Has direct evidence for gravitational waves been found? This better turn out to be right. I remember what happened in the Arctic expedition in the second season of the Big Bang theory with the over-zealous search for monopoles to support Sheldons string theory. Rumours have been circulating that BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization, bicep.caltech.edu/public/), a CMBR experiment at the South Pole led by CalTech, where Sheldon and Co also apparently work, and which stares at the electromagnetic sky for microwave fluctuations, has discovered evidence of gravitational waves from the Big Bang. This is the real Big Bang, aka t=0, not the CBS sitcom. Their Press Conference is at the CfA on Monday. It is believed that 10^-34 seconds after the Big Bang, the universe expanded rapidly in a phase known as inflation, resulting in the uniformity we now see in the cosmic background. There is no direct physical evidence for this hypothesis to be considered to be a theory. The gravitational waves from the big bang could be this evidence..Only inflation could amplify primordial gravitational waves into a signal we can still detect.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 09:14:03 +0000
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