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----------------- - 1728 - Measuring the Universe.
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- Looking at the big picture. As big as it gets. The Universe has a diameter of 2 * 10^58 meters, that is 2*10^44 lightyears. But, the Observable Universe is only 27*10^9 lightyears in diameter and light has been traveling 13.4 *10^9 years. These dimensions assume that the Universe is geometrically flat, on average, light travels in a straight line. Of course, we know it bends around cosmic gravity wells, but on average it‘s straight.
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- If astronomers look in opposite directions they see 13.4 billion light years each way. The light from one side has not had enough time to reach the other side that is 27 billion lightyears away.
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- We can say the Universe appears flat. But, mathematically a perfectly flat universe is very unlikely, in fact, practically impossible. It would be like balancing a pencil on its point. The slightest disturbance and it falls in one direction or another. So, a geometry for the Universe must be slightly curved like a saddle, ( an open geometry ), or, curved like the surface of a sphere, ( a closed geometry ).
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- A mathematical explanation developed by Alan Guth is that the Universe experienced a spontaneous symmetry breaking” in the first seconds after the Big Bang and expanded for a short period of time, an enormous expansion faster than the speed of light. He called the event “ Cosmic Inflation.”
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- The cosmic inflation event is thought to have occurred when a unified Universal Force separated into two fundamental forces, the electromagnetic force and the nuclear weak force.
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- If this event occurred the math says the size of the Universe expanded 25 orders of magnitude in 10^-36 seconds. This extreme expansion could explain why the Observable Universe appears flat and the same in all directions.
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- Cosmic Inflation is a theory that needs more evidence. The Theory of Relativity in 1915 implied the existence of a gravitational field that was a distortion of the cosmic fabric of space and time. A time varying source of energy would appear as a time varying distortion, or wave, propagating at the speed of light. We call these distortions gravitational waves.
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- Gravity is so weak compared to electromagnetism these waves become very difficult to detect. The theory developed to do the job is “Quantum Field Theory” which attempts to unify ( combine) Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity. At very small scales all ’Fields” are fluctuating, vibrating, including the gravitational field. At the quantum level all particles are waves and all waves are defined by a spectrum of probabilities that are in constant flux.
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- Due to Cosmic Inflation any small fluctuations in fields would expand to large wavelengths. Just as Gamma Ray light at 380,000 years after the Big Bang is stretched to microwave wavelengths today in the Cosmic Microwave Background, CMB. This event was when the Universe was first made transparent to light. Prior to that the charges of particles in the hot plasma contained all the photons of light preventing them from escaping
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- That makes the CMB the oldest visible light in the Universe. At the time, the light might have been “polarized “ by the electric charges in the plasma. A special distortion produced by gravitational waves could cause the CMB to have a greater amplitude along one axis than along the perpendicular axis. That’s called “ polarization”.
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- A difficulty comes in play in measuring polarization of caused by gravity waves because other conditions could cause the same thing, like underlying temperature fluctuations , or polarized dust, for example. Besides the difficulty research continues because gravitational waves interact so weakly with matter they have traveled unimpeded from the beginning of time. All the way back to 10^-36 seconds old. If we could study these early times using gravity waves that would be a great scientific achievement.
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- The Cosmos is a field that stores and releases tremendous amounts of energy during a phase transition. A phase transition is like water suddenly turning in to ice at 32 F. The Multiverse Theory is that the phase transition events could have occurred countless times. Then our Universe is one of an infinite number of separate, physically different universes.
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- In our case, life is here simply by accident having an infinite number of possibilities and ours just right with “ finely tuned” parameters allowing us to be here. If the universe were any different I could not be writing this and you could not be reading it. God only know how this all happened.
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- (1) 9.4605 * 10^15 meters in one lightyear.
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--- 707-536-3272 ---------------------- Tuesday, January 20, 2015 ---
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