Physicist John Cramer says he's found evidence that points to what the Big Bang may have actually sounded like, and he's created a simulation to replicate the bass-heavy noise.
If you're expecting something that sounds like a massive explosion out of a sci-fi movie, you'll be disappointed. The Big Bang, at least according to Cramer's simulation, sounds like a very lethargic and ominous electric can opener.
"As the early universe expanded, sound waves propagated through the dense medium that closed back on itself, so that the hypersphere of the universe rang like a bell," Cramer, a professor of physics at the University of Washington, explained.
Actually, it rang like an electric can opener, and "rang" may not be the right word, but the noise is open to interpretation. Cramer said the noise would have been equivalent to a magnitutde-9 earthquake that shook the entire universe.
Cramer had been working with the data behind the simulation for several years but only created the sound clip after the mother of an elementary school student wrote to him and requested one. Her son wanted to use the clip for a science-fair project and although the simulation didn't exist at the time, Cramer replied and said he'd be willing to make one.
In addition to telemetry from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, Cramer used new data from the European Space Agency's Planck telescope, which allowed him to render an even more accurate sound profile. He created the Big Bang sound clip by running the data through a program called Mathematica.
