BICEP2 Press Conference

• BICEP2 Technical Presentation Part 1
• BICEP2 Technical Presentation Part 2

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Lubos Motl is officially "link king." :)

See Also:

• BICEP2 Observatory in Antarctica
• Wayne Hu Primer

We've Come a Long Way

In 2003 the WMAP craft measured the very small fluctuations – about one part in 100,000 – in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation (coloured regions). These fluctuations, which are in excellent agreement with the predictions of Big Bang theory, originated during inflation and evolved under the influence of both gravity and the pressure of the matter–radiation plasma before particles in the plasma recombined to form hydrogen atoms. Buried in this pattern might also be fluctuations from primordial gravitational waves, but to tease out their signature researchers have to map in detail the polarization of the photons as well as their temperature (white lines represent the electric polarization vector). Since gravitational waves produce a quadrupolar anisotropy and therefore induce polarization without an associated temperature fluctuation, they (and only they) are able to generate a polarization pattern that cannot be expressed as the gradient of a scalar. Source: NASA. See: Sounding out the Big Bang

BICEP2 Observatory in Antarctica

Cosmic searches at the South Pole. The BICEP-2 Telescope is the up-facing dish at right. The larger white dish is the South Pole Telescope (SPT), and the building is the Dark Sector Laboratory. Both experiments observe in the millimeter-submillimeter part of the spectrum, mapping polarization patterns in the cosmic background radiation.

BICEP-2 Project

First Direct Evidence of Cosmic Inflation

...... will announce a “major discovery” about B-modes in the cosmic microwave background See: Who should get the Nobel Prize for cosmic inflation?

UPDATE: 

Closing thoughts -
BICEP2: Primordial Gravitational Waves!

The BICEP result, if correct, is a spectacular and historic discovery.  In terms of impact on fundamental physics, particularly as a tool for testing ideas about quantum gravity, the detection of primordial gravitational waves is completely unprecedented.  Inflation evidently occurred just two orders of magnitude below the Planck scale, and we have now seen the quantum fluctuations of the graviton.  For those who want to understand how the universe began, and also for those who want to understand quantum gravity, it just doesn't get any better than this.

In fact, it all seems far too good to be true.  And perhaps it is: check back after another experimental team is able to check the BICEP findings, and then we can really break out the champagne.

This should be really interesting.

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Stanford Professor Andrei Linde celebrates physics breakthrough  

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See Also:

• BICEP2 Updates
• BICEP2: New Evidence Of Cosmic Inflation!
• Discovery Clarification
• LSC Congratulates BICEP2 Colleagues
• BICEP2 2014 Results Release
• Helioseismology and Gravitational Waves
• Gravity Wave Spectrum

World Wide Web 25th Anniversary

The first web server, used by Tim Berners-Lee. Photo via Wikipedia

On the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, we’re pleased to share this guest post from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web. In this post he reflects on the past, present and future of the web—and encourages the rest of us to fight to keep it free and open. -Ed.

See:

• On the 25th anniversary of the web, let’s keep it free and open

The State of String Theory by Brian Greene

See: Brian Greene

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See Also:

• Brian Greene's talk on the state of string theory

Laminar Flow

If symmetry is to have ever existed,  and,  you return to the original state, problems enter the picture because you are introducing "some thing" to the system? For example, you can only back up so far. The question is what does this fifth dimensional perspective allow you? You know Gravity and light have been joined?

Yes, when you change visual perspective, what does a line look like, as in viewing a cylindrical system, with such a viscosity?

You cannot show where droplets were injected, and to go beyond that point of submersion, an example of what begin in rotation would on reversibility, happen same. So, something is missing?

 My question is: could you ever learn the answer to an otherwise-intractable computational problem by jumping into a black hole?

Entanglement,  is not an option in such a system ? As is FTL, medium dependent? Changing viscosity rates show speed of light variance?

I want to discuss today reflect a different perspective: one that regards computation as no more “arbitrary” than other central concepts of mathematics, and indeed, as something that shows up even in contexts that seem incredibly remote from it, from the AdS/CFT correspondence to turbulent fluid flow. See:Recent papers by Susskind and Tao illustrate the long reach of computation

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Fluid Velocity Profile

Visualization above,  has specific destination in relation to specificity of drop,  as to show distance from center?

Kaluza-Klein theory is a model which unifies classical gravity and electromagnetism. It was discovered by the mathematician Theodor Kaluza that if general relativity is extended to a five-dimensional spacetime, the equations can be separated out into ordinary four-dimensional gravitation plus an extra set, which is equivalent to Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field, plus an extra scalar field known as the "dilaton". Oskar Klein proposed that the fourth spatial dimension is curled up with a very small radius, i.e. that a particle moving a short distance along that axis would return to where it began. The distance a particle can travel before reaching its initial position is said to be the size of the dimension. This, in fact, also gives rise to quantization of charge, as waves directed along a finite axis can only occupy discrete frequencies.

Kaluza-Klein theory can be extended to cover the other fundamental forces - namely, the weak and strong nuclear forces - but a straightforward approach, if done using an odd dimensional manifold runs into difficulties involving chirality. The problem is that all neutrinos appear to be left-handed, meaning that they are spinning in the direction of the fingers of the left hand when they are moving in the direction of the thumb. All anti-neutrinos appear to be right-handed. Somehow particle reactions are asymmetric when it comes to spin and it is not straightforward to build this into a Kaluza-Klein theory since the extra dimensions of physical space are symmetric with respect to left-hand spinning and r-hand spinning particles.

