Selected Questions (And Answers) From All Experts Astronomy Forum (Big Bang, proper time, quantum cosmology etc.)

The following were culled from cosmology questions asked on the All Experts Astronomy forum over 2010--2012:


1-What is the evidence for the Big Bang and how was it discovered?

The evidence for the Big Bang is the 2.7 Kelvin degree, cosmic background radiation. The key aspect that makes it evidence is that it has the same intensity in all directions- wherever one observes in the sky. No ordinary radiative or local explosive source (e.g. supernova) would produce such a characteristic. The only feasible explanation to account for it would be a vast “explosion” occurring in the distant past and affecting the entire universe. Its entire volume.

The isotropic (all directions) radiation was discovered during a sky survey at the Bell Laboratories in 1965, by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. They had pointed their radio telescope in different directions in the sky and received the same “buzz” no matter where they observed. After rigorous data reduction (removal of data detritus and effects of bat guano), plus later confirmation of the “universal buzz” - it was later identified by Robert Dicke as the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the radio remnant of the Big Bang, they realized they’d discovered the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang.

In 1978 the pair received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery

2- If there was a Big Bang can we say the universe had a beginning, or not? What came before the Big Bang?

Asking ‘what came before the Big Bang’ is like asking ‘what’s north of the north pole?’ It’s the kind of question that at first glance seems logical, but really isn’t. The key thing here is that the time continuum we use to measure instants or epochs starts at the Big Bang, using the Hubble constant. Going to epochs before the Big Bang isn’t feasible because there is no temporal template to go by.

Though we can use the current Hubble constant to measure the proper time since the Big Bang as 13.7 billion years we can’t go any further than that. Or, into any “negative times” – as defined “before the Big Bang”. The reason is that so far there is no physically operational meaning to these.

3- You mentioned “proper time” – what’s that?

Proper time   τ   is defined in terms of the relativistic factor  (from special relativity):

g  =   [(1 - v  ²/c²)  ^-1/2]  

where v is a specific velocity- say of an observer’s frame, c is the speed of light.

Then the proper time is:   dτ   = dt/ g

Reversing the above, we can say that when the (relativistic) clock advances by increment dτ   then  the clock time that elapses on Earth is given by:

dt  =    g   dτ  

Why use proper time? Basically, because normal time measures are unreliable and subjective owing to relativity. For example, even saying or asserting the energy is greater or less at one time (t2) than time (t1) is impossible since energy (like mass, time, length) varies depending on the observer’s frame.

For example, consider the energy of an object moving at velocity v in the simple diagram below:


But, to the observer O moving in a reference frame with the same velocity, the object appears at rest so its kinetic energy = 0. In more technical consideration, on the basis of the Lorentz transformation (google!) the energy E’ in a new frame will depend on the energy E in an older frame according to:

E’ =  g _o (E –  v _o  p _x )

Where  v _o is the velocity and  p _x   the momentum in direction (x).

The factor  g _o   =   1  / [(1 - v _o ²/c²)^½]  


The point is that the energy in the new frame E'  depends on the momentum in the old frame, p _x . If this momentum is not conserved, then energy won’t be conserved in the new frame.

Note here that the relation of the new p' _x momentum  to the old,  p _x is:

p' _x    =  g _o (p _x   –  v _o  E/   c² )

Bottom line, unless one employs corrections using proper time to make energy estimates or statements, he will end up talking nonsense.

For example, let’s say you are looking at an object receding at a velocity of 0.5 c, and assert based on careful ordinary time measurements that it emerged 1 billion years after the Big Bang. Or – 12.7 billion year removed from your observation. But how does this compare to the proper time?

We have: dτ  = dt/ g

Where dt = 12.7 billion yrs.

g  = [1 – (0.5c/c) ²]  
 
 = 1/  Ö[1 – (0.25)] = 1/  Ö[0.75] = 1.155

Then the proper time interval dτ   is: (12.7 x x 10 ⁹  yr)/1.155 = 1.1 x x 10¹⁰  yr

Or 11 billion years not 12.7 billion.

This obviously also means that one cannot say or assert that from the Big Bang there has been “an infinite” amount of time, or instants. No, there hasn’t, and one can do the computation for the actual time interval using the proper time format.


4- What is meant by Quantum Cosmology and how does it work? Can it explain the Big Bang?

