Paul Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He will be one of the many people interviewed in a future feature documentary by B.J. Gudmundsson about the Green Bank Radio Telescope. The film will have three parts - one on the National Science Camp, another on the people of Pocahontas County and how they relate to the Big Science workers and technology plunked down in their midst, and a part about the importance of the science being done at Green Bank.

Allen Johnson, director of the Pocahontas County Free Libraries system, has worked with B.J. on many films including her first, “Out of the Storm - The Galford Lumber Project.” Most recently they have made two films for Christians for the Mountains, “Mountain Mourning” and “God’s Gift of a Wild and Wonderful Land.” She has also made a short documentary to tell people in Pocahontas County about the many services their nationally-award-winning public libraries provide.

I have been involved in this Green Bank project because I was once a physics-astronomy major at The University of Minnesota, eventually graduating magna cum laude in philosophy of science and studying for a MA in philosophy of science.  When I came to WV, the only place I knew about was the Green Bank Radio Telescope, visiting it for the first time during my inaugural tour of the state in spring 1979. I purchased a copy of the 16 mm film shown as part of their tours, “The Invisible Universe,” and the rest is history. Sadly, no one has produced a good film about the world-class science being done in our state.

Dr. Steinhardt has agreed to be interviewed for the film since he was a guest professor at the National Science Camp, held annually to promote science education. I have kept in touch with him, and truly love the amazing work he has done recently in cosmology. During the last few years the rest of the world has been catching up with him, mainstream science magazines like “Discover” doing stories on his amazingly profound scientific theories on our universe. Now he has published a book which I for one plan to read as soon as possible.

In 2004 The South Charleston Museum brought Jay Lockman, the first West Virginian to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Green Bank Radio Telescope scientist to the museum where he screened a very interesting locally produced documentary about the original construction of the Radio Telescope in 1964 called “The Big Erection.” He also showed slides about the work they do at the telescope, looking for organic molecules which were first discovered there, etc.

South Charleston Museum director Teresa Whitt with Jay Lockman and her Va. cousin

The Science Channel has shown and will show its amazing documentary, “Parallel Universes,” which explores Steinhardt’s ideas. ( It will be shown several times in September - http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/special.html?paid=48.13781.53917.0.0)

Hopefully sometime in the next few years B.J., Allen Johnson, and myself will find the money to make this exciting look at modern science. Maybe the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation may even help fund it - or the WV Legislature.

Here is a brief dialogue between myself and Dr. Steinhardt about the speed at which the early universe grew - and how popular his current theory on the trillion-year universe is becoming…..Thanks to Dr. Steinhardt for taking the time to clarify one of the most amazing concepts invented by mankind so far….the Big Bang!

  Question for a cosmologist -
 
 Steve Fesenmaier wrote:
    My film on the Green Bank Radio Telescope and the National Science
    Camp is still in the works…….another thing called “mountaintop
    removal mining” is now taking up my time, and especially, the
    filmmaker, B.J. Gudmundsson’s time.
 
    I have a simple question for you…I have looked all over the web and
    NOT found the answer.During inflation - how large did the universe grow - from microscopic to 1 billion light years in seconds?
 
    And if that happened - what speed did it grow at - 10 trillion times
    the speed of light?
 
    I will get your new book. - Steve Fesenmaier
 
 
Paul Steinhardt responds -
 
 
 
  Hi, Steve,
 
   I hope you enjoy the book.
 
   First of all, the duration of inflation is extremely short — the
  period of rapid expansion only lasts 10^(-30) seconds or perhaps 10^(-25) seconds — much, much less than a second.  However, during that short period, the universe expands by a greater factor than it has in the 14 billion years following inflation.  So,
it is an incredibly rapid expansion that takes place.

  There is no set amount of inflation that took place and so no fixed
   amount of growth.  But there is a minimum amount needed to solve the
  horizon and flatness problems.  The horizon at the time inflation begins is about
10^(-25) cm.  To solve the horizon problem, we need our observable
universe (the volume we see today) prior to inflation to be smaller than
the horizon prior to inflation.  Then, inflation blows it up to cm size,
which is the size you need so that, 14 billion years later, it has grown
to the size we observe today.   In other words, we need a stretching  factor of at least 10^25 during inflation to solve the horizon problem.
 
