New Data Casts Doubts on Inflation Theory |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Saturday, 30 April 2005 23:04 |
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The widely held theory that the universe is inflating may not be true, according to research performed by David Larson and Benjamin Wandelt of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. According to the inflation theory, a split second after the big bang, space expanded violently. Hot and cold spots in the microwave background left over from the big bang would have started off as random quantum fluctuations; therefore, they should follow a Gaussian distribution. Yet Larson and Wandelt found a subtle, yet statistically significant, deviation from a Gaussian distribution when looking at data from NASAs Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which implies that there is a problem with the theory of inflation. The second years worth of WMAP data may be released this summer. Hopefully, it will help clarify Larson and Wandelts results.
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