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<br /> Abhas Mitra, an Indian astrophysicist, who rejected the findings by a team of US-led astronomers that there were immediate gravitational waves following the heated explosion of the <keyword id="61221" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="big-bang">Big Bang</keyword>, now feels vindicated after receiving support from <keyword id="2305815" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Paul-Steinhardt">Paul Steinhardt</keyword>, a top <keyword id="214261" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="theoretical-physicist">theoretical physicist</keyword> at <keyword id="154037" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Princeton-University">Princeton University</keyword> in the US. Mitra works with Mumbai's <keyword id="71684" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Bhabha-Atomic-Research-Centre">Bhabha Atomic Research Centre</keyword> (BARC).<br />
<br /> The astronomers working with BICEP-2 (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) radio telescope at the <keyword id="6497843" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="South-Pole">South Pole</keyword> put forth to the world at the news conference in March that immediately after the Big Bang, there was ‘cosmic inflation’ at the intensity level of 10 raised to the power of 78.<br />
<br />
Mitra was alone in his rejection of the finding for which the world was predicting a Nobel prize. The astrophysicist filed a mathematical proof in a peer review paper in which he stated that the universe can expand only with a uniform speed and model that does not allow for cyclic cosmologies. The BICEP-2 findings were incorrect as he published his proof in the ‘<em>New Astronomy’</em> international journal.<br />
<br /> Last week Paul Steinhardt, respected theoretical <keyword id="203433" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="physicist">physicist</keyword> at Princeton, published a paper in the ‘<em>Nature</em>’ journal. The serious shortcomings that Steinhardt highlighted in the analysis are due to flaws in the data from the BICEP-2 analysis and its claim of having found gravitational waves.<br />
<br />
The first flaw is in the BICEP2 team’s identification of a twisty (B-mode) pattern in its maps of polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The team’s conclusion from their telescope at the South Pole stated that this was a detection of primordial gravitational waves.<br />
<br />
Steinhardt followed Mitra and pointed out that there are other twists produced within our Galaxy. This is due to light scattering from dust and the synchrotron radiation generated by electrons moving around galactic magnetic fields that have been found in our Galaxy.<br />
<br /> It is not the first time that Mitra has challenged theories of mainstream cosmologists and succeeded. Earlier, a research conducted by him had claimed that the so-called Black Holes proposed by the famed British physicist <keyword id="61369" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Stephen-Hawking">Stephen Hawking</keyword> must be ‘grey holes’ and not Black Holes.<br />
(Image: Thinkstock)<br />

