Science ABC: The Horizon Problem
Tue, Aug 19, 2008
Today’s topic is a bit more complex, but requires only elementary notions to understand. It’s a problems that scientists have had many problems with, to say the least. The truth is despite the fact that there are some solutions that would partially (or even totally) explain the issue, there is no satisfactory explanation to this Big Bang related topic.
Basically, our universe appears to be uniform; look in one part of the universe, you’ll find microwave background radiation filling it, at mostly the same temperature. Look in the opposite direction, you’ll find the same thing. Nothing, so far; but we’ll get to that. You have to keep in mind that nothing travels faster than the speed of light, and this is not about just matter, it’s about physical properties and information too. So here comes the big thing.
The two edges of the Universe are 28 billion light years apart, and the universe is just 14 billion years old, so according to our understanding there is no way that heat radiation could have traveled between these horizons to even out the temperature difference. So the hot and cold spots that resulted after the Big Bang couldn’t have been evened out; but they have. This has given scientists huge head aches, and solutions are just wishful thinking.
The solution that seems to somewhat satisfy scientists is called inflation. Inflationary theory relies on the idea that just after the Big Bang, the universe expanded by a factor of 10^50 in 10^-33 seconds. So this just solves a mistery to give another one.
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August 19th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
ootini!!!
August 19th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Woooaaahhhhoooo!!!
August 19th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
First off, the universe isn’t “28 billion light years” in size, we can observe a sphere around us with a diameter of about 28 billion light years. If I moved 1 billion light years away, I’d have be able to observe a bubble of the universe about 28 billion light years in diameter. Assuming the that the universe is 14 billion years old, than the 28 billion light year diameter makes sense (14 billion in one direction, 14 billion in another equals 28 billion).
That said, the uniformity of the cosmic background radiation is a byproduct of the expanding universe along with a finite amount of energy in it. As the universe, the space around us, expands, the energy (and matter) remains constant, just getting further apart from each other, hence a uniform distribution of the cosmic background radiation.
As for the accelerated expansion, that is the current hypothesis based on the available evidence. Remember, that what it says is that for a short duration, the universe (not the energy in it) expanded at an incredible rate, which would result in an somewhat even distribution of the cosmic background radiation. Interestingly enough, slight irregularities in the CBR might be how matter began to form.
Ben
Ben
August 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
If we look at a galaxy 13.2 billion light years away (current record I think), we’re seeing it as it was 13.2 billion years ago. It sees a bubble of the universe ~28 BLy wide as well (we’re right on the edge of their universe!). When we take into account current inflation theory (the fact that, since those photons left that galaxy, we moved apart) the current accepted value for the width of the universe is ~ 156 BLy across!!! There are, more than likely, many times the “observable” galaxies in the universe that we will never see, since we cannot look beyond that 14 Bly horizon.
There are hundreds of billions of stars (suns) in hundreds of billions of galaxies just in our own bubble.
SARCASM ALERT: Yeah, we’re special, and this was all made just for us, not.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
hey is there a site where i could read a bunch of people who dont really understand the details of what they’re talking about wax scientific about the universe?
oh.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Let’s start by solving the first puzzle; spelling mystery properly. Mistery isn’t a word.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
“hey is there a site where i could read a bunch of people who dont really understand the details of what they’re talking about wax scientific about the universe?”
- yea, heaven forbid any layperson be interested in science… Obviously, these folks didn’t suffer through monotonous physics lectures time and time again, so they don’t have the right to “wax” about it…
Wait, I know, let’s jump on the author about pedantic details, and then just reiterate or ignore the general gist which he got right (and which may just be all that most people give a sh*t about anyway, imagine that) Then, let’s all go complain about how media and religion are destroying a general public adoption of scientific appreciation, and why can’t everyone find it as important and significant as you do?
hmmm… what a frustrating predicament.
a) want public appreciation and interest in science… = more grant money
b) don’t want anyone else within 10 feet of it who hasn’t “joined the club” by suffering through multiple degrees.
good luck.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Here is my theory, we are not the only ‘Big Bang’. Our universe is defined as all the matter and energy released by the big bang, but where and why did all that matter/energy collect to that event, and how is it the only matter/energy in all of existance? I think far beyond the boundaries of our universe there is a lot, perhaps infinite, instances of matter/energy collecting and ‘Big Banging’ again and again. Our matter is flying apart too fast to pull itself back in for another big bang, but perhaps it will interact with the matter from other exploding universes. And eventually over trillion and trillions of years that interaction will collect, and create other super masses, and beyond a certain critical mass explode and create a new universe.
