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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WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM? PART 1: EINSTEIN'S BIG BLUNDER

100 years ago, Albert Einstein published
three papers that rocked the world.  These papers
proved the existence of the atom, introduced the
theory of relativity, and described quantum
mechanics.

   Pretty good debut for a 26 year old scientist, huh?

   His equations for relativity indicated that the universe
was expanding.  This bothered him, because if it was
expanding, it must have had a beginning and a beginner.
Since neither of these appealed to him, Einstein introduced
a 'fudge factor' that ensured a 'steady state' universe,
one that had no beginning or end.

   But in 1929, Edwin Hubble showed that the furthest
galaxies were fleeing away from each other, just as the
Big Bang model predicted.  So in 1931, Einstein embraced
what would later be known as the Big Bang theory, saying,
"This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation
of creation to which I have ever listened."  He referred
to the 'fudge factor' to achieve a steady-state universe
as the biggest blunder of his career.

   As I'll explain during the next couple of days,
Einstein's theories have been thoroughly proved and
verified by experiments and measurements.  But there's
an even more important implication of Einstein's discovery.
Not only does the universe have a beginning, but time
itself, our own dimension of cause and effect, began
with the Big Bang.

   That's right -- time itself does not exist before
then.  The very line of time begins with that creation
event.  Matter, energy, time and space were created
in an instant by an intelligence outside of space
and time.

   About this intelligence, Albert Einstein wrote
in his book "The World As I See It" that the harmony
of natural law "Reveals an intelligence of such superiority
that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting
of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."*

   He went on to write, "Everyone who is seriously
involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced
that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe--
a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in
the face of which we with our modest powers must feel
humble."*

   Pretty significant statement, wouldn't you say?

   Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment:  "Bird Droppings
on my Telescope."

For any questions  click here
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WORLD'S FIRST HACK-FREE SOFTWARE 'DEVELOPED'

Scientists have developed what they claim is the world's first hack-free software which can protect systems from failure or malicious attacks. The 'seL4' microkernel has been developed by a team led by Australia's ICT Research Centre of Excellence's spinout company -- Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs). It is a small operating system kernel which regulates access to a computer's hardware.

Its unique feature is that it has been mathematically proven to operate correctly, enabling it to separate trusted from untrusted software, protecting critical services from a failure or a malicious attack, say the scientists.
In future applications, seL4 could ensure that trusted financial transaction software from secure sources like banks or stock exchanges can operate securely on a customer's mobile phone alongside "untrusted" software, such as games downloaded from the Internet, according to its developers.
It could also provide a secure and reliable environment for mission-critical defence data, operating on the same platform as everyday applications like email. Or, it could protect the life-supporting functions of an implanted medical device, such as a pacemaker, from hacking, they say.
"Our seL4 microkernel is the only operating system kernel in existence whose source code has been mathematically proven to implement its specification correctly. Under the assumptions of the proof, the seL4 kernel for ARM11 will always do precisely what its specification says it will do," lead scientist Gerwin Klein said.
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US AND EUROPE SPLIT ON CUTS