Big Bang: Indian Physicist Abhas Mitra Feels Vindicated

<ul class="summary-list"><li>For decades, astronomers have puzzled over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-3d-map-of-the-universe-will-unlock-the-mystery-of-dark-energy-2016-7">dark energy</a> and why it's pushing our universe apart.</li><li>New data from the largest 3-D map of our universe suggests we may be wrong about dark energy.</li></ul><p>Scientists have constructed the largest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-3d-map-of-the-universe-will-unlock-the-mystery-of-dark-energy-2016-7">3-D map of our universe</a> to date, and it's come with a couple of interesting surprises.</p><p>"So far, we're seeing basic agreement with our best model of the universe, but we're also seeing some potentially interesting differences," Michael Levi said in a statement released by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on Thursday.</p><p>Levi is the director for the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/robots-will-help-us-learn-more-about-dark-energy-and-how-the-universe-formed-2016-8">Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument</a>, DESI, which produced the new map. The instrument consists of 5,000 tiny robots attached to a telescope in Arizona that collects light from various stages of our universe.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration of a telescope looking back in time to the early stages of the universe." height="456" width="810" msid="109077839" hostid="261" sizebytes="47988"></div><p>Astronomers use DESI to look back in time, billions of years ago, to understand how our <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/universe-expansion-crisis-cosmology-new-physics-hubble-constant-2019-10">universe has changed and evolved</a>. One of the driving forces behind that evolution is also one of our age's biggest mysteries in physics: dark energy.</p><p>Dark energy is the name astronomers have given to the unknown force that is driving our <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/universe-younger-expanding-faster-than-thought-study-new-physics-2019-4">universe to expand faster and faster</a> over time. But since its discovery in 1998, dark energy has eluded scientists, who know little about what it is or why it behaves the way it does.</p><p>DESI's detailed map could change that. It suggests that dark energy may be completely different than scientists thought, shaking a foundational pillar of our understanding of the universe.</p><h2>Dark energy may not be Einstein's constant after all</h2><div type="image" title="Millions of galaxies appear as web-like structures" height="685" width="1025" msid="109077842" hostid="261" sizebytes="95268"></div><p>Dark energy, as we understand it right now, is terrifying to think about because it means our universe is expanding faster and faster until one day <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-and-when-our-universe-will-end-2017-8">galaxies will be moving away</a> from us so quickly that their points of light in our night sky will wink out of existence.</p><p>That's the future we're headed for if dark energy continues at the rate it's going. And until Thursday, that's what many astronomers thought: that dark energy was a constant, unchanging force.</p><p>That's why astronomers have thought that dark energy could be the same thing as Albert Einstein's "cosmological constant," which was an extension of his theory of general relativity. Einstein abandoned the idea as his "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/einstein-biggest-blunder-cosmological-constant-expansion-universe-2017-5">greatest blunder</a>" in the 1930s, as astrophysicist Ethan Siegal <a target="_blank" href="https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-is-einsteins-cosmological-constant-the-same-as-dark-energy/">explains</a>, but a constant dark energy would have vindicated him.</p><p>However, this mysterious force may not be so constant, after all.</p><div type="image" title="Photo of Albert Einstein on his porch at home in Princeton, New Jersey." height="691" width="662" msid="109077843" hostid="261" sizebytes="26088"></div><p>Preliminary estimates from DESI's new data suggest dark energy may be evolving and weakening. That's the new revelation scientists announced at a meeting of the American Physical Society this week.</p><p>"If true, it would be the first real clue we have gotten about the nature of dark energy in 25 years," Adam Riess, a Nobel laureate for his co-discovery of dark energy, told Quanta Magazine.</p><p>For now, this is just a hint. The data is not strong enough to be sure or to claim a discovery, Quanta reported. But the hint is enticing.</p><p>"The idea that dark energy is varying is very natural," Paul Steinhardt, a Princeton University cosmologist, told the magazine. If it were constant, "it would be the only form of energy we know which is absolutely constant in space and time."</p><p>If later data confirms these early hints of inconstant dark energy to be true, that would change what we know about the makeup and future of the universe. It would also bring scientists closer to solving the mystery of the universe's accelerating expansion.</p><div type="image" title="diagram of the history of the universe" height="1151" width="2048" msid="109077844" hostid="261" sizebytes="89902"></div><p>"If this holds up, it could light the way to a new, potentially deeper <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-big-ring-cosmic-discovery-could-rewrite-understanding-of-universe-2024-1">understanding of the universe</a>," Riess said. "The next few years should be very revealing."</p><h2>The 'golden era of cosmology'</h2><p>DESI measured the most distant part of the universe, 8-11 billion years ago, with record precision.</p><p>Other major universe-mapping observatories are hitting the skies in the coming years. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is about to get outfitted with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-built-largest-digital-camera-lsst-for-asteroids-dark-matter-2024-4">the world's largest digital camera</a>, which will allow it to map the entire southern sky over a decade, including more than 20 billion galaxies.</p><div type="image" title="giant camera black segmented tube with lens inside on a white engineering mount in a cleanroom with a person in a white cleansuit standing at the bottom of the lens that rises about five feet above the person's head" height="1500" width="2250" msid="109077845" hostid="261" sizebytes="249196"></div><p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/esa-euclid-space-telescope-images-horsehead-nebula-perseus-cluster-photos-2023-11">European Space Agency's Euclid telescope</a> is already in space, where its mission is to study dark energy. NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to launch in 2027 and conduct its own inquiry on the issue.</p><p>For its part, DESI aims to map 37 million galaxies by the end of its survey.</p><p>"We are in the golden era of cosmology, with large-scale surveys ongoing and about to be started, and new techniques being developed to make the best use of these datasets," Arnaud de Mattia, a researcher with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and co-leader of the DESI team that interprets its cosmological data, said in the press release.</p><p>"We're all really motivated to see whether new data will confirm the features we saw in our first-year sample and build a better understanding of the dynamics of our universe," Mattia said.</p>

