Amidst a tempestuous and mistrustful geopolitical environment, even cross-cultural exchange can be fraught, as Dr. Tristram Hunt so accurately put it in his 30th anniversary message to Buddhistdoor Global (you can watch his greetings here). The Chinese and American political and economic worlds are becoming increasingly bifurcated, with even cultural, educational, and scientific exchange on the chopping block, at the expense of both countries and the entire world.
Yet, on the cosmic scale, there is still yet, surprisingly, bilateral collaboration. High up on the Tibetan Plateau, China has completed a cutting-edge telescope designed to detect primordial gravitational waves. This represents China’s first serious hunt for primordial gravitational waves (China.org.cn). According to SCMP, “Stanford University played a key role in building and testing the telescope’s detectors and readout systems, ensuring the ‘brains’ of the instrument could operate reliably in freezing conditions before being shipped to Tibet.” (SCMP)
Gravitational waves are primeval entities that are often described as “ripples in spacetime.” They were created by the Big Bang, emanating from the moment of creation across the fabric of the entire universe. According to China.org.cn, the primordial gravitational waves can be likened to the “very first cry” of the newborn universe. The waves were pristine ripples born from quantum fluctuations during the epoch of cosmic inflation. To study them is to understand inflation and even quantum gravity, that elusive union of Einsteinian physics and quantum mechanics. “If we successfully detect primordial gravitational waves, we will glimpse the universe in its very first instant,” said Zhang Xinmin, a researcher at the IHEP.
This telescope, the Ali Cosmic Microwave Background Polarisation Telescope (AliCPT), hunts for the beginning of the universe’s echoes from 5,250 meters (17,220 ft) in the remote Ali prefecture of Tibet. It was finished this month after eight years of construction involving 16 institutions worldwide, including Stanford University. The project is led by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, perhaps one of the last remaining collaborative programs between China and the US, particularly in scientific joint research. (SCMP)
Perhaps it is because I recently watched the new Superman movie (which is gloriously cosmic in its thematic as well as aesthetic scope, complete with parallel dimensions as a fact of life, dodging black holes, and gazing fondly at the Earth from the Moon), that I sense a special and important meaning to the fact that the AliCPT is helping to understand our cosmos’ origin from Buddhist Tibet. The Avatamsaka Sutra holds this origin in its pages. I am not a futurist, and put my faith in the traditional roots of meaning: religion, the transcendent, and the unseen. But it is very encouraging that despite the challenges of the age, we still look towards the stars. And perhaps on these grander things of ultimate origin, there is still room to work together.
See more
China joins US in hunt for ripples in spacetime with new telescope in Tibet (SCMP)
Telescope in world’s roof starts hunt for Big Bang’s oldest ripples (China.org.cn)
