Month: September 2022

“MICROLENSING occurs when the angular separation of images is too small to be resolved (∼ micro arc second) and instead the source is temporarily brightened. Microlensing is a particularly powerful technique for probing compact DM, for instance Primordial Black Holes.” (DM = dark matter), https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

“INFLATION is a period of accelerated expansion (a ̈ > 0) in the early Universe. It was proposed to solve several problems with the Big Bang.” https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

BIG BANG PROBLEMS. “Inflation solves these problems, respectively, by driving the initial (post inflation) density extremely close to the critical density, allowing the observable universe to originate from a small region that was in causal contact prior to inflation, and diluting monopoles/massive relics.” https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

“TABLE 1 summarises the history of the Universe.” (Marvelous, you cannot make this up!). https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

STAGE 1. NUCLEOSYNTHESIS. “The Universe is radiation dominated at early times, with nucleosynthesis, the synthesis of the nuclei of the light elements, starting ∼ 1 s after the Big Bang.” https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

STAGE 2. RADIATION-MATTER EQUALITY. “The matter dominated era starts at t ∼ 0.05 Myr, with the formation of atoms and the ‘release’ of the CMB occurring shortly after (t ∼ 0.3Myr).” (CMB = cosmic microwave background). https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

STAGE 3. RECOMBINATION AND DECOUPLING. “0.3Myr). Structures start forming at ∼ 0.1 Gyr, and then Λ, or dark energy, comes to dominate the Universe, causing its expansion to accelerate, at t ∼ 10 Gyr.” https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn

OFF THE RADAR. “While philosophers and religious scholars have explored awe for centuries, it was largely ignored by psychologists until the early 2000s.” https://lnkd.in/eTQYza-q View in LinkedIn

YORKSHIRE PUDDING. “When wheat flour began to come into common use for making cakes and puddings, cooks in northern England (Yorkshire) devised a means of making use of the fat that dropped into the dripping pan to cook a batter pudding while the meat roasted. In 1737, a recipe for "a dripping pudding" was published.” https://lnkd.in/ejcUhJym. View in LinkedIn

STAGE 4. STRUCTURE FORMATION. “Structures start forming at ∼ 0.1 Gyr, and then Λ, or dark energy, comes to dominate the Universe, causing its expansion to accelerate, at t ∼ 10 Gyr.” https://lnkd.in/e6ifiQMn View in LinkedIn