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Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

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Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct detection would be a lot more informative. It's also hard. There are a lot of systematic effects (foregrounds, etc.) that can matter to CMB measurements. Any indirect glimpse is still quite valuable, as deviations from the standard plan might be apparent. Any measurement of the neutrino temperature at decoupling is interesting. (Edit: I'd also note that the last great prediction of the Big Bang is 'inflation',…

OK, so indirect gets us neutrino temperature at decoupling, and direct gets us current neutrino temperature and (I guess) feeds into neutrino mass measurements and the PMNS matrix. Anything else?

If we could get a "picture" of the CNB in all directions, it could give us hints to the structure of the Universe at two seconds after the big bang, just as the CMB gives us hints to the structure of the universe at 379,000 years after the big bang.

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct detection would be a lot more informative. It's also hard. There are a lot of systematic effects (foregrounds, etc.) that can matter to CMB measurements. Any indirect glimpse is still quite valuable, as deviations from the standard plan might be apparent. Any measurement of the neutrino temperature at decoupling is interesting. (Edit: I'd also note that the last great prediction of the Big Bang is 'inflation',…

OK, so indirect gets us neutrino temperature at decoupling, and direct gets us current neutrino temperature and (I guess) feeds into neutrino mass measurements and the PMNS matrix. Anything else?

Any new handle on the number of neutrino-like species is interesting to dark matter searches...

If you could actually image the CNB, the implications would be comparable to the CNB. Even just a measurement of the magnitude of the dipole would be compelling.

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#14
It's interesting to me how many scientific breakthroughs we've seen in the past few years. I wonder if hard science hasn't been slowing down; but rather waiting on technological advances that would give them the data they needed to make the leaps. With technological catching up these leaps are now happening.

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#15
post #14

It's interesting to me how many scientific breakthroughs we've seen in the past few years. I wonder if hard science hasn't been slowing down; but rather waiting on technological advances that would give them the data they needed to make the leaps. With technological catching up these leaps are now happening.

> but rather waiting on technological advances that would give them the data they needed to make the leaps

This has always been the case in science with theory and proof. Higgs Boson is a prime recent example, thought up years ago and only recently prove-able.

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#17
post #11

I wonder why the author says that Gamow made the great leap backwards, when Gamow was in fact developing a theory first proposed by Georges Lemaitre a decade earlier than what the author states for Gamow.

I also wondered how this differed from Lemaitre's prediction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#18
post #11

I wonder why the author says that Gamow made the great leap backwards, when Gamow was in fact developing a theory first proposed by Georges Lemaitre a decade earlier than what the author states for Gamow.

I frequently find this used by people who don't want to discuss that the Big Bang was originally theorized by a priest. It doesn't fit their narrative.

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#19
post #11

I wonder why the author says that Gamow made the great leap backwards, when Gamow was in fact developing a theory first proposed by Georges Lemaitre a decade earlier than what the author states for Gamow.

Backwards in terms of "fore"-casting backwards in time to the beginning of the universe, rather than forwards in time.

Re: Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang

#20
post #11

I wonder why the author says that Gamow made the great leap backwards, when Gamow was in fact developing a theory first proposed by Georges Lemaitre a decade earlier than what the author states for Gamow.

I frequently find this used by people who don't want to discuss that the Big Bang was originally theorized by a priest. It doesn't fit their narrative.

Per Wikpedia, he "was a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven. He proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg".

It would seem this guy, who got his Ph.D. at MIT, was erased from history due to anti-religious bigotry, "Let there be light" maps too well into the Big Bang, as the Pope recognized (but took too far). Fred Hoyle was one such figure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Rejection_of_the_Bi...

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