What caused the tiny variations in the Cosmic Microwave Background?

[Chaballa]

In my opinion if the Big Bang Theory is correct, it would have resulted in a really massive black hole, "Ultramassive Black Hole(UBH)".
Great Attractor could be the location of the "UBH", origin of the Big Bang.
This could explain the Dark flow and all galaxies should orbit around the "UBH".

I guess my idea is based on fact that very large explosion like Supernova creates a black hole, and the effects of the black holes and Supermassive black holes, etc. Does this make any sense?

Wiki
Black hole - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
Supernova - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova
Supermassive black hole - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole
Great Attractor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor
Dark flow - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_flow

 

[amarante]

The Big Bang was not an explosion, like a Supernova, it was an expansion of the space itself, not like a supernova explosion that is an expansion in space. So maybe if should be a BH caused by the Big Bang, certainly it was created differently as it happens after a SN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

[cristo]

In my opinion if the Big Bang Theory is correct

It's not. Try searching in this and the cosmology forum and you will find a plethora of threads devoted to ironing out this misconception.

 

[Fredrik]

It's not. Try searching in this and the cosmology forum and you will find a plethora of threads devoted to ironing out this misconception.

There's probably nothing you could have said that would cause more confusion than that.

I would object to the idea that any theory can "be correct" (rather than just "make predictions that agree very well with experiments"), but I'm guessing that's not what you had in mind. Perhaps you meant that we need add something like inflation to the original big bang theory to account for some of the things we see.

 

[Calimero]

It's not. Try searching in this and the cosmology forum and you will find a plethora of threads devoted to ironing out this misconception.

Also confused. What you had in mind?

 

[Fredrik]

In my opinion if the Big Bang Theory is correct, it would have resulted in a really massive black hole, "Ultramassive Black Hole(UBH)".
Great Attractor could be the location of the "UBH", origin of the Big Bang.
This could explain the Dark flow and all galaxies should orbit around the "UBH".

I guess my idea is based on fact that very large explosion like Supernova creates a black hole, and the effects of the black holes and Supermassive black holes, etc. Does this make any sense?

Fortunately physics isn't a matter of opinion, and as Amarante said, the big bang wasn't an explosion. I suggest that you follow diogenesNY's instructions here on how to get free access to a good article about the big bang. You should probably also take a look at the forum rules. There are rules against posting personal speculation here, so you should stick to asking questions about what the relevant theories actually say.

 

[cristo]

There's probably nothing you could have said that would cause more confusion than that.

Haha.. I just re-read the thread now and confused myself!

I originally read the OP as

If my opinion of the Big Bang Theory is correct...

and hence answered

It's not. ...

I.e., the version of the "big bang theory" presented in the OP is not what is meant by the standard "big bang theory". I did not mean that the standard model of cosmology is incorrect. Sorry for confusing everyone!

 

[Chaballa]

The Big Bang was not an explosion, like a Supernova, it was an expansion of the space itself, not like a supernova explosion that is an expansion in space. So maybe if should be a BH caused by the Big Bang, certainly it was created differently as it happens after a SN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

well i originally thought bout this idea about year or two ago while watching documentary about black hole, universe, big bang theory etc. I didn’t realize wiki said Big Bang Theory wasn’t an explosion cos according to all the documentaries i’ve seen Big Bang started as a big explosion. (from old ones like "Understanding The Universe" to new ones like "Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong")

 

[Fredrik]

I didn’t realize wiki said Big Bang Theory wasn’t an explosion cos according to all the documentaries i’ve seen Big Bang started as a big explosion. (from old ones like "Understanding The Universe" to new ones like "Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong")

I guess most documentaries suck. A few months ago (maybe a year), I saw a really bad one about the LHC called "The big bang machine". It started like this: "In the beginning, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Then, there was an explosion". Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

 

[Nabeshin]

I guess most documentaries suck. A few months ago (maybe a year), I saw a really bad one about the LHC called "The big bang machine". It started like this: "In the beginning, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Then, there was an explosion". Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Yeah... this kind of crap always gets me. But it allows them to do two different things:
a) use flashy computer generated graphics, and
b) overly simplify something by analogy

I mean, it really doesn't have the same effect to explain that, "since we observe all galaxies moving away from all other galaxies, logically if we run the universe in reverse they must get closer and closer and closer until some 13.7 Gyr ago the entire universe is extremely small, dense, and hot".

Such is life though...

 

[Chaballa]

Yeah... this kind of crap always gets me. But it allows them to do two different things:
a) use flashy computer generated graphics, and
b) overly simplify something by analogy

yer there are always ups n downs, but i wouldn't say computer generated graphics used in documentry as flashy, they all seem outdated(in terms of graphics) n i guess they have to use it since they can't show the real event. In "Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong" they actually used a real explorsion(not CGI) to display the Big Bang Theory.

