In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally detected a signal that appeared to originate from every direction in the sky simultaneously. Initially, they suspected it might be caused by faults in the circuitry of their equipment. However, by using a radiometer that allowed them to isolate individual signals from various sources, they were able to eliminate nearly all possible explanations. Around the same time, at Princeton University, Robert Dicke and his team which included James Peebles, were searching for evidence of the Big Bang. They hypothesized that this proof would manifest as a faint, red-shifted radio signal, a remnant of the early radiation from the Big Bang. The Princeton team played a crucial role in gaining recognition for the Big Bang Theory.
While Penzias and Wilson were trying to understand the mysterious signal they had detected, they had no idea that their findings were directly related to the Big Bang. At the same time, Robert Dicke, James Peebles, and their colleagues at Princeton University were developing a theoretical framework to search for evidence of the Big Bang in the form of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. This faint radiation would be a remnant of the early universe, left over from the intense heat and energy of the Big Bang itself. Dicke, Peebles, and their team had predicted that the universe’s early radiation would have stretched and cooled over time, shifting to the microwave part of the spectrum, and they were preparing an experiment to detect it. As fate would have it, Penzias and Wilson’s accidental discovery of a pervasive radio signal at a frequency consistent with the predicted CMB radiation was a perfect match for what Dicke and his team had been seeking. The coincidence was remarkable: Penzias and Wilson, with their equipment, had unknowingly stumbled upon the very evidence Dicke, Peebles, and the others had been expecting. Upon learning of the discovery, Dicke famously remarked that they had 'found the missing 3-degree radiation,' referring to the temperature of the CMB. This serendipitous moment marked one of the key pieces of evidence that confirmed the Big Bang theory, providing strong support for the idea that the universe had a hot, dense origin and has been expanding ever since.
One of the most intriguing concepts in physics is that everything, and that means everything —whether it's you, me, this table, that wall, the Sun, the Moon, or even the Earth — is constantly radiating energy. But what about the vast emptiness of intergalactic space? Most of intergalactic space is empty: the density of particles in intergalactic space is below one per cubic metre. Therefor intergalactic space contains a million times fewer particles per cubic metre than does the space between the stars, and those atoms are themselves sparser than in the best vacuum that human technology has yet achieved. Intergalactic space is extremely cold: it is at that background temperature of 2.7 kelvin, which is cold enough to freeze every known substance except helium. (Helium is believed to remain liquid right down to absolute zero, unless highly pressurized.)
This raises the important point that even though intergalactic space is “almost’ devoid of matter, it still radiates energy in the 1.89 mm wavelength range, which is the wavelength of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Is this a coincidence? Not at all, in fact the presence of these huge voids in the Universe is a clear indication of the expansion that took place during the evolution of the Universe, and the signal we receive in the present from these massive voids is indicative of the signal as it existed in the Big Bang. So that is what the CMB is and that is what I have found out: namely the fact that the radiation emitted by the huge intergalactic voids form the core signal of the CMB. This is the ultimate proof for the existence of the Big Bang Big Bang!
Leaving that point aside for the moment, there is another conjecture associated with this problem, that I am now going to raise. The question is:
“What if light required a medium in which to travel?”
If such a medium were required for the propagation of light and all other types of electromagnetic radiation, what would happen to the notion of the CMB? The answer is that the concept of the CMB would cease to exist, although the presence of massive voids in the Universe would still be indicative that the Big Bang took place. The radiation emitted by these voids would no longer be associated as relic radiation from the Big Bang but would rather be seen as indicative of the Universe in its present state.
The relic radiation left over from the Big Bang would not be the CMB as we know it but the medium through which that CMB propagates or dark matter would be the actual CMB. ( See my article" "Dark Matter according to Augmented Newtonian Dynamics" )
While Penzias and Wilson were trying to understand the mysterious signal they had detected, they had no idea that their findings were directly related to the Big Bang. At the same time, Robert Dicke, James Peebles, and their colleagues at Princeton University were developing a theoretical framework to search for evidence of the Big Bang in the form of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. This faint radiation would be a remnant of the early universe, left over from the intense heat and energy of the Big Bang itself. Dicke, Peebles, and their team had predicted that the universe’s early radiation would have stretched and cooled over time, shifting to the microwave part of the spectrum, and they were preparing an experiment to detect it. As fate would have it, Penzias and Wilson’s accidental discovery of a pervasive radio signal at a frequency consistent with the predicted CMB radiation was a perfect match for what Dicke and his team had been seeking. The coincidence was remarkable: Penzias and Wilson, with their equipment, had unknowingly stumbled upon the very evidence Dicke, Peebles, and the others had been expecting. Upon learning of the discovery, Dicke famously remarked that they had 'found the missing 3-degree radiation,' referring to the temperature of the CMB. This serendipitous moment marked one of the key pieces of evidence that confirmed the Big Bang theory, providing strong support for the idea that the universe had a hot, dense origin and has been expanding ever since.
One of the most intriguing concepts in physics is that everything, and that means everything —whether it's you, me, this table, that wall, the Sun, the Moon, or even the Earth — is constantly radiating energy. But what about the vast emptiness of intergalactic space? Most of intergalactic space is empty: the density of particles in intergalactic space is below one per cubic metre. Therefor intergalactic space contains a million times fewer particles per cubic metre than does the space between the stars, and those atoms are themselves sparser than in the best vacuum that human technology has yet achieved. Intergalactic space is extremely cold: it is at that background temperature of 2.7 kelvin, which is cold enough to freeze every known substance except helium. (Helium is believed to remain liquid right down to absolute zero, unless highly pressurized.)
This raises the important point that even though intergalactic space is “almost’ devoid of matter, it still radiates energy in the 1.89 mm wavelength range, which is the wavelength of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Is this a coincidence? Not at all, in fact the presence of these huge voids in the Universe is a clear indication of the expansion that took place during the evolution of the Universe, and the signal we receive in the present from these massive voids is indicative of the signal as it existed in the Big Bang. So that is what the CMB is and that is what I have found out: namely the fact that the radiation emitted by the huge intergalactic voids form the core signal of the CMB. This is the ultimate proof for the existence of the Big Bang Big Bang!
Leaving that point aside for the moment, there is another conjecture associated with this problem, that I am now going to raise. The question is:
“What if light required a medium in which to travel?”
If such a medium were required for the propagation of light and all other types of electromagnetic radiation, what would happen to the notion of the CMB? The answer is that the concept of the CMB would cease to exist, although the presence of massive voids in the Universe would still be indicative that the Big Bang took place. The radiation emitted by these voids would no longer be associated as relic radiation from the Big Bang but would rather be seen as indicative of the Universe in its present state.
The relic radiation left over from the Big Bang would not be the CMB as we know it but the medium through which that CMB propagates or dark matter would be the actual CMB. ( See my article" "Dark Matter according to Augmented Newtonian Dynamics" )
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