Best Image of Big Bang Afterglow Ever Confirms Standard Cosmology

If the universe were ice cream, it would be vanilla. That's the take-home message from researchers working with the European Space Agency's orbiting Planck observatory, who today released the most precise measurements yet of the afterglow of the big bang—the so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The new data from Planck confirm cosmologists' standard model of how the universe sprang into existence and what it's made of. That may disappoint scientists who were hoping for new puzzles that would lead to a deeper understanding.

Gobekli Tepe - Temples Communicating Ancient Cosmic Geography

Figure 1: Floor plans of three
sub-circular buildings at Gobekli Tepe
(Line drawing by Paul D. Burley)

During the 1960s archeologists from the University of Chicago surveyed a prominent ridge in southern Turkey. They found little of interest. In 1994 archeologist Klaus Schmidt visited the same ridge after reading notes the University of Chicago prepared of their survey. What Schmidt is unearthing on a rounded crest – Gobekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill) - of the ridge is stunning.

Since the early 1900s the human transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer was understood to have occurred over several thousand years, culminating in development of cities by about 6000 BCE in Sumer, the area located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in south-central Iraq. However the architecture of Gobekli Tepe is evidence of social organization and monumental construction that are far earlier than expected. Five-ton megalithic (mega: large, lithic: of rock) limestone pillars stand 18 feet above the floor of sub-circular structures, completed with stone and clay mortar walls and founded on bedrock below the surrounding ground surface. Floor plans of three of these buildings are shown in Figure 1. The pillars include bas relief of various animals – mostly predatory – such as wild boars, lions, foxes, scorpions, frogs, vultures, and other birds. The purpose of the structures remains unknown, but Schmidt interprets them as temples associated with an early organized religion in which animals were deified.

Provocările din cosmologie, la Trinitas TV

Am descoperit cu plăcută surprindere o emisiune difuzată de Trinitas TV, televiziunea Patriarhiei Române, un dialog pe teme inclusiv ştiinţifice. Vă invităm să urmăriţi în continuare o discuţie pe teme de cosmologie între diacon Sorin Mihalache şi fizician Andrei Dorobanţu.

Faptul că dialogul de mai jos, difuzat - lucru aparent paradoxal - de Trinitas TV, este un exemplu rarisim de discuţie televizată pe teme ştiinţifice, spune multe despre atenţia ori, mai bine zis, despre lipsa totală de interes de care se "bucură" popularizarea ştiinţei în mass-media vizuală autohtonă în prezent.

Hermetic Cosmology

A cosmology is the conceptual framework of an individual, school of thought, or whole culture bymeans of which the world is understood. “Hermetic Magic” by Stephen Edred Flowers, Ph.D.

When one first begins to study various cosmologies, the usual impression is that it is an interesting intellectualexercise but has little in the way of practical application. Further study shows that knowing what comes after deathprovides a guideline on how to live life to ensure a better outcome in the next life, after life or next incarnation. Italso illustrates the differences between religion and magic which allows us to make an informed decision regardinghow much of either that we want to practice. Some cosmologies even describe such hard to define concepts as loveand soul mates.

Cosmology: Out of the darkness

The 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting opened with a talk by Brian Schmidt, who shared the 2011 physics prize for the shocking revelation that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Fifteen years after Schmidt's initial discovery, the 'dark energy' invoked to explain this cosmic acceleration is still a mystery.

It is the most sobering fact in physics. Everything that has ever been observed, from elementary particles to clusters of galaxies hundreds of millions of light years across, makes up just 4% of the Universe. The remaining 96% is currently missing: dubbed dark matter (23% of the Universe) and dark energy (73%), their existence is inferred by the effect they have on ordinary matter, but their natures are unknown.

McGill researchers explore big questions about universe

A research team led by McGill University Physics Prof. Alexander Maloney is among the winners of the New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology International Grant and Essay Competition who will present their winning proposals and essays in a joint conference Oct. 12 and 13 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

The competition, led by Donald G. York, the Horace B. Horton Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, will award more than $4 million in research grants to 20 scientists and more than $200,000 to 21 student essayists worldwide.

Quasarii, borne ale expansiunii universului

Oamenii de ştiinţă nu pot călători departe în spaţiul cosmic, aşa cum Columb a navigat şi descoperit America. Cercetătorii de la Univ. Case Western Reserve şi două instituţii partenere au găsit o metodă de a cartografia întinderea şi structura universului.

