Astronomers find evidence of inflation
Mar 19, 2014, 6:42 AM | Updated: 11:29 am
(AP Photo/Steffen Richter)
It is the biggest news in Physics since the discovery of the Higgs boson.
Astronomers have discovered proof of inflation.
Not the monetary kind – but the kind that explains why the universe appears as it does.
The inflation that happened right after the Big Bang. And I’m talking immediately after. Less than a second. Way less than a second.
“We are talking right now about billionth of billionth of billionth of a millionth of a second after the big bang,” said Stanford professor Andre Linde, who developed the Inflation theory in 1983.
And when he was told it had finally been proven, they broke out the champagne. Because now we’ve seen all the way back.
It was proven by observations using a telescope in Antarctica, which found gravitational ripples in the very fabric of the universe – the way a strong wave leaves ripples in the sand.
It detected these gravitational waves by observing how they polarize the starlight passing through them – a little like polarized sunglasses.
So we’re actually seeing gravity ripples representing a snapshot of the shockwaves sent out 13.82 billion years ago, a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a millionth of a second after the big bang, an immense explosion which lasted 10 to the minus 32nd of a second, during which the universe became 10 trillion trillion trillion trillion times bigger.
Which is why, I’m guessing, the ancients simply chose to write, “And God said let there be light.” Because otherwise, no one would have believed it.