Interaction: Explaining the inflation fetish

Myers: Hello, and welcome once again to Interaction, the sixty minutes that make you feel like lying is pathological. This week we'll be discussing how the Universe came to be, a relevant topic after last week's results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which show that the cosmic microwave background looks almost exactly like what present inflationary theory predicts. Does this mean we're smart? Does it mean the Universe has no more surprises left for us? Or does it mean we have to build an even more sensitive probe to detect what's wrong with our theories? We'll address all of these questions tonight, but first, here's our Interaction IQ, the Initial Question. This time we go to Klaus from Postville, NL, Canada. He asks where we should go to see the Universe expanding. We'll go first to Bern, Switzerland and the author of the book I Don't Understand That: My Life with People Smarter Than I Am, Ms Willie Gearshin.

Gearshin: Wouldn't you go to, like, a planetarium or something? That seems logical to me. And you can see Laser Floyd.

Myers: In New York, NY, USA, we have the cohost of the popular New York radio programme Drive Time Science, Mr Claudius Jacobitz.

Jacobitz: Just go to your local observatory and ask them to show you spectrographs of various galaxies, nearby and further away.

Myers: In Chicago, IL, USA, the associate vice president of the Chicago chapter of the Flat Universe Society, Mr Ted Renteria.

Renteria: You can't really see the Universe expanding. Not with the naked eye.

Myers: And with me here in Warwickshire is the director of the Wilt Chamberlain Institute for the Physical Sciences at the University of Northeast Ulster, Ms Lisa Faldo-Stype.

Faldo-Stype: Actually, I like Claudius's suggestion of going to observatories and looking at their spectrographs.

Myers: And I'm Debbie Myers. I observe the Universe's expansion by examining the waistlines of Americans. Well, another key issue is just how we can tell what happened in the first trillionth of a second of the Universe's existence. Ted, the Universe was opaque to radiation for the first several hundred thousand years. That means we can't see any light emitted before that. And yet these latest WMAP results seem to confirm the generally accepted theory of the early Universe, well before this light was given off. How can we know the early Universe without seeing it directly?

Renteria: Well, you're right. We can't see the early Universe directly. But we can see the light given off when the Universe became transparent to radiation. That era is known as the recombination era, because it's when atomic nuclei and electrons recombined to form atoms. By this time, the Universe's density had fallen enough that light could travel significant distances without being reabsorbed immediately by another atom. It's true that we can't see back before that, but we know that different theories about the early Universe tell us different things about what that early light, which we call the cosmic microwave background, should look like.

Myers: And what we're seeing from WMAP tells us that our ideas about inflation are correct.

Renteria: For the most part. We are still curious about the quadrupole moment, which is a measurement of the microwave background in opposite parts of the sky compared to the ring between them. That will require more work.

Gearshin: Aren't the differences in the background radiation, like, really tiny?

Renteria: Yes. No matter where on the sky we look, we see radiation at a temperature of about 2.7 kelvins, equal to about -270 centigrade. And this remains the same to within about one part in a hundred thousand. So this means we're looking for variations of twenty microkelvins or smaller.

Myers: That would be like being able to distinguish 20 centigrade and 20.00002 centigrade.

Jacobitz: Well, not quite, since that's much warmer, and so one part in a hundred thousand is not so small. It would be more like 20 and 20.002 centigrade, which many scientific instruments can do.

Myers: All right. Well, we're on to the viewer question portion of our programme, and remember, you can get us your questions using any of several methods, including telephone, E-mail, snail mail, text message, or facsimile. Look at your screen to see... well, me right now. But you'll shortly see the numbers and addresses to use... they'll be there any time... where the hell are our – there we go. We'll start with a question from Cheyenne in St Louis, MO, USA. Cheyenne, are you there?

Cheyenne in St Louis: I'm right here.

Myers: Hello Cheyenne. What is your question?

Cheyenne in St Louis: Hi. My question is, what difference does it make what happened millions of years ago? Aren't our tax dollars better spent helping the people of East St Louis?

Jacobitz: Yes, if I may answer this, Debbie.

Myers: Of course.

