Build a 3D Home Theater PC With Sandy Bridge

Follow our advice to construct your own 3D-ready home theater PC based on Intel's newest CPU line.

Today's personal computers come in a variety of designs and sizes--the era of the one-size-fits-all beige box has long passed. But as our living rooms become more theaterlike, with multichannel speaker systems and big-screen high-definition TVs, the thought of plugging a boxy PC into an entertainment center seems unappealing.

The HTPC , installed in an AV rack, along with a set-top box and an AV receiver .Enter the home theater PC. An HTPC is a specially built system that lives alongside your other audiovisual components and is designed to look like it belongs in the same rack as a multichannel receiver, satellite or cable set-top box, and other devices. The HTPC can be the repository for your entire digital media library; you can view your home video and photographs on the big screen and hear digital music on high-quality speakers, or share everything with other PCs over your home network. The HTPC also gives you the ability to play 3D Blu-ray movies (as well as standard Blu-ray and DVD movies).

Intel's Sandy Bridge Processor

If you want to build such a system, make Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPU the core ingredient. When Intel designed Sandy Bridge, the company built a graphics engine right onto the CPU chip itself. Although it isn't a great graphics processor for games, the video engine is vastly improved over previous Intel efforts.
The CPU in this HTPC project is an Intel Core i3 2100S processor. The 2100S is a 3.1GHz dual-core CPU with 3MB of L3 cache that supports Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, so it can run four threads at once. This is the lowest-end 65W Sandy Bridge CPU. Intel also offers the 2100T, which is rated at 35W but runs at a somewhat slower 2.5GHz. However, the case you should use for this project is fairly roomy, so the faster, slightly hotter CPU will work fine.
Intel has beefed up the built-in video engine to enable full hardware acceleration of both decoding and encoding high-definition video. That includes all commercially used HD codecs, including Microsoft VC-1, MPEG-2, and H.264. As a result, the video engine fully accelerates Blu-ray playback, while the CPU just idles along. The graphics processing unit actually has dual video engines built in, enabling features such as picture-in-picture without getting the CPU involved. In addition, Intel's HD Graphics supports HDMI 1.4 and dual video blocks, which means that it can handle stereoscopic 3D Blu-ray playback.

The Sum of the Parts

A CPU alone does not make a system, of course. You should consider several factors when you determine the parts list for your home theater PC.

·         The case must blend into your AV component rack.

·         The motherboard should be compact, and it should support HDMI-out.

·         Memory needs to be reliable (low-voltage memory is preferable, to minimize heat and power).

·         The power supply has to deliver robust power without making a lot of noise.

·         If you plan to play Blu-ray discs, you need a Blu-ray drive.

·         If you'll use the HTPC as a media repository, you'll require a really big hard drive.

Let's take a quick look at the component matrix for this system, including the cost.

The motherboard is Asus's current top Micro ATX Socket 1155 motherboard, which is the socket that Sandy Bridge CPUs need. This particular motherboard also supports SATA 6 gbps (two ports) and USB 3.0. The Kingston LoVo supports voltages as low as 1.25V, which means less heat generation.

The nMediaPC 1000B case. This particular version includes the optional LED display on the front. Memory card and USB ports are hidden underneath a flip-down door.The nMediaPC case would certainly look at home in a typical AV rack. Toss in the Seasonic power supply, which is fanless, and the overall combination is pretty quiet, though not absolutely silent--the case itself has a pair of small, 60mm fans in the rear. The Seasonic X460W is rated as 80-plus gold, which means that it's very efficient when the system is idle as well as when it's running flat out. The result is less power consumption and heat generation--both of which are critical for a power supply without a cooling fan. It's also a modular power supply, so you can attach only the power connectors you actually need, reducing your machine's internal cable clutter.

