Cosmologists have shown that the Universe began in a hot, dense, and featureless state about 13.7 billion years ago. The Universe we observe today, however, is rich with structures such as galaxies, the product of billions of years of expansion, cooling, and gravity.
The era between 380,000 and 100 million years after “the Big Bang” is called the cosmic dark ages; a time before the first stars formed to light up the Universe. Between 100 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang, primordial gas collapsed gravitationally into galaxies, where it cooled and compressed enough to form the first stars, ending the dark ages. Light from these first galaxies ripped apart (“re-ionized”) and heated hydrogen atoms in the inter-galactic gas that filled the Universe. This “feedback” impacted future galaxy and star formation and left observable imprints which astronomers are just now beginning to detect. Understanding this epoch of reionization and first light is a key goal in Cosmology and Astrophysics.
Credit: H. Ford (JHU/STScI), the Faint Object Spectrograph IDT, and NASAImage Credit: European Space Agency & NASA Acknowledgment: E. Olszewski (University of Arizona)
I had blogged often on this subject and had posted the different Levels of existence with latest developments .
Now comes more information from Live science.
‘So if you look far enough, you would encounter another version of you — in fact, infinite versions of you. Some of these twins will be doing exactly what you’re doing now, while others will have worn a different sweater this morning, and still others will have made vastly different career and life choices.
Because the observable universe extends only as far as light has had a chance to get in the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang (that would be 13.7 billion light-years), the space-time beyond that distance can be considered to be its own separate universe. In this way, a multitude of universes exists next to each other in a giant patchwork quilt of universes. [Visualizations of Infinity: A Gallery]
In addition to the multiple universes created by infinitely extending space-time, other universes could arise from a theory called “eternal inflation.” Inflation is the notion that the universe expanded rapidly after the Big Bang, in effect inflating like a balloon. Eternal inflation, first proposed by Tufts University cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, suggests that some pockets of space stop inflating, while other regions continue to inflate, thus giving rise to many isolated “bubble universes.”
Thus, our own universe, where inflation has ended, allowing stars and galaxies to form, is but a small bubble in a vast sea of space, some of which is still inflating, that contains many other bubbles like ours. And in some of these bubble universes, the laws of physics and fundamental constants might be different than in ours, making some universes strange places indeed.
Another idea that arises from string theory is the notion of “braneworlds” — parallel universes that hover just out of reach of our own, proposed by Princeton University’sPaul Steinhardt and Neil Turok of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada. The idea comes from the possibility of many more dimensions to our world than the three of space and one of time that we know. In addition to our own three-dimensional “brane” of space, other three-dimensional branes may float in a higher-dimensional space…
“A mathematical structure is something that you can describe in a way that’s completely independent of human baggage,” said Max Tegmark of MIT, who proposed this brain-twistin gidea. “I really believe that there is this universe out there that can exist independently of me that would continue to exist even if there were no humans.”…(livescience)
The sky holds many wonders, such as stars, galaxies, supernovas, neutron stars and black holes, but now scientists claim it could hold something potentially more extraordinary — hints of an earlier universe, or even other universes.
However, a number of other researchers dispute these findings as evidence for past and other universes, suggesting that it could be easy to see something that isn’t there in the data.
Time in Indian philosophy is an Attribute of Reality, so is Space.
The Cyclic Theory of Time overcomes the Non Linear Theory of Time in that there is no seeming contradiction in comprehending different time scales.
to illustrate,; you take a snap of an action, say a cricket match with two different cameras, one with a higher speed and another with ultra slow speed.
If a catch has been under dispute, the ultra slow motion camera will show the exact action, that is, whether the catch has been taken cleanly by the fielder.
Time Zones differ.Let us leave the explanation or justification for the change in Time zones. The fact is, one in a particular Time zone can only visualize or imagine the reality of the other T Timezone , nothing more. From the individual standpoint, the time zone in which he is placed is the Reality and the other time zones are not experienced by him directly at the given point of Time. We go with the statement of others that other time zones exist because people who live in the other zones vouch for it. But we do not perceive it by ourselves.
From the explanation of Big Bang theory, we know the universe was formed at the time of Big Bang and started moving forward or started evolving.
Is it logical to say that when we can not comprehend or explain concept, the concept is irrelevant?
What if it has a frame of reference of time than the one understood by us?
We can see clearly that we link Time with Motion. Displacement is observed due to change in Time Frame.
Time is understood by displacement. It means that we perceive Time because of a displacement of object, be it the universe or the hands of a clock. This Circular Reasoning is a logical fallacy. (As we say commonly. egg came from the Hen and Hen came from the egg.
