What happened before the Big Bang?

By Steve Jurvetson - Flickr, CC BY 2.0

I watched a program on TV presented by Geekdom's pinup boy, Professor Brian Cox, last night. Seems he was in Australia, wowing the folks in Canberra and no doubt some other places, with exceedingly geeky lectures about the Big Bang and what came before.

I expect anybody reading this post will be familiar with the Big Bang theory (not the TV show) but just in case Wikipedia will be sufficient for our purposes. Suffice to say that scientific evidence from astronomical calculations - the background radiation that fills space, the red shift in galaxies and the like - all support the idea that the universe as we know it began in a huge expansion13.8 billion years ago. The thing about the BBT that gets everybody - doubters and believers alike - is what happened before the Big Bang?

Enter Brian Cox. Here's an interview he did with Jeff Forshaw and the Guardian newspaper in which they discuss a few ideas about the Big Bang.

I'm expecting that in the next episode of the show we'll see what evidence they're looking for at Australian observatories. Since we have so few people on our vast continent, we have a lot of very dark sky, and a number of very large telescope arrays. The biggest one is the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, located about 300km north-east of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the home of the Australian SKA Pathfinder and the Murchison Widefield Array groups of radio telescopes. It will also shortly be the home of a significant part of the Square Kilometre Array, a radio telescope that will have a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometre (the other part will be in South Africa). When completed, the SKA will be 50 times more sensitive than any radio telescope in existence. (source Australian Geographic) Brian hasn't been to that one, but he did visit Siding Spring in NSW, located not all that far from the Parkes dish which Donna talked about in her recent post.

Anyway, here's a Youtube video with a rather good, easily understood description of possible theories. It's less than 5 minutes long.

I can't help but add a little personal story about how I first discovered the incomparable Terry Pratchett.

I’ll always remember the first Discworld book I read. I was kicking my heels in the domestic terminal at Perth airport, browsing for a book to read on the long flight to Sydney. I’d seen the book with the cartoon cover in the SF section a few times before, but had skipped over it for spaceships and things. This time, I picked it up and read the blurb. Then I read the prologue, in which TP introduced everybody to the great space-going turtles that carried worlds on their backs. It was an Indian legend that I’d come across in my studies.

Some scientists believed in the ‘steady gait’ theory, in which the turtles journeyed unendingly through the multi-verse, never changing pace. Others contended that the turtles were travelling to a meeting place, where they would mate and create more star turtles. This was known as the ‘big bang’ theory. After I’d wiped tears of laughter from my eyes, I made my way to the counter and bought the book. I bought hard copies of every book Sir T wrote.

Sigh. I will miss Terry Pratchett forever.

Let's hear it for the LHC!

Did you know that last night CERN's Large Hadron Collider made history? Check out the blog post at Bad Astronomy . . .

After more than a decade of triumph, setbacks, and much sturm and drang, the Large Hadron Collider made history last night by taking two beams of protons and smashing them head on at just a whisper under the speed of light.

Follow live tweets from the world's most adorable particle physicist (who works on the LHC) at:
http://twitter.com/profBriancox

Unfortunately the scientists had to exchange their champagne flutes for compasses to defend the world from the hordes of blood-thirsty demons that came pouring through the dimensional rift they'd created.

BOOK REVIEW: Why does E=mc2?

“From the simplest of ideas” ... If there were ever to be an epitaph written for humanity’s greatest scientific achievements, it might begin with these five words.

- Why Does E=mc2? (And why should we care?), by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

Let me just cut to the chase and say I highly recommend this new primer on relativity, in which two British physicists reveal how all the really big ideas in science came out of asking simple questions. And they do it with such charm, wit, and modesty you almost forget you’re reading a science book.

I learned many astonishing and/or useful things reading this book. Here are five:

1. WHY someone who travels really fast to another galaxy comes back to Earth to find everyone they knew long dead. (I mean it. I really get this now – even the basic math behind it.)
2. What makes the speed of light a constant of nature, and why it's critical to modern physics.
3. What the Higgs particle is and why CERN has spent so many euros trying to observe one in captivity. (There is a marvelously simple analogy about a ping-pong ball suspended in maple syrup.)
4. That 100 billion subatomic particles generated by the sun pass through your thumbnail every second.
5. That contrary to the laws of probability, even particle physicists can have a sense of humor.

Now, this book has been touted as relativity education for the masses, but I have to say...the "maths" are hard. Once we got past the Pythagorean theorem, they pretty much left me in the dust. Fortunately, it’s not critical that you follow the numbers to benefit from the book. They spend far more time on concepts, and for the most part I found those easy enough to grasp. But it does make you feel a bit inadequate when they’re flinging out equations that might as well be written in Martian. My advice: Unless you're into that sort of torture, just skim those bits and move on.

Despite the intimidating math, it’s a compelling, educational, and yes, entertaining read. If you’re a fan of the world’s most adorable particle physicist, don't miss it. The book is rife with interesting perspective and eloquent insights -- here's one of my favorites:

It is worth remembering not only that scientific hubris has often been shown to be folly in the past, but also that the perception that we somehow know enough, or even all there is to know, about the workings of nature has been and will probably always be damaging to the human spirit.

These authors respect their audience, and you get the feeling that they hope, more than anything, to deepen our sense of awe at the beauty of our world and universe.

We walk in the midst of wonders, and if we open our eyes and minds to them, the possibilities are boundless.

Brian Cox & Stephen Colbert

I have a crush on particle physicist Brian Cox. He's married, I know. (Er, so am I.) I can't help it.

Cox was the scientific consultant for the movie Sunshine. I enjoyed this film, but I especially enjoyed Cox's commentary about the science behind the film, which is available on the DVD. (Okay, I also enjoyed the fact Sunshine starred sexy Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who inspired the hero in my SFR Ghost Planet. What can I say? I have a thing for pasty guys with accents.)

Cox uses his charm, wit, and media friendly personality to educate the public about the importance of physics research. He has a knack for transforming complex scientific concepts into digestible bits of information.

And Cox was born 23 days before me, so I like to imagine when the universe aimed its "genius" ray gun at him, maybe a little extra squirted my direction.

What does Brian Cox have to do with Stephen Colbert? They're "entangled" in two ways. (Don't you love armchair physicists?) Both were named "sexiest men alive" by People Magazine, and Cox appeared on Colbert's show in October (which somehow I've missed up to now).

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. I hope you will too.