The Big Bang theory is not, as some GOPers think, the culmination of Sex Week in colleges across the nation. It is the theory of how our universe underwent an unimaginably huge expansion that exceeded the speed of light for a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of what we call a second.
For decades, evidence for the Big Bang seemed to be missing, until some extremely smart and careful American scientists finished doing some pretty heavy lifting using their Bicep. Bicep2, actually. Dr. John Kovac was the strong-armed man in this quest.
If corroborated, Dr. Kovac’s work will stand as a landmark in science comparable to the recent discovery of dark energy pushing the universe apart, or of the Big Bang itself. It would open vast realms of time and space and energy to science and speculation.
Confirming inflation would mean that the universe we see, extending 14 billion light-years in space with its hundreds of billions of galaxies, is only an infinitesimal patch in a larger cosmos whose extent, architecture and fate are unknowable. Moreover, beyond our own universe there might be an endless number of other universes bubbling into frothy eternity, like a pot of pasta water boiling over.
In our own universe, it would serve as a window into the forces operating at energies forever beyond the reach of particle accelerators on Earth and yield new insights into gravity itself. Dr. Kovac’s ripples would be the first direct observation of gravitational waves, which, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, should ruffle space-time.Big Bang confirmed
BICEP, aka the more tongue twisty version, Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization, confirms that antigravity existed at the earliest stages of the Universe, causing the hyperinflation.
Considering that the discoverers of the universe's background radiation, the white noise that permeates all space, won the Nobel Prize, today's scientists involved in this discovery are likely to win one, too.
This finding proves several things.
1. Our universe truly is 14 BILLION years old. (and our sad, sick, self-damaged, and aching wet rock is less than 1/3 as old)
2. There was a big bang that started off this universe.
3. Gravity waves (actually, it sometimes stands up and hollers, but it waves, too)
4. A multiverse may be our reality
On the Cosmic scorecard, we have the following:
Science Religion
Gravity God's Will
Electromagnetism Jesus Power
Weak Nuclear Force The Bible
Strong Nuclear Force The Bible
Evolution Cretinism
14,000,000,000 years 7,019 years
Medicine Faith healing
DNA God's little helpers
Dark Energy Satan
Statistics Prayer
It is fitting that the new Cosmos is airing these days. I suspect that Neil might add this finding to an upcoming show.
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This finding is awesome in a way that redefines awesome. Last weekend, I was lucky enough see something that also bends your mind, but on a totally different scale. The Orchid.
Chicago Botanic Society, a Highland Park center not far from Ravinia, had its annual Orchid Festival. 10,000 examples of unmatched beauty, stunning colors, and vibrant, even eerie displays.
Although one of my favorites, Cattleya, was nowhere to be found, there were eye-popping visual delights everywhere. The complexity, the strangeness, the variety of life makes you wonder. How did such a beautiful thing arrive? What was its purpose, as if any living thing has some purpose? How did they manage to survive for more than 100,000,000 years (they must have pleased the dinosaurs) while animals and other plant life became extinct?