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-1586 - Measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background . The density waves in the radiation tell us much about the structure and composition of the Universe.
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- All frequencies of light enter our sky. On a clear day, no clouds, the entire hemisphere of sky above us is blue. That happens to be the frequency of light, with the right size wavelength, to bounce off the molecules in the air. More blue scatters in the air than any other color. At sunset we see more red scattering because the light travels through more air and the red colors start to come out.
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- If your eyes were sensitive to microwave frequencies and you were above the atmosphere the sky would have a similar background color over the entire sphere. If we translate this microwave frequency to a visible light frequency we could make it a cold light blue color that would be homogeneous in all directions. The color of this background would be 2.735 degrees Kelvin.
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- If your eyes were not only sensitive to microwave frequencies but super sensitive to distinguish a variation of 1/100,000 degree Kelvin then the background color would not be homogeneous light blue. It would be lumpy. It would have red hot spots that were 2.735001 degree Kelvin and cold blue spots that were 2.734999 degree Kelvin. I know, 1/100,000 of a degree hot to cold seems silly. It is still cold. But, the lumpy pattern of red spots and blue spots tells us something.
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- This light left the Big Bang 370,000 years after the Big Bang started. That is the moment in the expansion of the Universe that neutral atoms of hydrogen first formed and photons of light could escape the hot charged plasma. The temperature was 3,000 degree Kelvin. These photons have traveled for 13.7 billion years. They have cooled from 3,000 Kelvin to just about 3 Kelvin. They have lost energy. They started out as Gamma Rays of energy and are now reaching us as Microwaves of energy. Visible light has as an energy level of from ½ to 1 electron volt. This microwave light energy is much less than 0.00003 electron volts.
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- The spots cover the entire surface of the sphere. They represent sound waves and density waves that created more dense regions and more rarified regions of gas in the Big Bang plasma. These sound waves tell as story like the strings on a violin. The wavelength of the sound waves represent a fundamental frequency and a series of harmonic frequencies that tell us about the composition of the Universe. How did it get from those density waves to the galaxies and clusters of galaxies and empty voids of space that we see today.
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- After 13.7 billion years the hot spots coalesced into galaxies. The cold spots expanded into voids or bubbles of rarified space. The expansion of the Universe was trying to spread every thing apart. The Gravity in the Universe was trying to collapse everything together. It was a tug of war. Who was going to win?
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- The hot spots are the peaks of the density waves. They represent a half wavelength or greater density amplitude. The cold spots, the other half of the density wavelength. It took 13.7 billion years for the photons to reach us but during that time the Universe has expanded so today they have traveled 45 billion light years of space. Space has been expanding over their entire journey. That is why their wavelengths have stretched into the microwave wavelengths. The wavelengths of light have been stretched from 0.1 nanometers to 10,000,000 nanometers. (0.01 meters).
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- When we say the hot spots are denser regions. It is all relative. The densities are very small amount of mass, 10^-29 grams per cubic centimeter. This is very, very small and just slightly less than the “ critical density” to balance the expansion of the Universe against the collapse of the Universe due to gravity. This density makes the geometry of the Universe not perfectly “ flat”. The geometry is very slightly “ saddle shaped”. This shape means that the expansion of the Universe will accelerate over time. In fact it will expand at an ever increasing rate.
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- This tells astronomers that Dark Energy of expansion is more dominate than the attractive force of Gravity. For sure, by now, everyone has seen a picture of the Cosmic Microwave Background. It is that wrap around , oblong sphere with the blue, red and yellow spots across the surface. This review attempts to measure how big are those spots? They represent the wavelength of the density waves in the Universe. Can we measure the size of the waves?
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- Astronomers start with an image. They frame a picture of the CMB radiation that is 6.3 inches on a side. A square 16 centimeters on a side. That length represents 45 arc degrees across the sky.
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- Then the astronomers measure the size of the red flecks in the image. The average diameter of the red spots is ½ millimeter. How many degrees is the average red fleck. Remember each red fleck is a hot spot that is ½ wavelength of the sound wave, that is 1/100,000 of a temperature variation over the average 2.735 Kelvin.
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------------------ 45 degrees / 0.14 degrees = 16 centimeters / 0.5 millimeters.
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------------------ 0.14 arc degrees is the average half wavelength. The Full Moon is 0.5 arc degrees.
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----------------- 0.14 / 0.5 28% the size of the Full Moon.
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- 0.14 degrees is ( 0.14 * 3600) 504 arc seconds. At the distance of this “surface” is from Earth the scale is 224 lightyears per arc second. 504 arc seconds represents 113,000 lightyears. Our Milky Way Galaxy is 114,000 lightyears across. Therefore, each hot spot density wave is the size of a large galaxy.
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- To learn more of how this information lead to our understanding of the structure and composition of the Universe request Reviews #1305, #823 and # 757. The harder the learning the better you remember it. The easier the learning the sooner you forget it.
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RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Monday, April 8, 2013
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