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Cosmology has had several ground-breaking discoveries over the last 100+ years since Einstein developed his theory of relativity. Two of the most prominent were the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in 1968 and the confirmation of gravitational waves in 2015. Each utilized different tools, but both lent credence to the Big Bang Theory, which relates to the universe\u2019s formation. However, we still don\u2019t understand a vital part of that formation, and a new review paper by Rishav Roshan and Graham White at the University of Southampton suggests that we might be able to make some headway on our one-second \u201cgap\u201d in knowledge by using our newfound understanding of gravitational waves.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n First, let\u2019s look at what problem physicists are trying to solve. The Big Bang theory of cosmology is currently the one most widely accepted by scientists. There are different stages in it, including the earliest stage, known as \u201cinflation,\u201d and a stage where atoms begin to form, known as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). However, there was a one-second gap between the end of inflation and the beginning of BBN that scientists have been unable to see into.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to see what happened in that second because that specific period was opaque to electromagnetic waves, such as the CMB that helped prove the Big Bang theory in the first place. While one second may not seem like a whole lot of time, the universe might have dropped something like twenty-two orders of magnitude in temperature in that one second. How that temperature change played out is critical to understanding what happened in BBN and, therefore, in creating the universe as we know it today.<\/p>\n \n