APOD: Cosmic Microwave Map Swirls Indicate... (2014 Mar 18)

[Chris Peterson]

I just don't understand how that a scientists will say light emitted 13.8 billion years ago....really how in the world did we figure this one out, are you going to tell me it etched in stone somewhere. Can't we just say it something new and we have no idea.

It isn't something new (the observation is new, but what it's explaining is not). And we very definitely have good ideas.

We gain knowledge about nature (which includes things like the way the Universe came into existence, and when) by developing explanations (called "theories") that explain observations. We then test those theories- sometimes by creating narrow observational conditions in a lab ("experiments"), sometimes by looking in nature for phenomena predicted by the theory. The more predictive a theory is, the higher our confidence that it represents accurate knowledge about nature.

It's really as simple as that. There are multiple, independent lines of evidence that all point to a similar age for the Universe. And this latest observation is just one more bit of observational support (although a particularly important one).

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Doesn't it seem unusual that much of our science is only evidenced statistically via anomalies in physical measurements? We can catch clues here and there but it's almost as if something is missing. Could that described by what's beyond in the large dimension? After all a bacteria may respond to swirls in its environment but be totally unaware of the larger world outside the petri dish other than the subtle effects on the media in which it lives. I don't see how we can avoid the postulate that some of what we detect is outside of the Big Bang (for want of a better term to call it).

Kidding aside, does size matter? Will we ever be able to investigate very large dimensions? I'd be the first one to hope this is not the case or that we should stop looking. I do wonder, at times, if we are trying to explain the unexplainable.

[Chris Peterson]

Doesn't it seem unusual that much of our science is only evidenced statistically via anomalies in physical measurements?

I don't think that statement is accurate. In fact, I'm not sure what it means. Our science is evidenced by physical measurements.

[Boomer12k]

What is my problem with Gravity Waves, and Gravity Radiation?....Gravity is an "Inward Falling" to a mass body, the body warps the spacetime "lines", toward the mass body. Waves move away from the source....gravity makes things fall towards the source....Radiation moves away from the source. Like light. Gravity makes things fall towards the source....Gravity...does not radiate. Gravity itself is not a outward motion. Gravity does not push...it SUCKS....

Your problem seems to be coming from a misconception about gravity. It neither repels nor attracts. Gravity is how we see spacetime distortions manifest themselves. Because we primarily see the effects of static mass on spacetime, which produces an attractive force, we tend to think of gravity as attractive. But gravity isn't really a force at all. Wiggle a mass and you'll propagate spacetime distortions, which is all gravity waves are.

Thank you, Chris...I do not doubt that I may still have misconceptions about Gravity....But I do understand that it is NOT attraction, but is a spacetime warp, a curve, a bend of Space itself, the analogy of a fabric. With a static body, the lines lead to the center of the mass object...we "FALL" down those lines of space time toward the center of the mass...if there were no ground, we would all be at the Center of the Earth. It is also why objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their masses. We have never fought "The force of Gravity"...we only deal with Inertia of the Mass, as all objects are falling through the same warpage of Spacetime.
I wiggle my pencil in the air....I make Pencil Waves???? No, I make Air Waves.....My real problem, I think is the Terminology. Two Black Holes..."Wiggle"...and it is not black hole waves...or gravity waves...it is SPACETIME WAVES....the ripple is in the spacetime fabric. Just my observation. You can ride those waves like a roller coaster, but not "Fall" to the center of anything....it is out in space...not with a static planet....
In the beginning, I am realizing from my further reading....this is an ENERGY....there is no matter. One would presume "mass" as it is supposed to be all the matter and more that we see now, just in the energy, Plasma state, in the space less than the size of a dot. And Trillions of degrees plasma, I assume as a vaporous gas...like vaporized steel. The Steel Steam expands....cools....and condenses into steel droplets. Just as an analogy. That Mass is supposedly conferred, or transferred to particles, by Higgs Bosons....well, if it is the case, and "Gravity is the Effect of Mass on Spacetime"...there do not need to be Quantum Gravitons....as ALL particles would have accumulated mass from Strings on up through quarks to the components of the Atom. But "Gravity waves" are looking to be a Quantum Phenomena...thus they are predicting detecting Gravitons....
But I agree, Gravity does not attract, nor repel, it BENDS.....AND I HAVE DISCOVERED BY MY OWN LOGIC AND STUDY AND THOUGHT....THAT GRAVITY IS NOT REALLY A FORCE.....just as you said.....Einstein says....it is an EFFECT......like a shadow on the wall...it is an effect....not an energy....not a mass....but simply the blockage of an energy....whether light, or rain, or acoustic, or whatever type of "Shadow"....but...In the beginning, it is looking like Gravity was an energy...as it left an imprint...an image, a polarizing effect, and it is evident in the Background Microwave Radiation, and on Spacetime itself. As per this discovery.