Quantum cosmology means that we use terms, conditions and parameters that are peculiar to the quantum level – for example quantum variables – in examining how they might work in explaining aspects of cosmology and yes, origins.

Quantum cosmology also is not for the faint of heart, or those who haven’t done a lot of physics – including taking quantum physics courses. In other words, one can’t simply approach its basis or claims using common sense or even ordinary logic. I believe it was Richard Feynman in one of the prefaces to his lectures who wrote: “Don’t even try to go down the rabbit hole of understanding quantum mechanics, or you will be lost forever.”

What he meant by that is that we don’t approach quantum formulations on the basis of trying to understand them, like one might wish to understand how an electronic amplifier works. We approach them from the mathematics we use, and let those math results lead the way.

At least one theory of the origin of the cosmos uses quantum cosmology in what we call “quantum bootstrapping”. This means, formulating a quantum fluctuation which could have incepted the cosmos via the Big Bang.

The starting point for these sorts of theories actually resides in a real world phenomenon. Particle production is one- wherein particles are created then quickly destroyed with energy release.

The typical pi meson (call it p ) lasts 10 ^-16 sec then vanishes yielding two gamma ray photons in its wake,viz.

 p    -> g   +   g

Thus, rest energy is real energy and is capable of doing work. In the case of the pion above, the total mass 2.4 x 10^-28 kg, is converted to electromagnetic energy.

The amount of the energy can be estimated using the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in the energy-time format:

D E D t   <  ħ  (where   ħ   is the  modified Planck constant: 

 h/ 2p =   1.05 x 10^-34 J-s

Thus,  if the time uncertainty for disappearance of the pi meson is:  D E = 10^-16 s

Then the energy available that comes off is:

   D E =    ħ  / D t   = 1.054 x 10 ^-18  J = 6.5 eV

In the same manner, a number of theoreticians (e.g. T. Padmanabhan) have speculated the universe could have emerged like the pi meson using the same basis for energy arising out of “nothing”.

Padmanabhan’s full paper: Universe Before Planck Time – A Quantum Gravity Model, can be found in Physical Review D, Vol. 28, No. 4, p. 756.

Basic Cosmic Brane Theory Revisited

We now revisit basic ideas concerning branes, brane theory.

By way of recapping some of the earlier material I've written on branes, I note the following:

a) The p= 1 brane is a string.

b) The p = 2 brane is a surface or mem-brane.


The basic principle concerning p-branes is one articulated by Stephen Hawking in his book, 'Universe in a Nutshell' (p. 54), that is, there exists no special preference for opting or choosing one type of p-brane over any other. In other words, a kind of "p-brane democracy' inheres, in which all p-branes are equal.

As Hawking also observed (ibid.), all p-branes can be found as solutions of supergravity theories in 10 or 11 dimensions. More importantly, p-branes are peculiar to the low energy limit of superstring theory, with the energy density of the nongravitational fields confined to some p-dimensional subspace of the 9 space dimensions in the theory.

A special class of p-branes in string theory are called D -branes. Roughly speaking, a D -brane is a p-brane where the ends of open strings are localized on the brane. A D -brane is like a collective excitation of strings. All these objects took a long time to be discovered in string theory, because they are buried deep in the mathematics of T-duality.

A much energized use of branes has been in providing descriptions for force interactions and emergence at different scales. For example, in a solution with electric charge, if the energy density in the electromagnetic field was distributed along a line in spacetime, this one-dimensional line would be considered a p-brane with p=1. A two-dimensional interaction would encompass p=2 branes.

Most all of this is now subsumed under what is called "M-Theory". Technically speaking, M theory is the unknown eleven-dimensional theory whose low energy limit is the supergravity theory in eleven dimensions briefly noted above. However, many people have taken to also using M theory to label the unknown theory believed to be the fundamental theory from which the known superstring theories emerge as special limits.

In M -theory, there are also extended objects, but they are called M -branes rather than D -branes. One class of the M -branes in this theory has two space dimensions, and this is called an M2 -brane. Despite this, we still often opt to use D-branes. Why? Mainly practicality! D-branes provide a link between algebraic and differential geometry which is quite natural. Any device or mathematical agent which can provide such a link will be invoked, because of the levels of difficulty in these two mathematical areas.

