Stretch Marks from the Dawn of Time.

“Primordial gravitational waves remain one of the outstanding untested hypotheses of inflation, the most popular model that explains the incredible uniformity of the CMB. According to inflationary theory, the Universe expanded very rapidly in the first fraction of a second, filling the cosmos with gravitational ripples. While inflation so far seems to explain a lot about the Universe, we have no direct evidence for it.”

Until now? With help from the South Pole’s BICEP2 observatory, astrophysicists announce they have detected the first possible direct evidence of cosmic inflation after the Big Bang, in the form of “distortions in the cosmic microwave background light…Those distortions take the form of twisting of the light’s polarization created by gravitational disturbances from inflation.” “‘This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar,’ said co-leader Clem Pryke.”

Update: 5 Sigma, R of 0.2. WHAT? Also another good explanation here: “Punchline: other than finding life on other planets or directly detecting dark matter, I can’t think of any other plausible near-term astrophysical discovery more important than this one for improving our understanding of the universe.”

Update 2: “The problem: the signal predicted by inflation is something called polarization, a sort of twisting of electromagnetic radiation. And while it can come from inflation-triggered gravity waves, microwaves from the early universe are altered en route to earthly telescopes, and if you don’t allow for the alteration, you can mistake local dust for a signal from billions of years ago.” Wait a tic: Princeton scientists cast doubt on the discovery.

The (No) Big-Bang Theory.

“In his proposal, time and space can be converted into one another, with a varying speed of light as the conversion factor. Mass and length are also interchangeable, with the conversion factor depending on both a varying gravitational “constant” and a varying speed of light (G/c2). Basically, as the universe expands, time is converted into space, and mass is converted into length. As the universe contracts, the opposite occurs.“

By way of cdogzilla, PhysOrg’s Lisa Zyga describes a new cosmological theory by Wun-Yi Shu of Taiwan that, among other things,does away with the Big Bang. “Essentially, this work is a novel theory about how the magnitudes of the three basic physical dimensions, mass, time, and length, are converted into each other…The theory resolves problems in cosmology, such as those of the big bang, dark energy, and flatness, in one fell stroke.”

Next Stop, Alderaan.

“‘We are still coming to terms with just how smooth the LHC commissioning is going,’ said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer as the record was announced. ‘It is fantastic.’” Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d, And now a bubble burst, and now a world…Also in science news, the now armed and fully operational Large Hadron Collider is breaking particle beam records as it warms up for the Big Show, when its handlers will work to recreate the conditions at one billionth of a second after the Big Bang. “Said Heuer: ‘We are continuing to take it step by step, and there is a lot to do before we start [first] physics in 2010. I’m keeping my champagne on ice until then.’” (By way of Dangerous Meta.)

On the Dark Side.

Using the thankfully soon-to-be-refurbished Hubble, astronomers find more evidence of “dark energy” in the early universe working along the lines of Einstein’s famous fudge factor, the cosmological constant, to combat a gravitational crunch. “‘Dark energy makes us nervous,’ said Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in the supernova study. ‘It fits the data, but it’s not what we really expected.’“