Another interesting theory I read was that we are not in an expanding universe, but actually our whole universe is within the event horizon of a super massive black hole. This would actually make a tidy explanation of our appearance of an infinitely expanding universe which would actually turn out to be a collapsing universe. Also may explain the uniform background radiation. It would be radiation from outside the event horizon being spread evenly to our point of view due to our huge velocity difference and relativistic difference. This theory might also adequately explain ‘curved space’, although I have never read any theories trying to do so.
BTW I have a degree in Physics and Mathematics, so I actually had to
write up the math and theory involved in astrophysics and relativity as part of my degree.
None the less, it’s always great to think of and hear of what’s crazy out in the universe.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
You assume a hot big bang. Suppose the universe was actually warming from absolute zero?
August 19th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
The Big Bang never happened.
Anyone with a tiny bit of common sense knows that.
The whole theory is an assumption based on an assumption based on another dumbass assumption that has long since been proved incorrect.
Redshift is not caused by the Doppler Effect.
As soon as mainstream ’scientists’ pull their heads out of their rectums then we can continue evolving our knowledge or reality.
Once you realize that the Big Bang is fiction you will also realize that Entropic Heat death of the universe is also fiction.
From there its not a far step to realize that entropy is balanced by centropy.
If you can make it that far then you will realize that clean renewable energy is and has been a reality.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:28 am
wtf, nothing StopBeingRetarded said followed any logical sense or provided any context for his claims. You need teaching 101, chief.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:25 am
I love lamp
August 20th, 2008 at 3:44 am
This is one of the worse descriptions I have heard for the horizon problem. Why don’t I write a better one you ask, because I can’t. I can write one just as bad, but I don’t, and neither should you.
Can you see the difference between getting people interested in Science, and propagating bad and badly written information?
August 20th, 2008 at 9:13 am
@StopBeingRetarded
What the Fuck is “Centropy”?
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Centropy is, I’m sorry to say, entropy with a “C”
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:40 am
If the universe started as a singularity, where everything in it was the same, why wouldn’t it all be the same now after growing larger? Isn’t the current universe not just a larger version of its once tiny self?
While some “clumpiness” may have occurred, as a result of the “bang”, that later enabled star formation, the average tempature throughout should remain uniform. The arguments seem to imply that the universe expanded first and then its tempature had to somehow catch up later, as illustrated by the “hot water poured into a cold bath” metphor often used. (But then most non-math explanations of physics are pitiful.)
I don’t see the need for inflation. All it does is make continued research cost more.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I thought i was stumbling onto another happy little explanation of physics.
FOR GOD/SCIENCE/MY SAKE, IF YOU ARE GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING, MAKE IT CORRECT, UNDERSTANDABLE AND VOID OF IDIOTS LIKE “Stopbeingretarded” OKAY.
Forgive the caps.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:35 am
what Ben said.
whats the headaches about?
December 10th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Okay . . . getting away from all the “dumb-ass” theories and incredibly poorly written “articles,” I have something equally incredibly dumb to ask.
I am your average lay-person, highly interested in science, but without enough brains to get my mind wrapped around all the math surrounding science. As such, once things started getting too complicated for my feeble mind to comprehend, I would tune out.
That said, here is my own dumb-ass question:
If matter/energy/what-have-you can be neither created nor destroyed, how did the Big Bang occur? My understanding is that there was nothing. Then there was a Big Bang (or so this theory claims, to my understanding, of course). Then there was something.
What gives?
December 10th, 2008 at 2:13 am
The source of the big bang is unknown. Hypothesises are abound, from a continual expanding and contracting universe that constantly rebuilds itself (unlikely given the current observations) to “God did it”. The problem is that we can’t observe what occurred before our space-time existed when the Big Bang occurred because all our rules break down. The best we’ve been able to do is get within seconds of the Big Bang. Science will probably push that down further, but once you get to the singularity that the Big Bang originated from, all the bets are off and our observations fail. So the correct answer is “we don’t know and we may never know”.
And no, your question is not “dumb-ass”, just a question that keep cosmologists awake at night.
Ben