The Universe is 13.73 +/- .12 billion years old!

[Shogun]

NASA’s WMAP is the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (which is a mouthful, and why we just call it WMAP). It was designed to map the Universe with exquisite precision, detecting microwaves coming from the most distant source there is: the cooling fireball of the Big Bang itself.

WMAP Results

A lot of this information was determined a while back, just a couple of years after WMAP launched. But now they have released the Five Year Data, a comprehensive analysis of what all that data means. Here’s a quick rundown:

1) The age of the Universe is 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years. Some people might say it doesn’t look a day over 6000 years. They’re wrong.

2) The image above shows the temperature difference between different parts of the sky. Red is hotter, blue is cooler. However, the difference is incredibly small: the entire temperature range from cold to hot is only 0.0002 degrees Celsius. The average temperature is 2.725 Kelvin, so you’re seeing temperatures from 2.7248 to 2.7252 Kelvins.

3) The age of the Universe when recombination occurred was 375,938 years, +/- about 3100 years. Wow.

more...


http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/05/the-universe-is-1373-12-billion-years-old/

 

[eots]

NASA’s WMAP is the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (which is a mouthful, and why we just call it WMAP). It was designed to map the Universe with exquisite precision, detecting microwaves coming from the most distant source there is: the cooling fireball of the Big Bang itself.

WMAP Results

A lot of this information was determined a while back, just a couple of years after WMAP launched. But now they have released the Five Year Data, a comprehensive analysis of what all that data means. Here’s a quick rundown:

1) The age of the Universe is 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years. Some people might say it doesn’t look a day over 6000 years. They’re wrong.

2) The image above shows the temperature difference between different parts of the sky. Red is hotter, blue is cooler. However, the difference is incredibly small: the entire temperature range from cold to hot is only 0.0002 degrees Celsius. The average temperature is 2.725 Kelvin, so you’re seeing temperatures from 2.7248 to 2.7252 Kelvins.

3) The age of the Universe when recombination occurred was 375,938 years, +/- about 3100 years. Wow.

more...


http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/05/the-universe-is-1373-12-billion-years-old/

well thats one theory....

 

[Shogun]

yea.. the one single theory with actual physical evidence to support it...

 

[Diuretic]

Good to have even more knowledge about the universe.

 

[eots]

well glad you feel that way...



The Big Bang Theory
A Flawed Concept

http://www.physicsmyths.org.uk/cosmology.htm

 

[jillian]

Do you ever look to what is peer reviewed? Credible? The best knowledge we have at a given time?

Naaaaaaaaaah... why would you do that?

 

[Shogun]

well THATS convincing...


gee, it's a wonder that your homepage is prisonplanet!

 

[onedomino]

NASA’s WMAP is the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (which is a mouthful, and why we just call it WMAP). It was designed to map the Universe with exquisite precision, detecting microwaves coming from the most distant source there is: the cooling fireball of the Big Bang itself.

WMAP Results

A lot of this information was determined a while back, just a couple of years after WMAP launched. But now they have released the Five Year Data, a comprehensive analysis of what all that data means. Here’s a quick rundown:

1) The age of the Universe is 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years. Some people might say it doesn’t look a day over 6000 years. They’re wrong.

2) The image above shows the temperature difference between different parts of the sky. Red is hotter, blue is cooler. However, the difference is incredibly small: the entire temperature range from cold to hot is only 0.0002 degrees Celsius. The average temperature is 2.725 Kelvin, so you’re seeing temperatures from 2.7248 to 2.7252 Kelvins.

3) The age of the Universe when recombination occurred was 375,938 years, +/- about 3100 years. Wow.

more...


http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/05/the-universe-is-1373-12-billion-years-old/

How can relatively smooth, directionally uniform Wmap data be reconciled with the clumpy data of current observational astronomy? Mathematical physics seeks to provide answers:

Numerical simulations show the segregation of intergalactic gas into filaments and voids—the cosmic web. Such computer modeling, paired with telescopic observations, reveals that the cosmic web had a gauzy texture when the universe was about 2 billion years old (top) but appears clumpy today (bottom), nearly 12 billion years later. The change is a natural outcome of a "gravitational-runaway" effect, in which slight density enhancements grow progressively larger as they accumulate more and more mass. The author describes what astronomers have learned about the cosmic web and the subtle interactions between galaxies and the intergalactic medium. The top simulation box is about 30 million light-years on a side, whereas the bottom box is four times larger (owing to 12 billion years of cosmic expansion). At the scales depicted here, the Milky Way galaxy would be a tiny fraction of a millimeter across—effectively invisible.

Images courtesy of Renyue Cen, Princeton University.

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/29667/page/2#29669

 

[eots]

it is interesting informtion..but it is not absolute and subject to revision or even a profound reinterpretation of the conclusions,,,so... that it may be the best knowledge at a given time..is a fair statement, to represent it as indisputable fact.. case closed is not

 

[Diuretic]

it is interesting informtion..but it is not absolute and subject to revision or even a profound reinterpretation of the conclusions,,,so... that it may be the best knowledge at a given time..is a fair statement, to represent it as indisputable fact.. case closed is not

Science - as far as I know - treats all knowledge as tentative. I can't think of any scientific theory that was or is held as absolute and not subject to revision. That should reassure you, well as much as it can, coming from a non-scientist like me.

 

[jillian]

the best knowledge at a given time..is a fair statement, to represent it as indisputable fact.. case closed is not

As Dee said, science is constantly changing, re-evaluating, re-testing and modifying conclusions as called upon. But it isn't done willy-nilly. And we shouldn't reject tested, peer-reviewed knowlege that can be reproduced by repeated studies in favor of some new concept until that concept has itself been tested, re-tested, replicated and peer-reviewed. If we did, the scientific method wouldn't have much meaning.

