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Major discovery bolsters Big Bang theory of universe

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Published : 2014-03-18 21:04
Updated : 2014-03-18 21:04

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Waves of gravity that rippled through space right after the Big Bang have been detected for the first time, in a landmark discovery for understanding how the universe was born, U.S. scientists said Monday.

The waves are evidence of a rapid growth spurt 14 billion years ago, and provide a long-awaited answer to the last untested element of Albert Einstein’s nearly century-old theory of general relativity.

The “first direct evidence of cosmic inflation” was announced by experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.



The waves that move through space and time have been described as the “first tremors of the Big Bang.”

Their detection confirms an integral connection between Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the stranger conceptual realm of quantum mechanics.

“Detecting this signal is one of the most important goals in cosmology today. A lot of work by a lot of people has led up to this point,” said John Kovac, leader of the BICEP2 collaboration at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The sun sets behind the BICEP2 Telescope (foreground) and the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica. (AP-Yonhap News)

The telescope’s location at the South Pole “is the closest you can get to space and still be on the ground,” said Kovac.

“It’s one of the driest and clearest locations on Earth, perfect for observing the faint microwaves from the Big Bang.”

The telescope targeted a specific area of sky known as the “Southern Hole” outside the galaxy where there is little dust or extra galactic material to interfere with what humans could see with the potent sky-peering tool.



“It’s mind-boggling to go looking for something like this and actually find it,” Clem Pryke, associate professor at the University of Minnesota, told reporters at an event in Boston to announce the findings.





“These results are not only a smoking gun for inflation, they also tell us when inflation took place and how powerful the process was,” Loeb said.

According to theoretical physicist Alan Guth, who proposed the idea of inflation in 1980, described the latest study as ”definitely worthy of a Nobel Prize.“

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