As a correction to this story, the European Space Agency announced today, Jan 31, 2015 that this exciting discovery of gravitation waves by BICEP2, was in fact likely an optical illusion caused by obscuring space dust in the Milky Way which emits near-infrared light in the same wavelength range as the cosmic microwave background radiation. This was confirmed by a joint analysis of the data from the Planck satellite, BICEP2, and Keck array.
The recent likely proof of the existence of "gravitational waves" is a big breakthrough in cosmology, the study of the evolution of the Universe. This is similar in importance to the proof of the Higgs boson, the root of how "potential particles" are turned into matter, which got Higgs the Nobel Prize in physics last year. (See blogpost "How 'consciousness' creates matter...the God particle?") .
What are "gravitational waves", how are they detected, and why should i care?
As explained in the video, "Big Bang Gravity Waves Discovered", this discovery allows us to understand what actually happened at the very beginning of the universe, in the "first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second" about 13.8 billion years ago.
The theory is that a massive, extremely rapid expansion called "cosmic inflation", occurred. This is the product of Alan Guth @ MIT and Andrei Linde @ Stanford, for which they received the Dirac Medal and the Gruber Cosmology Prize.
So how do we "prove" that such a thing occurred very long ago in an infinitesimally short period? What clues could possibly still be around?
Well, Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that such a "wild and crazy" expansion would create ripples in "space-time", which would expand and contract space. Space-time, as shown in this short video, is curved to cause gravitational attraction between large bodies, the larger the bodies, the larger the curving and the larger the attraction.
While these curves in space-time were large then, they are minuscule now, but their signatures persist as tiny variations in the "cosmic microwave background" (CMB) or thermal radiation, called "relic radiation", left over from the Big Bang (not the TV series). As you can see at right, it's not uniform; "cold" (blue) places are galaxies. BTW, the average temperature of the Universe is a chilly, about -455 degrees F (2.73 degrees K).
These "gravitational waves" should have "twisted" the CMB in a particular way. Much as your polarized sunglasses can see different polarization angles of sunlight, these polarized waves have a specific polarization called B-mode, or "curl only".
As the CMB signal is so weak, it was necessary to find the clearest, cleanest air on the planet to look through. Well, it isn't over NYC or Beijing, but at the South Pole.
A huge team from many big-name institutions, including MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, JPL, U of MN, etc. spent many hundreds of dollars to build some fantastic equipment and spent 9 years of research, observation and analysis under the BICEP2 program.
They got their "ground-breaking, history-making" result. These "swirling B-mode patterns" (right) clearly demonstrated that there were gravitational waves from the Big Bang, validating the cosmic inflation theory.
(If you want a "inside seat" at a potential Nobel prize winner's being told by a junior collaborator that his theory has been proven, see this Stanford video.)
As far as "so what?" for us non-cosmologists, that came from an interview w/Andre Linde entitled "Why Explore Consciousness and Cosmos?", sent to me by Dinesh Nambisan. Thanks, Dinesh.
A. The wave function in quantum mechanics is such that if you square it, you get the
probability of finding something in a given space. As quantum mechanics is universally-applicable, we apply it to the whole universe. The time derivative of the wave function
shows you how fast it changes.
This is proportional to its energy which is the energy of everything. But the total expression for the whole
universe is exactly zero. If we combine
the positive energy of matter and the corresponding negative energy of the gravitational
field, we get zero.
Also the speed of change of the wave function is zero, so the wave function of the universe which describes everything, all changes, us talking, and everybody recording, does not depend on time. When our discussion is over, nothing changes, and it is not recorded. How could this be?
As the wave function of the whole universe does not depend on time,
it only starts depending on the time on my watch if I subtract myself and observe
the rest. In a certain sense, the rest
of the universe is alive only if I am alive.
My observation is my consciousness.
Without my recording it, all the rest of the universe will be dead. It presumes that consciousness may have some
independent importance.
BTW, don't forget that this blog is on a Google platform, and so is easily searchable from the box in the upper right hand corner.
