The Weekend Debate: "There was no Big Bang, our universe continually cycles through a series of 'aeons'."

Circular patterns within the map of the cosmic microwave background may suggest that our universe continually cycles through a series of "aeons," rather than the current accepted theory, which says the universe began at a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and expanded extremely rapidly for a fraction of a second and has continued to expand much more slowly ever since, during which time stars, planets and ultimately humans have emerged, according to University of Oxford theoretical physicist Roger Penrose.

What do you think?

Image Credit: Don Dixon Space Art 

Comments

[Artful Dodger]

Great, but what started the universe for it to start it's cycle through a series of 'aeons'.

[Chuck in CA]

Who says it *has* to have a start?

[Artful Dodger]

Because everything has a start.

[Observer]

Continually cycles doesn't answer anything. It had to have a start and a reason for it to start! How do you get something from nothing ? God isn't the answer, if you have a God then where did it come from and why does it exist? I bet you will have two types of responses to these question:

a) Scientific: The Universe et al existed forever and humans can't comprehend infinity. Problem is that infinity doesn't apply to the observable Universe, everything within it is finite why assume otherwise?

b) Religious: God existed and has always existed and don't question or you will be boiled in lava for all eternity and you won't get to go to heaven and eat marshmallows and honey and probably end up diabetic.

I have to say that after 29 years on this Earth, I finally found the answer. "Understand inside before you question outside", the answers are all there.

[Rick]

Thought is pure energy and it had an idea to create this universe. You are thought, you are energy. All things connect. You are God.

[Zadie]

Well there is the theory that our universe exists in a black hole. Because of the curvature of space-time, it appears to be normal space to us. There would be no real start time because of the curvature of time around the black hole.

[Zadie]

Well there is the theory that our universe exists in a black hole. Because of the curvature of space-time, it appears to be normal space to us. There would be no real start time because of the curvature of time around the black hole.

[Kallex Wolf]

We simply cannot grasp the concept of infinity. Everything we experience has a start and stops. Thinking of something existing without a start is way beyond our abilities, perhaps someday human brains will evolve to understand the Universe at that level, but for now we are like a fly on the wall trying to understand what is displayed on a computer monitor.

[voldemortonadifferentcomputer]

the guy who said we are pure energy and all that other crap should think about the subject a little more and actually come to a reasonable conclusion. GET A LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.s. if you are pure energy why don't you just go do your mom in the ass!

[voldemortonadifferentcomputer]

if time is a product of the universe then outside there is no time and so there would be no start until it already started and so you could not tell whether it was there for eternity or if it just happened to start. Im not sure if my example explains it at all and it probably doesn't even solve the problem. Our minds are limited and cannot go over a certain amount of intense thinking.

[voldemortonadifferentcomputer]

click the f@#$ing add above you

[robert fineberg]

Figuring out what was here first and what came before it seems like a tautology. Our primitive minds need a start and finish to everything. It's because we're born and eventually die -- a beginning and an end. The human race may not be around long enough to figure out how it all works. And certainly none of us commenting will even come close to understanding how the universe came to be.. If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little [George Carlin].

[Sahon B]

"Does a circle have a beginning?"

According to one view, if we start moving in one direction of the universe, we end up where we started because space-time is curved by the gravity of matter. My point being that it is due to this geometry of the universe that it seems a straight trip whereas it was a loop.

Why not consider the possibility of a fifth or sixth dimension that adds over the temporal dimension? In this case we would not need creation. The trajectory of the universe in this ambient multidimensional space is such that it keeps returning to or close to the point we call Big Bang and continues another route along a different temporal coordinate to trace out another loop.

In effect, if such a theory were true, when the universe enters the next aeon it will simply follow another course across causality. What occured in this aeon may not happen in the next for Time will follow a different line of possibility. This view is similar to the omniversal view of our existence.

At the end of each loop, it returns to the Big Bang point and continues. A concept similar to the Poincare recurrence theorem.

[Sahon B]

On second thoughts, we might even consider the possibility of multiple universes occupying this ambient multidimensional space, separated spatially, temporally and in other higher dimensions as well.

While this universe is at the big bang, another might be in the peak of its lifetime. Each universe charts out its own course in this space. Or maybe they collide, forming a larger universe, or do not collide but come close enough to influence each other, by gravity leaking from one to the other, similar to the latest string theories.

And all of these universes moving chaotically around a point of eternal return, the singular point we hail Big Bang, returning there once in a while and starting another aeon.

What do you think?

