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A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Started by Tank, August 08, 2019, 09:27:41 AM

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Tank

The nature of the speed of light appears to determine the propagation of information through our reality. In this case the further away an object is the older it is. Thus if a galaxy is 2.5 million light years away we see it as (and where) it was 2.5 million years ago. So far so good, this is well understood.

However, the further away an object is the more the light from it is 'red shifted' due to the continued expansion of the Universe. What this means is that eventual the visible light from a galaxy becomes red shifted so far it drops out of the visible spectrum into the infra red spectrum which is invisible to human eyes, but not to our instrumentality. This means that the galaxies we can now see in the visible light spectrum were in the early Universe actually at the time incredibly bright and emitting in the high ultra violet spectrum. This also means that galaxies that were emitting in the visible spectrum in the early Universe can now only be seen in the infra red spectrum.

So what this research has done is looked for early galaxies in the infra red spectrum. And guess what; it's found way more than existing cosmological theories predict. Time to change the theories folks!

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Dark Lightning

The more bandwidth we open up to the sky, the more we find out what we don't know. Amazing, in a good way!

Icarus


Recusant

Much of the world may be swimming in the crapper, but for those of us who find cosmology and astronomy fascinating it's a joy to be living in these times. Thank you for posting that, Tank.

On a somewhat related note:

"Dark matter may be older than the Big Bang" | ScienceDaily

QuoteDark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang.

The study, published August 7 in Physical Review Letters, presents a new idea of how dark matter was born and how to identify it with astronomical observations.

"The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too," says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study's author.

While not much is known about its origins, astronomers have shown that dark matter plays a crucial role in the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Though not directly observable, scientists know dark matter exists by its gravitation effects on how visible matter moves and is distributed in space.

For a long time, researchers believed that dark matter must be a leftover substance from the Big Bang. Researchers have long sought this kind of dark matter, but so far all experimental searches have been unsuccessful.

"If dark matter were truly a remnant of the Big Bang, then in many cases researchers should have seen a direct signal of dark matter in different particle physics experiments already," says Tenkanen.

Using a new, simple mathematical framework, the study shows that dark matter may have been produced before the Big Bang during an era known as the cosmic inflation when space was expanding very rapidly. The rapid expansion is believed to lead to copious production of certain types of particles called scalars. So far, only one scalar particle has been discovered, the famous Higgs boson.

[Continues . . .]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Ecurb Noselrub

I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?

Davin

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 12, 2019, 08:18:22 PM
I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?
Imagine a line that represents entropy over time. There are small and large variations in the line. Each of those bumps are where space and time exist. One of the bigger amounts of chaos are our current universe. Things to the left of ours happened "before."

Check out Boltzmann's Brains.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Recusant

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 12, 2019, 08:18:22 PM
I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?

I admit I don't know anything about a hypothesised pre-Big Bang continuum, and thought that "cosmic inflation" was an epoch that is believed to have occurred after the Big Bang. Reading the opening part of the paper itself (before it becomes too dependant on equations I'm unable to decipher), I'm not sure that the author Tenkanen is actually proposing that cosmic inflation occurred before the Big Bang, while the press release does say that. However, "before the Big Bang" is unequivocally part of what he's writing about.

"Dark matter from scalar field fluctuations" | arXiv (PDF)
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: Davin on August 12, 2019, 09:38:54 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 12, 2019, 08:18:22 PM
I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?
Imagine a line that represents entropy over time. There are small and large variations in the line. Each of those bumps are where space and time exist. One of the bigger amounts of chaos are our current universe. Things to the left of ours happened "before."

Check out Boltzmann's Brains.

OK, thanks, but where does the "line" that represents entropy come from?  Has anyone measured anything that actually happened on the other side of the BB?  I thought Weinberg showed that nothing could be measured prior to a few microseconds after the BB, or has that been revised?

Davin

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 13, 2019, 03:42:04 PM
Quote from: Davin on August 12, 2019, 09:38:54 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 12, 2019, 08:18:22 PM
I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?
Imagine a line that represents entropy over time. There are small and large variations in the line. Each of those bumps are where space and time exist. One of the bigger amounts of chaos are our current universe. Things to the left of ours happened "before."

Check out Boltzmann's Brains.

OK, thanks, but where does the "line" that represents entropy come from?  Has anyone measured anything that actually happened on the other side of the BB?  I thought Weinberg showed that nothing could be measured prior to a few microseconds after the BB, or has that been revised?
I only had 50 words. It comes from representing a concept in a way that makes it easier for us humans to get a handle on it. The line doesn't exist except as a concept.