This Silverstone NT07 looks a lot like a standard Intel cooler, but the fan has more blades and runs more quietly.The Silverstone NT07 rounds out the cooling. The interesting thing about this CPU cooler is that it fits into the same space as the standard Intel cooler, which makes installation easier. However, the fan has more blades and is quieter than the stock Intel cooler.
The 2TB Western Digital GreenPower won't win awards for raw hard-drive performance, but it is quieter and cooler, which is important. The 2TB capacity means plenty of storage for digital media. The Asus Blu-ray combo drive plays back Blu-ray movies, and can burn DVDs (and play DVD movies) as needed.
Finally, you'll need software. Windows 7 Home Premium (the 64-bit version, naturally) is the OS of choice. CyberLink's PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D worked well in our 3D HDTV testing, so you'll need that for 3D Blu-ray playback. The entire package, including software, comes in at under $1000.

Build a 3D Home Theater PC With Sandy Bridge

Follow our advice to construct your own 3D-ready home theater PC based on Intel's newest CPU line.

Tips for Building Your System

Assembly is straightforward; you'll have no worries about graphics cards, though you might consider adding an HDTV tuner card.The nMediaPC case is roomy, and all the components are pretty standard, so building the system is a straightforward exercise. Still, every PC build is slightly different, so I'm offering a few tips and tricks that helped me as I built this system.

·         Install the power supply into the case before you install the motherboard. That will make life somewhat easier.

·         The nMediaPC chassis offers a removable bay for storage that extends across the width of the case. A pair of screws hold it in, and it easily slides out. Install the optical drive and hard drive, and then preattach power cables before reinstalling the bay. These cables are modular, so you can then run them to the power supply. I was able to use one cable (with multiple SATA connectors), which minimized cable clutter.

·         Motherboard configuration with the Asus board is dead simple. The new Socket 1155 motherboards now use EFI (extensible firmware interface) instead of the old BIOS setup routines. You can now use your mouse in the motherboard setup.

·         Attach the SATA cables to the motherboard prior to installing the storage bay--especially the hard-drive cable. You need to take this step because the first two SATA connectors point toward the back of the motherboard, rather than up from the motherboard. If you install the storage bay first, attaching the SATA cable to either of the first two connectors is quite awkward.

·         If you choose a different optical drive, make sure that it has a standard bezel, with buttons in the usual places. Some Blu-ray drives have oddly shaped bezels that may look cool but won't work with the flip-out door on the nMediaPC case.

·         You'll want to download the latest Intel HD Graphics driver to ensure stereoscopic 3D Blu-ray playback. The driver on the motherboard installation CD isn't the latest version, and it won't support stereoscopic 3D.

·         After installing Windows 7, you'll have to install the network driver before you can run Windows Update or activate Windows. The motherboard CD does include all necessary drivers for the motherboard itself (also known as the "chipset INF driver"), the on-board audio, and the network driver.

·         The HDMI port fully supports audio through HDMI, so you don't need audio cables if you're routing HDMI to your HDTV or through an AV receiver with HDMI inputs.

Playing 3D Blu-ray Movies

The stack of components used in this HTPC. Note how the case looks like a typical, though somewhat large, AV device.One primary purpose of this system is to play stereoscopic 3D Blu-ray movies. Intel representatives told me that Blu-ray 3D would work fine with 3D HDTVs, using whatever 3D glasses and built-in HDTV technology are available. It won't work, however, with existing shutter glasses for 120Hz PC displays. Intel will enable stereoscopic 3D for PC displays when 120Hz DisplayPort panels ship later in 2011.
Once I got Windows up and running and PowerDVD Ultra 10 installed, I attached the system to a 42-inch Panasonic TC-P42GT25 plasma 3D TV in the PCWorld Labs. This is when that pesky issue with the Intel HD Graphics driver revealed itself. After we downloaded and installed the latest driver, we had glorious stereoscopic 3D. We tried Ice Age 3 3D, IMAX Deep Sea 3D (which looked spectacular), and a sampler of Disney 3D animation clips.