It is that the Terms can be confusing. They need a little more delineation. Pluto is a Planet? Not any longer. They delineated some criteria.

My Respects, Sir!

:---[===] *

[Boomer12k]

I looked up Gravitational Waves....but they lost me at the math section. And had been thinking about them for years now, and thinking about Gravity since September of 2007. It took me 9 months to get my head around..."Mass does not attract Mass".

Personally, I have a problem with Gravity Waves...or Gravity Radiation....But I do see the analogy with FRICTION....Two large steel balls, rolling on a trampoline, close to each other, are going to generate a wave on the fabric of the trampoline. The contact with the fabric will eventually slow them down and they will inward spiral. With Spacetime this would be infinitely less tenuous. And even two such Neutron Stars will probably continue their dance for a great many billions of years. I can see that this is much like the Laws of Thermodynamics. Where the effort is bled off as heat...that is an electromagnetic wave, and an emanating radiation.

What is my problem with Gravity Waves, and Gravity Radiation?....Gravity is an "Inward Falling" to a mass body, the body warps the spacetime "lines", toward the mass body. Waves move away from the source....gravity makes things fall towards the source....Radiation moves away from the source. Like light. Gravity makes things fall towards the source....Gravity...does not radiate. Gravity itself is not a outward motion. Gravity does not push...it SUCKS....

If the waves exist....as they are predicted, and this shows they have been detected....then this is not really GRAVITY.....it is SPACE WARPING....it is a SPACE WAVE....a WAVE IN SPACETIME.....not really gravity as SUCH,...as in the sense of Gravity of a Planet. Tossing a rock into a pond...You would not call the Ripple in a pond of water....ROCK RIPPLES.....for example...they are Water Ripples....ripples in the medium.

It is something that is happening to SPACETIME....not a planet.
"Gravity Radiation" would be a BY PRODUCT...like heat from friction. The energy is changed from kinetic to electromagnetic, and radiated off....Space....should be a shade of a touch....warmer....but that is probably too much to ask to be detected...it is minuscule at best...infinitesimal....just like detecting waves from Neutron Stars thousands of light years away. Inverse Square Law. The waves do not go far....just like a ball on the trampoline...the waves or indentation does not necessarily reach or affect the edges of the trampoline. As with the trampoline, there has to be something that the Gravity Bodies are in contact with....well....we are talking outer space....or at least some in system stellar medium...In the case of black holes, maybe that is the Accretion Disc. Detecting any appreciable addition from an unseen source is going to be difficult.

So, I propose we use a more apt term for this phenomena... Spacetime wave...and maybe Space Radiation...which would be a "dump load"....excess energy bleed off....
Gravity, in this case....my opinion....is a misnomer. Gravity points IN...not out...Space may be warped....but not really produce..."GRAVITY". You could "ride" a curve of spacetime, but not fall toward anything, for example.

If you are close to two spinning Neutron Stars...you will have a tendency to fall into their sphere of influence....regardless of any outward motion by a wave...It may also be so tenuous that you cannot really "Ride The Wave".

The Moon is close to the Earth...this SHOULD be going on, on a very small scale...but The Moon is still pulling away from us at about 1.5 inches a year.

But then this will still, either way, increase our knowledge of the Universe, and that is our Quest...

Just my observation about gravity, and opinion.

:---[===] *

Boomer, I admire your persistence in grappling with this difficult concept. I don't follow all of your reasoning, but I don't really have (space)time right now to ponder it deeply. Remembering that during its first few moments the universe was inconceivably dense and hot has been very helpful to me in understanding big bang cosmology -- to the very limited extent I understand it!

Anthony....YOU AND ME BOTH, BROTHER!!!!! It took YEARS to develop an understanding. From 2007 to around 2011....and even up to today.... The Universe is Awesome. Complex, and yet when you understand it all as energy...it becomes more simplified.
Keep at it....I assure you...I will...

:---[===] *

[Chris Peterson]

I wiggle my pencil in the air....I make Pencil Waves???? No, I make Air Waves.

But you also make gravitational waves.

My real problem, I think is the Terminology. Two Black Holes..."Wiggle"...and it is not black hole waves...or gravity waves...it is SPACETIME WAVES....the ripple is in the spacetime fabric.