Now, in the cosmic case we can focus on the diagram shown which shows a simplified 4-step process in the origin of the cosmos based via colliding D-branes. One of these is identical with our own known universe and is designated (A) and another 'shadow' brane exists in close proximity. The proximate brane, as Hawking has noted (op. cit.,p. 183) prevents gravity from spreading too far into extra space dimensions. (He also notes that experiments so far haven't detected branes separated by less than a few mm. )

Now, in phase (2) the two branes are pulled closer by an interbrane force and develop tiny quantized "wrinkles" (which can be thought of as the rudimentary 'seeds' of future galaxies). In phase (3) the branes are actually undergoing a collision and the graphic depicted is meant to show a two-dimensional portrayal of a multi-dimensional encounter. In this collision, an enormous amount of energy is released which is interpreted as 'the Big Bang'.

By phase (4) the branes have separated and stretch and smooth out as they do so (note - galaxies or what will become such, are shown in the image). Also, the cosmos will be seen to be expanding as we see it today. Eventually, of course, the two branes are pulled back again and another collision is induced, and so another Big Bang. This is why the model based upon these interacting branes is called a "cyclic" or "Big Bounce" model. Further, in this model, the universe not only existed before the Big Bang (as a 'known universe brane') but retains the memory of what went before.

More to the point, if brane dynamics governs the recycling of Big Bangs, then it may not even matter what the cosmic density itself is in our own universe - say attaining a density such that all the matter re-collapses (unlikely given the universe's expansion seems to be accelerating). But if the action of a shadow brane is ultimately responsible for recycling the issue is essentially moot or out of our knowledge domain, in terms of definitely knowing that the universe will re-collapse or not!

Thus, even if our own cosmic energy density, r <   r (c), the critical density needed for re-collapse, the interaction of a nearby "shadow" brane in an inter-brane collision may still provide it!

Have Atoms of Antihydrogen Really Been Discovered?

Illustration of the CERN Alpha 2 apparatus which putatively has detected anti-hydrogen atoms.

Consider that in the original event called the Big Bang, matter and antimatter particles theoretically should have been create in equal numbers. In such a case, all the particle-antiparticle pairs ought ot have been annihilated with the universe left with no matter or antimatter at all, viz.

[M+]   +   [M-]   -> 0

where [M+] refers to the total of all (+) charged matter pairs, and [M-] refers to all antiparticle pairs. The essential point being the two classes behave identically except for the difference in sign (+ or -) disclosing difference in electric charge.

In retrospect, it wouldn't have actually taken much of a matter-antimatter imbalance to see the predominant matter universe we behold today.  One extra proton per billion proton- antiproton pairs would have been sufficient. But alas, even that tiny excess production is currently unexplainable. Note the matter preponderance doesn't specifically require matter v. antimatter manifest any difference other than sign, but if such a difference was discovered it would be critical in understanding the asymmetry of the early universe.

Some efforts in the past have already been made, namely, one postulate requiring a violation of what is called "CP symmetry invariance". Fitch and Cronin's (1963-64) discovery of a violation of CPT invariance. (C for charge conjugation, P for parity (spatial reflection) and T for time reversal set the original scene. Up until their 1960s investigations, it was widely accepted by physicists that nature played no favorites where charge conjugation, parity and time reversal were concerned. The discovery of a fundamental violation (Fitch and Cronin found a tiny fraction:  45 out of 22,700 - K2 mesons, spontaneously disintegrate into 2 pions, e.g. π mesons, (instead of the usual 3) changed all this.

It was suggested by them that this CPT invariance violation might also - in some way - account for the apparent asymmetry in the distribution of matter with respect to antimatter. Since then experiments have disclosed T-invariance can be subsumed by CP symmetry invariance. Trouble is, the existence of so little antimatter still violates CP invariance.

Beyond the CPT invariance, the fact is very little antimatter -matter imbalance in the primordial cosmos would have been needed to produce the matter universe we observe today. In fact, only one extra proton per billion proton-antiproton pairs would have been sufficient. to manifest the cosmos we have.  But never mind, even that tiny excess remains unexplainable.

Enter now the need for experiments which might detect a difference between matter and antimatter other than sign.  If such experiments found a difference this could be the key to understanding why the asymmetry existed.  In fact, such experiments have been going on  for the past thirty years at CERN where researchers have attempted to trap and study antihydrogen atoms.  The main line of inquiry has been to use precision spectroscopy to compare the known structure of hydrogen with antihydrogen.