The recent likely proof of the existence of "gravitational waves" is a big breakthrough in cosmology, the study of the evolution of the Universe. This is similar in importance to the proof of the Higgs boson, the root of how "potential particles" are turned into matter, which got Higgs the Nobel Prize in physics last year. (See blogpost "How 'consciousness' creates matter...the God particle?") .
What are "gravitational waves", how are they detected, and why should i care?
As explained in the video, "Big Bang Gravity Waves Discovered", this discovery allows us to understand what actually happened at the very beginning of the universe, in the "first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second" about 13.8 billion years ago.
 |
| Alan Guth MIT |
 |
| Andrei Linde Stanford |
The theory is that a massive, extremely rapid expansion called "cosmic inflation", occurred. This is the product of Alan Guth @ MIT and Andrei Linde @ Stanford, for which they received the Dirac Medal and the Gruber Cosmology Prize.
So how do we "prove" that such a thing occurred very long ago in an infinitesimally short period? What clues could possibly still be around?
 |
| Curvature of space-time around earth w/satellite |
Well, Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that such a "wild and crazy" expansion would create ripples in "space-time", which would expand and contract space. Space-time, as shown in this short video, is curved to cause gravitational attraction between large bodies, the larger the bodies, the larger the curving and the larger the attraction.
 |
| Cosmic Microwave Background |
While these curves in space-time were large then, they are minuscule now, but their signatures persist as tiny variations in the "cosmic microwave background" (CMB) or thermal radiation, called "relic radiation", left over from the Big Bang (not the TV series). As you can see at right, it's not uniform; "cold" (blue) places are galaxies. BTW, the average temperature of the Universe is a chilly, about -455 degrees F (2.73 degrees K).
These "gravitational waves" should have "twisted" the CMB in a particular way. Much as your polarized sunglasses can see different polarization angles of sunlight, these polarized waves have a specific polarization called B-mode, or "curl only".
 |
| BICEP2 "Dark Sector" Lab @ South Pole |
As the CMB signal is so weak, it was necessary to find the clearest, cleanest air on the planet to look through. Well, it isn't over NYC or Beijing, but at the South Pole.
A huge team from many big-name institutions, including MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, JPL, U of MN, etc. spent many hundreds of dollars to build some fantastic equipment and spent 9 years of research, observation and analysis under the BICEP2 program.
 |
| Swirling B-mode gravitational wave patterns |
They got their "ground-breaking, history-making" result. These "swirling B-mode patterns" (right) clearly demonstrated that there were gravitational waves from the Big Bang, validating the cosmic inflation theory.
(If you want a "inside seat" at a potential Nobel prize winner's being told by a junior collaborator that his theory has been proven, see this Stanford video.)
As far as "so what?" for us non-cosmologists, that came from an interview w/Andre Linde entitled "Why Explore Consciousness and Cosmos?", sent to me by Dinesh Nambisan. Thanks, Dinesh.
What follows is from that interview.
Q. I was frankly
surprised to see you talking about consciousness in several papers that you’ve
written on cosmic inflation. You said that
if we avoid consciousness, we limit our ability to understand what’s really
going on.
 |
| Schrodinger equation |
Andrei: Quantum cosmology
requires us to think about consciousness. The cosmologist DeWitt wrote a paper where he proposed
that we write the Schrodinger equation for the wave function for the whole
universe.
Q. Normally we do
that for a small particle - not for the whole universe.
 |
| Time derivative of wave function |
 |
| Energy of everything |
Also the speed of change of the wave function is zero, so the wave function of the universe which describes everything, all changes, us talking, and everybody recording, does not depend on time. When our discussion is over, nothing changes, and it is not recorded. How could this be?
We typically look at the wave function of the rest of the universe,
not including ourselves, the observers. Our
combined mass, from E = mc squared, will give you the energy of everything,
which is zero. My mass is exactly offset by the negative mass of the universe. If I am small, then the rest of the universe
will be small.
As the wave function of the whole universe does not depend on time,
it only starts depending on the time on my watch if I subtract myself and observe
the rest. In a certain sense, the rest
of the universe is alive only if I am alive.
My observation is my consciousness.
Without my recording it, all the rest of the universe will be dead. It presumes that consciousness may have some
independent importance.
