Physicists Create Universe Smaller Than a Marble
Thu, May 8, 2008
Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.
Image from Pingnews
At
By placing helium in a state which most closely resembles the form it held at the beginning of the universe, scientists have created an opportunity for the gas to go through several low-energy evolutions. These defects in space-time, are represented by tiny whirlpools in the helium, which are created by the rapid expansion, and equally rapid slowing of the expansion; something that it’s believed our own universe did at the big bang and in the moments thereafter.
How, then, did our universe go from whirlpools that could fit in a thimble to galaxies larger than our imaginations can properly comprehend? Physicists, ever ready with their dry wit, have deemed these phenomena “inflation.” Nobody knows how this works or why, this happened; vast amounts of energy aren’t something you’d like to replicate in a lab. Black holes and supernovas aren’t pleasant lab partners. It’s quite evident to the researchers however, that inflation, or something very much like it took place and, lacking the ability to do field research of lab trials, they have built scale models. This is where the tiny galaxies come in.
The theory being presented by the physicists in
What the string theorists claim is that in a collision of two 3-branes, or two different modes of pure helium like that containing the mini-galaxy, the universe will rapidly expand and stop instantly, mimicking the halting advance of the universe’s growth. Remarkably, when super cooled helium in different phases is mixed, it does exactly that: symmetries in the solution disappear, and aberrations form; the first step in several that lead to the forming of galaxies out of nothing. The secrets of the universe it seems, aren’t safe for long.
Environmental Graffiti is up for four bloggers’ choice awards. You can vote for us for best entertainment blog, best blog of all time, best geek blog and best animal blogger.
If you want to find out all the latest news on the environment, why not subcribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even throw in a free album.
You Might Also Like Our Friends' Posts From the Intertubes
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
2 Trackbacks For This Post
-
links for 2008-05-09 | hxf148 Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am[...] Physicists Create Universe Smaller Than a Marble : Environmental News Blog | Environmental Graffiti [...]
-
Physicists Create Universe Smaller Than a Marble « Jsoncook’s Blog Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 10:24 pm[...] to build a universe. In fact, they have already formed one, or something very much like it. This scientific breakthrough lies in the bottom of a chamber no larger than your pinky finger, filled with helium [...]
May 9th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Wow. I haven’t heard anything that fascinating since 1978 in the movie ANIMAL HOUSE, when Donald Sutherland and Tom Hulce (Pinto) were discussing the universe while stoned.
And your choice of image is gratuitously sci-nerd pornographic.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:44 am
you can send and build your Universe and send it to outer space. at http://www.beinspae.com
May 9th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Someone spilt commas all over your article. Good one, though. I didn’t know these guys were trying to do this kind of thing. It’ll help to be able to replicate those conditions for study but — as you say — not at vast scales. That would be bad.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Isn’t this what Steven Hawking is always talking about. How the small scale and large scale workings of the universe are the same we just don’t have a unified theory?
May 9th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Great!
It’s only a matter of time until a teeny tiny spacefaring civilization sends out teeny tiny starships to attack us.
Way to go, rocket scientists!
May 9th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
If our universe was created in a similar way (not saying that were in a marble) and ‘inflation’ is was caused us to be such a vast place, then what happens when the universe in the marble starts to inflate, will it grow so large as to destroy us all here on earth and then become a universe inside of our universe?
Shouldn’t that have been the first thing they considered before creating another universe?
May 9th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Do you think the Scientists took Sunday off?
May 9th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Did you ever stop and think that perhaps we are just the fruit of some crazy scientist in an inemnse world?
May 9th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Well if you are too dumb to explain it, interview someone for the story who can. We need to know (not really) but it would have been more interesting.
Harry “Duh” Wang
May 9th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Hey, lets test out something we don’t know by creating something we aren’t sure what it is, then watch it while it does stuff 99 percent of the population cares less about while hundreds of thousands of people all around the world are starving to death and committing crimes and others committing suicide because their world is agony and people are wasting millions on “research” instead of funding projects that actually help people yea! But as long as the turbo science nerds aren’t bored and feel sufficiently superior then it’s all great and the world is a wonderful place in their heads yea!