Next Steps

My system is up and running, and handles 3D Blu-ray beautifully. It's now sitting in my rack of AV gear--so I'm tempted to add a 3D HDTV to my own home theater. However, we could add plenty more tricks and features to this HTPC.
First, if you plan to use your HTPC in your entertainment center, you'll want to add IR remote support. The easiest option is USB; a variety of IR dongles support Windows Media Center. If you use one of those, setting up a programmable remote is relatively straightforward. For example, you can easily configure Logitech Harmony remotes to support Media Center IR receivers.
What about gaming? Intel's HD Graphics technology is fine for very light-duty gaming, but if you want to play anything serious, you'll need to add a discrete graphics card--which could lead to other problems. For one thing, that spiffy Intel video processor simply won't work with another graphics card installed, so you'll need to rely on the GPU's own video-decoding capabilities. Although current-generation Nvidia and AMD GPUs have fairly robust video blocks of their own in hardware, any card capable of high-end gaming performance adds heat and noise. And if you still want support for stereoscopic 3D on your HDTV, you'll need the cards using the latest Nvidia 500 series or AMD 5000 or 6000 series graphics processors. (Check to see if your 3D TV works with 3D Vision glasses on Nvidia's compatibility chart.)
When you set up your HTPC, you used a keyboard and mouse to install Windows; for ongoing use, you may want to add a wireless keyboard and mouse combo to the system. Almost any current-generation wireless keyboard and mouse will work, and you'll want something fairly standard if you plan on gaming or doing a lot of typing. However, something like Logitech's DiNovo Mini is very handy if you need only occasional character entry.
Now that you've built your HTPC, you have a complete platform for exploring digital media on the big screen. Since you've set up Blu-ray playback on a PC, updates to the playback software can add new features. You can add HDTV tuner capability, turning your PC into a high-definition DVR, for instance. You can also create a robust digital media server with packages such as the free VLC.Or you can just kick back, put on your 3D glasses, and enjoy the show.
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Egyptians Find New Routes to the Web

"When countries block, we evolve," an activist with the group We Rebuild wrote in a Twitter message Friday.
That's just what many Egyptians have been doing this week, as groups like We Rebuild scramble to keep the country connected to the outside world, turning to landline telephones, fax machines and even ham radio to keep information flowing in and out of the country.
Although one Internet service provider -- Noor Group -- remains in operation, Egypt's government abruptly ordered the rest of the country's ISPs to shut down their services just after midnight local time Thursday. Mobile networks have also been turned off in some areas. The blackout appears designed to disrupt organization of the country's growing protest movement, which is calling for the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"Basically, there are three ways of getting information out right now -- get access to the Noor ISP (which has about 8 percent of the market), use a land line to call someone, or use dial-up," Jillian York, a researcher with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said via e-mail.
Egyptians with dial-up modems get no Internet connection when they call into their local ISP, but calling an international number to reach a modem in another country gives them a connection to the outside world.

Rerouting to Dial-Up

We Rebuild is looking to expand those dial-up options. It has set up a dial-up phone number in Sweden and is compiling a list of other numbers Egyptians can call. It is distributing information about its activities on a Wiki page.

One of the dial-up numbers is run by a small ISP called the French Data Network, which said it was the first time it had set up such a service. Its modem has been providing a connection "every few minutes," said Benjamin Bayart, FDN's president, speaking in an online chat.
The international dial-up numbers only work for people with access to a telephone modem and an international calling service, however. So although mobile networks have been suspended in some areas, people have posted instructions about how others can use their mobile phones as dial-up modems.
The few Egyptians able to access the Internet through Noor, the one functioning ISP, are taking steps to ensure their online activities are not being logged. Shortly before Internet access was cut off, the Tor Project said it saw a big spike in Egyptian visitors looking to download its Web browsing software, which is designed to let people surf the Web anonymously.
"We thought we were under denial-of-service attack," said Andrew Lewman, the project's executive director. The site was getting up to 3,000 requests per second, the vast majority of them from Egypt, he said. "Since then we've seen a quadrupling of Tor clients connecting from Noor over the past 24 hours," he said.

