Scientists say that the fundamental forces of the Universe — gravity (defined by general relativity), electromagnetism, “weak” radioactive forces and “strong” nuclear forces (all defined by quantum theory) — were united in the high-energy flash of the Big Bang, when all matter and energy was confined within a sub-atomic scale. Although the Big Bang occurred nearly 14 billion years ago, its afterglow, the CMB, still blankets the entire universe and contains a fossilized record of the first moments of time.
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) studies the CMB and detects subtle temperature differences, within this largely uniform radiation, glowing at only 2.73 degrees Celsius above absolute zero. The uniformity is evidence of “inflation,” a period when the expansion of the Universe accelerated rapidly, around 10-33 seconds after the Big Bang. During inflation, the Universe grew from an atomic scale to a cosmic scale, increasing its size a hundred trillion trillion times over. The energy field that drove inflation, like all quantum fields, contained fluctuations. These fluctuations, locked into the cosmic microwave background like waves on a frozen pond, may contain evidence for string theory.
Easther and his colleagues compare the rapid cosmic expansion that occurred just after the Big Bang to enlarging a photograph to reveal individual pixels. While physics at the Planck scale made a “ripple” 10-35 meters across, thanks to the expansion of the Universe the fluctuation might now span many light years.
Easther stressed it is a long shot that string theory might leave measurable effects on the microwave background by subtly changing the pattern of hot and cold spots. However, string theory is so hard to test experimentally that any chance is worth trying. Successors to WMAP, such as CMBPol and the European mission, Planck, will measure the CMB with unprecedented accuracy.
The modifications to the CMB arising from string theory could deviate from the standard prediction for the temperature differences in the cosmic microwave background by as much as 1%. However, finding a small deviation from a dominant theory is not without precedent. As an example, the measured orbit of Mercury differed from what was predicted by Isaac Newton’s law of gravity by around seventy miles per year. General relativity, Albert Einstein’s law of gravity, could account for the discrepancy caused by a subtle warp in spacetime from the Sun’s gravity speeding Mercury’s orbit.
Refer to http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/einstein/ for more information on the “Beyond Einstein” meeting.
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absolutely fascinating stuff, rickyjames.
The afterglow of the Big Bang, the CMB, reminds me of post-orgasmic pleasure. Considering how long ago the Big Bang was and how long the universe is expected to exist before all energy fades to black it might be a good analogy.
I thought the most significant statement in the article was that “general relativity and quantum theory [are both] likely to be incomplete.” Since science theory leads to practical applications, what lept to mind were things like warp drive and hyperspace and artificial gravity. If whatever the mind of man can concieve it can achieve is true, wow…!
All I have to do is look at quantum theory going from a mathematical statement to an actual engineering feat and I realize we may be closer than we think.
jon
Maybe you could add <sub> and <sup> tags to the Scoop’s list of allowed HTML tags? 10-35 m or 1015 eV isn’t very readable, is it?