I mean, it really doesn't have the same effect to explain that, "since we observe all galaxies moving away from all other galaxies,"

yer that's also wat i understood from previous documentries, but when i watched "Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong" (), it talks about Dark flow(new to me) and says "Galaxies simply aren't meant to race across space in the same direction.".

 

[emc2cracker]

For a second I thought you were advocating steady state! Thanks for clearing that up lol.

 

[Chaballa]

I guess most documentaries suck.

It doesn't make sense to me.. ALL the documentaries(old ones n new ones) I've seen described the Big Bang as an explosion. All these documentaries had many experts(e.g. Professor of Physics, Cosmologist from all major universites), and wouldn't they also watch the same documentary since they are in it? and shouldn't they say umm that's wrong, Big Bang wasn't an explosion?

 

[Dmitry67]

Did they have a chance to say that?
Even if they tell that it would be cut as 'too complicated stuff'

 

[Fredrik]

It doesn't make sense to me.. ALL the documentaries(old ones n new ones) I've seen described the Big Bang as an explosion. All these documentaries had many experts(e.g. Professor of Physics, Cosmologist from all major universites), and wouldn't they also watch the same documentary since they are in it? and shouldn't they say umm that's wrong, Big Bang wasn't an explosion?

I agree with you. The guy I quoted is a professor of experimental particle physics. That almost certainly means that he doesn't know the big bang stuff as well the science advisors who hang out here in the relativity and cosmology forums. But I find it hard to believe that he doesn't know that. So it makes me wonder why he agreed to say it. I would have refused.

 

[Jerbearrrrrr]

Well, the distance between stuff is getting bigger. May as well call it an explosion just to get the point across. It was hot and smaller and more energetic than now. Not completely unlike an explosion. As long as the ants-on-a-balloon analogy is explained, I wouldn't blame them.
I'd hope people wouldn't be inclined to think it was like some cosmic-scale hand-grenade.
That Horizon wasn't a very good documentary though. I remember watching it and thinking ":|".

Anyway.

Can someone comment on the "reference frame" that's defined by the background radiation? I'm not sure what I want to know to be honest, but I'm sure the existence of such a reference frame has consequences.

 

[Calimero]

Can someone comment on the "reference frame" that's defined by the background radiation? I'm not sure what I want to know to be honest, but I'm sure the existence of such a reference frame has consequences.

Try this:https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=405332"

post #9 I think,
I don't know if it helps, but anyway...

 

[emc2cracker]

EXACTLY And explosion looks precisely the same if you were to slow it down in time lapse.. its basicaly a release of energy. Which is exactly what the big bang was a huge release of energy, inflation or explosion... it looks and acts pretty much the same.

Thats why all the documentaries call it an explosion, in fact its not exactly wrong to call it an explosion its just more precise to call it an inflation. Most reasons being is that as opposed to being a destructive force the big bang was a positive creative force, as far as explosions go we have never ever seen anything like it. Thats why most people that have studied physics cringe at that explanation... but as far as putting the big bang in laymans terms there is nothing wrong with using the term explosion.

Frankly here I am surprised at much of the reaction to what people see in mainstream cosmology, even stuff defined by our most brilliant minds is ridiculed and called wrong. But really when we are backing up and trying to explain things we cannot hope to understand its kind of childish to say anyone is wrong.. anything born out of something we cannot explain is bound to have lots of imperfections under anyones definition.

 

[Chaballa]

Well if Big Bang was a mother of all explosion like decribed in documentaries, or its name, i think it would have resulted in a really massive black hole, much larger than any Supermassive black hole found in centre of each galaxy. Otherwise they should really fix the documentaries and also maybe change the name to "The Big Inflation Theory"...

 

[emc2cracker]

When I set off a charge at work and blow 100 tons of rock into gravel I often think of the big bang and the inflation of the universe. Really one can look at it very much like an explosion, be it one that happens before the laws of physics the similarity is still uncanny. As if somehow somebody would blow up a black hole and cause all the matter within to escape. I think of the singularity at the beginning much like a super black hole, as if somebody flipped the gravity switch off and allowed everything to escape.

Its just easier for people to think of the big bang as a huge explosion, I don't see the big deal over the inflation/explosion debate. Doesn't matter so much what we call it so long as we figure it out and understand it eventually.

I can see that inflation is a more precise and correct term to describe it, but I also see why people call it an explosion its just easier to explain the notion starting with a term that everyone can understand and its close enough to really make no difference in my humble opinion.

 

[Chaballa]

If The Big Bang Theory is correct, all ~200 million galaxies are ~14 billion light years away from the point of the Big Bang?