Q. That’s very
brave. Consciousness is not normally
something that physicists would approach in that matter. Human beings were only around for a million
years, but the universe seems to have been around a lot longer than that, so how do you explain that?
 |
| Niels Bohr Father of Copenhagen Interpretation |
A. Yes, it seems to be around longer than
that. Physicists of the
Copenhagen interpretation school say that everything becomes real at the moment that
it is observed. You put the wave
function of the universe into a certain state after you observe it, but everything looks
as if it existed all the time before it happened. That is the theory of consistent histories. When you observe the galaxy
in the sky, everything looks as if was there even before you start observing.
Q. Could that mean
that consciousness has some fundamental nature, even as fundamental as matter
and energy?
A. I really suspect
that this may be the case. When Einstein
invented his theory of special relativity, he said that space and time are
the same - part of some unity. People
thought of space and time as a set of numbers which did not have any independent
existence. They are just necessary for a description of a real thing - the motion of matter.
Then with Einstein's general relativity theory, space and time acquired their
own degrees of freedom. Even the universe w/o any protons and electrons, like in gravitational
waves, can move. A gravitational wave can propagate, so space and time can exist without matter.
First, we thought that matter was all that matters, and then, later, we say that space-time has its own degrees of freedom and exists w/o matter. Now we say that matter may only be a way of
describing the changing geometry of space-time.
So space-time becomes the top priority.
 |
| BICEP2 Readout Electronics |
Q. So we started
w/matter being primary, and then matter and space-time being equal, and then
space-time became primary and matter secondary.
A. To have the degrees
of freedom for space-time, gravitational waves are necessary for internal
consistency of the theory (and now we've proven them). We think
about consciousness as something that describes matter, but could it be that
consciousness, just like space-time, could have its own degrees of freedom and so consciousness will be elevated and will include matter as its (secondary) part?
The "take away", IMHO, is a likely Nobel prize winner talking openly about the necessity of including consciousness as an important element in understanding how the universe evolved, including realizing that matter is subordinate not just to space-time, but also likely to consciousness.
BTW, don't forget that this blog is on a Google platform, and so is easily searchable from the box in the upper right hand corner.
Fantabulous post, Gary. One of the most crucial "Aha!" moments from self inquiry has been that consciousness appears to be the source of matter when we look within. How appropriate that physics, which gives us such a tremendous framework for understanding the material world, should discover the within ( consciousness) when it looks without ( cosmos). Strange, though, how the presupposition that it is "brave" to consider consciousness persists, when the history of 20th century physics has a very persistent strand of diverse physicists affirming the role of consciousness. Schrodinger, Wigner, Von Neumann, Pauli and many others have come back to the role of consciousness in the whole enchilada, yet each time we once again view this as "strange" or "brave." I wonder what it is about our egoic idea of physics that guides us towards prejudging and even rejecting empirical evidence for the role of consciousness but allows us to accept the wackiest of material phenomena, e.g. black holes? My dissertation director, a Macarthur winner, wrote a lovely and still relevant article on this phenomena back in 1979. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979AmJPh..47..718K
ReplyDeleteI'll see if I can scare up a pdf.
gratitude for the post,
mobius
Hi Rich (Doyle). Great that you enjoyed it.
DeleteYour dissertation director's relevant article, from what i can see from the abstract, focused so much on what you point out, i.e. the role of our "egoic idea of physics" and how prejudicial it is to an open understanding of the material world, and even our own empirical results. That is why it was so heartening to hear a likely future Nobel Laureate talk so openly about the role of consciousness. As you point out, the "giants" of the great discoveries at the root of contemporary physics have all "come back to the role of consciousness".
As Einstein pointed out, "physics advances by funerals", i.e., careers and reputations based upon a previous, outdated principle are very difficult to dislodge simply w/contradictory experimental results. Still, the evidence is becoming more and more compelling, as BICEP2 pointed out, re the crumbling of the "materialist" viewpoint.
Stillness.
You might all enjoy looking at Bernardo Kastrup's "Why Materialism is Baloney" - quite heartening, and I think a sign of the (coming) times.
Delete