Sam Wormley wrote:

Space probe backs up dark view of the Universe
Physicists get their hands on the second round of WMAP data.
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060313/full/060313-16.html

Researchers have released the first data in three years from a NASA
satellite that is mapping the faint afterglow of the Big Bang. The much
anticipated results support the idea that our Universe contains a good
chunk of 'dark' material, and fits the theory that it expanded rapidly
in its first moments.

Now, Worms, just which theory is that? First time I've heard of it.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was launched in 2001 to
study the radiation left behind when the energy of the Big Bang
condensed into matter.

Come again? What radiation was "left behind"? And the energy of the
BB has not condensed into matter yet, as the BB seems to be just
getting started -i.e., still increasing its expansion rate. Also, what
is that process where energy "condensed" into matter?

This happened about 400,000 years after the
Universe was born and so the radiation, known as the cosmic microwave
background, bears the imprint of the baby Universe's structure.

The results, announced by WMAP principal investigator Charles Bennett
on 16 March, support the strange theory

Not strange ever since I announced that in my model of the universe.

that we live in a Universe
dominated by invisible dark matter and dark energy, a force that drives
space to expand.

So you think, but how can DM be a force? It's more logical to assume
it has no force of its own since it is invisible to us due to it
apparently having no temperature and thus no postive energy. And just
how can space expand if it cannot perform a physical act?

"This idea that the universe is 74% dark energy and 22% dark matter is
really crazy; it relates to nothing we can measure on Earth," says Sean
Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, Illinois, who is
not part of the WMAP team. "Every time we get observations that say
'Yes, the model is still working', we are surprised."

Surprise! - My model is still working! And that's supposed to be about
90-99%, not 74%.

The project has also revealed the first all-sky maps of the
polarization of the microwave background, which provide information
about the Universe's first stars and about the rapid expansion of
space-time immediately after the Big Bang.

Nonsense! It provides nothing of the sort. That's just wishful
thinking. In fact, there is no universe of space-time. S-t is a math
tool we use to make calculatons, like additon. The professor's
so-called "rapid expansion" is not even considered a theory because it
is a circular argument. Yet here are heads of physics depts. talking
about non-theory as if it were a fact! If that's not proof that
physics is in the shitcan, what is?

Results from WMAP's first year in space were unveiled with much fanfare
in February 2003. The satellite produced a full-sky map of temperature
fluctuations in the background, and astronomers used it to deduce
details of the Universe's age, shape and composition. Since then, the
WMAP team has been working on an analysis that comprises the original
data and two further years of observation.

This analysis has taken a long time to arrive, which made some people
suspicious. "People were thinking either 'Boy, this is really hard' or
'They've discovered something amazing'," says Carroll. In fact it has
brought few surprises, mostly firming up earlier findings.

He just said that he was surprised by the observations! What kind of
double-talk is that? The right and left sides of his brain are not
working in sync.

The team says, for example, that the age of the Universe (13.7 billion
years old) can now be calculated to within 60 million years rather than
200 million. And there are stronger hints than in 2003 that the
Universe did indeed inflate rapidly at its birth.

More crapola! Calculating the age to within 60 million years does not
in any logical sense relate to rapid inflation.

The polarization maps suggest that the first stars switched on around
400 million years after the Universe was created. And it is now thought
that the microwave background became polarized as it passed through
regions of ionized gas, where the stars' intense light had stripped
electrons from the interstellar atoms. Knowing about this interaction
will make measurements of cosmological quantities more precise, say
physicists.

But not untill those "thought"s can become fact. Til then, it's stil
conjecture.

In addition, some confusing data points from the first survey now look
like they were an experimental oddity. "There were a couple of glitches
in the older data that made us worry and they've gone away," says
Carroll. The WMAP team has submitted its results to The Astrophysical
Journal.

Sounds like they're hiding their mistakes.