 

[Alpha1]

it is interesting informtion..but it is not absolute and subject to revision or even a profound reinterpretation of the conclusions,,,so... that it may be the best knowledge at a given time..is a fair statement, to represent it as indisputable fact.. case closed is not

best knowledge at a given time.
best knowledge at a given time.
best knowledge at a given time.

Something to remember when you are tempted to call others liars or worse....

Yes...we deal with the best knowledge we have at the given time.

 

[maineman]

best knowledge at a given time.
best knowledge at a given time.
best knowledge at a given time.

Something to remember when you are tempted to call others liars or worse....

Yes...we deal with the best knowledge we have at the given time.

I don't think that WMAP stated that they had determined the age of the universe with absolute certainty.

 

[AllieBaba]

"Peer" support means absolutely nothing. It means a bunch of like-minded bozos think it sounds like a good idea.

I can still remember the shock and dismay felt around the world when carbon dating was discovered to be woefully inaccurate.

 

[Diuretic]

"Peer" support means absolutely nothing. It means a bunch of like-minded bozos think it sounds like a good idea.

I can still remember the shock and dismay felt around the world when carbon dating was discovered to be woefully inaccurate.

Peers in science are notoriously critical. It's not personal, it's just that they focus on the knowledge and not the person presenting the findings. Unlike other areas, such as politics, where peers are in the business of protecting each other and obfuscating, in science peers actually help each other by constructive criticism of work, focusing on methodology for example. So in science, unlike politics, there are no "like-minded bozos".

And I know why you're climbing all over carbon-dating

http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/carbondating.html

But you might want to read this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011.html

 

[Gurdari]

Maybe we as humans run into trouble dealing with possibilities of 'before time', or existing 'outside of time' (like if the expanding universe did start with an infinitely small/dense piece of matter - how did that start? is this the first time its happened? how can something be infinite? and consider there is no more matter in the universe now than when it started? why that amount of matter in the first place? if it is an amount, than it is not infinite...)

advil please

 

[onedomino]

Maybe we as humans run into trouble dealing with possibilities of 'before time', or existing 'outside of time' (like if the expanding universe did start with an infinitely small/dense piece of matter - how did that start? is this the first time its happened? how can something be infinite? and consider there is no more matter in the universe now than when it started? why that amount of matter in the first place? if it is an amount, than it is not infinite...)

advil please

For purposes of science there is no need to discuss "before" or "outside." By definition, no information can come to us from "before" or "outside." So you may want to discuss those ideas with religious or philosophical concepts. But the singularity at the beginning of the Big Expansion is within the realm of science. The mathematics of the singularity has yet to be invented (or discovered). But to begin you may want to read about Gregor Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers. http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/1993/PSCF3-93Hedman.html and "Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers" By Georg Cantor http://books.google.com/books?id=fl...sig=Zk6KnH6iOXa8-UM5q6a7YjJC1JY&hl=en#PPP1,M1 (you may have to log in to Google Books). The Big Expansion can be theoretically rolled back to less than t = ten to the minus forty-three seconds (referred to as Planck time), but there our current mathematical powers fail. We need new mathematics to go further back in time. At Planck time all four fundamental forces of nature were combined into a single "Superforce." We want to understand how and why the four fundamental forces of nature differentiated. These forces are gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force (holds atoms together), and the weak nuclear force (responsible for nuclear decay). Understanding the extremely early Universe is not a mere academic exercise. We may gain knowledge that we can apply and that will be transformational. Here is an outline of "The First Three Minutes," as theorized today: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/early.html

 

[José]

Originally posted by Gurdari
Maybe we as humans run into trouble dealing with possibilities of 'before time', or existing 'outside of time' (like if the expanding universe did start with an infinitely small/dense piece of matter - how did that start?)

Gurdari touched an important point:

The big bang seems to be an event without a well defined physical cause in direct contradiction with the laws of (classical) physics.

Cosmologists have put forward the idea that the “infinitelly small/dense piece of matter”, as Gurdari puts it, presented the same principles of quantum mechanics that govern subtomic particles.

This gave rise to a new branch of cosmology known as quantum cosmology, the application of the principles of quantum mechanics to the early universe.

As we all know subatomic events don’t appear to be determined absolutely by preceding causes. If a way can be found to allow the universe to come into existence as a result of a quantum fluctuation, then no laws of physics would be violated.

The spontaneous appearance of a universe would not be such a surprise, because physical objects are spontaneously appering all the time, without well defined causes, in the quantum microworld.

It goes without saying quantum cosmology is a highly theoretical, speculative field as it should be expected since it deals with the most extreme of all questions.

Science can’t even reach an agreement about how to interpret quantum events.

Are subatomic events REALLY indeterminated or ruled by laws that still evade human understanding? Or maybe just misinterpreted?

And the validity of quantum mechanics when applied to the universe as a whole is even more controversial.

So the honest answer to Gurdari is:

Science does not have a solid explanation about what set the big bang in motion.

 

[M14 Shooter]

1) The age of the Universe is 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years. Some people might say it doesn’t look a day over 6000 years. They’re wrong.

They might be wrong about the age, but are they wrong about the rest?

But, very interesting stuff.

 

[Shogun]

They might be wrong about the age, but are they wrong about the rest?

But, very interesting stuff.

in my humble opinion, yes. But, Im always open to physical evidence.