“I have written this book for the mankind, because they may die in a few days as the dinosaurs. Then the whole Earth will be the kingdom of the Zalambdalestesses-like rats and mice.”

The first obvious legitimate question: If your theory were correct, who would read your book in a few days - rats or mice?

Corrupted Echoes From the Big Bang?

As a layman it’s overbold (read crazy) to question the brand-new Nobel Prize in Physics. But, I can’t help feeling a little bit spiteful since Charon in a professional way squashed my earlier thoughts about CMB and ICM complications.

According to Prof. Tom Shanks in the Physics Department at the University of Durham THERE ARE indications of ICM corrupting CMB!

“The team has found that nearby galaxy clusters appear to lie in regions of sky where the microwave temperature is lower than average. This behaviour could be accounted for if the hot gas in the galaxy clusters has interacted with the Big Bang photons as they passed by and corrupted the information contained in this echo of the primordial fireball.” — Prof. Tom Shanks

Full report: Are Galaxy Clusters Corrupting the Echoes from the Big Bang?

Pictorial evidence: Evidence for an Extended SZ Effect in WMAP Data

I’m not the man to judge if this is serious science or intelligent-designer-bullshit. Would be fun to hear some pros comment on this.

(And Sean, this undermines the previous evidence for both dark energy and dark matter!!)

Long wave detectors operate at certain wavelengths, the componants of which must be giving off a certain amount of thermal heat, how does it filter this heat away from what it is supposed to be detecting?

I mean, it is contaminated at close range?

For WMAP it operates (as I understand) a detector of far-off, back in time, differences in background radiation.

Same thing, what about the local “foreground” pollution that the detector itself must be giving off?

This is where I think I am mistaken, so if so please correct, Radio waves cover a certain distance, they are LONG, if they are intercpted by any shorter wavelength (any hotter body), then the Long wave shortens as it absorbs the incoming energy, thus a Longwave will be more susseptable to contamination?

If, in simplistic terms, there is a High Energy Photon that hits a body that is say, just about -273k..then it must transmit part of its thermal energy, to raise the -273 k up by a discrete factor?

If one throws a cool flask into a hot volcano, what get heated and what gets cooled!

The Universe is fantastic and weird, and I feel it’s maybe over my capability to comprehend. Temperatures of tens of millions of degrees in ICM, but so scattered you won’t feel a thing? Huum, it’s magic…

Completely unscientific calculations:
“Power density”/cm^3 of Earth-air at 300° Kelvin = 3 x 10^27
“Power density”/cm^3 of ICM = 10^7 x 10^-3 = 10^4

So, the ICM on Earth “heats” the air by a factor of 0,0000000000000000000000033 / cm^3 !? Obviously not enough to frie Kentucky Chickens…

1) X-ray observation and (microwave) CMB observations are indeed at very different wavelengths. Hot intracluster gas (ICM) also radiates via thermal brehmsstrahlung, rather than as a blackbody like the CMB (or a star). Also, there are an insanely large number of CMB photons relative to anything else (more CMB photons than from stars, AGN, ICM, etc. put together).

2) The density of the hot interstellar medium (ISM) in our galaxy is roughly 10^-3 particles/cm^3. The density of air on the surface of the Earth is roughly 10^25 particles/cm^3. See why the ISM doesn’t matter to most non-astronomers?

3) Forget wormholes, see 2).

CMB (Comic Malapropism Background): Smoot question - Does it really matter if the early universe matter was perfectly smooth or not? Mather - It does matter! With perfectly smooth matter, there will be no smoot nor mather!

And now, something (almost) completely different: I was a happy camper after comment #176: Skeptic23 in post Dark Matter Exists, but now the Devil’s Advocate has contacted me with some outrageous questions regarding CMB, hot x-ray gas and Dark Matter.

Skeptic23 pointed out: “…we do not have any observations of cluster-sized groups of galaxies without the hot x-ray gas”. Hence, the universe is jam-packed with galaxies in clusters, accompanied by hot x-ray gas (with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees), and this doesn’t work in my brain:

1) How on earth can COBE and WMAP measure temperature anisotropy in CMB (2.73 Kelvin), at a level of one part in 100000, if they have to look through a (compact on large-scale) “smog” of hot x-ray gas of tens of millions of degrees? Don’t tell me - CMB and x-ray gas is at different “heat-wavelengths”, …or what??

2) The (bullet)proof for Dark Matter requires the companion of millions of degrees of hot x-ray gas in the galaxies clusters. If hot x-ray gas encloses the clusters/galaxies/stars/planets - how can there be chickens living in Kentucky (not fried yet)? Don’t tell me - Kentucky is an exception from the rest of the universe, …or what??

3) Maybe stars can “protect” planets from hot x-ray gas by making “wormholes” in the gas (by gravity?). But the collision in Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657-556, with the galaxies moving right through two colliding hot x-ray gas clouds (generating even higher temperatures) - must have over-fried any Kentucky Chicken still alive in the neighborhood, …or what??

Please any professional, help me with this one and I promise not to talk to the Devil’s Advocate again!!

But these are organizations not collaborations, and none of the other nobel prizes can be awarded to an institution AFAIK, they can, at most, be split three ways.

Mather and Smoot feature prominently in one of the conversations.

That said, I do think it would take away from the impact of the award, as PK has mentioned.

Nevertheless, I am very happy that Mathers and Smoot got it. As Sean explained, the COBE data transformed the field, and isn’t this exactly what the Nobel prize is designed to reward?

The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to John C. Mather and George F. Smoot “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation”. [...]

That’s P…um…L-A-T-O

I noticed Smoot’s Group link. And, on cosmic strings too?:)I think that has been resolved?

Just think, we could confuse generations of astronomy students!

Hopefully, by now most people will have forgotten George Smoot’s initial hype about seeing the “face of God” in the COBE data, so he won’t get attacked as an IDer …