A team of researchers working at the South Pole announced Monday that BICEP2 cosmic microwave background telescope had detected ripples from gravitational waves – the first evidence of cosmic inflation.
This is one of the biggest discoveries in physics and cosmology in decades, providing direct information on the state of the universe when it was only 10-34 seconds old, energy scales near the Planck energy, as well confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves. The idea that the universe exponentially grew in a fraction of a second, rather merely rapidly expanding. The researchers at the South Pole were able to detect gravitational waves (ripples that squeeze space as they travel) and what they deemed the first direct evidence of this inflation occurring billions of years ago.
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Hey Pablo, fellow Quora user Amitansh Gupta led to my discovering your “Stanley Colours” site by posting your “Life and Donuts” artwork in answer to » What is the point of living if everyone dies? (to which I’d previously posted my own answer » http://qr.ae/yHWsp ).
And what do I find on arrival? A comrade Homo sapiens cosmoscenti who is equally excited by and moved by the significance of the BICEP2 discovery! WONDERFUL!!
One minor quibble caveat: “The
researchers at the South Pole were able to detect gravitational waves” –
not quite, they detected evidence for gravitational waves in the
polarisation patterns of the CMB, akin to finding the fingerprints of
pimordial inflationary GWs, rather than to detecting GWs directly; it’s
the experimentalists at direct detectors such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory who are searching for (as-yet undetected) actially propagating GWs (other specific operational gravitational-wave detectors are also available ;-).
Looking forward to enjoying exploring your philosophies via your witty graphic art,
Peace-&-Love, Tim