This telescope at the South Pole has found polarisation patterns in the cosmic microwave background which are like those expected to be present due to gravitational waves associated with inflation. Read more here.
all the light
The unified photon spectrum
Russell Turner 1989, Laganch 1995, Henry 2002
Andrew Jaffe presented this chart in his guest lecture today - it shows the entire light energy density in the universe. Over 99% of this light energy is from the big bang.
Hydrogen in the early universe
The whiteboard after a conversation with cosmologist JP about the story of hydrogen in the early universe and what we might learn from studying the 21cm electromagnetic wave emitted due to the electron spin flip transition.
Ginsberg: Poem Rocket
Extracts from 'Poem Rocket'
This is my rocket my personal rocket I send up my message
Beyond
Someone to hear me there
My immortality
without steel or cobalt basalt or diamond gold or mercurial fire
without passports filing cabinets bits of paper warheads
without myself finally
pure thought
message all and everywhere the same
I send up my rocket to land on whatever planet awaits it
preferably religious sweet planets no money
fourth dimensional planets where Death shows movies
plants speak (courteously) of ancient physics and poetry itself is manufactured by the trees
the final Planet where the Great Brain of the Universe sits waiting for a poem to land in His Golden pocket
joining the other notes mash-notes love-sighs complaints-musical shrieks of despair and the million unutterable thoughts of frogs
The moon over Imperial College and a brilliantly lit planet.....
Rebecca Elson - 'Girl with a Balloon'
From this, the universe
In its industrial age,
With all the stars lit up
Roaring, banging, spitting,
Their black ash settling
Into every form of life,
You might look back with longing
To the weightlessness, the elemental,
Of the early years.
As leaning out the window
You might see a child
Going down the road,
A red balloon,
A little bit of pure Big Bang,
Bobbing at the end of her string
Note: Most of the helium in the universe was created in the Big Bang.
Rebecca Elson was an astrophysicist and poet.
Rebecca Elson - 'We Astronomers'
We astronomers are nomads,
Merchants, circus people,
All the earth our tent.
We are industrious.
We breed enthusiasms,
Honour our responsibility to awe.
But the universe has moved a long way off.
Sometimes, I confess,
Starlight seems too sharp,
And like the moon
I bend my face to the ground,
To the small patch where each foot falls,
Before it falls,
And I forget to ask questions,
And only count things.
by Rebecca Elson,astophysicist and poet