That detector, a horn, looking like an old-fashioned ear trumpet for a hard of hearing giant, sits on its hilltop in Holmdel, New Jersey. Among all the listening ears in the world it was this one that caught the crucial whisper back in 1975, the lucky start to today’s technology ... The Holmdel Whisper was no less than an echo of the origin of the universe. Horizon, A Whisper from Space, BBC 1978
This universe we live in: scientists have discovered some remarkably strange things about it. So strange they are having to use the most disturbing principles to describe what’s going on. Horizon: The Anthropic Principle, BBC 1987
The Anthropic Principle: The universe was anthropicentric – the hub of all creation was man. ibid.
Galileo’s masterstroke was to discover that what goes on around us depends on mathematical laws. ibid.
So what are we? A statistical accident. Where are we? Nowhere special. Where are we going? Into oblivion. A meaningless hiccup in the blank procession of matter through time. It’s a tatty destiny. ibid.
The Anthropic Principle seems well named – forget other intelligences; the universe may well have given rise to man alone. ibid.
Weak Anthropic Principle: A universe remarkably in sympathy with our existence. Strong Anthropic Principle: A universe that gave birth to man. Participatory Anthropic Principle: a universe that man helps to create by his observations and understanding. Final Anthropic Principle: A universe in while life will never die out and where knowledge will increase for ever. ibid.
The Cosmic Background Explorer – Cobi – sent up by NASA a few months before Space Telescope was launched. Its mission to search for the earliest signs of structure in the echoes of the Big Bang. Horizon: Here Be Monsters, 1993
The history of the universe is written by cosmologists. And one of these biggest question marks at the moment is what happened just after the Big Bang? Horizon: Whispers of Creation 1994
For the cosmologists Cobi signalled a revolution. ibid.
The idea is that at the beginning there was just a soup of mass and energy existing at a single point. Then sub-atomic particles separated out from the energy. There was now a universe with tiny irregularities of mass called quantum fluctuations. Scientists believe that somehow these fluctuations grew to become the ripples on the background radiation. And it was those ripples that allowed gravity to get to work to form the galaxies. ibid.
In billions of years’ time if you look out into the night sky you may see nothing. Absolute darkness. A new discovery about the fate of the universe has sent scientists in turmoil and challenged our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics. Horizon: From Here to Infinity, BBC 1999
Whether the universe goes on expanding for ever or re-collapses depends on only one thing: Gravity. ibid.
Supernovae would be the key to measuring the expansion of the universe and reveal how it would all end. ibid.
They could not believe what they were seeing. They knew the universe should be slowing down in its expansion, that gravity should be tugging on it, pulling it in. But they were seeing something that defied the known laws of Physics, and all their expectations. The universe was speeding up not slowing down. ibid.
There had to be some unknown and mysterious energy out there in the cosmos pushing everything apart, fighting against Gravity. What could this powerful energy be? Why had it never been seen before? What generates it, and where was it hiding? The theorists’ extraordinary conclusion was that this unknown energy came from the very vacuum of space. ibid.
In March 2000 two astronomers made an extraordinary discovery. One that is set to overturn our understanding of how the universe formed. What they discovered was a very simple relationship – a relationship between the galaxy we live in and the most destructive force in the universe – a super-massive black hole; it set the world of cosmology alight. BBC Horizon: Super-Massive Black Holes, BBC 2000
Super-massive black holes could exist in two states: when it’s feeding, a giant black hole creates a bright burning gas disk around it. And then for some reason it stops feeding, leaving a dark deadly core lurking menacingly in the centre of the galaxy. ibid.
Perhaps black holes are an essential part of what galaxies are and how they work. ibid.
The size of the black hole in the end depends on how fast the stars are moving in the newly formed galaxy around it ... All giant black holes and their galaxies are connected from birth. ibid.
If our black hole has started feeding again, could this affect the Earth? ibid.