We can not arrive at a conclusion).
To quote another famous example;
if we travel in a train traveling at a particular speed and observe a train moving at the same speed in the same direction, you will observe that you are stationary as the other train.
But you will have covered some distance. In this case motion seems to be at rest while space has been observed. By this example we can say space may exist independently of Time.
But when we follow the concept of Big bang, time is intricately connected with Space and in fact is concomitant with Time.
Another example from Xeno’s Paradoxes:
1. Let us keep the distance from Bangalore to Chennai at 300 miles (for calculation purposes.)
If we travel at the rate of 300 miles per hour, we will reach Chennai in an hour; at 600 miles per hour, 30 minutes; at 1200 miles per hour in 15 minutes; at 2400 miles per hour, in 7.5 minutes; at 3600 miles per hour, in 3.75 minutes, at 7200 miles, in 1.8 minutes; at 14400 miles, in .9 minutes. At this rate, we would have reached Chennai before we left Bangalore!
2. Let an object X travel between A and B.X has to cover half the distance of AB before reaching B, we may call this as C;
X before reaching C, should cover half the distance of AC, say D; to reach D, X has to cover half the distance of AD, say E.
We know that Space is infinitely divisible.
That means X will be traveling infinitely, that is, motion is impossible.
When we speak of Pole star being 400 light years away, we can only say that it existed 400 years ago, because the light left Pole star 400 years ago! We can not say it is there now because we see in the sky today.
The long and short of it is that defining Time is very difficult and is in fact impossible.
Latest findings on Black hole suggest that if you go through a black hole, time runs backwards. If by chance, we were to be in Black hole, will we perceive our present universe as flowing forwards in Time?
““In our everyday lives we have the sense that time flows inexorably from the past into the future; water flows downhill; mountains erode; we are born, grow old, and die; we anticipate the future but remember the past,” the scientists write in a recent study in Physical Review Letters. “Yet almost all of the fundamental theories of physics – classical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, general relativity, and so on – are symmetric with respect to time reversal. “The only fundamental theory that picks out a preferred direction of time is the second law of thermodynamics, which asserts that the entropy of the Universe increases as time flows toward the future. This provides an orientation, or arrow of time, and it is generally believed that all other time asymmetries, such as our sense that future and past are different, are a direct consequence of this thermodynamic arrow.” In their study, Feng and Crooks have developed a method to accurately measure “time asymmetry” (which refers to our intuitive concept of time, that the past differs from the future, in contrast with time symmetry, where there is no distinction between past and future). They began by investigating the increase in energy dissipation, or entropy, in various arrangements. The scientists’ method of measuring time asymmetry is best explained in the context of an experiment. In the macroscopic world, where glasses of milk are spilled, time asymmetry is obvious. But on the microscopic scale, because the amount of energy involved is so small, it’s more difficult to tell that entropy is increasing, and that time is moving forward and not backward. In fact, during some intervals, entropy might actually decrease. So even though overall entropy is still increasing on average, in accordance with the second law, the direction of time is not obvious at every moment in the experiment. Further, the scientists show that even an average entropy increase does not necessarily ensure time asymmetry, but can arise in an arrangement that appears time-symmetric.”
“Time flows like a river but what is flowing? In a new theory it is the forward momentum of light that forms the forward flow of time. Because the Universe is never at absolute zero everything is radiating light waves of EMR continuously. If our eyes were more sensitive to the light we would be able to see this universal process. This process is totally universal and interactive; from the largest object to the smallest creature will slow the rate that time flows forming a curvature of spacetime relative to its own energy forming the future of its own evolutionary path. We have a universal process of spherical 4π symmetry forming and breaking that forms the spiral of life as time unfolds photon by photon or moment by moment.”
I read an edit in the Times of India a couple of days ago that the name God particle was given by a Pulp fiction writer.
Now the scientists are over cloud nine for discovering the Higgs Boson or God particle was found by using LHC.
They are 99.9996% certain.
An example of simulated data modelled for the CMS particle detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Here, following a collision of two protons, a is produced which decays into two jets of hadrons and two electrons. The lines represent the possible paths of particles produced by the proton-proton collision in the detector while the energy these particles deposit is shown in blue. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Why not 100%?
What exactly is this God particle about?
To a layman like me. it appears that it is like a glue or adhesive that binds the atoms/its constituents.
These atomic particles can not be bound without a binding a Force.
This is what the great scientists have found.
What a great find?
My grand son often tells me that he needs a glue to paste two broken pieces of a toy car.( he is three years old)
Now they tell me that this’ find’ can help them resolve the issues of factors just preceding the Big Bang.
