Pablo_Stafforini comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Thomas 03 June 2013 03:08AM

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Comment author: Pablo_Stafforini 02 June 2013 02:48:29AM 3 points [-]

If you turn on your television and tune it between stations, about 10 percent of that black-and-white speckled static you see is caused by photons left over from the birth of the universe. What grater proof of the reality of the Big Bang–you can watch it on TV.

Jim Holt

Comment author: Roxolan 02 June 2013 06:52:39AM 19 points [-]

Would the static look any different if it was 0% though?

Comment author: Manfred 03 June 2013 06:15:21AM 18 points [-]

Yes, it wouldn't be peaked at about 3 GHz. Since television only goes up to about 1 GHz, this means more noise at higher channels after accounting for other sources.

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 03 June 2013 02:38:59PM 2 points [-]

Can you actually do this experiment on a modern TV? I know how to change the channels on mine, but I have no idea how you would "tune" it.

Comment author: kpreid 14 July 2013 05:45:54PM 2 points [-]

  1. Selecting a channel is tuning; each channel has a specific frequency and the TV knows what frequencies the channel numbers stand for. But what you can't do is tune to a frequency that isn't assigned to any channel, so you would have to select a channel on which no station in your area is broadcasting.

  2. You would have to be using an analog TV tuner (which is now obsolete, if you're in the US); digital TV has a much less direct relationship between received radio photons and displayed light photons. On the upside, it's really easy to find a channel where no station is broadcasting, now :) (though actually, I don't know what the new allocation of the former analog TV bands is and whether there would be anything broadcasting on them).

(I've recently gotten an interest in radio technology; feel free to ask more questions even if you're just curious.)

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