Universe slightly older than previously thought, and new supporting evidence for Big Bang Theory

Source

I recommend a full read of the article, it' some hard science presented managably and makes for a good read. Although, there's nothing groundbraking here about the age change, it's really trivial to any lay person, but it gives a good explanation of why scientists think what they do about the age and origin of the universe.

To calculate the age of the universe, scientists including David Spergel of Princeton University and Charles Bennett of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore compared the size of those hot and cold spots today with the size of the spots when the radiation was first released into space. Using data from WMAP along with studies of distant supernovas and other phenomena, the team finds that the universe is 13.75 billion years old, give or take 0.11 billion. (By comparison, the team’s previous calculation, which used the same method but included only five years of satellite observations, had pegged the universe at 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 0.12 billion.)

Data from the WMAP satellite supports the idea that the early universe inflated rapidly, Bennett says. Inflation theory, which posits that the universe ballooned from subatomic scale to the size of a soccer ball during its first 10-33 seconds, has had great success in explaining the structure of the universe. According to the theory, fluctuations in the intensity of microwave background radiation over larger spatial scales should be slightly bigger than those on smaller scales. The satellite, which was launched in 2001 and will make its last observations this fall, has confirmed that behavior.

“This is a really strong endorsement for the theory,” says Scott Dodelson of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill.

The standard model of cosmology — replete with inflation, invisible material known as dark matter and something called dark energy, which is believed to accelerate cosmic expansion—“is a wild idea,” admits Bennett. But with the newest analysis of the satellite observations “we have confronted the model against the data in a substantially new way… and this picture is holding up very well.”

I know many of you disagree with the big bang theory, and you are the ones who would benefit most from reading the entire article. You'll see why scientists think what they do, and perhaps more importantly you'll see what kind of evidence must be overcome in order to confirm a competing theory(or, rather, what kind of observations must also be explained by a competing theory).

[edit on 4-2-2010 by OnceReturned]

I will preempt them.

The Universe is even older than they think it is now!

And future discoveries will disprove many of their close held beliefs!

I love how Science works that way.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
I will preempt them.

The Universe is even older than they think it is now!

And future discoveries will disprove many of their close held beliefs!

I love how Science works that way.

That may be, but we as humans tend to form beliefs. If we are going to form them, we might as well base them on something. If we are going to base them on something, we might as well base them on something that we can justify with evidence and reason; namely science. I don't think any scientist really thinks that they know it all, but their beliefs are based on the most reasonable theory derived from the best availible evidence. The big bang, and this current age of the universe, and the best theories based on the availible evidence. Any more strongly justifiable alternatives are welcome.

I watched a interesting film a couple days back...just a short video clip...one of those start from earth and zoom out to the edge of the universe...

it suprised me when they showed the bubble and then they showed a sort of light color...they said it was the light from a earlier universe...

bit of a wtf moment...

my idea...the universe in one form or another has been around since....well, since. and like a heartbeat, a new one keeps being blown out like clockwork...

perhaps trillions upon trillions of years old.

Thanks for sharing this, it IS a good read as you said.

Perhaps you should have used the title in the article, as your title is questionable.

If you make a hypothesis that the new age of the universe is greater than their previous estimate and apply a standard 95% confidence level to show that statistically, the hypothesis FAILS to be true to a 95% confidence level. In fact the statistical confidence level is far less than 95% that the new age predicted is older.

I realize this is not a well understood concept and it looks older but the difference is not statistically significant given the variance.

Now what would make your title true is if they stated the new age is 13.75 give or take 0.01 versus 13.73 give or take 0.01 billion, THEN the title of your thread would be TRUE! See the difference?

I believe they are confusing age with size.There is no age to the universe.

Time in the universal sense does not exist.

But if it is still expanding then it would of course be getting bigger in size.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Well we can at least agree that there is some difference between the new estimate and the old one. How would you describe the difference if not to say that one is slightly older than the other?

When we talk about the age of the universe using specific numbers - as is the case in this article - and we are in good company, we assume that everyone knows that we are talking about the best estimate with some degree of uncertainty. So the age of the universe, according to a our best estimates, is slightly older than previously thought. Which, in my opinion justifies the title. Are you suggesting that the new age is not even worth talking about because it's not different enough from the previous age, relative to the uncertainty?

Originally posted by OnceReturned
Are you suggesting that the new age is not even worth talking about because it's not different enough from the previous age, relative to the uncertainty?

Well it must be worth talking about since we are talking about it, but statistically speaking the difference is not statistically significant:

en.wikipedia.org...

A statistical hypothesis test is a method of making statistical decisions using experimental data. In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance.

We can't say the difference is significant because we can't say it's unlikely to have occurred by chance.

Or to put it another way, let's say the true age of the universe is X. Now you go out and collect some different data sets to determine the age of the universe, and due to sampling, measurement and other errors what you'll get is a scattering of different estimates around the number X. If the uncertainty bands have large overlaps as they do in this case, it would be erroneous to conclude that each time a new study is revealed, the age of the universe is somehow different, it's the same age. What you would be seeing are differences in sampling and errors and not in the true age.

Like I said, I think the title of the article fits the findings well:

New Look at Big Bang Radiation Refines Age of Universe

They don't make any claim that the new data says the universe is older in that title. I agree the new numbers for the age estimate have been refined.