Help from Outside

Even with no Internet, people have found ways to get messages out on Twitter. On Friday someone had set up a Twitter account where they posted messages that they had received via telephone calls from Egypt. A typical message reads: "Live Phonecall: streets mostly quiet in Dokki, no police in sight. Lots of police trucks seen at Sheraton."
Others are using fax machines to get information into Egypt about possible ways to communicate. They are distributing fax machine numbers for universities and embassies and asking people to send faxes to those numbers with instructions about how to use a mobile phone as a dial-up modem.
Members of the hacker group Anonymous have also been getting in on the act. They are reportedly faxing some of the latest government cables from Wikileaks, which reveal human rights abuses under President Mubarak, to locations in the country, according to Forbes magazine. We Rebuild describes itself as "a decentralized cluster of net activists who have joined forces to collaborate on issues concerning access to a free Internet without intrusive surveillance." It has set up an IRC for people who can help with ham radio transmissions from Egypt. They are trying to spread the word about the radio band they are monitoring so that people in Egypt know where to transmit.
Some ham enthusiasts are setting up an FTP site where people can record what they hear and post the recordings. So far, they say they've picked up Morse code messages. Allen Pitts, a spokesman for the National Association for Amateur Radio, said no one has picked up any voice transmissions from Egypt for the past couple of days. But it's possible that people in Egypt are transmitting over shorter-range frequencies that carry only 30 or 50 miles, he said.
One problem with ham radio is that most people who know how to use it in Egypt were probably trained by the military and may be opposed to the protests. Others may be wary of transmitting because they are worried about who might be listening.
During earlier protests in Iran and Tunisia, the governments clamped down on specific websites, but access to the Internet was not severed in such a wholescale fashion. It is not unprecedented though. In a blog post Friday written with a colleague, York from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society noted that in 2005 the government of Nepal cut off the Internet connection there, and in 2007 the Burmese government did the same in that country.
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Intel Finds Design Flaw in Sandy Bridge Chipset

Intel on Monday said it had stopped shipments of the chipset used with its latest generation of Core processors after it found a design flaw.
The flawed chipset was used in PCs with the next-generation Core processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture, which were introduced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip, and the design issue has been fixed, Intel said.
While the Core processors remain unaffected, customers who purchased systems with second-generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad-core microprocessors could be affected by the chipset issue, Intel said.
However, Intel said that "consumers can continue to use their systems with confidence" as the chip maker works with partners to deliver a permanent solution. This could include a support chip that resolves the issue.
"The company expects to begin delivering the updated version of the chipset to customers in late February and expects full volume recovery in April. Intel stands behind its products and is committed to product quality," the company said in a statement.
Intel discovered a design issue in the 6-Series chipset, which is code-named Cougar Point and is used in systems with Sandy Bridge processors, which started shipping on Jan. 9. Intel said the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets could degrade over time, which could impact performance or functionality of storage devices such as hard drives.
A symptom of a faulty chipset could be bit-rate errors during data transfers, said Steve Smith, Intel vice president and director of PC client operations and enabling, during a conference call.
It's unlikely that PCs would experience failures immediately, but aggressive data transfers over time could cause more errors, Smith said. For Intel, the best course of action was to fix the problem as quickly as possible before the chipset started shipping in mainstream PCs.
There have been no returns so far related to the chipset and company officials said relatively few customers have been affected. The chipset was shipping in a few PCs with quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 chips.
The chipset originally passed testing and qualification internally and through tests by PC makers, Smith said. The problem was identified on Sunday after Intel got a better understanding of circuit-level issues related to temperature, voltage and time degradation.
The company is continuing to ship Sandy Bridge processors, while the 6-Series chipset has been put on hold, Smith said.
But the chipset and Sandy Bridge processors are paired in many PCs, so the chipset halt could indirectly affect Sandy Bridge volumes, Intel officials acknowledged.
End-user laptops with dual-core Sandy Bridge chips were expected to launch in a few weeks and Smith said those launches may be delayed.
The second-generation Core processors based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture include a number of improvements over their predecessor. The new Core processors for the first time integrate a CPU and graphics processor on one chip, which helps deliver better graphics and application performance.
The design problem is expected to reduce revenue by about US$300 million for the first quarter of 2011 as Intel discontinues production and starts manufacturing the modified chipset. Intel said that full-year revenue is not expected to be materially affected by the issue.
This is a big hit for Intel, which is known for flawless chip designs and was pinning hopes on Sandy Bridge chips to deliver close to a third of the revenue during fiscal 2011.
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Microsoft Shifts Workers in Egypt

Egypt has been aggressively attracting tech companies to its wired office parks to help create jobs for its young, educated, and often English-speaking workforce. But by cutting off Internet access last week in the wake of civil unrest, Egypt's government demonstrated just how quickly it can unwind its high-tech goals.

