L. Riofrio's Blog, page 5

BICEP2: Inflation's Bubble Has Burst

I have refrained from commenting on the BICEP2 hype in March. The investigators claimed to have detected a pattern of B-Mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background. They claimed that this pattern was from gravitational waves predicted by the old inflation idea. Immediately there was talk in the press of Nobel prizes for BICEP2 and the originators of inflation. From the start many of us who understand the CMB questioned this result. The WMAP data release of 2003 was also claimed to "prove" inflation, but that hype fizzled away. Getting results from the CMB is extremely difficult, because the background noise is many times more powerful than the signal. The CMB is subject to many interpretations. Polarization in the CMB is difficult to decipher because foreground dust and gravitational lensing also produce polarization, which will mask anything from the early universe. Even if polarization was detected, it is not necessarily from gravitational waves. No experiment has ever detected gravitational waves. Some theorists doubt that they are detectable or even exist. Other phenomena could theoretically cause gravitational waves, not necessarily inflation. In the past 3 weeks the bubble of inflation has burst. Rumours reached the web from a fellow blogger and physicist in Resonaances that the data was suspect. The backgrounds were not properly removed because the BICEP2 team did not have access to raw data from the PLANCK spacecraft. BICEP2 STOLE a slide that the PLANCK team had shown at a conference and placed on the web. They "scraped" data from the pdf slide and reconstructed data from that. They did not notice the note "Not CIB subtracted" indicating that the cosmic infrared background had not been removed from the slide. BICEP2 announced their results by press conference before a peer-reviewed paper was published, triggering a frenzy in the press. 2.5 months later the paper has still not appeared. To their credit, the press has been quick to notice that they were taken for a ride: Nature.com: No evidence for or against gravitational waves Time.com:Cosmic Deflation: Doubts Raised Over Blockbuster Big Bang Study The Independent: Big Bang 'echoes' that proved Einstein correct might just have been space dust, admit scientists Science News: Dustup emerges over gravitational waves discovery Inflation continues to erode the credibility of science. Since it would have occurred in the first 10^(-33) seconds of the Universe, inflation can never be proven. No conceivable experiment can approach the titanic densities and energies so close to the Big Bang. An idea that is not testable is not a theory and is not science. GM=tc^3, a child could figure it out!

The Speed of Light Marches On

Goodreads is giving away free copies of the book! The peer-reviewed Planetary Science paper is already free, but the book is much easier to read. Good luck! .goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important; text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif; background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layo... background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596; outline: 0; white-space: nowrap; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layo... color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; } Goodreads Book Giveaway The Speed of Light by L. Riofrio

Giveaway ends May 23, 2014.

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Baby Bulge in Saturn Rings

Our Cassini spacecraft has spotted a bulge in Saturn's A Ring, thought to be an infant moon in the process of forming. From Time magazine: It's a Moon! Saturn Expecting a Baby Not long ago it was thought impossible for moons to form inside the Roche Limit, a mathematical distance within which Saturn's gravity would theoretically tear small moons apart. Since reaching Saturn in 2004 Cassini has found many satellites within the Roche Limit. The very existence of Saturn's Rings is one of the oldest mysteries in our Solar System. Without replenishment, the Rings would decay within 100 million years. As readers of this blog know, Saturn's Rings could be home to countless tiny Black Holes, souvenirs from the Big Bang. These little objects would gather Ring materiel to them, creating moons like a pearls forming around grains of sand. Presence of microscopic Black Holes within the Rings would explain how they have endured possibly for billion of years. Saturn's Rings show conditions similar to the birth of our Solar System. Formation of the moons give clues to how our Earth and planets formed.