The universe is oddly uniform. This may seem unimportant to the casual observer, but to Physicists this fact is very odd. The universe is (almost) the same temperature throughout, despite being larger in diameter in light years than the universe is old in years. What does this mean? It means that there is no way that one side of the universe could have interacted with the other. There is simply not enough time for the universe to cool as evenly as it has, which creates a bit of a problem, as Dennis Overbye states in his New York Times Article, it is as if you were to look one mile in every direction and see a cup of coffee that has cooled to the exact temperature. Of course, Physicists haven’t just been been sitting waiting for the solution to drop out the sky(although in some ways that’s how most discoveries in Cosmology take place). The leading theory for this was “inflation” a mysterious force that caused the universe to violently (or less violently depending on which flavor of inflation you prefer) expand at “speeds” faster than the speed of light, giving us the giant, uniform, expanding universe we have today. This model produced telltale signs of its truth in the form of gravitational waves, ripples in space time produced from the chaotic expansion that would still conceivably be lapping on the shores of distant galaxies to this day. There was only one problem, most people thought that the waves would be far too faint to ever be detected. That was all until about a week ago, when scientists operating the the BICEP2 telescope located near the South Pole announced that they had detected what they believed to be those pesky gravitational waves. It is important to note that nothing is every truly confirmed in science, and this is very far from being effectively confirmed. The data has not undergone peer review, that process that separates real science from any Joe writing whatever he wanted on a blog and calling it truth, but if confirmed this discovery will be monumental. According to inflationary theory, Gravitational Waves are the telltale signs of Gravitons, the much doubted and sought after particle that relates Einsteins eloquent theory of Gravitation with Quantum Theory. What does all of this mean for Physics and the future of Physics? Well until now, scientist were pretty good at explaining the nature of 3 out 4 of the Forces in Nature. According to Quantum theory, each force has a particle attached to it that serves as it’s actor. To those who don’t know the 4 fundamental forces are the 2 Nuclear forces, the Strong and the Weak, Electromagnetism, and Gravity. To the layman, Gravity would seem the most familiar. We know that it is what keeps us on the Earth, what keeps the Earth(and all the other Planets) in orbit with the Sun, and what holds Galaxies together. However to the Physicist, gravity has long been the misunderstood. The Standard Model explained the other forces marvelously, but when it came it was a bit stuck. Gravitons were thought to exist but there was no experimental evidence, and what more this theory of Gravity contradicted with Einsteins Theory of General Relativity. According to Einstein gravity was not a force but was a curvature of spacetime. This troubled Physicists, since their is loads of experimental evidence that supports Einstein. However, with the detection of Gravitational Waves there is renewed hope that the two seemingly far apart models may be married. It would seem with this discovery that their is evidence that Gravity may be based off the roll of dice just as everything else in the universe has proved to be. Einstein might be rolling in his grave but this announcement also sets the framework for a New Look Physics that introduces the possibility of discovering some of the nagging questions that have dogged Physicists for sometime, including Dark Matter and Energy, as well as the ultimate fate of our giant, uniform, expanding home that is the Universe.
Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/science/space/ripples-from-the-big-bang.html?ref=science&_r=0
http://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-wave-finding-causes-spring-cleaning-in-physics-1.14910
