The Planck data threw up a few questions which require "new physics" to explain

[The Straight Story]

Most detailed map of Big Bang radiation unveiled

A new, detailed map of the most ancient light in the cosmos has revealed our Universe to be about 80 million years older than thought, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Thursday.

The 50-million pixel, all-sky snapshot of radiation left over from the Big Bang was compiled from data gathered by ESA's Planck satellite, launched four years ago.

"This is a giant leap in our understanding of the origins of the Universe," the agency's director general Jean-Jacques Dordain told a press conference to unveil the data in Paris.

..

The Planck data threw up a few questions which the cosmologist said may require "new physics" to explain.

It seems to challenge several theories on "inflation" -- a brief period directly after the Big Bang in which the Universe was thought to have expanded at a faster rate than the speed of light.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/HTNext/LifeAndUniverse/Most-detailed-map-of-Big-Bang-radiation-unveiled/Article1-1030317.aspx

[DreamGypsy]

1. "Throwing up questions" doesn't quite capture the actual statements or sentiments...

...of the ESA/Planck scientists and leaders.

As I noted in a post four days ago the best article I found describing the Planck results was from the New York Times. Some of the comments in the Hindustan Times article struck me as a bit odd, so I went back to the NYT for comparison.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive, but dropping a phrase such as "a few questions which ... may require "new physics" to explain" sounds to me like the old physics has completely missed the boat and no longer applies.

Here's how the quotes from the NY expose the "new physics" notion:

Within the standard cosmological framework, however, the new satellite data underscored the existence of puzzling anomalies that may yet lead theorists back to the drawing board. The universe appears to be slightly lumpier, with bigger and more hot and cold spots in the northern half of the sky as seen from Earth than toward the south, for example. And there is a large, unexplained cool spot in the northern hemisphere.

Those anomalies had shown up on previous maps by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, satellite, but some had argued that they were because of a bad analysis or contamination from the Milky Way.

<snip>

George Efstathiou, of Cambridge University, one of the leaders of the Planck project, said in the European Space Agency news release: “Our ultimate goal would be to construct a new model that predicts the anomalies and links them together. But these are early days; so far, we don’t know whether this is possible and what type of new physics might be needed. And that’s exciting.”

Definitely a kinder, gentler "new physics" that reflects the strength of the scientific method: as we gain new eyes or our eyes open wider, we learn new information and adapt our models of reality...which is really kick-ass fun!


(From left) The evolution of satellites designed to measure ancient light left over from the Big Bang that created our universe 13.8 billion years ago. (AP/ESA Planck Collaboration)

Then, there's the Hindustan Times comment that the Planck data "seems to challenge several theories on "inflation", which leaves open the question about the status of inflation altogether...does the data suggest that inflation itself is in question???

The NYT explains as follows:

The data also offered striking support for the notion of inflation, which has been the backbone of Big Bang theorizing for 30 years. Under the influence of a mysterious force field during the first trillionth of a fraction of a second, what would become the observable universe ballooned by 100 trillion trillion times in size from a subatomic pinprick to a grapefruit in less than a violent eye-blink, so the story first enunciated by Alan Guth of M.I.T. goes.

Submicroscopic quantum fluctuations in this force field are what would produce the hot spots in the cosmic microwaves, which in turn would grow into galaxies. According to Planck’s measurements, those fluctuations so far fit the predictions of the simplest model of inflation, invented by Andrei Linde of Stanford, to a T.

Dr. Tegmark of M.I.T. said, “We’re homing in on the simplest model.”

Ok, despite the pinprick/grapefruit theatrics, the NYT at least lets us know that the data support one variant of inflation theories, so perhaps discount others.

Having data to support any theoretical retrodiction of inflation is pretty amazing. Again, from the NYT:

Dr. Tegmark and others said that another clue to the nature of inflation could come from the anomalies in the microwave data — the lopsided bumpiness, for example — that tend to happen on the largest scales in the universe. By the logic of quantum cosmology, they were the first patterns to be laid down on the emerging cosmos; that is to say, when inflation was just starting.

He compared it to walking in on a fight. If the fight has been going on for a while, he said, it is impossible to tell who started it or who was hurt first. But if you come in only a few seconds after it started, you have a better chance of figuring out who did what to whom.

“It may be,” he said, “we’re coming in early to the cosmic brawl.”

What data will someone's proposed successor to the Planck satellite provide us? Ten years, fifty years from now? A thousand times, ten thousand times, improved resolution on the first infinitesimal moments of our universe...

A cosmic brawl. It's great to be watching ringside.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. Insert joke about string theory

or somebody's former spouse and their similarity to the 4 degree Kelvin background radiation......

[Rex]

3. New physics.

I love new physics.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. Kepler was new to Aristotle.

Ellipses hadn't been figured out yet. Kepler wasted time trying to prove perfect solids for planetary spheres in the heliocentric model.

Einstein's model was a new paradigm to Newtonian physics. String theory is useless according to Feynman.

Read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn, 1964.

I read it many years ago in Philosophy of Science class in college.

Somebody has to come up with a totally new model (paradigm) to explain new data.