Microsoft is among the 120 companies located in Cairo's Smart Villages , an office park created in 2003 to be Egypt's "prime" information technology park. It includes a health club, swimming pool, video conferencing services, a conference center and a pyramid-shaped restaurant called the "Think Tank Caf."
Egypt's move to block Internet access prompted Microsoft to respond. Asked about the situation in Egypt, Microsoft said in a written response to a query that it "is constantly assessing the impact of the unrest and Internet connection issues on our properties and services. What limited service the company as a whole provides to and through the region, mainly call-center service, has been largely distributed to other locations."
Another tech firm with a presence in Smart Villages is Hewlett-Packard, which has asked it employees to stay at home.
President Barack Obama and other administration officials are urging the Egyptian government to restore Internet services and see access as a human right. "It is our strong belief that inside of the framework of basic individual rights are the rights of those to have access to the Internet and to sites for open communication and social networking," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at a briefing Friday.
Egypt's decision to cut Internet access was apparently intended to disrupt the ability of protestors to use social networks to organize. But high-tech companies have similar flip-the-switch abilities and can shift services in response to a natural or man-made disaster. It is almost certain that tech companies in Egypt will respond to the current uncertainty much the same way Microsoft did -- if they haven't already.
Phil Fersht, the CEO and head of research at Horses for Sources, an outsourcing research and advisory firm, said top-tier providers rely on Egyptian resources largely for call center work and software support and development. For these firms "it's a massive, massive concern when the government shuts off the internet and all hell is breaking loose," he said in an e-mailed response to questions.
"Egypt has proven capable as a good quality resource location for the Middle East, Africa and European regions in areas such as IT, BPO and call center services and has invested significantly in promoting its capabilities worldwide," said Fersht. "The country has invested millions to promote its capabilities -- and now that investment is looking under threat."
Not surprisingly, the government agency responsible for high-tech development in Egypt, the Information Technology Industry Development Agency, (ITIDA), has been offline. Efforts to reach officials by telephone, e-mail or through a Facebook account have been unsuccessful.
Fersht suggested that the current problems in Egypt could prompt high-tech firms to re-think the risks they face in other regions.
"If situations, such as what is currently happening in Egypt, proliferate to other countries with sourcing support services, the first reaction of governments now seems to be to 'shut off the Internet,'" said Fersht, "You have to question how this impacts ITO/BPO services that are hugely reliant on the Internet to succeed.
"The Egypt situation is a serious blow to many of the developing nations seeking to take their share of global services that have potentially questionable political stability," said Fersht.
Smart Villages said that by the end of 2009 there were 28,000 professionals working at various companies in the office, and that by 2014 it expected that more than 100,000 would be working at some 500 companies. Microsoft is one of numerous tech firms with a presence in Egypt's Smart Villages high-tech park.
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New PlayStation 3 Firmware Hacked Within 24 Hours of its Release

Sony’s been playing cat-and-mouse with PS3 firmware crackers, and less than a day after its version 3.56 firmware was released, hackers have circumvented Sony’s locks. If you’ve gotten used to having custom firmware on your Sony PlayStation 3, the folks over at KaKaRoToKS, known for custom PS3 firmware, have cracked the latest firmware (version 3.56) released by Sony in less than 24 hours after the update’s release.
While Sony’s been attempting to remove any new versions of custom 3.56 firmware via DMCA takedown notices from Github, you can still get a hold of the latest custom firmware (failOverFlow) done up by KaKaRoToKS over at Gitorious. The advantage behind custom firmwares (some custom firmwares don’t allow you to pirate games) is that they allow you to install your own package files like the ones from Sony’s PSN.
Do you have custom firmware running on your PS3? Let us know in the comments!
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Where did the Universe Come From PART-4

 Where did the Universe Come From?  

Part 4: "If you can read this sentence,
I can prove to you that God exists"

   Yeah, I know, that sounds crazy.  But I'm not asking you
to believe anything just yet, until you see the evidence for
yourself.  All I ask is that you refrain from disbelieving
while I show you my proof.  It only takes a minute to convey,
but it speaks to one of the most important questions of all
time.