Also to further speculate.....

Oskar Klein proposed that the fourth spatial dimension is curled up in a circle of very small radius, i.e. that a particle moving a short distance along that axis would return to where it began. The distance a particle can travel before reaching its initial position is said to be the size of the dimension. This, in fact, also gives rise to quantization of charge, as waves directed along a finite axis can only occupy discrete frequencies. (This occurs because electromagnetism is a U(1) symmetry theory and U(1) is simply the group of rotations around a circle).

Placing comment here until approved  or not approved.

Instituting a experimental argument is necessary, when t comes to symmetry in the realtor of viscosity and entanglement? Light in Ftl is medium dependent?

This sets up analogue example of the question of firewalls as to imply Black holes and information?

Layman wondering.

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See also:

• Misconceptions that Lenny Susskind, Scott Aaronson may share
• Problems in Condensed Matter Physics and How String Theory Can Explain
• Quantum Mechanics and the Geometry of Spacetime 
• Gravitational Collapse and the Horizon

Brane New World

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206^[5]

Brave New World Revisited

 
The allegorical relations that one might find to the subject of Brane is more then just the grey matter, but is an extreme version of a mathematical structure opening from an accumulation of previous mathematical structures. So the Brane New World is a idea behind revolutions(a Kuhnian thesis extrapolation) that takes place in abstract thinking and how relevant it is in the whole scheme of things.

From the Renormalization Group to Quantum Gravity:


To tell you the truth the unfolding of point, line, and plane(early drawings that I had, have since been lost) to me seemed logical as one moved to the idea of cylinders and brane as a extreme journey into an abstract space that few could follow. Even for myself. I did have these early visualizations long before string theory came into the picture that lead too, me seeing a version of the intersection of such brane. I wish I could find the drawing that I did so many years ago. Why this has always piqued my interest.

  In the Kaluza-Klein picture, the extra dimensions are envisioned as being rolled up in compact space with a very small volume, with massive excited states called Kaluza-Klein modes whose mass makes them too heavy to be observed in current or future accelerators.

   The braneworld scenario for having extra dimensions while hiding them from easy detection relies on allowing the extra dimensions to be noncompact, but with a warped metric that depends on the extra dimensions and so is not a direct product space. A simple model in five spacetime dimensions is the Randall-Sundrum model, with metric See: Kaluza-Klein in String Theory

I definitely do not understand it all but I do understand the historical journey. I am glad to see that such evolutions can help people move forward in the relationship of how one may look at physics approach.

Panel Discussion: D-branes: Tools of the Revolution

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See Also:

• Celebrating a Great Brane
• Brane Waves
• Brane cosmology
• Mathematics Guide

What is the Total Field?

The general theory of relativity is as yet incomplete insofar as it has been able to apply the general principle of relativity satisfactorily only to gravitational fields, but not to the total field. We do not yet know with certainty by what mathematical mechanism the total field in space is to be described and what the general invariant laws are to which this total field is subject. One thing, however, seems certain: namely, that the general principal of relativity will prove a necessary and effective tool for the solution of the problem for the total field. -Out of My Later Years, Pg 48, Albert Einstein (bold and underlined added for emphasis)

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You see, I am formulating qualifiers as to the nature of the question about the total field? The idea here is that from a symmetrical state,  and not wanting infinity to be such a thing,  what is the underlying the question of what exists as a moduli figure? The total field is as if,  some vacua, which has a hold on the idea of time and where this leads one too? No time.

So there is then this evolution of the moduli figure that rests in the valley, as to the question of what as a probabilistic event may be determined,  as if,  the higg's. It reveals that the higg's,  is not the end all too the story and I question the nature of the total field..

See Also:

• Matter Bound?

CUBESats

Station Live: NanoRacks Makes Space for CubeSats

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See Also:

•  CubeSats Deployment Begins, More Life Science Work on Station 
• Outernet
• Space Station Live: NanoRacks Deploying Cubesats from the Station

OPAL

OPALS is manifested to launch on the third ISS resupply mission by a SpaceX Falcon 9 Dragon in February 2014.

This artist's concept shows how the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) laser will beam data to Earth from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA. 

"OPALS represents a tangible stepping stone for laser communications, and the International Space Station is a great platform for an experiment like this," said Michael Kokorowski, OPALS project manager at JPL. "Future operational laser communication systems will have the ability to transmit more data from spacecraft down to the ground than they currently do, mitigating a significant bottleneck for scientific investigations and commercial ventures." SEE: NASA's OPALS to Beam Data From Space Via Laser

OPALS will be mounted externally on the International Space Station (ISS) in a nadir position on an ExPrESS Logistics Carrier (ELC). Image is credited to NASA/JPL-Caltech.

 The fastest commercial communication links on Earth use optical (or laser) fiber to transmit information. Using laser in space without this fiber is another method.  Fast laser communications between Earth and spacecraft like the International Space Station or the Mars rover Curiosity could enhance their connection to the public.  OPALS is also used to educate and train NASA personnel. See: Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) - 01.09.14

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OPALS Concept of Operations

See Also:

• Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft
• Communications Technique