October 06, 2006

• That is totally fucking awesome.
• The speck at 0:46 is the first Wal-Mart being formed from hydrogen gas in NGC 5812.
• Nunia said it best.
• You suppose he got the idea from Pratchett? One, two. One, two, three, four.
• Ummm...is this not the ultimate "if a tree falls in the forest..." example? There was no one to hear, not even a comfy spot to sit in to listen. So, bullshit, right?
• Ralph: if you can measure the expansion of the universe (he's using temp differences), convert it into sound waves, and calculate back the size of the universe to the Big Bang, then no, it's not bullshit. It's just a hell of a lot of math.
• So I was a bit torn about the post. Sound (Yay!) and math (Booo!). The sound of The Universe being born won out. stupid math, s'posed to be so good for ya
• I always imagined it sounding more like the THX startup sound.
• Nooonie: But a sound wave ain't worth much if there ain't no ear drums vibrating. Might as well use all that math to convert differences in temperature into bunnies that yawn. You'd end up with the same thing.
• And, it was a little before my time, but I have always believed that the big bang occured in a perfect vacuum, and I don't think sound waves have much luck in such an environment. But let's also calculate what the big bang tasted like. I'm thinking licorice.
• But a sound wave ain't worth much if there ain't no ear drums vibrating. Ear drums evolved to capture the sound wave. Waves were not created to accommodate the ear. It seems to me you are saying that only that which can be experienced by humanity has any worth. I beg to differ. No really, I'm begging here. but I have always believed that the big bang occured in a perfect vacuum From article: From these variations, he could calculate the frequencies of the sound waves propagating through the Universe during its first 760,000 years, when it was just 18 million light years across. At that time the sound waves were too low in frequency to be audible. To hear them, Cramer had to scale the frequencies 100,000 billion billion times. It seems that he wasn't attempting to reconstruct the sound of the Bang itself, but the million-or-so years after it. It's my understanding that mathematical models of the Big Bang can't go all the way back to Time Zero, but do go back into many millionths of a second after the Bang. Incidentally, those same models indicate the Big Bang tasted like tuna.
• What was that language outburst and clapping? Sounds like somebody WAS there.
• Looking back, Ralphie, I can see the point you were trying to make: no, there are no sound waves in a vacuum, since sound is a compressional wave that depends on the medium (in our case, air is the medium, and in the case of the article, "giant sound waves propagated through the blazing hot matter that filled the Universe shortly after the Big Bang."). Or something. Yes. It's too early in the mid-morning for me to be thinking of astrophysics.
• Ever wonder why we don't hear the sun burning? I mean, nuclear (excuse me, "nucular") fusion's a pretty loud thing. And, if you were correct, the Intelligent Designer would have added some mayo and relish and left us with a nice little sandwich. I'm also having problems grokking these utra-low frequency sound waves. I mean, the A above middle C is only 440 cycles, if memory serves. What was the sound of the big bang? Negative cycles? (and by the way, if memory serves but it hits the net, it must serve again.)
• Ever wonder why we don't hear the sun burning? I mean, nuclear (excuse me, "nucular") fusion's a pretty loud thing. Er...cuz our hearing is shit? Well, maybe not your hearing. *blows dog whistle* Sound is a compression wave. Such waves need a medium to move through. There isn't much to move through between the Sun and Earth, but there was apparently some super-hot goop that the sounds of the Big Bang were moving through. Whether they could have been detected by the human ear is not the point. If the waves existed, there was a sound. End of story. Now, make me a sammich.
• *Poof* You're a sammich. Popular theoretical physics suggest that to observe is to affect, and that without observation there is no proof. Dead cat in a box syndrome. Besides, trying to imagine "sound" as the big bang banged is a typical human folly. There was no sound because there was no concept of sound, nor of sight, taste, smell, nor any other sense, real or imagined. When all of what we know to exist today was a singularity, a tiny spot of nothing amid a world of nothing else, and it exploded to leave behind all matter now known, do you really think there were such trivial things as sounds? In nothingness there is nothing. Silly human. Mathematics is for kids.
• Popular theoretical physics suggest that to observe is to affect, and that without observation there is no proof. Sounds like you're mixing up Schrödinger's cat and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But okay. Rock on with your badness self. There was no sound because there was no concept of sound... Sound existed before humanity. Light existed before humanity. All manner of particles/waves/matter existed before humanity. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, it indeed makes a noise. Why? Because the creation of sound is a physical process of energy conservation in a system, regardless of how trivial you might think it is. If humanity needs to experience and give value to phenomena for those phenomena to exist, then we are so screwed, dood. Silly puppy. Physics is for people who do their homework.
• Cramer's recordings are not from the Big Bang singularity. It's from WMAP, which sees light from the moment the universe became optically thin (i.e. when photons could travel long distances without being absorbed). This was about 376,000 years after the Big Bang singularity. This says two things: 1) Since matter existed by this time, sound waves certainly would have, and 2) since light waves and sound waves are coupled in well known ways in a plasma, WMAP really did "hear" the tree fall in the woods. Cramer's web page gives a much better explanation of the physics than the New Scientist article. Here's another thing to think about. Current evidence supports the theory that a shock wave from a supernova caused the collapse of the gas cloud that would become our solar system (and us). So we owe our existence to sound waves.
• 1. While the universe did indeed become optically thin 376,000 years after the big bang, it was not until many, many years later that it stopped thinking that its butt looked fat in those jeans. 2. So we're not talking about the "sound of the Universe Being Born"??? We're talking about the sound of the universe when photons started travelling long distances??? Not quite as sexy, now is it? 3. Okay, so this is a 30 second clip of sound from a 750,000 year period of time that has been altered to the tune of 100,000 billion billion megathingies. In the unlikely and unprovable case that it is a faithful reproduction, who the hell would care?
• I the hell would care. Please feed the nerds.
• Your husband must find that you are easy to shop for. A good thing.
• My husband finds me easy in many ways.
• Well. Then I think I am beginning to hear the sounds of the bang after all. You'll wake the neighbors.
• I knew I heard whimpering coming from outside the door.
• I think RTD and nunia should get a room radio program. I'd listen.
• Don't open that closet!
• Don't close that mind!
• I think RTD and nunia should get a room radio program. I'd listen. If there is a sound for the end of the universe, it would be that. We'll call it the Big Closer.
• For one, I am humbled an honored that Path would want to listen to a radio program hosted by yours truly, everyone's favorite Mofi Hound, and the rock bitch. I think it would be charming, educational, and a great chance to mark territory. And great big Mofi Banana Kudos to TUM for the "don't open the closet" remark, in itself an obvious and humbling homage to Fibber McGee and Molly, as she sends nunia and myself onward to a glorious trip down the "wistful vista" of radio fame and sexual dysfunction. You turn me on, I'm a radio, N.
• MonkeyFilter: Ever wonder why we don't hear the sun burning? If you have a 9-volt battery in your pocket and some change you may realize at some point that the burning sensation is the battery. Um, but the sound is minimal.
• Mofi Hound, and the rock bitch You only wish I were a bitch, you dirty dawg. *ahem* I propose that we call the radio programme something classic, like The Stick-Tossing Hour or The Dog's Biz. People can call in to complain about current events in the collective-mind, like the abomination called the Coriolis effect or the presidential campaign of Bat Boy, and while Ralph spouts a bunch of crazy goodness on healing crystals and chakra-chocolate shakes, I can proffer footnotes and sarcasm. We can even hire one of the petesbest to take Ralph for walks during spot breaks.
• MonkeyFilter: Dead cat in a box syndrome.
• Heh. Good one GramMa.