Fast forward and it is now known that one of the CERN teams (the ALPHA collaboration) has achieved the first spectroscopic evidence for the transition between the 1s and 2s states of antihydrogen.  Recall the probability regions associated with hydrogen tabbed to the principal quantum number n:

In the above image, the far left n=1 image with its spherical shape denotes the 1s hydrogen orbital. The middle ring image with n=2 denotes the 2s orbital. If we zoom in’ on the 1s  configuration, and the probability for the electron in this region we end up with the graphs below:

This diagrams show that the hydrogen electron occupies no definite position. Instead, it’s confined someplace within a “cloud” or probability space (b) but that probability can be computed as a function of the Bohr radius (a_o = 0.0529 nm).  The probability P_1s for the 1s orbital is itself a result of squaring the “wave function” for the orbital.  If the wave function is defined:

y (1s) = 1/Öp (Z/ a_o) exp (-Zr/ a_o),

and the probability function is expressed:

P = ½y (1s) y (1s) *½

 Where y (1s) * is the complex conjugate, then the graph shown in (a) is obtained.   Now, as far as we know antihydrogen displays the same probability space distribution for its 1s  state, and likely the 2s as well.  Indeed, the ALPHA results up to now reveal no differences between hydrogen and antihydrogen, but the physicists hope that their precision (currently 200 parts per million) will improve and ultimately show the difference they suspect.

How does the ALPHA technique work? Basically, a laser is used to excite atoms in samples containing up to 10¹² atoms. (For comparison, a single milliliter of water contains about 6 x 10¹² atoms.)  The antimatter atoms are much more difficult to obtain and entail use of CERN's Antiproton accelerator. This device produces about 3 x  10⁷   antiprotons every 100s. These can then be manipulated using cryostats made of matter.

The decelerated, "raw" antiprotons travel at about 7 percent of the speed of light (e.g. v = 0.07c) but the velocity is further slowed by directing the beams at thin aluminum foil.  The downside is that some 99 % of the antiprotons are lost in the process. The one percent or so that survive annihilation (and are scattered by the foil to a lower energy) can be combined with positrons  (generated from radioactive decay) to produce antihydrogen. The technique produces about 25,000 antiatoms per trial.

Of course, this is only the initial phase of the experiment. Because one needs to "trap" the antihydrogen then it must be rendered "cold" (less than 0.5K).  Given the generated atoms are charge neutral trapping them electromagnetically  requires exploiting their magnetic moment, e.g. 

m=  ½  [mv ² /B]  

so that one uses an inhomogeneous magnetic field whereby a fraction of the atoms are drawn to the lower intensity B-field (in the middle ) with high field at the edges.. So in many respects it resembles the magnetic mirror machine we saw in the plasma physics posts (from January last year).   The point is the atoms can only be confined if the energy is low enough to yield temperatures less than 0.5K.

How much progress has been made with this trapping technique? In 2010, ALPHA's first successful trapping yielded 38 atoms trapped across 335 trials, with each atom trapped for a fraction of a second.  Now, up to 14 atoms are trapped per trial and held for many minutes.  Because of the low trapping success of the 2010 trials they were mainly focused on just that - trapping. Now with the improvement in trapping rates and times spectroscopy has come front and center.

The new "ALPHA 2" arrangement is depicted in the drawing at top of this post. The laser power is amplified by an optical cavity bound by highly reflective mirrors places outside the trapping region. This maximizes the sparse samples of antihydrogen.  The laser circulates roughly 1 W through the trapping region.  When an atom is excited by the laser it doesn't always return to its original state say 1s. On occasion it absorbs an additional photon and is ionized (absorption of energy E = hf causes a positron to be lost). At other times it reverts to a spin flipped version of the ground state.  Then the spin-flipped atom (or antiproton in the case of ionization) drifts to the wall of the apparatus, gets annihilated and produces a signal that can be detected.  When the given trial ends, the B-field for the trap is turned off and the remaining atoms are counted.

So far, the CERN physicists have probed the transition between antihydrogen's 1s or ground state and the first excited, or 2s state. Fortunately, the excitation's long lifetime -roughly  1/8 second- enables ample  time to absorb another photon before decaying back to the 1s state. (N.B. The long excitation time arises because of the 'forbidden transition' for a single photon. Hence, instead of tuning the laser to 121 nm - the full energy of the transition - the wavelength of 243 nm is used. This relies on two photons simultaneously absorbed to make the transition.)  When the two photons arrive from opposite directions  their Doppler shifts nearly cancel so there is no significant line broadening. (Recall the three important types of line broadening are Doppler effect, natural and pressure broadening.)

