OT: Major Space Discovery
The Board discussed this last week (HERE).
Researchers believe they discovered the signal in space that must have occurred just fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
The New York Times has an in-depth piece about the theory and the BICEP2 team on the South Pole "seeing" the radio waves dating 13.8 billion years ago.
Dr. Alan Guth is credited with the theory of "inflation," which explains why the universe expanded so quickly and uniformly. The idea that the cosmos experienced an exponential growth spurt in its first trillionth, of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second would seem to be confirmed by this discovery.
March 17th, 2014 at 11:30 PM ^
March 18th, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^
Science at its purest form has no practical application. It is just discovery for the purpose of satiating our curiosity.
Passing a wire through a magnetic field resulting in a current used to be a bar trick by Ol' Man Faraday. Its kinda important now.
Engineering is the practical application of science.
I recommend StarTalk with Neil Degrasse Tyson.
March 18th, 2014 at 12:01 AM ^
It may not be sexy or cool, it may not even be inspiring. But it is valuable, and it is important, in ways we cannot possibly imagine.
March 17th, 2014 at 11:25 PM ^
"Knowledge is good."
--A.J. Faber
March 17th, 2014 at 11:28 PM ^
On a very practical basis, advances in the understanding of physics can and will have multiple and unknown applications. We just don't know what they are as we watch a basketball tournament in 2014. Nuclear medicine? Nuclear fusion as an infinite energy supply? Could be anything. Plus, it's just cool.
Science!
March 18th, 2014 at 10:04 AM ^
There are only theories and there is no way to know for sure how it was formed.
I don't think you understand what theory means in the context of a scientific theory versus layman's use of the term.
Well shit then.
Cool. Maybe now we can land a man on the moon for real.
No politics.
NO CONSPIRACY THEORIES.
It's not a theory. BigJim24 from Cosmoquest Forum has scientifically proven that the landings were faked.
Apparently my wife subscribes to BigJim24's newsletter as she is in the camp of those who dont believe we've actually gone to the moon.
And to think, those people share our valuable resources. Shame.
"Oxygen thieves".
I'm not a physicist, but last I heard, the existence of gravitation waves is the last aspect of Einstein's theory of general relativity that remains unconfirmed. So this discovery may have fixed that.
Good summary of the implications of this discovery, in more or less straigh forward language:
Its direct proof about what happened during the big bang and inflation, The Inflationary theory of the Big Bang has been around for ~30 years, and has a good deal of indirect evidence to back it up. This discovery directly confirms our current model as the correct model, and quashes a lot of possible competing theories. Its very similar to the Higgs Boson in that regards.
What this means, is that it limits the possibilities for what a theory of Quantum Gravity and a Theory of Everything look like and further allows theorist to focus their research. It also provides experimental data for those researcher to use to hone their models.
Edit: It also means that Dark Energy is real. Not what it is, only that it exists.
I actually get depressed reading stuff like this because it makes me realize how little I'll ever be able to understand about the mysteries of the universe.
Here, let me direct you to a Kate Upton thread:
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/ot-happy-fun-times-day-mgoblog-cure-kate-up…
That just makes me depressed about how little I'll ever be able to understand about women.
Here, let me point you to a Channing Tatum thread...
I feel your disappointment. I was hoping they discovered an organic molecule on Ganymede that would reverse male pattern baldness, cure knee arthritis, and make me irresistible to Salma Hayek.
Now, this astrophysics stuff is seriously exciting, perhaps one of the great discoveries, if it survives peer review, many of us will experience in our lifetime.
And while we are all jumping up and down, if Kate Upton walked into the room, big bang would have a very different meaning and direction, and inflation theory would...you know.
It was confirmed to 5-sigma (5 standard deviations) , so there's a 99.9999426697% chance of it being correct. I'll take those odds.
So you're saying there's a chance?
There's always a chance. There's a chane I'll sleep with Kate Upton tomorrow. I wouldn't put my money on it though... *sigh*
No need for a link. It's just above the "Erections in Spokane" thread and a few below "The Pornstar thread." If you hit "The man with the 132-pound scrotum has died" thread, you've gone too far.
Don't forget about the "Bump when your wife is a b***h" thread.
March 17th, 2014 at 11:34 PM ^
Kinda what I was thinking. What other passionate sports blog in the country would have this kind of discussion? Yay us!
As I understand it, this still does not explain why so many people find the show The Big Bang Theory funny. I assume our best minds are still trying to figure that one out.
Can we not go there again? There's lots of shows out there some find funny that others don't and vice versa. This is a dead topic and serves no purpose.
Yea but his comment was pretty funny! (Unlike that damn...oh sorry, nevermind)
I happen to find the show funny. Doesn't mean everyone does, and that's fine. I think I'm regarded as one of the funnier posters on here, but hey...not everyone needs to have the same sense of humor I do. I'm sure there's other comedies out there that some find funny that I don't, and that's fine too.
Its just dumb to have this fight over and over and over....
So not we're just left to answer what, or who, created the Big Bang?
I think that was John Smith. The Mormon guy, not the Pocahontas guy.
Wait, I thought it was John L. Smith. The hot piss he harps about is really a reference to the hot, dense state the universe was in immediately after the Big Bang.
a race of giant space ants is on their way to Earth and will soon enslave us all in their sugar caves.
It's never a bad time to stress that I welcome our new Ant Overlords.
I kid. Pretty cool discovery. Of all the tiny pieces that came from the bang, I'm glad I'm riding on this one.
I don't believe anything about space unless it comes from the mouth of Elon Musk.
I like astrophysics far more than I understand it. Does any know if this discovery could change the age of the universe? I know it was touched on in another post, but what I'm wondering is if this discovery will change how the age of the universe is calculated.