The largest map of the cosmos hints that dark energy is changing. It could prove Einstein wrong and upend a pillar of modern physics.

<p><em><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Netflix / Stranger Things</span></p><p class="caption">Will Byers, before he disappears.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Warning:</strong><strong> Spoilers ahead if you have not watched all of "Stranger Things."</strong></em></p><p>"E.T." "The Goonies." "Game of Thrones." Roll them all into one and you've got "Stranger Things," Netflix's newest hit thriller series, which centers around a boy named Will Byers who disappears into a shadowy, dark copy of his own world that his friends call "the upside-down."</p><p>If you're as obsessed with the show as we are, you've probably got a few questions. Namely, <em>What the heck is this "upside-down" place that Will disappears to and how come his friends can't just go there and rescue him?</em></p><p>We put the question to a theoretical physicist to find out, and his answer blew our minds.</p><p>In the upside-down, everything looks the same as it does in Will's "normal" world - almost. Will can walk along replicas of his middle school hallways, snuggle into the blankets in a version of his beloved backyard fort, and even have some (extremely limited contact) with his friends and family on the other side. But the other dimension is cold and dark, and Will is utterly alone in it. His only company is a vicious plant-like demon who appears to feed off of people.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Netflix / Stranger Things</span></p><p class="caption">Eleven and Will in the "upside-down."</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Luckily, Will's friends happen to be obsessed with a Dungeons-and-Dragons-esque boardgame. The game has a lot in common with this other dimension. There's even a scene in the show where the boys turn the game board upside down in order to explain to each other how they might imagine the "upside-down" where Will is trapped.</p><p>But they still can't figure out how to get there, or how to rescue Will. So, in a meeting with Mr. Clarke, they ask him for some "purely theoretical" help: Namely, how they'd access another dimension, if one existed.</p><h2>The acrobat and the tightrope</h2><p>Mr. Clarke starts with an analogy. He asks them to picture their own dimension as a tightrope, and all the people in it - including Mr. Clarke and the boys - as acrobats on the tightrope. To an acrobat, the tightrope is flat - the acrobat can walk forward or backwards along the rope, but that's it. The acrobat can't turn upside down (thanks, gravity), or plunge past the rope.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Netflix / Stranger Things</span></p><p class="caption">Mr. Clarke explaining how the boys could rescue Will.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Now, the teacher says, imagine a flea perched on that same tightrope. The flea isn't limited like the acrobat. The flea can go up and down. The flea can get to the other dimension.</p><p>Personally, this is where the show lost me. <em>If the flea exists in the same three-dimensional world as the acrobat, why wouldn't the flea have to follow the same laws?</em>, I asked myself.<em> Why can't the acrobat be a flea? Why can't we all be fleas?!</em></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Netflix / Stranger Things</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Theoretical physicist Paul Steinhardt cleared it up beautifully for us. Go back to the acrobat-flea analogy, only this time, picture this:</p><p>The acrobat walking along the tightrope is huge compared to the thickness of the skinny rope! So, she sees the rope as a one-dimensional line; she can only move back and forth along this surface. She never walks around the circular direction of the rope, "partly because she'd fall off, but mostly because she's too big for it," Steinhardt said.</p><p>But a flea walking on that same rope could not only walk back and forth, but also around the rope. The flea could also crawl down the side of the rope, and even underneath it.