From StarTalk guest and friend of show, Professor Brian Greene: Hi Everyone, As some of you have no doubt heard, questions have been raised by some of the worlds most respected physicists and cosmologists, regarding whether ripples in the fabric of space generated by the Big Bang have really been detected. This has to do with the BICEP2 announcement in mid-March, about which I have a number of earlier FB posts below. Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post has done an excellent job of giving a sense of the state-of-play at the moment -- and Ive attached his article below. Im quoted a couple of times, but let me mention one thing here that I dont say explicitly in the article, but which youll recognize as a theme that runs through some of my posts: It is the natural course of science, it is the essential method of science, to question everything. To take results and carefully analyze all assumptions, search out the weak links, try to see where we might be fooling ourselves. It is this unrelenting skeptical attitude that allows science to -- ultimately -- make progress toward truth. And thats whats happening now with these Big Bang observations. With about 8 other experiments now underway, seeking the swirling pattern in the microwave background radiation reported by BICEP2, it will only be a matter of months before new data will help sort this all out. Exciting times. --BG
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 15:41:15 +0000
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