Re: Smoot's Book: Quadrupoles and Omega=1

From: Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply (helbig_at_astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de)
Date: 12/02/04 

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 12:12:23 +0000 (UTC)

In article <4W8rd.58$fi2.54@news.flashnewsgroups.com>, "greywolf42"
<mingstb@marssim-ss.com> writes:

> > >> The quadrupole is just a particular "pattern" in a temperature map (or
> > >> any other function on the sphere). One sort of quadrupole is a
> > >> pattern that's cold at the north and south poles and hot in the
> > >> middle. That's what emission from our own Galaxy looks like. Since
> > >> we live in a spiral galaxy with a disk, there's a lot of glowing stuff
> > >> near the Galactic equator and not much near the Galactic poles.
> > >
> > >OK. So how about that cosmic quadrupole?
> >
> > How about it?
> >
> > The cosmic quadrupole is there, but it's a few times lower in
> > amplitude than is predicted in standard theories.
>
> That translates as not in accordance with standard predictions.

That is too harsh, since the "standard predictions" are statistical. It
is somewhat difficult to quantify statistics with only one universe.
This "cosmic variance" has been discussed in the literature for years.
It might be more surprising if every quadrupole was right on the nose.

Most atoms in your body are not radioactive. However, it is extremely
unlikely that even one DNA molecule in your body contains NO radioactive
atoms.

There was an episode of Star Trek in which McCoy figured out the aliens
were not the humans they pretended to be since his instruments not only
said they appeared human, but appeared as "textbook humans".

This might be a case of "the exception proves the rule".

> > It's hard to decide
> > how to assign a statistical significance to this discrepancy, so no
> > one knows whether or not to be worried about this.
>
> This translates to "we're going to ignore it, until we come up with an
> explanation". i.e. A new epicycle.

Your words, not Ted's, and certainly not warranted by the data. I don't
think anyone is ignoring it, but it might be better to say nothing than
come up with a contrived explanation.

See the "Was WMAP wrong?" thread for a possible explanation.

What is YOUR explanation?

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