Această tehnică (care se ghidează după lumina quasarilor), combinată cu speranţa descoperirii a milioane de quasari distanţi în decada următoare, ar putea produce o perspectivă inedită asupra trecutului cosmosului, foarte aproape de perioada de după marea explozie, când Universul avea doar o fracţiune minusculă din mărimea pe care o are în prezent.

Metrologie des supernovae de type Ia pour la cosmologie

Australian study backs major assumption of cosmology

In mankind's attempts to gain some understanding of this marvelous place in which we live, we have slowly come to accept some principles to help guide our search. One such principle is that the Universe, on a large enough scale, is homogeneous, meaning that one part looks pretty much like another. Recent studies by a group of Australian researchers have established that, on sizes greater than about 250 million light years (Mly), the Universe is indeed statistically homogeneous, thereby reinforcing this cosmological principle.

Wallace Thornhill - Toward a Real Cosmology in the 21st Century

A real cosmology must be a broad and coherent natural philosophy. It may always be incomplete, based on ourlimitations, but to be valid there can be no exceptions in our experience. In particular, cosmology must address issues of life and the human condition. 

Therefore it must be a truly interdisciplinary pursuit. Modern specialized science is a hostileenvironment for such a quest. For example, the world’s largest professional body, the Institute for Electrical andElectronic Engineers (IEEE), recognizes plasma cosmology while it remains unheard of by students of astronomy. Plasmacosmology receives no publicity although it deals empirically with the electromagnetic behavior of plasma, whichconstitutes almost the entire visible universe. Unlike theoretical big bang cosmology, plasma cosmology can claimsuccessful predictions without recourse to hypothetical matter, energies and forces.

2012 Gruber Cosmology Prize Received By Johns Hopkins Astrophysicist Charles Bennett

Johns Hopkins University professor Charles L. Bennett and members of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) space mission that he received the Gruber Foundation’s 2012 Cosmology Prize in Beijing, China tomorrow.

Bennett and the 26-member WMAP team will share the $500,000 prize and are being recognized by the foundation for their transformative study of an ancient light dating back to the infant universe. So precise and accurate are the WMAP results that they form the foundation of the Standard Cosmological Model.

Bennett will receive a gold medal at the International Astronomical Union meeting on August 21, and will deliver a lecture on the 22nd. Watch Bennett explain WMAP’s groundbreaking science in a video here.

Proclus on Nature: Philosophy of Nature and Its Methods in Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Timaeus

Given the sophistication that Proclean studies have achieved in the past 20 years, it is somewhat surprising that so many questions remain unanswered about his philosophy of nature. Yet such is the case. Much of this neglect may be traced to a strong Neoplatonic emphasis on metaphysics as the end of philosophical speculation (since Iamblichus, the Timaeus had been treated as preliminary to study of the Parmenides, the capstone of the Neoplatonic curriculum) and to consequent prejudices among modern scholars against a distinct field of Proclean physics. 

It was not until the Baltzly, Tarrant, Runia, and Share translations of Proclus's Commentary on the Timaeus began to appear in 2007 that scholars directed concerted and sustained attention to Proclus's physiologia. In addition to generating new interest in Proclus's theory of nature, scholars have begun not only to dispel long-held misunderstandings about the apparent opposition between Being and Becoming, Intelligible and Sensible in Proclus's cosmology, but also to sort out the complex relations of ontological structure and operation that blend the Intelligible with the Sensible in seamless continuity. Marije Martijn's Proclus on Nature makes a number of important contributions to this project.

Myth Understanding

… some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge…

— Galadriel, from the Walsh, Boyens, and Jackson screenplay of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Last week, I discussed the rift that exists in Western society between our culture and our dominant religions. The rift mat­ters, because it means the those religions can’t perform the functions in our society that a religion historically performed. This has given rise to a misunderstanding of the purpose of reli­gion, and a misuse of religion within our national conversation.

Time to toast our Boson buddies

YOU MUST understand, someone said once, that there is pure mathematics, and applied mathematics, and a subset of that called physics, the study of the mathematics of matter and motion. And then there is astrophysics. Beyond that, theoretical physics. Beyond that, speculation. And then there is rank speculation. And far beyond that we have cosmology.

Cosmology, boiled down, is the search for order about mass, energy and motion affecting the entire universe, turning mostly around theories of the Big Bang, but also containing amusing diversions such as the Black Hole discovered by John Howard, as well as the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker trilogy in five books, and Stephen Hawking's A short history of time, which no-one has ever had the time (or inclination) to finish.