What has been the end result thus far? Well, after employing laser frequencies at resonance and detuned by -200 kHz, there is a mixed outcome but not one diverging from the null hypothesis. Specifically, 27 annihilation events have been observed during the off resonance trials - but this is consistent with the background effects from cosmic rays. By contrast, in the eleven "on resonance" trials - looking at 146 atoms - a total of 79 escaped the magnetic trap.  These results imply that any fractional differences between the transition frequencies of hydrogen and antihydrogen are less than  2 x 10^-10 .  

But  this is kind of re-assuring. Look at it this way, if there was some discrepancy of behavior observed different from charge- it would actually undermine the symmetry between particles and antiparticles. This symmetry (i.e. we can't tell them apart other than by charge) is underpinned by both quantum mechanics and general  relativity. So....if there were differences observed we'd have to go back to the drawing boards to revise those theories.  In other words, we'd require major changes to the two primary theories of modern physics.

No one wants to go there, and if they do have to, the evidence for differences had better be very solid and fairly scream for attention.

Is The Big Bang "Busted"? Not At All!

In  a recent issue of the Mensa Bulletin (June, p. 22) writer Dan Duda presents an article ('Is the Big Bang Busted?')  that basically invokes a highly speculative approach to reach a "conclusion" that dovetails with his "personal feeling that the Big Bang is a questionable theory". Fortunately, he does go on to concede this is "in spite of a significant amount of scientific evidence that supports it".

Significant indeed! Ii includes the presence of the uniform 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation which a number of physicists (e.g. Steven Weinberg) have shown can only be traced back to the Big Bang. In fact, it was the discovery of this microwave radiation that earned Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson the Physics Nobel Prize, see e,g,

https://cosmology.carnegiescience.edu/timeline/1964

That Duda doesn't even mention this is incredible, given any decent science writer would have to be aware of the finding. And yet, Duda prefers to consider way out speculative (and mostly irrelevant) theories like simulated universes, as well as oddball cosmological theories like that recently trotted out by Ahmed Farag Ali (?) of Benha University and Saurya Das of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.

My complaint is that even the intelligent and scientifically literate reader - say of the Bulletin, will come away even more confused, as opposed to educated. The National Science Board (a part of the National Science Foundation) has produced an annual survey of American beliefs about science called the Science and Engineering Indicators since the 1980s.   Americans - as reflected in the AP survey -  both seem to find the Big Bang confusing and worse, to have faith-based conflicts with the scientific conclusions of cosmology.

I attribute a lot of this to fake scientists - actually pseudo-scientists (like Jason Lisle) - who gain a peanut gallery following as well as prominence in the fundagelical religious sphere then profess to spiel on scientific issues like the Big Bang and the age of the Earth, confusing and undermining their followers.

Duda doesn't drag in specious religious bunkum but he does clutter his article with unusual complaints and fanciful conjectures that don't really have a bearing on the Big Bang,

For example, he cites a 1991 book 'The Big Bang Never Happened', wherein author Eric J. Lerner states:

"The Big Bang theory predicts that no object in the universe can be older than the Big Bang. Yet the large scale voids observed cannot have been formed in the time allowed."

Uh, yes they can! As I noted in an earlier post on these voids, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-cosmic-web-largest-superstructure.html
 

"Though the Hubble expansion limit is often cited as about 13.7 billion light years, this only refers to the extent that the radiating objects, galaxies, clusters, quasars etc. occur within our light cone. However, owing to the actual expansion of space itself, registered as a "comoving distance", the universe is really some 93 billion light years in diameter, so the actual edge of the observable universe is some 46.5 b light years distant."

In other words, those ancient, vast voids can definitely be accommodated. Duda's problem,  like that of the author he cites, is the failure to distinguish between the age of the cosmos registered within our own light cone and the physical extent defined as a comoving distance and actual expansion of space itself.  