</p><p>This analogy is an easy way to imagine <a href="http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~alberto/physics/string.html">string theory, which proposes that there are extra dimensions, curled up into little balls</a>. Creatures much bigger than the balls - like you, me, and the acrobat - can only move through the regular three dimensions. But tiny, (tiny!) particles can move through the three dimensions <em>and</em> in the extra dimensions.</p><p>Unfortunately, that analogy doesn't completely fit in with the extra dimension we see in "Stranger Things," Steinhardt said.</p><h2>Acrobat, meet sandwich</h2><p>So, in order to better understand what's happening in the show, Steinhardt suggested imagining a sandwich instead of a tightrope. The sandwich is made of two flat surfaces, like pieces of bread, which represent two parallel universes. (<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/black_hole_big_bang_theory_did_the_universe_start_with_a_braneworld_white.html">These parallel universes are more accurately called "brane-worlds,"</a> but we'll get into that later.) Between the universes is spacetime, which we can picture being represented by a nice, thick slather of hummus.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Netflix / Stranger Things</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Now picture a person shrunk down to the size of a flea. She can walk freely along the top or bottom of either of the two pieces of bread, but she can't go through the hummus - there'd be nothing to walk on. As you might know from <a href="http://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html">Einstein's theory of general relativity</a>, our spacetime (hummus) can wriggle and get warped. And just like a soggy hummus sandwich, this wriggling or warping can also affect the brane-worlds (bread slices) alongside it.</p><p>So how could our little person walking on one slice of our sandwich bread get to the other slice of bread (i.e. the other brane-world)?</p><p>The brane-worlds (bread slices) are pretty flexible. So to join the two, you'd need a massive amount of energy - like a black hole or a worm hole, which you can imagine as squishing the sandwich together in one spot using your finger. If a black hole formed between the two brane-worlds, its intense gravity could actually squeeze the two brane-worlds together, sort of like pushing the two sandwich slices together would. (Unfortunately, this would have the added side-effect of decimating anyone who tried to go from one world to the other). A worm hole, on the other hand, would create a tunnel-like connection between the bread, as if you stuck a toothpick in it.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Netflix / Stranger things</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Mr. Clarke tells the kids that one way to generate such a hole is to create an impossibly massive amount of energy.</p><p>As you probably remember, the boys live nearby the Hawkins Electric Plant, which likely generates a bunch of energy. <em>(It almost certainly wouldn't be enough for the purposes of joining two brane-worlds, Steinhardt pointed out, but hey, we're also talking about parallel universes and monsters that eat people.)</em> Now, keep in mind that one of the show's central characters, Jane ("Eleven"), has extraordinary abilities, one of which involves tapping into energy fields. That's how she turns off the noisy electric fan at the burger joint in episode one.</p><p>Eleven uses her powers to help the kids communicate with Will and assure him that they're coming to save him. And later, it's the hole she's ripped in the fabric of spacetime using her powers that allows the town sheriff (Hopper) and Will's mom to travel into the upside down and rescue Will.</p><p>Mind. Blown.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-walkers-origin-game-of-thrones-2016-5">'Game of Thrones' finally revealed the origin of the White Walkers</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="txcGFvMzE6FZCqFr0jfRAm64NBVhAMhV" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

We had a theoretical physicist break down our biggest question about the Netflix hit 'Stranger Things,' and it blew our minds

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/PGroup-Andrew-Harrer-MediaPunch-IPx-A-ENT-IPX-V-/dbaccaad823540ceb1b5a34762b7eeac/10/0">Andrew Harrer / Pool via CNP /MediaPunch/IPX</a></span></p><p class="caption">What some experts predict Betsy DeVos will do as secretary of <keyword id="6355445" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Education">education</keyword>.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Following one of the most contentious confirmation processes for secretary of education the US has ever seen, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/betsy-devos-approved-nomination-secretary-of-education-2017-2">Betsy DeVos was confirmed on Tuesday by the slimmest of possible margins</a> - 51-50 - with Vice President Mike Pence casting the deciding affirmative vote.</p><p>The nomination of DeVos, a billionaire GOP donor from Michigan, elicited strong public outrage, spurring thousands of calls from constituents to their senators. Protests in opposition to her nomination cropped up around the US, and Democratic lawmakers on Monday <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/betsy-devos-education-secretary-comfirmation-vote-2017-2">held a marathon late-night session to oppose DeVos</a>.</p><p>Yet, the secretary of education's power is limited. Many areas of education in the US are largely under state and local control. "The position of secretary of education is, more than anything, an opportunity to be a bully pulpit to express the views of the president," <a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/paul-reville">Paul Reville</a>, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, told Business Insider. "The role is highly constrained."</p><p>Despite the constraints of the position, some experts say they worry about the harm DeVos may inflict on the school system in her role.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Betsy DeVos during her January confirmation hearing.</p></div><p></p></div></div>"DeVos' confirmation raises concerns about maintaining the push and the presence of equity," <a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/laura-schifter">Laura Schifter</a>, a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, told Business Insider.</p><p>"I think the concern is the absence of the federal involvement in education on important issues like enforcing civil rights laws," she said.</p><p>The department, through its Office for Civil Rights, handles matters related to discrimination in schools and colleges on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics.</p><p>The American Civil Liberties Union filed a <a href="https://acluva.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/141218-dojcomplaintltrGRIMM.pdf">complaint</a> with the Department of Education in 2014 on behalf of Gavin Grimm, a transgender student who said he was discriminated against by his school district because it did not let him use the bathroom that corresponded with his gender identity.</p><p>The Department of Education, along with the Justice Department, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-departments-education-and-justice-release-joint-guidance-help-schools-ensure-civil-rights-transgender-students">later issued guidance on the issue</a>, directing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.</p><p>Schifter predicts there will be a pulling back from using the protective arm of the ED with DeVos as secretary.</p><p>Other experts worry about deleterious effects on public education with DeVos at the helm.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mike Segar</span></p><p class="caption">Donald Trump and Betsy Devos.</p></div><p></p></div></div>"She's endorsing a school choice program unlike anything we've ever seen," <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/David_Kirkland">David Kirkland</a>, an associate professor with NYU Steinhardt, told Business Insider. "She's overseen Michigan's proliferation of unregulated charter schools as well as the siphoning of public funds - chiefly Title I funds - from public education into private accounts. reinforcing stubborn patterns of school segregation but also school failure," he said.</p><p>DeVos can't do this alone, as individual states have autonomy in making decisions about their school systems in this way. But Kirkland argued that the federal government still sets the tone and messaging for education policy in the US, and he cited adoption of the Common Core under President Obama as an example.</p><p>The Common Core - a controversial set of nationwide standards - was adopted by states, rather than mandated by the federal government, but they were certainly backed and incentivized by the Obama administration.</p><p>"The federal government plays a tremendous role in creating the environment for educational success and failure throughout the country," Kirkland said.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-schedule-relationships-marriage-bat-sheva-marcus-2017-1">How a 'sex schedule' could save your relationship</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="c4MnAydTpRxoF1S9MlVqsJAIUtsQiH5b" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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Big Bang: Indian Physicist Abhas Mitra Feels Vindicated

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The largest map of the cosmos hints that dark energy is changing. It could prove Einstein wrong and upend a pillar of modern physics.

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We had a theoretical physicist break down our biggest question about the Netflix hit 'Stranger Things,' and it blew our minds

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The secretary of education's power is 'highly constrained' - but experts are still concerned about what Betsy DeVos may do

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