At Davos, Switzerland — European and US leaders laid out starkly different recovery strategies on Friday, with one side calling for deep spending cuts and the other warning against drastic action.
Members of the business and political elite gathered at the World Economic Forum were treated to appearances by Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But, as delegates debated how best to protect and nurture the world's tentative economic recovery, these top figures from three of most prosperous Western economies brought very different messages.
Cameron vowed that under his leadership Britain would pursue huge spending cuts to slash its yawning deficit, despite the week's alarming British growth figures, which have triggered fears of renewed recession.
"Our first priority is to kill off the spectre of massive sovereign debts," he declared. "Those who argue that dealing with our deficit and promoting growth are somehow alternatives are wrong."
Cameron urged Europe to kickstart growth by slashing regulation and boosting enterprise, rather than through stimulus spending, and said he would reduce the deficit through cutting public spending and raising retail sales tax.
"It's going to be tough, but we must see it through. The scale of the task is immense, so we need to be bold in order to build this economy of the future," he argued, stressing that many European leaders agree with him.
Merkel also banged the drum for deficit reduction, warning delegates that: "Indebtedness is the biggest danger for prosperity on this continent. This is why we have to resolutely work against it.
"Budget consolidation remains of prime importance to us and has not caused us any problems, quite the opposite," she said, arguing that Germany's spending cuts have strengthened its return to growth.
But Geithner came with a quite different message, stressing that the United States was not for its part ready to contemplate drastic spending cuts until the health of the recovery was assured.
"You've got to make sure that you don't hurt the recovery and take too much risk that you damage the early expansion by shifting too prematurely to substantial restraints," he told the same Davos audience.
"We're not going to let that happen. There are some people who like to move... very quickly to do very deep cuts in spending but it is not the responsible way to do it," he said, in a question and answer session.
"It would undermine the long-term objective of making sure that we achieve a sustainable fiscal position," Geithner argued.
On Tuesday, Britain revealed that its economy slumped unexpectedly in the fourth quarter of 2010, shrinking 0.5 percent in the three months to December, after expansion of 0.7 percent in the third quarter.
Experts put some of the blame on unexpectedly extreme winter weather, which disrupted Christmas shopping and air travel, but the dip has given ammunition to critics who argue that Cameron is cutting too much, too fast.
In Washington, the US Commerce Department said Friday that the US economy grew at its fastest clip in five years in 2010, with growth reaching 2.9 percent for the year, reversing the 2.6 percent contraction in 2009.
Consumer spending grew 4.4 percent in the last quarter, while growing exports and declining imports also served to boost growth.
"There is much more confidence now that we've got a sustainable expansion," Geithner said ahead of the data release, while admitting: "It's not a boom, it's not an expansion that's going to offer the possibility of a rapid employment rate."
Obama's Republican critics -- who have just formed a majority in the House of Representatives -- are demanding deep spending cuts to rein in a budget deficit expected to hit a record 1.5 trillion dollars this year.
The annual Davos conference has attracted 2,500 key decision makers from business and politics to this snow-bound high altitude resort for four days of the world's most influential elite networking event.

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ISRO, SGL JV to develop third version of IGIS

After a successful launch of the second version of IGIS, India's first indigenous integrated GIS image processing software, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), alongwith its joint venture partner ScanPoint Geomatics Limited (SGL) is now planning to tap the need for microwave data processing. With the country set to witness the launch of a synthetic aperture radar satellite in the second half of 2011, the ISRO-SGL JV intends to develop the third version of IGIS to process microwave data emerging out of the satellite. "Not many packages combine tools of image processing with GIS like IGIS does. With the synthetic aperture radar satellite to be launched in second half of this year, there will be a need for reading and processing the microwave data that will be generated from the satellite. The current version can only process optical images and data and not microwave data. The next version of IGIS can focus on that need and create a fresh demand," said RR Navalgund, director, Space Application Centre (SAC), ISRO. The recently launched second version of IGIS has more than 300 applications including advanced GIS analysis, terrain analysis, 3D modelling, hydrology modelling, raster GIS analysis, GPS tools, zonal tools, tracking analyst, decision support and uncertainty management. The IGIS 1.1 version offers multi-criteria and multi-objective evaluation techniques with decision alternatives. The product also includes image processing tools for automated feature extraction, object segmentation, change detection and time series analysis. The JV between ISRO and Ahmedabad-based SGL began last year when the former floated a tender for development of an indigenous GIS image processing software which eventually SGL won. While the first version IGIS 1.0 was launched last year, the second version IGIS 1.1 was unveiled on Thursday. On its part, SGL is also looking at providing software solutions for specific sectors like defence, mining, urban planning, land records and power line management. "We are looking at specific sectors for spatial planning solutions. We intend to provide total software development and support solutions to these sectors," said Arup Dasgupta, director, SGL.                                               SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG