Relativity Lite

86 | Relativity Lite ‘spots’) would be about one degree across. If the universe were open, the spots would be less than one degree across. If the universe were closed, the brightest spots would be greater than one degree across.” WMAP has confirmed that the brightest spots are indeed about one degree across. As of 2013, WMAP tells us that “the universe is flat with only a 0.4% margin of error [and] that the Universe is much larger than the volume we can directly observe.” * Figure 8. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation from nine years of WMAP data. The image shows temperature fluctuations on the Kelvin scale (above absolute zero) of up to ±0.0001 K around the average temperature of 2.7250 K. These are indicated from dark blue to red in the bar graph at right. The signal from our galaxy was subtracted off. † Inflation also accounts for why regions of the universe far to the left and far to the right are at the same temperatures to five decimal places in figure 8. They are so far apart that energy in the form of light could not have traveled between them to equalize their temperatures within the 13.77 billion years WMAP data says is the age of the universe. However, their having nearly equal temperatures today would be what we would expect if their temperatures had been equalized when they were infinitesimal distances apart from each other in the early stages of universal expansion and then were flung far apart by inflation. As a side note, it has been suggested that an inflationary expansion would magnify the spacetime foam shown in figure 11c of chapter 4 to such an extent that we should see huge voids of nothingness between today’s clusters of galaxies. Indeed, that is what Margaret J. * NASA/WMAP Science Team, “Will the Universe Expand Forever?,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, last modified January 24, 2014, https://​map​.gsfc​.nasa​.gov/​universe/​uni​_shape​.html. † NASA/WMAP Science Team, “CMB Images,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, last modified April 14, 2014, https://​map​.gsfc​.nasa​.gov/​media/​121238/​index​.html.