<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns:o = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><HEAD><META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"></HEAD>
<BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=3>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The key words are these: "<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #993300"><STRONG>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."</STRONG></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #993300"><STRONG></STRONG></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #993300"><STRONG>Howard</STRONG></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/home.ns"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Home</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">| </FONT><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/news.ns"><FONT face="Times New Roman">News</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">| </FONT><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/channel/solar-system"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Solar System</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">|
</FONT><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/channel/space-tech"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Space Technology</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">|
</FONT><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/channel/human-spaceflight"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Human Spaceflight</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">| </FONT><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/channel/astronomy"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Astronomy</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">|
</FONT><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/specials.ns"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Special Reports</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">
</FONT></P>
<H2 style="MARGIN: auto 0in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">'Axis of evil' warps
cosmic background </FONT></H2>
<UL type=disc>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">10:00 22 October 2005 </FONT></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">From New Scientist Print Edition </FONT></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Marcus Chown </FONT></LI></UL>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1130129920@aol.com" title="Axis of evil" height=982 alt="Axis of evil" width=551 border=0 v:shapes="_x0000_i1025" DATASIZE="91477" ID="MA1.1130129920" ></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Axis
of evil</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">A
MYSTERIOUS pattern seen in the cosmic microwave background</B> - 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 <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">is being caused by the gravity of a
tremendous concentration of galaxies in our cosmic backyard,"</B> says Chris
Vale of Fermilab in Chicago and the University of California,
Berkeley.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Dubbed the "axis of evil" by cosmologist Joćo
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. I<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">f 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."<o:p></o:p></B></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Magueijo and his colleagues have suggested there
may be something wrong with the big bang model (<I>New Scientist</I>, 2 July, p
30), but Vale's idea is less radical. <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">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."<o:p></o:p></B></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">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.</B>
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 (</FONT><A href="http://www.arxiv.org/astro-ph/0509039" target=nsarticle><FONT face="Times New Roman">www.arxiv.org/astro-ph/0509039</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">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.</B> He says that better observations
of the supercluster's mass distribution could help confirm the
theory.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">WMAP scientist Gary Hinshaw of NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is impressed with Vale's work. "<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">His toy model generates a good match to our
quadrupole and octupole signal</B>, which I think is remarkable." Hinshaw's
colleague and the principal investigator of WMAP, Charles Bennett, adds, "It is
not a crazy idea."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">But if Vale's idea is correct, it raises a new
question. <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">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.<o:p></o:p></B></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #993300">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.</SPAN></B>
"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.</FONT></P>
<H5 style="MARGIN: auto 0in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Related
Articles</FONT></H5>
<UL type=disc>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18625061.800"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Did the big bang really happen?</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18625061.800"><FONT face="Times New Roman">http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18625061.800</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">02 July 2005</FONT></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18624975.500"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Ripples cause cosmic doubts over
inflation</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18624975.500"><FONT face="Times New Roman">http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624975.500</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">30 April 2005</FONT></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn6057"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Fundamental physics constants stay put</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn6057"><FONT face="Times New Roman">http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6057</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">25 June 2004</FONT></LI></UL>
<H5 style="MARGIN: auto 0in"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Weblinks</FONT></H5>
<UL type=disc>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/" target=nsextern><FONT face="Times New Roman">Wilkinson Anisotropy Microwave Probe,
NASA</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/" target=nsextern><FONT face="Times New Roman">http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.fnal.gov/" target=nsextern><FONT face="Times New Roman">Fermilab</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.fnal.gov/" target=nsextern><FONT face="Times New Roman">http://www.fnal.gov/</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.imperial.ac.uk/" target=nsextern><FONT face="Times New Roman">Imperial College London</FONT></A></LI>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in"><A href="http://www.imperial.ac.uk/" target=nsextern><FONT face="Times New Roman">http://www.imperial.ac.uk/</FONT></A></LI></UL>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><A href="javascript:window.close();"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Close this
window</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P></DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>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<BR>Recent Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty
Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>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.<BR>For information on The International
Paleopsychology Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from
<BR>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>