[Paleopsych] more lox for the big bagel

[HowlBloom at aol.com]

For those of you who've been kind enough to remember the Bloom Toroidal  
Theory of the Universe--otherwise known as the Big Bagel--and who've been  
generous enough not to get nauseous when the subject comes up, here's more  evidence 
for the theory.
 
The key words are these:  "It is possible that some feature  of the big bang 
may have suppressed the quadrupole signal. One such scenario is  that the 
universe is a peculiar shape like a flat slab or a  doughnut."
 
Howard
 
 
 
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'Axis of evil' warps  cosmic background 
    *   10:00 22 October 2005  
    *   From New Scientist Print Edition  
    *   Marcus Chown 
 
Axis  of evil 
A  MYSTERIOUS pattern seen in the cosmic microwave background - the faint  
afterglow of the big bang - has left some physicists wondering whether this  
central plank in the evidence for the big bang is somehow flawed. But now there  
may be a simpler explanation for the pattern: "It is being caused by the 
gravity of a  tremendous concentration of galaxies in our cosmic backyard," says 
Chris  Vale of Fermilab in Chicago and the University of California,  Berkeley. 
Dubbed the "axis of evil" by cosmologist João  Magueijo of Imperial College 
London, the pattern appears in the map of the  microwave backtround (CMB) built 
up by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy  Probe (WMAP). As part of their 
analysis, astronomers break up the subtle  temperature variations in the CMB 
into components called the dipole, the  quadrupole and the octupole (see 
Graphic), like breaking up an orchestral score  into tunes played by different 
instruments. If the CMB really is the afterglow of the  big bang, then the 
orientations of the hot and cold regions of the quadrupole  and the octupole should be 
random. "But they are not," says Vale. "The big  surprise is they are aligned 
- along the axis of  evil." 
Magueijo and his colleagues have suggested there  may be something wrong with 
the big bang model (New Scientist, 2 July, p  30), but Vale's idea is less 
radical. The axes of the quadrupole and the octupole  lie in the same plane, he 
says, which is perpendicular to the direction of the  dipole. "It hints at a 
connection." 
Vale  suspects the alignment is being caused by an enormous group of galaxies 
known as  the Shapley supercluster, which lies about 450 million light years 
away and  spans an area of sky at least 1000 times the apparent size of the 
full moon.  The gravity of this supercluster could warp the CMB in such a way 
that some of  the temperature variation in the dipole could "spill over" into 
the quadrupole  and the octupole. "The dipole variation is hundreds of times 
bigger than the  quadrupole, so only a little need spill over," says Vale 
(_www.arxiv.org/astro-ph/0509039_ (http://www.arxiv.org/astro-ph/0509039) ). 
To test  his hunch, Vale developed a computer simulation that modelled the 
supercluster  as a gigantic spherical mass, and found that he could replicate 
the apparent  alignment of the quadrupole and octupole. He says that better 
observations  of the supercluster's mass distribution could help confirm the  
theory. 
WMAP scientist Gary Hinshaw of NASA's Goddard  Space Flight Center in 
Greenbelt, Maryland, is impressed with Vale's work. "His toy model generates a good 
match to our  quadrupole and octupole signal, which I think is remarkable." 
Hinshaw's  colleague and the principal investigator of WMAP, Charles Bennett, 
adds, "It is  not a crazy idea." 
But if Vale's idea is correct, it raises a new  question. The measured 
quadrupole signal  is already much smaller than expected by theory, and Vale's 
mechanism would mean  that some of that signal is actually spillover from the 
dipole. So the true  quadrupole must be even smaller, and no one knows how that 
could have happened.  "I might have solved one problem but created another," 
admits  Vale. 
It is possible that some feature of the  big bang may have suppressed the 
quadrupole signal. One such scenario is that  the universe is a peculiar shape 
like a flat slab or a doughnut.  "That way some of the sloshing motions of 
matter that caused the temperature  variations in the cosmic background would not 
have been able to occur," says  Vale. 
Related  Articles
    *   _Did the big bang really happen?_ 
(http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18625061.800)  
    *   _http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18625061.800_ 
(http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18625061.800)  
    *   02 July 2005 
    *   _Ripples cause cosmic doubts over  inflation_ 
(http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18624975.500)  
    *   _http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624975.500_ 
(http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18624975.500)  
    *   30 April 2005 
    *   _Fundamental physics constants stay put_ 
(http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn6057)  
    *   _http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6057_ 
(http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn6057)  
    *   25 June 2004
Weblinks
    *   _Wilkinson Anisotropy Microwave Probe,  NASA_ 
(http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/)  
    *   _http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/_ (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/)  
    *   _Fermilab_ (http://www.fnal.gov/)  
    *   _http://www.fnal.gov/_ (http://www.fnal.gov/)  
    *   _Imperial College London_ (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/)  
    *   _http://www.imperial.ac.uk/_ (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/) 
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----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global Brain: The Evolution  of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st Century
Recent Visiting  Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; 
Core Faculty  Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of Evolution  Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big Bang Tango  Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American 
Association for the  Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
Academy of Political  Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International 
Society for Human  Ethology; advisory board member: Institute for 
Accelerating Change ; executive  editor -- New Paradigm book series.
For information on The International  Paleopsychology Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from  
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,  
see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The  Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

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