And we have a name for that. Gravitational waves (gravity waves are something different).

Just my observation. You can ride those waves like a roller coaster, but not "Fall" to the center of anything.

But you would "fall". Those waves exert a force on you, pushing and pulling as they pass, just as if you were bobbing on a lake when a wave passed. It's that pushing and pulling on the test mass of interferometric gravitational wave detectors that make them work (in theory).

In the beginning, I am realizing from my further reading....this is an ENERGY....there is no matter.

Energy and matter are merely different forms of the same thing. But it is usually useful to think in terms of energy. The reason that two black holes in orbit around each other eventually collide is because of the conservation of energy- what they give up in the form of gravitational waves has to come from somewhere, and that's their rotational kinetic energy- not the mass component, but the velocity component.

[LocalColor]

Even though I can't wrap my mind around the science, the search is fascinating.

[Ann]

Chris wrote:
And we have a name for that. Gravitational waves (gravity waves are something different).

What are gravity waves?

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

Chris wrote:
And we have a name for that. Gravitational waves (gravity waves are something different).

What are gravity waves?

A kind of waves found in fluid mediums. We see atmospheric gravity waves occasionally in APODs, as a kind of striped pattern in airglow (and less often in lines of clouds).

The terminology is a bit confusing.

[Ann]

Does that mean that the striated patterns in the Pleiades nebula are gravity waves?

Ann

[jsanchezjr]

In the link 'inflationary epoch' I found something interesting. The theory of inflation was create to explain some unsolved question of the Big Bang theory, like that the universe as flat as we see it today would require an extreme fine-tuning of conditions in the past, which would be an unbelievable coincidence.
Well, in the wiki article I found this: In order to work, and as pointed out by Roger Penrose from 1986 on, INFLATION REQUIRES EXTREMELY SPECIFIC INITIAL CONDITIONS OF ITS OWN, so that the problem (or pseudoproblem) of initial conditions is not solved: "There is something fundamentally misconceived about trying to explain the uniformity of the early universe as resulting from a thermalization process. [...] For, if the thermalization is actually doing anything [...] then it represents a definite increasing of the entropy. Thus, the universe would have been even more special before the thermalization than after."[105] The problem of specific or "fine-tuned" initial conditions would not have been solved; it would have gotten worse.

For me, I think that the medicine was worse than the disease...

[Boomer12k]

I wiggle my pencil in the air....I make Pencil Waves???? No, I make Air Waves.

But you also make gravitational waves.

My real problem, I think is the Terminology. Two Black Holes..."Wiggle"...and it is not black hole waves...or gravity waves...it is SPACETIME WAVES....the ripple is in the spacetime fabric.

And we have a name for that. Gravitational waves (gravity waves are something different).

Just my observation. You can ride those waves like a roller coaster, but not "Fall" to the center of anything.

But you would "fall". Those waves exert a force on you, pushing and pulling as they pass, just as if you were bobbing on a lake when a wave passed. It's that pushing and pulling on the test mass of interferometric gravitational wave detectors that make them work (in theory).

In the beginning, I am realizing from my further reading....this is an ENERGY....there is no matter.

Energy and matter are merely different forms of the same thing. But it is usually useful to think in terms of energy. The reason that two black holes in orbit around each other eventually collide is because of the conservation of energy- what they give up in the form of gravitational waves has to come from somewhere, and that's their rotational kinetic energy- not the mass component, but the velocity component.

Ok...I had all this down, but lost the page some how...got to do it again...

1. I see....my terminology is faulty, as they use confusing terms that sound very similar.

2. See what I mean about same sounding terms? But these wave do not happen in "gravitational"....they happen on Spacetime....like water wave, air waves, earth waves, etc....regardless of the myriad of causes.

3. I agree...the term is "Fall"...for want of a better term. However if it is a BOB, then that is what you should observe, and not a Stretching, or Squeezing. But that is what is depicted. You can ride an ocean wave and not move anywhere in position, other than a BOB up and down...for forward motion, you would need Current. Thus a Gravitational Wave, you should see a BOB and not squeezing, and stretching.... AND you also may not "FALL" anywhere, in any direction...if there is no "gravity well" to "Fall" into....God our terms are lacking...

