Scientists press on in effort to balance universe’s forces

One of the greatest quests of the new physics has been to reconcile quantum theory with general relativity.

This situation parallels that of 17th-century scientists who were trying to reconcile the way things fell on Earth with the greater motions of the planets.

Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation solved both of those problems as they unified all aspects of motion.

Today, one set of rules, the Standard Model, explains the behavior of subatomic particles, and another, general relativity, explains the interactions of giant objects like planets, stars and galaxies.

A single Theory of Everything is a goal that could bring us a step closer to understanding the creation of the universe and lead to advances that are beyond imagination.

Already, quantum mechanics has given us advances in electronics, and general relativity has opened up new horizons in the existence of black holes and the discovery of dark matter and dark energy.

Scientists have spent billions of dollars and millions of hours over seven decades to understand and reconcile the fundamental forces that govern the universe.

The discovery of the Higgs boson that confirms the existence of the Higgs field is a major event that bolsters the Standard Model but also opens the door to new questions about the fundamental nature of matter at the most fundamental level.

Meanwhile, a small telescope on the roof of a building three-quarters of a mile from the geographic South Pole operated by Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics found evidence of tremors in space-time caused by intense gravitational forces set in motion during the first trillionth of a second of the universe.

Einstein predicted gravitational waves in his 1916 theory of general relativity. His equations showed how space-time was warped by matter and energy, giving rise to the force of gravity.

Primordial gravitational waves are the smoking gun for cosmic inflation, a theory that says the early universe experienced a terrific burst of expansion in growth that lasted the merest fraction of second. Inflation smoothed out irregularities in space and made the cosmos look almost the same in every direction while amplifying primordial gravitational waves, making them large enough to detect with today’s technology.

The Harvard team spotted the telltale signature that primordial gravitational waves imprinted on the cosmic microwave background, which is the faint light that fills the universe left over from the big bang.

Gravitational waves squeeze space as they propagate and make some patches slightly warmer than others. These warm spots polarize light waves that pass through, in this case twisting the vibrations of light waves from the big bang.

Another experiment is being finalized that researchers hope will detect gravitational waves directly. Called LIGO, for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, it uses interference of a split laser beam to measure the stretching and shrinking of space as gravity waves pass through it. Two separate systems, one in Louisiana and another in Washington State, will try to record the same waves separated by a few milliseconds in time.

LIGO is sensitive enough to record changes in the length of a 2.5-mile-long tunnel equivalent to 0.0001 of the diameter of an atomic nucleus, a measurement so small that even Einstein could not have conceived it.

Richard Brill is a professor of science at Honolulu Community College. His column runs on the first and third Fridays of the month. Email questions and comments to brill@hawaii.edu.