In addition, Duda's citation of Lerner's 1991 work would have missed the discovery of the relic structures of the Big Bang (by George Smoot and his collaborators at the University of California at Berkeley,) in 1992. The investigation made use of data obtained from NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. The data exposed very small temperature differentials (dT), from which density variations could be deduced. (In principle the temperature variations of the form dT/T are taken as a proxy for density fluctuations (dr / r)  in the early universe). These variations were also  found consistent with the postulated characteristics of an inflationary cosmos, as opposed to an always uniformly expanding cosmos. Indeed, an inflationary phase would feature an exponential rate of expansion by way of doublings over very small time periods.

The inflationary phase, with expansion rates in some cases exceeding the speed of light,  see e.g.

http://io9.com/how-can-space-travel-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-1687312595

 

which could also have enabled the formation of the cosmic voids.

Duda's devotion of almost half his article to quantum aspects and collapsing wave functions is admirable, but really has no bearing on general relativity or the Big Bang. It is true that there could be a quantum 'tie-in' but the underlying theory - referred to quantum loop gravity - is still in its infancy.

Speculative excursions are indeed fascinating, especially in cosmology, but they shouldn't be used as filler for an article purported to be evidentiary or factual. A better title for Duda's piece would therefore have been: "Speculative alternatives to the Big Bang Theory".

More Proof Americans Are Among The Biggest Dopes On The Planet

And, when I use the term "dopes" it doesn't necessarily mean only those with sub-par IQs. After all, the cartoon image shown actually refers to one "research engineer" - Evan Jon Wright - who is a Mensa member, and incredibly believes that if CO2 was absorbed by the oceans they'd have turned to soda pop!

But the range and level of ignorance extends far beyond that example, to even more basic nonsensical beliefs which helps to keep this country the laughing stock of the world.

Among some of the finds from a recent poll and survey:

1) Roughly 73 percent of Americans believe Jesus was born of a virgin, while only 61 percent believe the Earth’s temperature has been warming. Even worse, only 40 percent of the Americans who concede that climate change is happening will admit that it’s primarily due to man-made activity.

This simply boggles the mind given the only examples of virgin birth ever documented have been mainly confined to some species of reptiles, never mammals. Yet people willingly buy into that hogswill. And yet anthropogenic global warming which has been firmly documented, is dismissed by nearly two fifths of 'Muricans. Something is seriously wrong with American brains here or their education - maybe both!

2) 77 percent of Americans believe in angels.

Incredibly, an AP/GFK poll in 2011 found that more than three out of four Americans believed angels literally exist, but also found that more than four out of 10 of those who never attend religious services believe it.  A poll taken five years earlier found that 81 percent of Americans believe in angels, essentially meaning the number had gone unchanged.

Let us grasp here that angels are defined as supernatural beings which means they are invisible as well as immaterial. When asked for evidence of the existence of angels people often cite some unusual or exceptional remembrance or personal anecdote - but never hard direct evidence. 

3) 55 percent of Americans believe that the Founding Fathers established this country as a Christian nation in the Constitution.

This figure comes from a First Amendment Center survey taken in 2007. These Americans really need to read Thomas Jefferson’s rewriting of the New Testament, which he felt perfected Jesus Christ’s teachings by removing all theological and supernatural elements from his life story. They may also wish to read the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11:

Article 11 of Treaty of Tripoli :

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries"

(http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html)

4) 1 in 4 Americans believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

This incredible finding comes from a National Science Foundation (NSF)  study conducted earlier last year. Oddly, or maybe not,  this statistic and the figure for non-acceptance of man-made climate change are, sadly, about the same—bear in mind that, whereas evolution and the Big Bang theory are relatively new to our collective consciousness, Copernicus and Galileo cracked our solar system’s biggest secret roughly five centuries ago. It would be no less ludicrous for one in four Americans to believe that the Earth is flat.  Again, this shows a major deficiency in Americans' science education, and explains why they do much worse than other nations on mathematics and physics tests administered over the years.

5 ) Only 60 percent of Americans believe in evolution.

According to a 2013 Pew Research poll, 33 percent of Americans believe that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” Among those who believe in evolution, 32 percent believe that modern organisms evolved through natural selection, while 24 percent believe that evolution occurred through the direct intervention of God. By comparison, 97 percent of scientists believe in evolution.

Let us also understand that there is no such thing as "God -directed evolution". Asserting such in order to try to render faith compatible with science is like trying to square the circle. The key point is that evolution requires no outside, external agent in order to enable speciation, diversity. Natural selection and mutation are sufficient drivers for the process. 