This find , they say will tell them how the wandering particles, just after the Big Bang came together!
Great Minds!
Viva la Science!
Now, is all this spin about mass fit for mass consumption? It’s fine to say an invisible energy field helps bind infinitesimal entities. Any atom-smashing show starring the Higgs – or its debutant lookalike – will still need a macro-sales pitch to excite the masses. The latter’s opiate, it’s rumoured, is religion. No wonder science chose to name its Holy Grail the “God particle”. Talk about the universal Big Boss, and it creates a Big Bang in the minds of every Tom, Dick and Hari. It’s elementary, my dear what’s-your-name.
The Higgs boson, when confirmed, would complete the Standard Model of particle physics, which describes quirky characters like quarks. Regrettably, ordinary folks might mistake ‘standard model’ for an auto expo exhibit. To interest everybody, science must stop laymen from saying ‘Duh?’ One way is to make a thriller out of its quests. It already entices with use of terms like ‘dark matter” – so thrillingly evocative of Darth Vader – and “black holes”, which must surely be less perilous than our municipally neglected open manholes. Mystery sells. Maybe that’s why boson-chasers keep us on tenterhooks. It’s been a riveting case of now-you-see-Higgs, now-you-don’t.
So, have they seen it? Don’t spoil the suspense by demanding snappy answers to fundamental questions. Instead, hail science that’s up, close and accessible. That CERN researchers have kept society informed, via media, of collisions, emissions and omissions, shows they want to be seen as committed and accountable. What’s the empiricalproof they’re doing their bit to popularise and demystify science? Well, aren’t we common folks discussing bosons instead of Botox?
The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted in 1964 to explain the Higgs mechanism (sometimes termed in the literature the Brout–Englert–Higgs, BEH or Brout–Englert–Higgs–Hagen–Guralnik–Kibble mechanism after its original proposers[7])—the mechanism by which elementary particles are given mass.[Note 2] While the Higgs mechanism is considered confirmed to exist, the boson itself—a cornerstone of the leading theory—had not been observed and its existence was unconfirmed. Its tentative discovery in July 2012 may validate the Standard Model as essentially correct, as it is the final elementary particle predicted and required by the Standard Model which had not yet been observed via particle physics experiments.[8] Alternative sources of the Higgs mechanism that do not need the Higgs boson also are possible and would be considered if the existence of the Higgs boson were to be ruled out. They are known as Higgsless models.
Technically, it is the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, and the non-zero value of the ground state of this field, that give mass to the other elementary particles, such as quarks and electrons. The Standard Model completely fixes the properties of the Higgs boson, except for its mass. It is expected to have no spin and no electric or colour charge, and it interacts with other particles through the weak interaction and Yukawa-type interactions between the various fermions and the Higgs field.
Because the Higgs boson is a very massive particle and decays almost immediately when created, only a very high-energy particle accelerator can observe and record it. Experiments to confirm and determine the nature of the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN began in early 2010, and were performed at Fermilab‘s Tevatron until its close in late 2011. Mathematical consistency of the Standard Model requires that any mechanism capable of generating the masses of elementary particles become visible at energies above 1.4 TeV;[9] therefore, the LHC (designed to collide two 7 TeV proton beams, but currently running at 4 TeV each) was built to answer the question of whether or not the Higgs boson exists.[10]
On 4 July 2012, the two main experiments at the LHC (ATLAS and CMS) both reported independently the confirmed existence of a previously unknown particle with a mass of about 125 GeV/c2(about 133 proton masses, on the order of 10−25 kg), which is “consistent with the Higgs boson” and widely believed to be the Higgs boson. They cautioned that further work would be needed to confirm that it is indeed the Higgs boson (meaning that it has the theoretically predicted properties of the Higgs boson and is not some other previously unknown particle) and, if so, to determine which version of the Standard Model it best supports.[1][2][3][11][12]
Please read my blog on ‘TIME-a Non Linear Theory’ to know of the full implications.
Past Universe with Microwave background.
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Stephen Hawking has said: “We should look for evidence of a collision with another universe in our distant Past.” Some experts believe that what we call the universe may only be one of many. Is there any conceivable way that we could ever detect and study other universes if they exist? Is it even falsifiable?
This was a key question Hawking was was asked in an interview with the BBC. “Our best bet for a theory of everything is M-theory –an extension of string theory,” Hawking continued. “One prediction of M-theory is that there are many different universes, with different values for the physical constants. This might explain why the physical constants we measure seem fine-tuned to the values required for life to exist.”It is no surprise that we observe the physical constants to be finely-tuned. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to observe them. One way of testing the theory that we may be one of many universes would be to look for features in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) which would indicate the collision of another universe with ours in the distant past.The circular patterns within the cosmic microwave background shown above suggest that space and time did not come into being at the Big Bang but that our universe in fact continually cycles through a series of “aeons,” according to University of Oxford theoretical physicist Roger Penrose, who says that data collected by NASA’s WMAP satellite supports his idea of “conformal cyclic cosmology”.
