March 25, 2014
Mohenjo
Science
amazon, “theory of everything, Big Bang, business, Business News, cosmic microwave background, einstein general relativity, Extreme Physics, General Relativity, gravitational waves, Hotels, huffingtonpost, human-rights, medicine, mental-health, New Physics, Physics, research, Science, Science News, Space, Speed Of Light, technology, Technology News, the Big Bang, the universe, travel, Universe, vacation
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The discovery that the universe really did expand at many times the speed of light immediately after the Big Bang should bring physicists slightly closer to their ultimate goal — the long-sought “Theory of Everything.”
On Monday (March 17), researchers announced that they had detected the signature of gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background, the ancient light that began pervading the universe 380,000 years after the Big Bang.
If it holds up, the landmark find confirms the theory of inflation, which posits that the cosmos exploded from mere quantum fluctuations into something of macroscopic size just a few tiny fractions of a second after its birth. [How Inflation Gave the Universe the Ultimate Kickstart (Infographic)]
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The bottom part of this illustration shows the scale of the universe versus time. Specific events are shown such as the formation of neutral Hydrogen at 380 000 years after the big bang. Prior to this time, the constant interaction between matter (electrons) and light (photons) made the universe opaque. After this time, the photons we now call the CMB started streaming freely.
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July 9, 2013
Mohenjo
Science
amazon, “theory of everything, ”, business, climate, Einstein’s general relativity, fundamental particles, General Relativity, Hotels, imperial college london, mindbendingly large, particle accelerators, Physical Review Letters, quantum entanglement, quantum mechanics, research, Science, Science News, Stanford University, String Theory, technology, Technology News, theoretical physicist, travel, uantum mechanics, vacation, vanishingly small, vibrating strings, wired
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The theory has long been touted as the best hope for a unified “theory of everything,” bringing together the physics of the vanishingly small and the mindbendingly large. But it has also been criticized and even ridiculed for failing to make any predictions that could be checked experimentally. It’s not just that we don’t have big enough particle accelerators or powerful enough computers; string theory’s most vocal critics charge that no experiment could even be imagined that would prove it right or wrong, making the whole theory effectively useless.
Now, physicists at Imperial College London and Stanford University have found a way to make string theory useful, not for a theory of everything, but for quantum entanglement.
“We can use string theory to solve problems in a different area of physics,” said theoretical physicist Michael Duff of Imperial College London. “In that context it’s actually useful: We can make statements which you could in principle check by experiment.” Duff and his colleagues describe their findings in a paper in Physical Review Letters September 2.
String theory suggests that matter can be broken down beyond electrons and quarks into tiny loops of vibrating strings. Those strings move and vibrate at different frequencies, giving particles distinctive properties like mass and charge. This strange idea could unite all the fundamental forces, explain the origins of fundamental particles and connect Einstein’s general relativity to quantum mechanics. But to do so, the theory requires six extra dimensions of space and time curled up inside the four that we’re used to.
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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/stringy-quantum/
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James' World 2 