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Article: A giant leap into a flat universe
- Article from:
- The Northern Echo
- Article date:
- April 28, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2000 The Northern Echo. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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FIVE hundred years ago Christopher Columbus proved that the Earth
is round. Yesterday, cosmologists proved that the universe is flat.
Carlos Frenk, professor of astrophysics at Durham University, is
over the moon. "It is phenomenal," he enthuses. "It is one of the
most important intellectual accomplishments of our time. This is
what being a human is all about. It is a great day in the history of
science."
The discovery was made by peering into the past, looking back
something like 15 billion years to a few seconds after the Big Bang
had created the universe. The time machine that cosmologists used
was a balloon called Boomerang that they flew for ten days at