While we cannot measure anything going back to the start of the big bang, naturally excluding what can be measured before, we can always speculate based off of what we currently know. This article is talking about dark matter that might have existed prior to the big bang, which would align with Boltzmann's ideas on the matter of varying levels of chaos popping up out of an equilibrium.

All data and theories point to the universe going into an entropic state like that proposed by Boltzmann, but is that really the end of everything? We already see in many quantum models that things can "pop" into existence, the Boltzmann's Brains concept extrapolates from that observed phenomenon into what might happen if the universe were completely flat. It also speculates that it has happened to the universe before in possibly more and less complex ways.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: Davin on August 13, 2019, 05:53:42 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 13, 2019, 03:42:04 PM
Quote from: Davin on August 12, 2019, 09:38:54 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 12, 2019, 08:18:22 PM
I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?
Imagine a line that represents entropy over time. There are small and large variations in the line. Each of those bumps are where space and time exist. One of the bigger amounts of chaos are our current universe. Things to the left of ours happened "before."

Check out Boltzmann's Brains.

OK, thanks, but where does the "line" that represents entropy come from?  Has anyone measured anything that actually happened on the other side of the BB?  I thought Weinberg showed that nothing could be measured prior to a few microseconds after the BB, or has that been revised?
I only had 50 words. It comes from representing a concept in a way that makes it easier for us humans to get a handle on it. The line doesn't exist except as a concept.

While we cannot measure anything going back to the start of the big bang, naturally excluding what can be measured before, we can always speculate based off of what we currently know. This article is talking about dark matter that might have existed prior to the big bang, which would align with Boltzmann's ideas on the matter of varying levels of chaos popping up out of an equilibrium.

All data and theories point to the universe going into an entropic state like that proposed by Boltzmann, but is that really the end of everything? We already see in many quantum models that things can "pop" into existence, the Boltzmann's Brains concept extrapolates from that observed phenomenon into what might happen if the universe were completely flat. It also speculates that it has happened to the universe before in possibly more and less complex ways.

OK, thanks. The 50 word limit is waived.

Magdalena


"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

Davin

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 13, 2019, 06:02:35 PM
Quote from: Davin on August 13, 2019, 05:53:42 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 13, 2019, 03:42:04 PM
Quote from: Davin on August 12, 2019, 09:38:54 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on August 12, 2019, 08:18:22 PM
I'm confused by the phrase "before the Big Bang."  I thought that everything - space and matter - was all in an infinitely small and infinitely dense state prior to the BB.  I don't understand how something like dark matter existed apart from this, or how space could be inflating before this.  Care to explain in 50 words or less?
Imagine a line that represents entropy over time. There are small and large variations in the line. Each of those bumps are where space and time exist. One of the bigger amounts of chaos are our current universe. Things to the left of ours happened "before."

Check out Boltzmann's Brains.

OK, thanks, but where does the "line" that represents entropy come from?  Has anyone measured anything that actually happened on the other side of the BB?  I thought Weinberg showed that nothing could be measured prior to a few microseconds after the BB, or has that been revised?
I only had 50 words. It comes from representing a concept in a way that makes it easier for us humans to get a handle on it. The line doesn't exist except as a concept.

While we cannot measure anything going back to the start of the big bang, naturally excluding what can be measured before, we can always speculate based off of what we currently know. This article is talking about dark matter that might have existed prior to the big bang, which would align with Boltzmann's ideas on the matter of varying levels of chaos popping up out of an equilibrium.

All data and theories point to the universe going into an entropic state like that proposed by Boltzmann, but is that really the end of everything? We already see in many quantum models that things can "pop" into existence, the Boltzmann's Brains concept extrapolates from that observed phenomenon into what might happen if the universe were completely flat. It also speculates that it has happened to the universe before in possibly more and less complex ways.

OK, thanks. The 50 word limit is waived.
So the line is... well imagine the universe after 16 billion years after the heat death. Does time exist in this state when there is no matter and there are no reactions? I don't think that time is a useful thing in that "future" universe. Besides, nothing we have can possibly even measure time in such a universe.

For the sake of discussion, let's pretend that we have a watch that exists and works outside of time and space as we know it. After some time in that state (with no way to measure time), some chaos blips up that is consistent with quantum models. Sometimes there's a huge chain reaction but most times there's not. But in each blip from little to large to extremely huge to bigger than 15 billion light years, time and space exists.

There is an eternity to work with so it could be trillions of years between meaningful blips of chaos. Some blips spike up and resolve in seconds or some like our current expanse could last for tens of billions of years.

So imagine that with our magic watch, we have a magical device that measures the level of chaos and entropy. From zero chaos, like the heat death of the universe, to our current universe. As eternity rolls by, over trillions of years, the line goes from zero to billions and back down to zero again. That is the line.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.