Not so fast: Physicist Neil Turok urges caution on BICEP2 results

Yesterday, researchers from the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP2) telescope at the South Pole revealed that they have detected the first evidence for the primordial B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The astronomers claimed that the primordial B-mode polarization signal – which is related to primordial gravitational waves that flowed through the early universe – is the first direct evidence for cosmic inflation and has been measured to a statistical certainty of 3σ. Now, cosmologist and Perimeter Institute director Neil Turok, who worked on an inflationary model of his own with Steven Hawking in the 1990s, urges caution and says that extensive experimental confirmation is necessary before BICEP2's results can be considered as evidence for inflation.