4. Yes....E=MC^2. ALSO....I see...it is Physical Science, and not necessarily Particle Physics. (but other reading talks about "Gravitational Waves" as a Quantum Level thing.). The "Gravitational Wave" is a Dump Load. A Dump Load can also be in the form of Heat, as with Wind Turbine setups. They take the excess charge and put it in a dump load to absorb, and dissipate the energy, in the form of heat, so the battery bank does not overcharge. And in this case, the Rotational Kinetic Energy is transferring into the Gravitational Wave, slowing the Black Holes down, thus they fall closer in. But that is their Rotational Energy...and usually this is taken up by the other object, and slows one rotation down, (tidal lock), and transfers that to ORBITAL SPEED as with the Earth and The Moon. Also, as the Black Holes get closer together, the energy is conserved as Angular Momentum, and thus they actually will SPEED UP. And thus Nothing is really given off as "Gravitational Waves", to slow them down, and there would be no need of bleeding off the energy as a dump load to slow them down...and no point, as that energy is going to increase speed by Conservation of Angular Momentum. Now, I suppose... the increase in speed also creates more Gravitational Waves, and they Lose more energy, and slow, and fall, and speed up, and create more Gravitational Waves, etc...etc....but then you would think the bleeding off of the energy would be MASSIVE, and as such totally detectible. But then they did say this stood out against what was expected....but they still had to have a very sensitive method, and they did NOT USE BLACK HOLES! So...if black hole make "gravitational waves"...you can't tell.

I suppose at the Quantum Level, energy could be dissipating, but it must be massive as well, and should probably be very detectible as such. But then....some of the energy could be bleed of into another dimension...like the 11th Dimension in M Theory...where this Energy is supposed to come from in the first place.

I also think this may also be an Electro-Magnetic Effect....not necessarily "Gravity", "Gravitation", "Wave" as we know it. The gist of this is....Parts of the Universe have been POLARIZED....magnets polarize, electricity polarizes....did not know Gravity could do that...but if we are talking "Gravitational ENERGY"...then I guess it could, especially at the beginning when the whole thing was just some form of energy.

Anyway...probably will take me another nine months to get my head around this "gravitational wave" thing....AGAIN....sigh....

Thanks, Chris!!!

:---[===] *

[Boomer12k]

Does that mean that the striated patterns in the Pleiades nebula are gravity waves?

Ann

There are several answers to this on APOD....but basically the answer is "No"....

Go look for Pleiades articles....I don't know how to link to them...

APOD: Meropes Reflection Nebula (2012 Feb 15)


Try that one....

:---[===] *

[DavidLeodis]

The inset to the APOD image reminds me of the often undecipherable CAPTCHA's that are used to need a human input to recognise what letters and numbers are being shown. Mmmm, Cosmic Microwave Swirls. Anything like as nice as ice cream swirls?

PS. Why is the Big Bang so called, as it is said that noise cannot be heard in Space so surely the bang would not also! Perhaps it should be called the 'Big but silent Bang'!

[Chris Peterson]

2. See what I mean about same sounding terms? But these wave do not happen in "gravitational"....they happen on Spacetime....like water wave, air waves, earth waves, etc....regardless of the myriad of causes.

Air waves? Earth waves? I don't hear these terms very often. We usually call air waves "sound waves". Like gravitational waves, they are named for their properties, not for the medium in which they travel.

3. I agree...the term is "Fall"...for want of a better term. However if it is a BOB, then that is what you should observe, and not a Stretching, or Squeezing. But that is what is depicted. You can ride an ocean wave and not move anywhere in position, other than a BOB up and down...for forward motion, you would need Current. Thus a Gravitational Wave, you should see a BOB and not squeezing, and stretching.... AND you also may not "FALL" anywhere, in any direction...if there is no "gravity well" to "Fall" into....God our terms are lacking...

A wave in the ocean is a transverse wave, meaning that the medium moves perpendicular to the direction the wave travels. That's why you bob. A gravitational wave is a longitudinal wave, like sound; the medium moves parallel to the direction the wave travels. When a sound wave travels across you, your body stretches and squeezes, just like when a gravitational wave passes through you.

And in this case, the Rotational Kinetic Energy is transferring into the Gravitational Wave, slowing the Black Holes down, thus they fall closer in. But that is their Rotational Energy...and usually this is taken up by the other object, and slows one rotation down, (tidal lock), and transfers that to ORBITAL SPEED as with the Earth and The Moon. Also, as the Black Holes get closer together, the energy is conserved as Angular Momentum, and thus they actually will SPEED UP. And thus Nothing is really given off as "Gravitational Waves", to slow them down, and there would be no need of bleeding off the energy as a dump load to slow them down...and no point, as that energy is going to increase speed by Conservation of Angular Momentum.

