*. :^)
*(The cold fusion duo.)

Edit: Between the time I posted this and now, they already changed the wording; now says "...that have been submitted to the prestigious journal Nature."
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Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Major Astrophysics Discovery to be Announced on Monday


 
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