The Big Bang or an Infinite Cycle?

Scientists are messing with our poor simple minds again! Young, hip (relatively speaking) physicists are making a case that the universe may not have started with the “big bang” at all. They believe that the universe may undergo endless cycles of evolution in infinite space and time.

One hotly disputed theory is that there is no beginning, and no end because space and time have always existed in an endless cycle of expansion and rebirth. They point out that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, as astronomers have recently observed and that after trillions of years, expansion eventually stalls, new matter and radiation is created, and then the cycle begins yet again.

Why does any of this matter? One reason is that if we’re approaching one of the most basic questions of reality and existence from the wrong angle, we’re only going to get so far before we hit a proverbial wall.

"I think the challenge we're raising is that the usual picture of the Big Bang is based on an assumption which is that time, space, matter, energy, everything began at the Big Bang," says Neil Turok, professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge University. "And that assumption was made in the 60s when people got the first strong observational evidence that the Big Bang happened. But it's really just an assumption and our point of view has come out of new development in physics which are enabling us to describe the behavior of matter in very extreme conditions such as were present around the Bang. And what we're seeing is that the Big Bang doesn't have to be the beginning of time. It's perfectly possible that the Big Bang was just a violent event in a pre-existing universe,"

Many well-respected scientists believe that newly developed theories offer a bigger picture of reality—one that may be difficult for us to wrap our minds around, but not impossible. Perhaps the Big Bang was just a big bang, and not the beginning of existence. Just like most rabble-rousing ideas, these theories may take some time before more scientists “warm” up to them. Take global warming for example. Really it wasn’t that long ago the majority of scientists didn’t think theories about “global warming” would amount to much. Now the very few who still think it’s not happening are ridiculed as foolish. In other words, when it comes to science things are sometimes scoffed at before they are whole-heartedly embraced.

One problem is that new theories can be difficult to grasp if you are not well versed in the intricate details of exotic and experimental physics, like string theory. Your average person doesn’t “get it”, but neither do many astronomers and scientists. Turok attempts to explain, but even his dumbed-down version might make your head explode.

"This picture emerged out of a new understanding of the laws of physics which is called M Theory…according to this picture, the world may be comprised of two objects called branes, short for membranes. ... And so the picture is that we live in a three-dimensional world, just the height, width and length of ordinary space but separated from our dimensions by a very tiny distance are another three-dimensions and so the whole world is four-dimensional in this picture and these two sets of dimensions can actually collide with each-other. What we discovered is, if they do collide, then something like a Big Bang happens but the density of matter and the size of the universe is not zero at that point. It's as if two objects clash together and this clash is what releases radiation which fills space.”

In fact, there are several valid theories of how the universe did or didn’t begin, but for the purposes of modern science it is easier to pick one that seems to work and hang onto it. However, some revolutionaries say that just because something seems to work for measurement purposes, doesn’t make it completely true. Alan Guth, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explains how the Big Bang theory may just be one piece of the puzzle that fits into another theory, known as inflationary theory.

"In the what I would regard as the conventional version of the inflationary theory, the Big Bang was also not in that theory the origin of everything but rather one had a very long period of this exponential expansion of the universe, which is what inflation means, and, at different points, different pieces of this inflating universe had stopped inflating and become what I sometimes call pocket universes,"

"... What we call the Big Bang was almost certainly not the actual origin of time in either of the theories that we're talking about. ... The main difference I think [between the inflationary theory and Neil and Paul's theory outlined in the book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang] is the answer to the question of what is it that made the universe large and smooth everything out. ... The inflationary version of cosmology is not cyclic. ... It goes on literally forever with new universes being created in other places. The inflationary prediction is that our region of the universe would become ultimately empty and void but meanwhile other universes would spout out in other places in this multiverse,"  says Guth.

Janna Levin, professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College, says, "There's a little more resistance to the cyclic model but maybe that's because of the successes so far of inflation. Yet, we do know that there are fundamental things about the early universe and the Big Bang that we don't understand. ... String theory or M theory or these other models of fundamental physics are going to be important in terms of formulating that early universe picture but they're not complete yet."

As Levin says, there are still unanswered questions. Newer theories may hold some of the answers. The beautiful thing about science is that it can be tried, tested, proven and disproved. We don’t have to keep on believing the same thing for the sake of tradition. Whether or not these scientists are someday “proven” to be correct or wrong in their theories, they still provide a valuable reminder that questioning IS the basis for new discovery and for Science itself.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Source: NPR
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/05/20070531_b_main.asp

Source: NPR
Link

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Comments

[Daniel]

Very interesting.

[Dave K. Welch]

Interesting indeed! What a wonderful site this is. Thanks for this post Rebecca. I used to get up in the morning and read the Globe and Mail. I used to enjoy it even. Now I scan it and (what has become a very childish part of the site) the comments just to get a sort of barometer of the current world view. Then I pop on over here for a refreshing reality check.

Regards

[j4m3sb0nd]

Nice article, but just a quick note - you repeat some things in the last few paragraphs.

[Dave K. Welch]

To heck with anything I might contribute.... go read Natalie Angier.

Hey, David. Why don't you contribute a post or two or three. Appreciate your insights!....Casey. You can email me at editor@dailygalaxy.com

[Jack Butler]

Yes no yes no yes no. The history of physics. Of course each cycle has a more complex rendering of the yesses and nos.

Here's another model: The Big Bang and the Big Collapse are the same event seen from two directions. Dark energy, so-called, is the acceleration of gravity caused by an enormous mass which warps the light around it so that the "energy" appears to come from a spherical surround.

We speculate on the beginning of time but is it clear that we have successfully modeled time? It appears to be an assumption in our models rather than an examined quality.

[Jack Butler]

Yes no yes no yes no. The history of physics. Of course each cycle has a more complex rendering of the yesses and nos.

Here's another model: The Big Bang and the Big Collapse are the same event seen from two directions. Dark energy, so-called, is the acceleration of gravity caused by an enormous mass which warps the light around it so that the "energy" appears to come from a spherical surround.

We speculate on the beginning of time but is it clear that we have successfully modeled time? It appears to be an assumption in our models rather than an examined quality.

[Ray Tomes]

Yes, the universe has long cycles.
The longest one is 1.482x10^23 years. The Harmonics Theory shows how the structure of the universe with the distance ratio scales of galaxies, stars, planets, moons and atoms and nucleons form as a result of a non-linearity in the fundamental equations of the universe. Detailed calculations from a single axiom http://ray.tomes.biz/maths.html
Big Bang Bung cosmology is dead.

[Hobo Sailor]

I found this article both insightful and humorous."There is no beginning, and no end because space and time have always existed in an endless cycle of expansion and rebirth." The mystics discovered this idea thousands of years ago. They called it the Tao amongst other things. Still a fascinating theory.

[Mark Sutton]

Please, as a layman, will somebody explain what happened before the big bang .... where did the matter, the temperature etc. come from?

A simple question from a very simple mind