Electrolistic

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the sound of the Big Bang is all around us!!!

When artist Jonathan Keats needed a liturgy for his temple to science, he didn't need to go far: the sound of the Big Bang is all around us, echoed in a stream of photons emitted by the universe's creation and still spreading.

Known as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, these were officially identified in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson. Using software that extrapolates the nature of the sound from oscillations in the radiation, University of Virginia astronomer Mark Whittle has recorded this echo.

The full explanation can be found on Whittle's page. It's pretty technical, but the basic question — isn't sound non-existent in space? — can be quickly answered: There's no sound in space because it's empty, but this wasn't always the case. Shortly after the Big Bang, space was full of gas through which sound waves could move, producing a symphony that Whittle describes thusly:

... a descending scream, building into a deep rasping roar, and ending in a deafening hiss. As if this were not impressive enough, the entire acoustic show is itself the prelude to a wonderful transformation: the highest pitch sounds ultimately spawn the first generation of stars, while the deep bass notes slowly dissolve to become the tapestry of galaxies which now fills all of space.

The Big Bang did not, it turns out, bang. It screamed.
To listen to the first million years of the universe, compressed into five seconds, click here And to listen to more of the Big Bang, as recorded by Whittle and arranged by Keats, visit the Atheon, which opens tomorrow at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California.

You'll also be able to hear the hypothesized sounds of a universe in which time does not exist, and a universe without structure. (And if you play it backwards, you can hear the words, "I buried Paul." Kidding!)