   But the amount of stretching is very sensitive the conditions that
   created the inflation and typically you get much more than that. 
  Each dimension of the universe doubles in extent once every 10^(-35)
  seconds during inflation.  So, if the inflation lasts only 60 x 10^(-35) seconds or 60 doublings, that givesthe minimum needed expansion of 10^25.  But there is no reason why inflation can’t last 10^(-30) seconds, which is 100,000 doublings or an expansion
factor of 10^25000!  or 10^(-25) seconds which is 10,000,000,000
doublings or an expansion of  10^2500000000.  In fact, the  larger
values are actually more typical in models that theorists have constructed.
 
   We call this expansion superluminal because the space between two
   distance points grows faster than it takes from light to travel from
   point to point. So, light sent from the one point never gets to the
   other.   But you cannot convert a stretching rate into a speed.    The
   stretching rate determines how long it takes each dimension of space to
   double. As noted above, space doubles every 10^ (-35) seconds or so during inflation, and this  doubling time does not change
   during inflation.  So, the distance between two points initially 1 m
   apart becomes 2, 4, 8, etc. every 10^ (-35) seconds. Notice what this
  doubling means: it takes just as long to stretch from 1m to 2m as from 64m to 128m.    That is quite different from light, which travels
at constant speed.  It takes light 64 times longer to travel from 64 m
to 128m than from 1 m to 2 m.
 
   Hope that is helpful.
 
   Paul
 
 
 
 
   Steve Fesenmaier wrote:

    I read somewhere in Scientific American that the Big Bang caused the universe to inflate during its initial burst to be light years in size…so I thought - if that happened, the space had to grow at a trillion times the speed of light to grow that quickly, but I have never seen any value placed on the actual “speed.” In any case, I will read your book ASAP.[ I read Dr. Steinhardt’s new book, and on page 50 he states that 1 second after the Big Bang the universe was several light years in size. That means that the universe grew at 31.5 million times the speed of light - which is possible because space can grow at any speed. Only energy and matter cannot exceed the speed of light.]
 
    A friend is making a new film on creative consciousness.  Working title is “Reaching for the Universe.” I suggested that he include something about cosmology since if there is any human activity of which I am aware that is “reaching for the universe,” it is contemporary cosmology.
 
    Given the need for “paradigm shift,” I wanted to ask you - in the academic world of cosmology, how many other people in your profession are tending to “believe” in your theories vs. the older ones? I know that it took quite a while for Einsteinian relativity to finally become accepted in physics depts. around the world. Do anyone but you and Turok really believe that your theory might be correct?

I don’t see too many other cosmologists trying to develop complete theories such as yours.  
 
  
 
 
  Paul Steinhardt responds -
 
 
 
   Well, the description you read is the way it is commonly written in the popular press, but it is technically inaccurate.  It is like comparing a velocity to acceleration.  What I wrote you is the precise way to think about it — that is, the space between two points keeps doubling at a fixed interval of time between doublings.  Light cannot keep up with this steady doubling rate.  So, light cannot make it from one point to
the other because the space in between is stretching too fast.  
 
   You are right that cosmologists are not yet flocking to the cyclic model, but that’s just the standard conservativism.   However, things are changing.  As the ideas have become familiar, a lot more people have begun to explore it and find it attractive. This has been especially true during the last year.  Also, although it is not yet popularly appreciated, our understanding of inflation has been changing in a way  that makes it less predictive and appealing.  Unless some fix is found, there will be a lot more concern that inflation fails and, if it fails, then the ekpyrotic/cyclic picture is the only alternative currently.  We will just have to see how the theories develop over the next few months.   And of course, the true decider is the experiments taking place over the next few years.
 
   Paul
 
 
 
  Steve Fesenmaier thanks Professor Steinhardt -
 
Thanks for your great response…….I have often told people
  that mankind should be judged by what its astronomers and cosmologists are doing - not by its politicians and warriors. - Steve

http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/webbrief/

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