There’s something weird out there in the universe ... Something we can’t see is pulling the strings of the universe. The alien stuff, if it exists, needs to fill a very big hole because 96% of our universe is unaccounted for. Horizon: Most of Our Universe is Missing, BBC 2006
Science had uncovered a puzzle. There was something missing. There wasn’t enough mass in the universe to provide the gravity to hold it together. And yet there the universe was – obviously not falling apart. But science had also provided an answer. Peebles and Ostriker’s Dark Matter made everything work. And thanks to Vera [Rubin] it was suddenly very popular. ibid.
Finally none of the universe was missing. It was made of 4% atoms, the stuff we’re familiar with, 21% Dark Matter that no-one could find, and a whopping 75% made from brand-new whizzy Dark Energy that nobody could understand. Cosmology’s standard model was born. ibid.
A new generation of Cosmologists are questioning our basic understanding of the universe. They are beginning to wonder if there is a greater reality. Could it be that everything we think we know about our universe is wrong? Horizon: Is Everything We Know About the Universe Wrong? BBC 2010
Somewhere out in the universe there seems to be a disturbing force that we can’t explain. A force of astonishing power that appears to have bent trillions of stars to its will. Gripping not just galaxies but whole clusters of galaxies spanning billions of light years’ of space. And it’s dragging everything to a single point. This mysterious phenomenon is known as Dark Flow. And it shouldn’t be happening. ibid.
For all its intricate mathematics the standard model has flaws. Built into it are a series of theories designed to explain observations that don’t make any sense. Theories that are incomplete and unproven. ibid.
Big Bang theory says that the universe was created in an explosion. But an explosion would produce a universe that was lumpy and messy. With patches there were at vastly different temperatures from one area to another. The real universe is nothing like this. In all directions the temperature appears to be almost exactly the same. ibid.
The explosion hasn’t stopped. The Big Bang is still banging. ibid.
Guth thinks our universe is part of a bigger structure; we’re in a small piece of it. A bubble created by Inflation. It could mean that Dark Flow is evidence our universe is not alone. ibid.
The most ambitious map in history is taking shape before our eyes. And scientists are heading for the edge. It may be the strangest map you will ever see. And it’s bigger than you can believe. It’s a map of the entire universe. Horizon: How Big is the Universe? BBC 2012
The universe is so big we may never find the edge. ibid.
It’s called the Observable Universe. We can only map what’s inside ... The light hasn’t had time to reach us yet. ibid.
In the observable universe there are 170 billion galaxies just like it. ibid.
Dark matters outweighs it six to one. ibid.
A supernova only burns brightly for three weeks. ibid.
He [Perlmutter] was finally ready to measure the deceleration of the universe. But late in 1997 the team was getting some very weird results. ibid.
One of the biggest shocks in modern cosmology. This is a runaway universe. ibid.
The entire universe is defying gravity. ibid.
Cosmologists don’t know what Dark Energy is, they only know what it does. When gravity pulls, Dark Energy pushes. ibid.
Dark Matter is fighting a losing battle. ibid.
The entire observable universe is saturated in Dark Energy. ibid.
The universe is infinite. ibid.
Inflation may have started out as a mathematical theory but it has gained acceptance after successful testing against the evidence from the Cosmic Microwave Background. ibid.
Eternal Inflation ... An infinite number of infinite universes. ibid.
Ever since the first humans stood in awe and wonder beneath the night sky we’ve wanted to know what’s out there. The Final Frontier: A Horizon Guide to the Universe, BBC 2012
Where did the universe come from? ibid.
Experimental evidence has proved that Einstein was right. ibid.
The Big Bang: a single moment of creation in which everything in the universe burst into existence. ibid.
The Hubble space telescope went on to produce the most magnificent images of the universe the world had ever seen. ibid.
On Earth whenever there is water, there is life. ibid.
In July 2012 the first glimpse of the Higgs Particle was announced. ibid.
What created the Big Bang? ibid.
NASA’s nothing has properties. ibid.