- but seriously it stands to reason you should make sure the stone is standing on is stable before you take another step. This 3 dimensional world we live in is screwed up. Let’s talk reality before we talk “what ifs”!!
May 9th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
May 9th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
is it just me or is there a face in the picture
May 9th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
The man in the moon and C3-P0 are hanging out! Good eye :)
May 10th, 2008 at 3:52 am
@guy (#11)–
what are you doing on the internet, wasting time reading blogs? or even, using a computer, knowing how much waste they create? why, that’s a luxury most simply can’t afford. there’s a world out there to save, and looking at science blogs ain’t gonna do it!
now look sharp, and get to volunteering. because only when you’ve conquered the problems of war and hatred and poverty are you allowed to do anything, ANYTHING of scientific or intellectual value that doesn’t otherwise put food on the tables of the poor or a roof over the homeless.
/sarcasm
May 11th, 2008 at 1:43 am
…and we all thought the galaxy on Orion’s belt in “Men in Black” was just fiction!
now we know we might be the tiny one on someone else’s cat’s neck, while we’re making more…
May 13th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Next up: The Farnsworth Parabox!
May 15th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
no pics of this marble no care…
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
is it just me or is there a face in the picture …Good eye :)
September 12th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
@guy
You make it seem like people are putting tons and tons of money into scientific research for no reason. Yes the problems of hunger are something that need to be resolved but you are blaming science for it? That is quite ridiculous. Much more money goes into the military or other pointless things. Science as a whole is under funded and theres a lack of scientists in the world. Although yes some projects get a lot of money, like the LHC, but most scientific research is paid for by either the government for military purposes, private companies to make a product, or where most pure research goes on, at universities. Why you are hating on science is ridiculous, since its because of scientists who are doing research just so “as long as the turbo science nerds aren’t bored and feel sufficiently superior then it’s all great and the world is a wonderful place in their heads yea!” is why your life is so easy. The basis of all application is pure research, if it wasn’t for that computers wouldn’t be powerful enough to do all the things they can, medicine wouldn’t be as good as it is, farming techniques wouldn’t be as advanced as they are, satellites wouldn’t be as sophisticated as they are, and none of the commodities of modern civilization would be here. So stop bashing on science, when it is what makes life better for people. As an engineering and physics student I know that it is not useless, although its an interest to scientists and engineers, the ultimate goal is make life better for people from the research. And again I reiterate most research is paid for by universities. But most of the research cost ends up being a profit because the university takes a cut of the profits, so they can do further research and also use that to develop the school more and give scholarships to students.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
“which are created by the rapid expansion, and equally rapid slowing of the expansion; something that it’s believed our own universe did at the big bang and in the moments thereafter. How, then, did our universe go from whirlpools that could fit in a thimble to galaxies larger than our imaginations can properly comprehend? Physicists, ever ready with their dry wit, have deemed these phenomena “inflation.” Nobody knows how this works or why, this happened.”
Isn’t this “I don’t know but it happened so believe it” exactly what you complain about me saying? The only value to an education from a “small liberal arts college” is being able to identify one’s own contradictions. If you haven’t even that much, why bother?
June 6th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
i saw a great image of the cycle of research, where at the blog/website portion of information distribution and interpretation, you get bull shit articles like this which don’t make a god damned bit of sense or leave out vital experimental information in order to write a good article about creating a universe.
Supercooled helium does not a universe make.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
@guy
Global poverty is created by governments through the IMF and World Bank.
Read a book and stop letting yourself be brainwashed.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:46 am
HAHAHA LOL — they forget relativity already? Who says this universe doesn’t also fit in a thimble! It would just be a massive thimble to us!
August 8th, 2009 at 11:30 am
My head asplode.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Do you think the Scientists took Sunday off?
September 13th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
“The galaxy is on Orion’s belt!”
September 14th, 2009 at 2:05 am
Anything relying on the string hypothesis is pretty much guaranteed to be bogus. The phenomena may be real, the explanation involving 3-branes is not.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:09 am
The title of this article is misleading and fairly outrageous if I may say so. Based on what I just read here, they did not create a new universe, they created a vastly simplified model of one aspect of the universe in order to study inflation.