Erica? Is That You?

Seeing as it was Friday and the end of my first week at NASA, where I still have no mentor and have been "reading" for seven-ish (upper limit) hours a day, I heckled my fellow interns to accompany me to a colloquium. The title was "Primal Scream: Sounds From the Infant Universe" and the speaker was Mark Whittle from the University of Virginia. We were all interested in attending seminars/colloquia, and this topic seemed interesting (moreso than the aerosols one before it) and so three of us went.

The first amazingness? Mark Whittle is BRITISH. If he ended up talking about colonoscopies for an hour, not only would I be totally enraptured as well as volunteer for his "travel colonoscope," my ears would be having their own relaxing day at the spa listening to the utter sex (no not sexiness, I mean sex) that is the British accent.

The second amazingness you might ask? His talk was for the "non-cosmologist astronomer/scientist public." When he first mentioned this, I thought to myself, "Well, his voice will lull me to a pristine presentation coma into which I tend to fall... all the time." However, he seemed as though his presentation was more the result of him having two presentations, one for the "true" public, as he called it, and one for actual cosmologists, and he mixed and matched when creating this presentation. The point is, as he ran long, he skipped over the boring "math and physics" slides and went straight to the, as Albert put it, "flashy" slides. I dig it.

So by now you are all probably like, "Ok.. so he was British and you could understand half of his presentation... big whoop, wanna fight about it?" ($5 -  name the show) WELL MR. FANCYPANTS, I'll get on with it.

In order to gain support for WMAP, Mark Whittle began public outreach centered on the cosmic microwave background. Long story short, the distortions in the cosmic microwave background are different distances apart, and there are big distortions and smaller distortions. If you think of these "lengths" as wavelengths, then each has a corresponding frequency. Back when the universe was very, very young, there were pressure waves that moved through the "goop." ("Goop" is a scientific word.) Anyway, as the universe spread out, these distortions stretched and change, and thus, the frequencies of the universe stretched and changed. These pressure waves/frequencies are sound waves. Whittle and friends did fancy things with these sound waves so that we can hear them. [Sorry if I totally destroyed that description...]


Long story short, WE CAN HEAR THE SOUNDS FROM THE VERY EARLY UNIVERSE. Whittle showed us a slide that mapped the age of the universe (14 billion years) onto a human life. If a human life is about 80 years long, cosmic microwave background (and thus the sound) would be from 14 hours after conception. Stop. Think about it.

DANG!

Anyway, Whittle kept joking, "Well, that doesn't sound quite like a choir of heavenly angels, does it?" And we all shared a laugh.

But that triggered in my conspiracy mind that WHAT IF the sounds are actually a message...


YEAH.


A message. FROM "GOD."


Now, just hear me out. A MESSAGE FROM "GOD." Saying something like, "Don't fuck it up AGAIN, humans. Seriously." Or, "In 1985 AD, there will be born one who will rise up to challenge me and it is written that she will win. Her name will be Rebecca Lynne Mickol." Or some shit like that.

But seriously! And basically, the early sounds of the universe sound like "noise" to us... but what if it isn't noise! What if it's ALIENS?!?!?!??!

COME ON PEOPLE!!!!


Now, as I left the presentation (unfortunately, we were unable to stay for the Q and A period), I was hoping the sounds would be posted online so that I could really get this conspiracy going.

You NEED to check this out. I'm not saying, "Hey all you guys! Check this out if you have time or are bored while taking a poop." I am saying, "STOP WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE DOING (masturbating) AND LISTEN TO THIS GD ALIENSPEAK!"

Mark Whittle: Big Bang Acoustics... or... ALIENS? You decide.

But I really, really encourage you all to check this out. I mean, the presentation was kind of flashy, but it WORKED. It really was great. And once you do read it and listen to it, let me know so we can get our conspiracy on!!!!