Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 29 February 1980:
Vol. 207. no. 4434, pp. 939 - 942
DOI: 10.1126/science.207.4434.939
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

A Simple Description of the 3 K Cosmic Microwave Background

Paul S. Henry 1

1 Member of Technical Staff, Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, New Jersey 07733

An intuitive model for the expansion of the universe is developed in which special relativity is used to describe events seen by a hypothetical observer in a Lorentz frame of reference. The cosmic microwave background photons he sees are the red-shifted remnants of hot photons emitted from the matter flying rapidly away from him. This special relativistic model, also called the Milne model, represents the extreme case of a Friedmann (general relativistic) universe in the limit of vanishingly small density of matter. The special relativistic model approximates an open universe (one that expands forever) with increasing accuracy as time evolves.

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)