   This reading contains letters, words and
sentences.  It contains a message that means something.
As long as you can read English, you can understand what
I'm saying.

    You can do all kinds of things with this post.  You
can read it on your computer screen.  You can print it out on
your printer.  You can read it out loud to a friend who's in
the same room as you are.  You can call your friend and read it
to her over the telephone.  You can save it as a Microsoft
WORD document.  You can forward it to someone via email, or you
can post it on a website.

    Regardless of how you copy it or where you send it,
the information remains the same.  My post contains a message.
It contains information in the form of language.  The message
is independent of the medium it is sent in.

    Messages are not matter, even though they can be carried
by matter (like printing this post on a piece of paper).

    Messages are not energy even though they can be carried
by energy (like the sound of my voice.)

    Messages are immaterial.  Information is itself a unique
kind of entity.  It can be stored and transmitted and copied
in many forms, but the meaning still stays the same.

   Messages can be in English, French or Chinese.
Or Morse Code.  Or mating calls of birds.  Or the Internet.
Or radio or television.  Or computer programs or architect
blueprints or stone carvings.  Every cell in your body
contains a message encoded in DNA, representing a complete
plan for you.

   OK, so what does this have to do with God?

   It's very simple.  Messages, languages, and coded
information ONLY come from a mind.  A mind that
agrees on an alphabet and a meaning of words and
sentences.  A mind that expresses both desire and
intent.

   Whether I use the simplest possible explanation,
such as the one I'm giving you here, or if we analyze
language with advanced mathematics and engineering
communication theory, we can say this with total
confidence:

   "Messages, languages and coded information never,
   ever come from anything else besides a mind.
   No one has ever produced a single example of a message
   that did not come from a mind."

   Nature can create fascinating patterns - snowflakes,
sand dunes, crystals, stalagmites and stalactites. Tornadoes
and turbulence and cloud formations.

   But non-living things cannot create language. They
*cannot* create codes.  Rocks cannot think and they
cannot talk.  And they cannot create information.

  It is believed by some that life on planet earth arose
accidentally from the "primordial soup," the early ocean which
produced enzymes and eventually RNA, DNA, and primitive cells.

   But there is still a problem with this theory: It fails to
answer the question, 'Where did the information come from?'

   DNA is not merely a molecule. Nor is it simply a "pattern."
Yes, it contains chemicals and proteins, but those chemicals
are arranged to form an intricate language, in the exact same way
that English and Chinese and HTML are languages.

   DNA has a four-letter alphabet, and structures very similar
to words, sentences and paragraphs. With very precise
instructions and systems that check for errors and correct them.

   To the person who says that life arose naturally,
you need only ask: "Where did the information come from?
Show me just ONE example of a language that didn't come
from a mind."

   As simple as this question is, some have personally presented it
in public presentations and Internet discussion forums for
many years. I've addressed more than 100,000 people,
including hostile, skeptical audiences who insist that
life arose without the assistance of God.

   But to a person, none of them have ever been able to
explain where the information came from.  This riddle is
"So simple any child can understand; so complex, no atheist
can solve."

   Matter and energy have to come from somewhere.  Everyone can
agree on that.  But information has to come from somewhere, too!

   Information is separate entity, fully on par with matter and
energy.  And information can only come from a mind.  If books
and poems and TV shows come from human intelligence, then all
living things inevitably came from a superintelligence.

   Every word you hear, every sentence you speak, every
dog that barks, every song you sing, every email you read,
every packet of information that zings across the Internet,
is proof of the existence of God.  Because information
and language always originate in a mind.

   In the beginning were words and language.

   In the Beginning was Information.

   When we consider the mystery of life - where it came from
and how this miracle is possible - do we not at the same time
ask the question where it is going, and what its purpose is?

-"OK, so then who made God?"
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Where did the Universe come from PART-3

   The Big Bang theory was totally rejected at first.
But those who supported it had predicted that the ignition
of the Big Bang would have left behind a sort of
'hot flash' of radiation.

