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TWO STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR FOREVER..
The news as of yesterday, I checked with Saul Perlmuter, is only
two standard deviations, but as of yesterday the conclusion is,
based on this data that the universe will go on forever. It will
continue expanding based on the fact that the slow down is not
enough. It is an escape philosophy, these things will expand forever.
However, better measurements are being made, better measurements
are coming in and we hope within the next two years we will probably
know the answer for sure. How much are these things slowing down,
will they slow down enough so that the universe will go on forever.
This is the "Classical Era" of cosmology that we are
living in right now. We are about to answer the questions about
whether the universe will go on forever. We don't know the final
answer, well I think I know the answer, but since it is only two
standard deviations so we can't trust it. Within two years it
will probably be ten standard deviations. As of yesterday, so
I'm making these measurements and looking at the departure here,
the news is the universe will go on forever, two standard deviations,
okay? Two standard deviations and systematic errors.
As the universe goes on forever, it has an interesting consequence
in terms of general relativity theory. If the universe goes on
forever that means time will probably go on forever too. According
to general relativity theory, if the universe will expand forever,
then the universe is infinite in size. So for those of you who
cannot cope with a finite universe, you may not have to and if
you really prefer thinking about infinity then you are in luck,
that seems to be the data as of yesterday. We will know a lot
better in a few months and much, much better, so the answer to
the question of how, well this means the "Big Bang",
believe me, was very, very, very big, as of yesterday infinite
in size.
I wouldn't be surprised if you now ask the question, if
the universe is finite, what's outside of it? The answer is
"nothing". The universe is space. It is not the matter
within space, it IS space. A finite universe means finite space.
You don't come up against a wall.
What caused the "Big Bang"?. That is interesting because
a lot of people are trying to figure out what caused the "Big
Bang" and there have been papers based on quantum fluctuations,
which could possibly have caused this. My own professional evaluation
is that this stuff is not correct, and that no progress has been
made in understanding what caused the "Big Bang". My
own best guess, well that is related to this thing of what happened
before the "Big Bang", but the thing that caused it
is the thing that happened before. I suspect that 20 to 30 years
from now we will come to following understanding of what happened
before the "Big Bang."
The Hubble expansion is the expansion of the universe. The "Big
Bang" was the creation of the universe, from what? Well
if the "Big Bang" is the creation of space, then according
to the theory of relativity, space and time are handled so symmetrically
that it will inevitably turn out, and this is my guess, now there
is no more standard stuff anymore, now we are speculating. Everything
up to now was pretty much standard and accepted, but this is now
speculation, that it will turn out that the "Big Bang"
was the creation not only of space, but the creation of time.
If that's the case, then the question of what happened before
doesn't make any sense. There was no before.
A good friend of mine, who is now a high school teacher, Philip
M. Dauber, and I collaborated to try to write all these things
into a book that you and your students could read. We called
it "The Three Big Bangs," because we also write about
other violent events: supernovas and the impact that killed the
dinosaurs. These were physics events that were responsible for
our physical evolution, and some of our biological evolution too.
Phil's goal was to co-author a book in such a way that he could
use it in his course for teaching about cosmology and astronomy.
We worked to try to sat the sort of things I said today. The
thing we couldn't do are these graphics, which have to be live.
The only solution to this I think is going to be the web page,
so I am really looking forward to doing that.
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