6) 51 percent of Americans don’t trust the Big Bang theory.

This refers to the scientific theory explaining the origin of the universe, namely its original rapid and violent expansion. .According to an AP/GFK poll from earlier last year, slightly more than half of all Americans were either “not too confident” or “not at all confident” that the Big Bang happened. This same survey also found that only 27 percent believe the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old, which is the consensus figure among scientists.

The Big Bang finding is actually not that surprising given the basis of the theory inheres in thermal physics, kinematics and most Americans haven't even taken a course in basic high school physics. So their "lack of confidence" is actually a justified lack of confidence in their own knowledge of physics with the ability to apply principles to unfamiliar theories or conditions. 

7) Only 44 percent of Americans are confident that vaccines don’t cause autism.

According to a University of Chicago study taken last year, 20 percent of Americans believe “vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders,” while another 36 percent weren’t sure enough to agree or disagree with that statement.  If Americans knew more, of course, they'd be aware that autism is more plausibly traced to toxins in the environment, such as present in pesticides - than in any vaccine component. (The main suspect in vaccines, thimerosal, is no longer present. 

8) 48 percent of Americans think the Civil War was about states’ rights, while only 38 percent of Americans believe it was over slavery.

While the 2011 Pew Research survey that yielded this statistic might lead you to believe that there is legitimate debate over the cause of the Civil War, there really isn’t: Over 90 percent of historians with graduate degrees accept that it was prompted by opposition to the election of Abraham Lincoln on the grounds that he would prohibit the expansion of slavery into the Western territories. Although the Southern states argued that they had a legal right to secede because of their sovereignty as states in a federal union, it was their opposition to Lincoln’s policies on slavery that incited them to leave the Union.

Apart from that there really is no such thing as 'States' rights".  States have prerogatives, not rights, because states exist as governmental entities not as persons-individuals. Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999) further reinforces this point in his chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). He notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights. Hence, the subtext is that rights can only accrue to human individuals.  As he puts it (ibid.)

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

Can we possibly reduce the level of American dopiness?  One would like to believe so, but so long as a fractured, fragmented media exists - what many have called "media Balkanization"- it is not likely to happen. The chronically ignorant will still gravitate to those media outlets that merely confirm their already skewed, unfounded beliefs and unless we return to the Fairness Doctrine (eliminated during the Reagan era) there is no chance of a corrective. They will remain ensconced in those bastardized niches and the rest of us - in the fact-based realm - will have to contend with them and do our best to educate them when and where possible.

This divergence might be tolerable except that the entrenched ignorance and misconceptions (such as #8 above) also translates into voting. This means the more ignorance -based voters we have the worse this country will become . This was only recently manifested in the atrocious finding that 59% of Americans support some form of torture and a large bunch actually believed they were defending freedom by going to see (or buy online) the god-awful muck 'The Interview'.

Thomas Jefferson once noted in his Notes on Virginia that the "people are the only safe depositories" of governance, truth and rectitude, but this is contingent on the "improvement of their minds."  If that mental improvement and acuity isn't evident in a populace  then their government is likely to degenerate and become corrupted since the people (as supposed guardians) have become so inept and uneducated as to leave their governance to the  power-hungry "rulers" alone.  Yet this is what appears to be happening in this country. Polls taken, such as after the series of Snowden data releases, and now after the CIA torture report, indicate that too many Americans have become sheep and ceased to be wary citizens. They have thereby left the fight to the rest of us who are 'on' 24/7 and perceive how the country is declining at a horrific rate. 

No one said citizenship was easy, or automatic. But, that just means one has to be aware that this honorable calling has - in the last 30 or so years- been driven to the sidelines by the "consumer". But consumers are not citizens, they are more akin to cattle - as noted by Erik Larson in his terrific book, The Naked Consumer.  Larson noted how consumer monitors in stores regularly referred to shoppers as "grazing like cattle"(p. 167).

One thing is clear: If you are like cattle, dumb, numb and not long for the meat grinder - you can't be doing your duty as a citizen. You are more an exploitable, brainwashable puppet. Sadly, the more such puppets are germinated the more rapid will be our nation's decline.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/60302/american-schnooks-the-people-who-can-be-fooled-again-and-again-and-still-again-not-to-mention-a-time-o