What created Supermassive black hole, galaxy and how come all the stars in each galaxy orbits at same speed? in documentaries they say ~1 billion year after the Big Bang, stars were born n stars grouped into galaxies.. but i don't think millions of stars joined up to form a galaxy.

 

[marcus]

... Otherwise they should really fix the documentaries and also maybe change the name to "The Big Inflation Theory"...

That's right, the name is wrong. The actual theory (a mathematical model with expanding distances) is nothing like a big explosion outwards from some point in space.

The name 'Big Bang' was given to the expansion cosmology model by someone who hated the model and had an alternative, which was discredited. It expresses bitter contempt and completely misrepresents the theory itself.

But that's life. GW Bush should never have gotten to be President and we should never have invaded Iraq. Stuff happens. We seem to be stuck with the bad name "Big Bang".

If The Big Bang Theory is correct, all ~200 million galaxies are ~14 billion light years away from the point of the Big Bang?
...

No, that is a total misconception. I think you yourself must already realize that what you describe has nothing to do with the actual model. It is the "explosion outwards from a point in space" picture which is totally misleading garbage derived simply from the bad name that was given to the model by its main enemy, Dr. Fred Hoyle. The name caught on with journalists and media people, so there was nothing that professional cosmologists could do to correct it.

Now the name has become accepted jargon. We all use it, and we all know that it does not actually describe an explosion outwards from some point in space. So there is really no harm done, except to people who read pop science books. A lot of jargon terms are not very descriptive of what they serve as labels for. They are just labels---the scientists know what they mean and you learn the definition from a textbook.

 

[ViewsofMars]

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Anisotropies: their Discovery and Utilization
Nobel Lecture, December 8, 2006
by
George F. Smoot iii
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Space Sciences Laboratory,
Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

1 The Cosmic Background Radiation
Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies have revolutionized and continue to revolutionize our understanding of the Universe. The observation of the CMB anisotropies angular power spectrum with its plateau, acoustic peaks, and high frequency damping tail have established a standard cosmological model consisting of a flat (critical density) geometry, with contents being mainly dark energy and dark matter and a small amount of ordinary matter. In this successful model the dark and ordinary matter formed its structure through gravitational instability acting on the quantum fluctuations generated during the very early Inflationary epoch. Current and future observations will test this model and determine its
key cosmological parameters with spectacular precision and confidence.

1.1 Introduction
In the Big Bang theory the CMB Radiation is the relic radiation from the hot primeval fireball that began our observable universe about 13.7 billion years ago. As such the CMB can be used as a powerful tool that allows us to measure the dynamics and geometry of the universe. The CMB was first discovered by Penzias and Wilson at Bell Laboratory in 1964 [1]. They found a persistent radiation from every direction which had a thermodynamic temperature of about 3.2K. At that time, physicists at Princeton (Dicke, Peebles, Wilkinson and Roll) [2] were developing an experiment to measure the relic radiation from the Big Bang theory. Penzias and Wilson’s serendipitous discovery of the CMB opened up the new era of cosmology, beginning the process of transforming it from myth and speculation into a real scientific exploration. According to Big Bang theory, our universe began in a nearly perfect thermal equilibrium state with very high temperature. The universe is dynamic and has been ever
expanding and cooling since its birth. When the temperature of the universe dropped to 3,000 K there were insufficient energetic CMB photons to keep hydrogen or helium atoms ionized. Thus, the primeval plasma of charged nuclei, electrons and photons changed into neutral atoms plus background radiation.

The background radiation could then propagate through space freely, though being stretched by the continuing expansion of the universe, while baryonic matter (mostly hydrogen and helium atoms) could cluster by gravitational attraction to form stars, galaxies and even larger structures. For these structures to form there must have been primordial perturbations in the early matter and energy distributions. The primordial fluctuations of matter density that will later form large scale structures leave imprints in the form of temperature anisotropies in the CMB.
[Please read on . . .]
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2006/smoot_lecture.pdf

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2006/smoot-lecture.html
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/12/11_bigbang.shtml

 

[ViewsofMars]

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2006/smoot-lecture.html

The url above will take you to more information about The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006 - John C. Mather, George F. Smoot.
I encourage views to explore that page.

Also from NASA:

Mather and Smoot analyzed data from NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), which studied the pattern of radiation from the first few instants after the universe was formed. In 1992, the COBE team announced that they had mapped the primordial hot and cold spots in the cosmic microwave background radiation. These spots are related to the gravitational field in the early universe, only instants after the Big Bang, and are the seeds for the giant clusters of galaxies that stretch hundreds of millions of light years across the universe.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin had this to say, "I am thrilled to hear that Dr. John Mather has been selected to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. John would be a world-class scientist no matter where he had chosen to spend his career, but we at NASA are enormously proud that he has chosen to spend it with us."
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/nobel_prize_mather.html

 

[Fredrik]

Its just easier for people to think of the big bang as a huge explosion, I don't see the big deal over the inflation/explosion debate. Doesn't matter so much what we call it so long as we figure it out and understand it eventually.

