The Nature of Reality » Davide Castelvecchi The NOVA Physics
Blog Mon, 10 Mar 2014 18:05:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Dante’s
Universe, and Ours Mon, 23 Jul 2012 21:11:28 +0000 Read Full
Post]]> When a team of astronomers in 1992 released the first
full-sky map of the cosmic microwave background—also known as
the afterglow of the big bang—George Smoot, one of the group’s
leaders and later a Nobel laureate, said, “If you’re religious,
this is like looking at God.”  Mystical undertones stir passions
and risk muddying our understanding of science. But whatever
one’s views, it is an intriguing coincidence that a possible key
to reading Smoot’s words comes to us from none other than Dante
Alighieri’s “Paradiso,” written in the early years of the 14th
century. The cosmic microwave background, or CMB, shows us a
slice of the universe as it looked more than 13.7 billion years
ago, and the structure of that universe bears a striking
resemblance to that of Dante’s heaven—at least according to some
commentators. It is as if