Penrose made the sensational claim that he had glimpsed a signal originating from before the Big Bang working with Vahe Gurzadyn of the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia. Penrose came to this conclusion after analyzing maps from the Wilkinson Anisotropy Probe.
These maps reveal the cosmic microwave background, believed to have been created just 300,000 years after the Big Bang and offering clues to the conditions at that time. Penrose’s finding runs directly counter to the widely accepted inflationary model of cosmology which states that the universe started from a point of infinite density known as the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago, expanded extremely rapidly for a fraction of a second and has continued to expand much more slowly ever since, during which time stars, planets and ultimately humans have emerged.
That expansion is now believed to be accelerating due to a scientific X factor called dark energy and is expected to result in a cold, uniform, featureless universe. Penrose, however, reportsPhysics World, takes issue with the inflationary picture “and in particular believes it cannot account for the very low entropy state in which the universe was believed to have been born – an extremely high degree of order that made complex matter possible. He does not believe that space and time came into existence at the moment of the Big Bang but that the Big Bang was in fact just one in a series of many, with each big bang marking the start of a new “aeon” in the history of the universe.”
The core concept in Penrose’s theory is the idea that in the very distant future the universe will in one sense become very similar to how it was at the Big Bang. Penrose says that “at these points the shape, or geometry, of the universe was and will be very smooth, in contrast to its current very jagged form. This continuity of shape, he maintains, will allow a transition from the end of the current aeon, when the universe will have expanded to become infinitely large, to the start of the next, when it once again becomes infinitesimally small and explodes outwards from the next big bang.
Crucially, he says, the entropy at this transition stage will be extremely low, because black holes, which destroy all information that they suck in, evaporate as the universe expands and in so doing remove entropy from the universe.”
The foundation for Penrose’s theory is found in the cosmic microwave background, the all-pervasive microwave radiation that was believed to have been created when the universe was just 300,000 years old and which tells us what conditions were like at that time. The evidence was obtained by Vahe Gurzadyan of the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia, who analysed seven years’ worth of microwave data from WMAP, as well as data from the BOOMERanG balloon experiment in Antarctica.
Penrose and Gurzadyan say they have clearly identified concentric circles within the data – regions in the microwave sky in which the range of the radiation’s temperature is markedly smaller than elsewhere. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation is the remnant heat from the Big Bang. This radiation pervades the universe and, if we could see in microwaves, it would appear as a nearly uniform glow across the entire sky.
However, when we measure this radiation very carefully we can discern extremely faint variations in the brightness from point to point across the sky, called “anisotropy”. These variations encode a great deal of information about the properties of our universe, such as its age and content. The “Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe” (WMAP) mission has measured these variations and found that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, and it consists of 4.6% atoms, 23% dark matter, and 72% dark energy.
According to Penrose and Gurzadyan, as described in arXiv: 1011.3706, these circles allow us to “see through” the Big Bang into the aeon that would have existed beforehand. They are the visible signature left in our aeon by the spherical ripples of gravitational waves that were generated when black holes collided in the previous aeon.
The “Penrose circles” pose a huge challenge to inflationary theory because this theory says that the distribution of temperature variations across the sky should be Gaussian, or random, rather than having discernable structures within it.
Julian Barbour, a visiting professor of physics at the University of Oxford in an interview with Physics World, says that these circles would be “remarkable if real and sensational if they confirm Penrose’s theory”. They would “overthrow the standard inflationary picture”, which, he adds, has become widely accepted as scientific fact by many cosmologists. But he believes that the result will be “very controversial” and that other researchers will look at the data very critically. He says there are many disputable aspects to the theory, including the abrupt shift of scale between aeons and the assumption, central to the theory, that all particles will become massless in the very distant future.
He points out, for example, that there is no evidence that electrons decay. Penrose and colleague Gurzadyn have answered the numerous critics who say that the circles do not contradict the standard model of cosmology in follow up paper, published on arXiv. In the short article, they agree that the presence of circles in the CMB does not contradict the standard model of cosmology.
However, the existence of “concentric families” of circles, they argue, cannot be explained as a purely random effect given the pure Gaussian nature of their original analysis. “It is, however a clear prediction of conformal cyclic cosmology,” reports Physics World.
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