Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Remember the "Smoking Gun" for Inflation? Guess What It Might Really Be Telling Us About Our Place In The Cosmos...

The Copernican Principle continues to pop up all over the most cutting edge observations of our universe.

Some weeks back the media trumpeted the "smoking gun" claim the inflation had been confirmed by BICEP2 observations of B mode polarization in the CMB.


But the observations must, somehow, be accounted for, and the tension between BICEP2 and Planck must somehow be resolved.

Remarkably, one proposal suggests the tension between these observations can be resolved, if we abandon the Copernican Principle:

"Here we show that it is possible for a tensor fluctuation to produce a B mode in the CMB polarization without producing any temperature fluctuation nor E-mode polarization whatsoever. The argument is relatively straightforward given the total-angular- momentum (TAM) formalism we have developed in recent work [9]. The only catch is that, as we show, the tensor fluctuation required to do this violates the Copernican principe; i.e., it implies that we occupy a preferred location in the Universe."

1 comment:

  1. 4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell Me, if you have understanding,
    5Who set its measurements? Since you know.
    Or who stretched the line on it?

    6“On what were its bases sunk?
    Or who laid its cornerstone,

    7When the morning stars sang together
    And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

    8“Or who enclosed the sea with doors
    When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb;

    9When I made a cloud its garment
    And thick darkness its swaddling band,

    10And I placed boundaries on it
    And set a bolt and doors,

    11And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther;
    And here shall your proud waves stop’?

    God’s Mighty Power

    12“Have you ever in your life commanded the morning,
    And caused the dawn to know its place,

    13That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
    And the wicked be shaken out of it?

    14“It is changed like clay under the seal;
    And they stand forth like a garment.

    15“From the wicked their light is withheld,
    And the uplifted arm is broken.

    16“Have you entered into the springs of the sea
    Or walked in the recesses of the deep?

    17“Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
    Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

    18“Have you understood the expanse of the earth?
    Tell Me, if you know all this.

    19“Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
    And darkness, where is its place,

    20That you may take it to its territory
    And that you may discern the paths to its home?

    21“You know, for you were born then,
    And the number of your days is great!

    22“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
    Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

    23Which I have reserved for the time of distress,
    For the day of war and battle?

    24“Where is the way that the light is divided,
    Or the east wind scattered on the earth?

    25“Who has cleft a channel for the flood,
    Or a way for the thunderbolt,

    26To bring rain on a land without people,
    On a desert without a man in it,

    27To satisfy the waste and desolate land
    And to make the seeds of grass to sprout?

    28“Has the rain a father?
    Or who has begotten the drops of dew?

    29“From whose womb has come the ice?
    And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth?

    30“Water becomes hard like stone,
    And the surface of the deep is imprisoned.

    31“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
    Or loose the cords of Orion?

    32“Can you lead forth a constellation in its season,
    And guide the Bear with her satellites?

    33“Do you know the ordinances of the heavens,
    Or fix their rule over the earth?

    34“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
    So that an abundance of water will cover you?

    35“Can you send forth lightnings that they may go
    And say to you, ‘Here we are’?

    36“Who has put wisdom in the innermost being
    Or given understanding to the mind?

    37“Who can count the clouds by wisdom,
    Or tip the water jars of the heavens,

    38When the dust hardens into a mass
    And the clods stick together?

    39“Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
    Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

    40When they crouch in their dens
    And lie in wait in their lair?

    41“Who prepares for the raven its nourishment....

    http://biblehub.com/context/job/38-4.htm

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