Our Views: Probing start of universe

With football season in full swing, attention seems to focus on LSU’s athletes at this time of year, but we need to recognize and celebrate the scientists and scholars who advance the university’s central mission, learning and research.

All of this came to mind with the news that two LSU researchers have been awarded a $250,000 grant by the nonprofit John Templeton Foundation to study the origins of the universe.

LSU Assistant Professor Parampreet Singh and Assistant Research Professor Peter Diener, both in the LSU Department of Physics and Astronomy, will use supercomputers on LSU’s campus to process profoundly complicated equations involving the Big Bang Theory — the idea that the universe formed from an ever-expanding explosion of matter. Singh and Diener are trying to use math to consider that starting point for the universe, and what it might portend for the long-term future of the physical world.

We’re glad that this kind of deep scholarship is being pursued at LSU — and that it’s attracting the interest of organizations such as the Templeton Foundation.

Such research faces large funding challenges as state support shrinks for LSU and other Louisiana institutions of higher learning. But supporting such initiatives is critical in advancing LSU’s mission as a national research institution.

Comments

1) Comment by InPVille - 14/10/2012

The latest information on the chicken/egg science question tends to favor the idea that THE CHICKEN CAME FIRST. We will see what further research shows or what other can find. FROM May, 2006 http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/ "Now a team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg." -[**]- FROM July, 2009 http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/researchers_apply_computing "The answer to the question in this context is “chicken” or – at least a particular chicken protein. There is however a further twist in that this particular chicken protein turns out to come both first and last. That neat trick it performs provides new insights into control of crystal growth which is key to egg shell production. Researchers had long known that a chicken eggshell protein called ovocleidin-17 (OC-17) must play some role in egg shell formation. The protein is found only in the mineral region of the egg (the hard part of the shell) and lab bench results showed that it appeared to influence the transformation of (CaCo3) into calcite crystals. The mechanism of this control remained unclear. How this process could be used to form an actual eggshell remained unclear." -[**]- FROM July, 2010 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38238685/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/which-came-first-chicken-or-egg/#.UHs9H4b4WSo "Now British scientists claim to have finally come up with the definitive answer: The chicken. The scientific and philosophical mystery was purportedly unraveled by researchers at Sheffield and Warwick universities, according to the Daily Mail newspaper. The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken." -[**]- FROM July, 2010 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-07-14/news/27069965_1_chicken-egg-researchers "This essential ingredient in the formation of the egg can only be produced inside a chicken, scientists from universities in Sheffield and Warwick concluded."

2) Comment by potkcalb - 12/10/2012

There is general agreement among scientists that the egg came first. Needless to say creationists don't agree.. So take your choice, science or the supernatural.

3) Comment by [e-mail] - 12/10/2012

"Study the origins of the universe"? Before they tackle that question, let them answer this one, i.e., "Which came first; the chicken or the egg?"

4) Comment by lovemykids - 12/10/2012

Under Jindal and his accessories LSU doesn't have much of a future to look forward to.