Jacobitz: Hi Cheyenne. Great question. Thanks for asking it. Well, in fact, the Big Bang happened billions of years ago, not millions. About 13.7 billion years ago. That right there shows just how important it is for us not only to study the early Universe, but to disseminate our results to the general public so that they can make informed decisions on how to spend their tax money.

Faldo-Stype: And furthermore, the early Universe was a time of high energy and unusual particles. Some of these unusual particles may be helpful here on Earth. After all, studying the Sun led us to the idea of nuclear energy, including fission, like the many reactors we have today, and fusion, like the many reactors we hope to have in the future.

Myers: So can we really expect that cosmological studies like this will apply here on Earth?

Faldo-Stype: Most definitely. Like on Doctor Who last year, when the –

Jacobitz: Don't tell me! Don't tell me! We're a season behind in the US!

Myers: Okay. Well, perhaps we'll be able to talk about that in a few weeks when American audiences finally get to see it. In the meantime, we go now to another question by E-mail. Linus from Cornwall, England, UK asks why it's called inflation when the beginning of the Universe is called the Big Bang. Ted?

Renteria: Well, inflating a balloon means pushing a lot of air into it quickly so that the same balloon covers more space. Likewise, during the first 10^-32 seconds or so – that's the first ten decillionths of a second, the first hundredth of a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second – the Universe got a lot of energy from what we call a false vacuum, a lot of energy trapped in space itself. This energy went into expanding the Universe incredible amounts, by a factor of about 10⁵⁰.

Myers: So how large was the Universe before and after this inflationary period?

Renteria: Well, at the start it was billions of times smaller than an atom. And after it was over, the Universe was hundreds of millions of light years across, about the size of the entire supercluster of galaxies we live in. All this happened in that tiny fraction of a second.

Myers: Well, that's certainly a lot to consider. Moving on then to our next question. Mona in Boston, MA, USA, are you there?

Mona in Boston: Yeah. Hi.

Myers: Hello Mona. What is your question?

Mona in Boston: You just said the Universe got so massively ridiculously freakishly huge in a tiny fraction of a second.

Myers: Yes.

Mona in Boston: If that's true, how come it takes so long for my bread to rise?

Myers: Another good question. Willie?

Gearshin: See, this is what we were talking about earlier. It's another application of studying cosmology. Soon we'll be able to find out how to use zero point energy to make your bread rise instantaneously.

Myers: Um... I see. Okay, well, we've got a number of other good questions waiting to be asked. Billy in West Plano, TX, USA, are you there?

Billy in West Plano: I'm here. Hi.

Myers: Hello Billy. What's your question?

Billy in West Plano: How dare you say the Universe is a million years old? The Bible clearly states that it's four thousand seven hundred years old!

Myers: How dare we say it? Like this: The Universe is 13.7 billion years old. Glad we cleared that up. The producers are saying we can have one more fast question. It's an E-mail from Will in Cork, Ireland. He asks how the Wilt Chamberlain Institute for the Physical Sciences at the University of Northeast Ulster got its name, seeing as how Wilt Chamberlain is seemingly unrelated to science. Lisa?

Faldo-Stype: Actually, I heard this question so much that I looked up the answer. Wilt Chamberlain was known for getting physical frequently. Hence, when the Institute for the Physical Sciences was established at the university, Wilt was obviously a natural choice.

[Pause.]

Myers: Obviously. Well, we're going to put an end to this programme now. Thanks to Ms Lisa Faldo-Stype, Mr Ted Renteria, Mr Claudius Jacobitz, and Ms Willie Gearshin for being here this week. Next week, we will be discussing the history and theory of April Fools Day, and we'll be joined by four notable pranksters from around the world: former US president Bill Clinton, basketball player Shaquille O'Neal, singer Björk, and actress Charlize Theron. Until we next see you, good night.

Gearshin: I played a prank once. One of my friends had a big long equation on his blackboard, and I changed a plus sign to a minus sign. It turned into a big mathematics scandal.

Faldo-Stype: That was you? Wow! That was hilarious! I still have the video from the Rome conference that I downloaded. I loved that one line: "You, sir, are no John von Neumann!"