   If a big black wood stove produces heat that you
can feel, then in a similar manner, the Big Bang should
produce its own kind of heat that would echo throughout
the universe.

   In 1965, without looking for it, two physicists at
Bell Labs in New Jersey found it.  At first, Arno Penzias
and Robert Wilson were bothered because, while
trying to refine the world's most sensitive radio antenna,
they couldn't eliminate a bothersome source of noise.
They picked up this noise everywhere they pointed the
antenna.

   At first they thought it was bird droppings.  The
antenna was so sensitive it could pick up the heat
of bird droppings (which certainly are warm when
they're brand new) but even after cleaning it off,
they still picked up this noise.

   This noise had actually been predicted in detail
by other astronomers, and after a year of checking
and re-checking the data, they arrived at a conclusion:
This crazy Big Bang theory really was correct.

   In an interview, Penzias was asked why there was so much
resistance to the Big Bang theory.

   He said, "Most physicists would rather attempt to
describe the universe in ways which require no explanation.
And since science can't *explain* anything - it can only
*describe* things - that's perfectly sensible.  If you
have a universe which has always been there, you don't
explain it, right?

   "Somebody asks you, 'How come all the secretaries
in your company are women?' You can say, 'Well, it's
always been that way.'  That's a way of not having
to explain it.  So in the same way, theories which
don't require explanation tend to be the ones
accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable
and the best way to make science work."

   But on the older theory that the universe was eternal,
he explains: "It turned out to be so ugly that people
dismissed it.  What we find - the simplest theory - is
a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing
of the universe."

   Penzias and his partner, Robert Wilson, won the Nobel
Prize for their discovery of this radiation.  The Big
Bang theory is now one of the most thoroughly
validated theories in all of science.

   Robert Wilson was asked by journalist Fred Heeren if
the Big Bang indicated a creator.

   Wilson said, "Certainly there was something that
set it all off.  Certainly, if you are religious, I can't
think of a better theory of the origin of the universe
to match with Genesis."

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Where did the Universe come from – PART 2

   In your kitchen cabinet, you've probably got a spray
bottle with an adjustable nozzle.  If you twist the nozzle
one way, it sprays a fine mist into the air.  You twist
the nozzle the other way, it squirts a jet of water
in a straight line.  You turn that nozzle to the exact
position you want so you can wash a mirror, clean up
a spill, or whatever.

   If the universe had expanded a little faster, the
matter would have sprayed out into space like fine
mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion
particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even
form a single star.

   If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the
material would have dribbled out like big drops of water,
then collapsed back where it came from by the force
of gravity.

   A little too fast, and you get a meaningless
spray of fine dust.  A little too slow, and the whole
universe collapses back into one big black hole.

   The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference
is.  To strike the perfect balance between too fast and
too slow, the force, something that physicists call
"the Dark Energy Term" had to be accurate to one part in
ten with 120 zeros.

   If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would
look like this:

0.000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000001

   In their paper "Disturbing Implications of
 a Cosmological Constant" two atheist scientists
from Stanford University stated that the existence of
this dark energy term would have required a miracle...
"An unknown agent" intervened in cosmic history
"for reasons of its own."

   Just for comparison, the best human engineering
example is the Gravity Wave Telescope, which was built with
a precision of 23 zeros.  The Designer, the 'external
agent' that caused our universe must possess an intellect,
knowledge, creativity and power trillions and trillions
of times greater than we humans have.

    Absolutely amazing.

    Now a person who doesn't believe in God has to find
some way to explain this.  One of the more common explanations
seems to be "There was an infinite number of universes, so it
was inevitable that things would have turned out right
in at least one of them."

    The "infinite universes" theory is truly an amazing theory.
Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of
universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible...
It's actually happened!

    It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is
a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last
year.  There's a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn't get
cement shoes; instead he marries Joan Rivers and becomes
President of the United States.  There's even a
universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still
resides at Graceland and sings at concerts.  Imagine
the possibilities!

    It might sound like I'm joking, but actually I'm dead
serious.  To believe an infinite number of universes
made life possible by random chance is to believe everything
else I just said, too.

    Some people believe in God with a capital G.

    And some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C.

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