Thu, May 8, 2008
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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.
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[...] Physicists Create Universe Smaller Than a Marble : Environmental News Blog | Environmental Graffiti [...]
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 :)