"The early universe must have had some slight inhomogeneity in order to produce the structure that we see today. If there were no gravitational seeds to collect matter, then we would not be here to observe the universe. Cosmologists have managed to calculate about how much inhomogeneity must have existed in the big bang. This inhomogeneity would have been present at the age of recombination when the radiation in the CBR was allegedly emitted. The CBR should be very uniform, but the inhomogeneity would have been imprinted upon the CBR as localized regions that
are a little warmer or cooler than average. Predictions of how large the inhomgeneities should be led to the design of the COBE (COsmic Background Explorer, pronounced KOB-EE) satellite. COBE was designed to accurately measure the CBR over the entire sky and measure the predicted fluctuations in temperature.
The two-year COBE experiment ended in the early 1990s with a perfectly smooth CBR. This means that temperature fluctuations predicted by models then current were not found. Eventually a group of researchers used a very sophisticated statistical analysis to find subtle temperature fluctuations in the smooth data. Variations of one part in 105 were claimed. Subsequent experiments that were more limited in scope were claimed to verify this result. These have been hailed as confirmation of the standard cosmology.
However, there are some lingering questions. For instance, while the COBE experiment was designed to measure temperature variations, the variations allegedly found were an order of magnitude less than those predicted. Yet this is hailed as a great confirmation of the big-bang model. Some have written that the COBE results perfectly matched predictions, but this is simply not true. Since the COBE results, some theorists have recalculated big-bang models to produce the COBE measurements, but this hardly constitutes a perfect match. Instead, the data have guided the theory rather than the theory predicting the data.
Another fact that has been lost by many people is that the alleged variations in temperature were below the sensitivity of the COBE detectors. How can an experiment measure something below the sensitivity of the device? The variations became discernable only after much processing of the COBE data with high-powered statistics. One of the COBE researchers admitted that he could not point to any direction in the sky where the team had clearly identified a hotter or cooler region. This is a very strange result. No one knows where the hotter or cooler regions are, but the researchers involved were convinced by the statistics that such regions do indeed exist. Unfortunately, this is the way that science is increasingly being conducted.
To confirm the temperature fluctuations allegedly discovered by COBE, the WMAP satellite was designed and then launched early in the 21st century. WMAP stands for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.
In early 2003 a research team used the first WMAP results along with other data to establish some of the latest measurements of the universe. This study produced a 13.7 billion year age for the universe, plus or minus 1%. It also determined that visible matter accounts for only a little more than 4% of the mass of the universe. Of the remaining mass, some 23% is in the form of dark matter, with the remainder 73% in an exotic new form dubbed “dark energy.”" AIG
To him that by wisdom made the heavens:
Psalm 135:6
The two-year COBE experiment ended in the early 1990s with a perfectly smooth CBR. This means that temperature fluctuations predicted by models then current were not found. Eventually a group of researchers used a very sophisticated statistical analysis to find subtle temperature fluctuations in the smooth data. Variations of one part in 105 were claimed. Subsequent experiments that were more limited in scope were claimed to verify this result. These have been hailed as confirmation of the standard cosmology.
However, there are some lingering questions. For instance, while the COBE experiment was designed to measure temperature variations, the variations allegedly found were an order of magnitude less than those predicted. Yet this is hailed as a great confirmation of the big-bang model. Some have written that the COBE results perfectly matched predictions, but this is simply not true. Since the COBE results, some theorists have recalculated big-bang models to produce the COBE measurements, but this hardly constitutes a perfect match. Instead, the data have guided the theory rather than the theory predicting the data.
Another fact that has been lost by many people is that the alleged variations in temperature were below the sensitivity of the COBE detectors. How can an experiment measure something below the sensitivity of the device? The variations became discernable only after much processing of the COBE data with high-powered statistics. One of the COBE researchers admitted that he could not point to any direction in the sky where the team had clearly identified a hotter or cooler region. This is a very strange result. No one knows where the hotter or cooler regions are, but the researchers involved were convinced by the statistics that such regions do indeed exist. Unfortunately, this is the way that science is increasingly being conducted.
To confirm the temperature fluctuations allegedly discovered by COBE, the WMAP satellite was designed and then launched early in the 21st century. WMAP stands for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.
In early 2003 a research team used the first WMAP results along with other data to establish some of the latest measurements of the universe. This study produced a 13.7 billion year age for the universe, plus or minus 1%. It also determined that visible matter accounts for only a little more than 4% of the mass of the universe. Of the remaining mass, some 23% is in the form of dark matter, with the remainder 73% in an exotic new form dubbed “dark energy.”" AIG
To him that by wisdom made the heavens:
Psalm 135:6