No, energy is carried away by gravitational waves. The energy of the system itself measurably decreases with time.

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF]Gravitational Waves are hypothesized to arise from Cosmic Inflation, a faster-than-light expansion just after the Big Bang[/color][/b] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29#Overview](17 March 2014)[/url].

---

A wave in the ocean is a transverse wave, meaning that the medium moves perpendicular to the direction the wave travels. That's why you bob. A gravitational wave is a longitudinal wave, like sound; the medium moves parallel to the direction the wave travels. When a sound wave travels across you, your body stretches and squeezes, just like when a gravitational wave passes through you.

Chris knows perfectly well that gravitational waves are transverse waves. (A senior moment?)

A quantitized gravitational wave or graviton is an extremely weakly interacting spin 2 particle.

Primordial spin 2 gravitons of energies ~2 × 10¹⁶ GeV (i.e., ~two orders of magnitude smaller than the 2.43 ×10¹⁸ GeV reduced Planck energy) left behind transverse swirls in the "inflating universal glop" that later manifested itself as residual transverse EM polarization swirls (~two orders of magnitude smaller than the entire CMBR field) in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR).

[Chris Peterson]

Chris knows perfectly well that gravitational waves are transverse waves.

I know no such thing. If we take a gravitational wave as something carried by the hypothetical graviton, we see the wave as transverse, similar to electromagnetic radiation. But this is not something experimentally or observationally established.

The physical behavior of a gravitational wave passing through a mass is analogous to sound- the body is distorted in a longitudinal fashion, not in a transverse fashion.

[Ann]

Does that mean that the striated patterns in the Pleiades nebula are gravity waves?

Ann

There are several answers to this on APOD....but basically the answer is "No"....

Go look for Pleiades articles....I don't know how to link to them...

APOD: Meropes Reflection Nebula (2012 Feb 15)


Try that one....

:---[===] *

Thanks, Boomer! Lovely image, that one. You link anything by using the URL sign. When you press this button, the result looks like this: . You now add an "equal to" sign, =, after the first url. Now copy the address of the page you want to link, write it after the "=" sign, and there you have it: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120215.html

Ann

[rstevenson]

... "inflating universal glop" ...

And if anyone knows what "inflating universal glop" is, it's Art.

Rob

[Chris Peterson]

... "inflating universal glop" ...

And if anyone knows what "inflating universal glop" is, it's Art.

While he's imitating nature?

[neufer]

Chris knows perfectly well that gravitational waves are transverse waves.

I know no such thing. If we take a gravitational wave as something carried by the hypothetical graviton, we see the wave as transverse, similar to electromagnetic radiation. But this is not something experimentally or observationally established. The physical behavior of a gravitational wave passing through a mass is analogous to sound- the body is distorted in a longitudinal fashion, not in a transverse fashion.

• Both classical gravitational waves
  (whether of the water variety or of the Einstein variety)
  and spin-2 gravitons are transverse.

[b][color=#0000FF][size=200]Illustrations taken from Kip S. Thorne[/size][/color][/b] [url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=32908&p=220199#p220120][size=150]Ph237[/size][/url] [b][color=#0000FF]Gravitational Waves, Caltech, 7 & 9. Cambridge. England. Pages 4-5.[/color][/b]

---

Gravitational wave in 5D
By Alfonso Leon Guillen Gomez
Bogota, Colombia, 2006

<<The gravitational wave is traveling in direction z, and the metric tensor changes in coordinates x and y. This is the effect of the internal variation, of the length of the spacetime interval, caused by the gravitational wave.

Stretch & squeeze are transverse to direction of propagation.

[Classical] gravitational waves have two polarizations plus, +, and cross, x.
Each polarization has its own gravitational-wave field.>>

Spin-2 gravitons have two polarizations: right handed & left handed.

[neufer]

... "inflating universal glop" ...

And if anyone knows what "inflating universal glop" is, it's Art.

While he's imitating nature?

• Wherein the Neufer had a strife
  with Nature, to out-doo the life:
  http://www.edwardoxenford.org/tag/droeshout/

[Chris Peterson]

Spin-2 gravitons have two polarizations: right handed & left handed.

Assuming they exist.

[neufer]

---

Spin-2 gravitons have two polarizations:
. right handed & left handed.

Assuming they exist.

They left their fingerprints

[Chris Peterson]

They left their fingerprints :?:

No, they didn't. Gravitational waves left their fingerprints. That gravitational waves are propagated by gravitons remains a largely untested theory.