I can see that inflation is a more precise and correct term to describe it, but I also see why people call it an explosion its just easier to explain the notion starting with a term that everyone can understand and its close enough to really make no difference in my humble opinion.

It's a little bit funny that the first post that was made after you questioned if it's really such a bad idea to use the word "explosion" made exactly the mistake that we're used to seeing from people who think of the big bang as an explosion: They think there's a point in space where it all started. I don't agree that this is "close enough" to the actual theory, in which matter is distributed homogeneously and isotropically at all times.

If The Big Bang Theory is correct, all ~200 million galaxies are ~14 billion light years away from the point of the Big Bang?

 

[ViewsofMars]

Remember ALICE?

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment @ CERN) is designed to study the physics of ultrahigh-energy proton-proton and lead-lead collisions. ALICE explores conditions in the first instants of the universe, a few microseconds after the Big Bang, when matter was in its primordial state, a 'soup' of quarks and gluons.

Scientists collaborating on the ALICE experiment study the properties of this state of matter, called a quark-gluon plasma, in order to explore how the strong force governs matter; why quarks are confined in matter, rather than appearing on their own; and why quarks have larger masses when confined in particles such as protons and neutrons.

Located 150 feet underground on the LHC ring, the ALICE detector is 52 feet high, 85 feet long, and weighs about 10,000 tons.

The ALICE collaboration comprises over 1000 physicists and engineers from 111 universities and laboratories in 31 countries. Scientists and students from twelve US universities and laboratories are members of the ALICE collaboration.
http://ww2.uslhc.us/What_is_the_LHC/Experiments/ALICE

 

[ranrod]

I'd just like to add a little perspective about the documentaries from a person who's not a scientist but someone who's been fascinated by it all his life. Those 'cheesy' documentaries really helped me to get excited and interested in science. Attracting new young minds to science is an important goal. I also think the more the general public is excited about science, the more support science will receive. They serve a very important role, imho. I hated to see the SSC canceled - people didn't understand its importance. I pursued Physics in college, but at the end I didn't follow through because I felt I wasn't smart enough to make a difference.

 

[Buckethead]

Yeah... this kind of crap always gets me. But it allows them to do two different things:
a) use flashy computer generated graphics, and
b) overly simplify something by analogy

I mean, it really doesn't have the same effect to explain that, "since we observe all galaxies moving away from all other galaxies, logically if we run the universe in reverse they must get closer and closer and closer until some 13.7 Gyr ago the entire universe is extremely small, dense, and hot".

Such is life though...

Just out of curiosity (which is guess is redundant since I wouldn't be posting unless I was curious) since we accept that the universe is accelerating, why is it not sensible to consider that at some point in the past the universe was at a standstill and that at this point in time the universe was not a singularity, but already somewhat large?

 

[Buckethead]

It doesn't make sense to me.. ALL the documentaries(old ones n new ones) I've seen described the Big Bang as an explosion. All these documentaries had many experts(e.g. Professor of Physics, Cosmologist from all major universites), and wouldn't they also watch the same documentary since they are in it? and shouldn't they say umm that's wrong, Big Bang wasn't an explosion?

I've concluded that science documentaries along these lines are both just for entertainment and to get people to get on wikipedia and actually research this stuff for themselves. It's no different then seeing an advertisement saying "this is the best car ever created" which really does nothing but get people to start researching cars before they buy.

The one science show that really cracks me up is the snippets of dozens of physicist saying "theory of everything" "theory of everything" "theory of everything" as if this will tell us why we are alive or if God exists or what happened before the big bang or something. As far as I know, the "TOE" does nothing more than integrate the various forces and particles of matter into a single formula that can describe their fundamental nature. Wonderful, yes, but everything?

 

[Nabeshin]

Just out of curiosity (which is guess is redundant since I wouldn't be posting unless I was curious) since we accept that the universe is accelerating, why is it not sensible to consider that at some point in the past the universe was at a standstill and that at this point in time the universe was not a singularity, but already somewhat large?

Understand that accelerating and expanding are two different concepts. We've known the universe is expanding ever since Hubble, and the logical conclusion is a very dense early universe. The acceleration only comes into increase the rate of expansion a bit -- the conclusion is not changed, just (I suppose) the timeframe.

Here's an excellent http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/c/cc/Universe_expansion_graph_with_Omega_values990350b.jpg/350px-Universe_expansion_graph_with_Omega_values990350b.jpg" which hopefully should show you what I mean. The dark red represents the universe with acceleration, whereas the green and blue lines are closer to how we thought the universe was prior to the discovery of the acceleration.