Before the Beginning: The Big Bang Theory Challenged

New discoveries about another universe whose collapse appears to have given birth to the one we live in today as it traveled through a "Big Bounce," has been proposed by Martin Bojowald, assistant professor of physics at Penn State. The "Big Bounce" would replace the classical idea of a Big Bang as the beginning of our universe,

Bojowald's research also suggests that, although it is possible to learn about many properties of the earlier universe, we always will be uncertain about some of these properties because his calculations reveal a "cosmic forgetfulness" that results from the extreme quantum forces during the Big Bounce.

As described by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the origin of the Big Bang is a mathematically nonsensical state -- a "singularity" of zero volume that nevertheless contained infinite density and infinitely large energy.

Bojowald and other physicists at Penn State are exploring territory unknown even to Einstein -- the time before the Big Bang -- using a mathematical time machine called Loop Quantum Gravity. This theory, which combines Einstein's Theory of General Relativity with equations of quantum physics that did not exist in Einstein's day, is the first mathematical description to systematically establish the existence of the Big Bounce and to deduce properties of the earlier universe from which our own may have sprung.

For quantum physicists, "The Big Bounce" opens a breach in the huge wall that was the Big Bang.

"Einstein's Theory of General Relativity does not include the quantum physics that you must have in order to describe the extremely high energies that dominated our universe during its very early evolution," Bojowald explained, "but we now have Loop Quantum Gravity, a theory that does include the necessary quantum physics."

Loop Quantum Gravity was pioneered and is being developed in the Penn State Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry, and is now a leading approach to the goal of unifying general relativity with quantum physics. Scientists using this theory to trace our universe backward in time have found that its beginning point had a minimum volume that is not zero and a maximum energy that is not infinite. As a result of these limits, the theory's equations continue to produce valid mathematical results past the point of the classical Big Bang, giving scientists a window into the time before the Big Bounce.

Instead of vanishing into infinity as predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the universe rebounded in the Big Bounce that gave birth to our expanding universe. The theory reveals a contracting universe before the Big Bounce, with space-time geometry that otherwise was similar to that of our universe today.

The Quantum Loop model's equations require parameters that describe the state of our current universe accurately so that scientists then can use the model to travel backward in time, mathematically "un-evolving" the universe to reveal its state at earlier times.

This discovery implies further limitations for discovering whether the matter in the universe before the Big Bang was dominated more strongly by quantum or classical properties.

"A problem with the earlier numerical model is you don't see so clearly what the free parameters really are and what their influence is," Bojowald said. "This mathematical model gives you an improved expression that contains all the free parameters and you can immediately see the influence of each one," he explained. "After the equations were solved, it was rather immediate to reach conclusions from the results."

Bojowald reached an additional conclusion after finding that at least one of the parameters of the previous universe did not survive its trip through the Big Bounce -- that successive universes likely will not be perfect replicas of each other. He said, "the eternal recurrence of absolutely identical universes would seem to be prevented by the apparent existence of an intrinsic cosmic forgetfulness."

Posted by Casey Kazan

Adapted from the Penn State University Press Release:
"What happened before the Big Bang?"

High-resolution Images

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Angels or Demons? LHC's $6 Billion Journey to the Beginning of Time

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Comments

[inkslug]

i don't see anything new here. the big bounce has been around for decades. you give the impression in the opening paragragh that they are the ones who first postulated it. got any penn state connections perhaps?

[inkslug]

i don't see anything new here. the big bounce has been around for decades. you give the impression in the opening paragragh that they are the ones who first postulated it. got any penn state connections perhaps?

[jesusfreak]

To me, these theorys are retarded!! I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in 7 days. I mean seriously... BOOM... and an entire earth apears? Yeah right! If you believe in this, try reading the Bible. It's proof that this isn't real!!

[JTankers]

Cosmological observations provide an incredibly rich set of clues to the pre-big bang universe. Do you see any flaws in: The pre-big bank universe at BigCrash.org?

… In the beginning (in the pre-big bang universe) there was only the vast vacuum of space and time. But this vacuum was not sterile, it was seething with vacuum energy. This vacuum energy field permeates and defines the universe, an astronomically large sphere of energy. And just as matter generates gravity by warping space and time, so does energy and this is the force that defines the size and shape of the universe, and also the force that bestows mass on matter…

…When a virtual matter/anti-matter pair becomes a matter matter pair, the virtual particles are no longer able to mutually annihilate and they become real, stealing energy from the vacuum energy of space. This is the mechanism of slow matter creation in the first phase of the pre-big bang universe. Over perhaps a billion billion years, clouds of matter form over the entire universe, and eventually coalesce into cosmological bodies and eventually the first pre-big bang black hole, which starts the second phase of the pre-big bang universe, fast accretion of matter from vacuum energy by black holes…

[justmay]

Yes most of what JTankers said can be convinible. But ,yes there had to be "buts", it is hard to believe that there was an empty vacuum with energy. The energy moves form point A to point B not as fast as light then how can there be energy around the big crunch, according to you JTankers the "black hole." I believe it could be a back hole too no offence, but the energy it is hard to believe. Maybe the high gravity created larg amound of gravity inside of the "black hole" or the clouds moving as fast the speed of light. In front of a very dense and gravitnal object nothing that we know stand a chance not energy or light.

[Lexy]

What the heck is the Big Bounce? You should explain that because some people may NOT have heard of it.