I figured this blog needs to cover what is being called very big news, but I didn't really understand it myself when I first read about it. I will try to break it down.
This big story is about how new evidence was found that confirms how the Big Bang happened. There are several theories about what is called the Inflationary Big Bang. Some theorists had thought that during the big bang, the universe inflated and grew huge in a very tiny fraction of a second, seemingly faster than the speed of light. An experiment at the South Pole called BICEP2 found evidence of gravitational waves from the Big Bang, and after three years of analysis confirmed this specific type of inflation model. Electromagnetism and nuclear force united to become a "super-force" when the universe was created.
The implications are huge - our universe may only be one in a multiverse of many universes forming over time!
Scientists are waiting to hear if these results are confirmed with data from the European Space Agency's Planck mission, but are optimistic that this finding could be true and could very well lead to a Nobel Prize.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686
Update 3/21/14: I think this PhD Comic explains what happened a lot better than my feeble attempt at putting it into paragraphs.
http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1691
This big story is about how new evidence was found that confirms how the Big Bang happened. There are several theories about what is called the Inflationary Big Bang. Some theorists had thought that during the big bang, the universe inflated and grew huge in a very tiny fraction of a second, seemingly faster than the speed of light. An experiment at the South Pole called BICEP2 found evidence of gravitational waves from the Big Bang, and after three years of analysis confirmed this specific type of inflation model. Electromagnetism and nuclear force united to become a "super-force" when the universe was created.
The implications are huge - our universe may only be one in a multiverse of many universes forming over time!
Scientists are waiting to hear if these results are confirmed with data from the European Space Agency's Planck mission, but are optimistic that this finding could be true and could very well lead to a Nobel Prize.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686
Update 3/21/14: I think this PhD Comic explains what happened a lot better than my feeble attempt at putting it into paragraphs.
http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1691