[Justin]

So it sounds like these black holes are the remnants of stars that exploded and collapsed in on itself. and were all gravitationally attracted to each other. But lots of matter feel into them early on in their life to make them as big as they are. and all the matter or energy that didn't fall into them was captured in their gravitational hold spinning around making all these smaller stars. and made smaller stars that will die out over longer periods of time, but be replaced for a while till all the energy runs out. That means that lots of energy had to fall into these black holes early in their lives. I wonder where all this energy went that was sucked into them at the beginning of their cycle of life? Is it expelled so it spreads the universe out? Or is it transfered into another universe in a cycle that we know nothing about yet?

[priti]

May me its true, since I don't know the details I cannot comment, but its very much possible.

[Nicholas Cloister]

Something cannot come out of nothing, that is certainly true.

What we experience now has always existed. Creation (objects and form phenomena), come about by when 'THAT WHICH IS' is interpreted as form and creation.

If the Universe actually sprang out of 'Nothing', then that Nothingness has the capacity to create any amount of Universes, starting new wheels of space-time existence, any number of times. It doesn't need a plan or a reason.

If, on the other hand, 'THAT WHICH IS' includes intelligence (a God Concept) it would not bring about the Universe for a reason.
In that case God is alone, timeless (eternal), and spaceless (infinite). Tell me, why would such an entity suddenly bring about creation or change anything at all? There is nothing outside of it that can provoke, inspire, or cause such a decision. If God is the creator, then it is God's nature (not God's choice) to create. And it is not done by adding (which is impossible). It is done by an inevitable and constant transformation of perspective.

Human beings are so used to stories and tools, that we think there is a reason for everything. If it starts raining in a story it is because the main characters are to take shelter in a cave and find a romantic spot for them to kiss in. How else would the drama proceed? The rain is reduced to a means for the love story. All our inventions are created to serve a means to an end. They all have a reason for existence.

The Universe (or God) however, has no reason. What we experience is reality as it is. It can change appearance, but it cannot go away, or change in essence. Change and time is a matter of perspective, while reality itself is not.

[Ivar Nielsen]

PERCEPTION OF TIME AND CREATION
- It is very satisfying and refreshing once in a while to read of some alternative and thoroughly considered thoughts about Cosmos. Well done Roger Penrose and Team!

- I´m quite sure these thoughts mostly are on the very right cosmological track. Though, I don´t agree on “several big bangs”, but more on a kind of “Cyclic String Theory” where galaxies are created and located in major swirling macrocosmic electromagnetic filaments.
- It is said that “the universe is expanding” and even accelerating. Of course we only can talk of the local part of the Universe, but such a scenario would fit very well to the “Cyclic String Theory” with a local universal movement that can be situated in both an expanding and even accelerating stage in a whirling and cyclic major cosmic electromagnetic field of filaments.
- Everything in cosmos is constantly swirling and rotating and it is excellent to find that the Cosmic Microwave Background apparently also shows up such a universal swirling/cyclic pattern.
- The idea of having more “Big Bang´s and eons” of course excludes the very theory of the general BB and the “age of the Universe”. Maybe this could give some renaissance to the thoughts of Fred Hoyle and his Steady State Theory that unfortunately was hijacked by theoretical and speculative mathematicians that didn’t have the overall cosmological view and who even violated the very basics of calculation inserting all kind of nonexistent “mathematic elements” in order to sustain the impossible BB-theory.

- Maybe the Western Cosmology once again can get back to a real scientifically track using genuine math and natural logics again instead of pure mathematical singularity speculations.
Read also Roger Penrose: The Conformal Cyclic Cosmology: http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/accelconf/e06/PAPERS/THESPA01.PDF
For those who want to read more of alternative cosmological thoughts check out these links to Magnetic Strings/Filaments/Currents and Cosmic Formation in Cosmos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-pinch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennett_pinch

- I agree that it is a big mistake to forget the ancient telling. In fact, precisely the general cyclical idea is just what the modern science need to learn from ancient mythological and religious knowledge in order to really grok the Universe, and that´s why the article´s cyclic point is very good.
- Myths can be rubbish for those who take the telling literary - but for those who can read the myths in a modern way, taking "deities" for different kind of creative powers and qualities, the meaning of the myths in some cases are cosmologically ahead of modern science.
- Studying ancient religious and mythological telling of Creation, many of those comes up with the cyclic idea of everything in the Universe and of the idea that "everything is connected" - just like the attempted modern idea of Grand Unified Theory, which still is a big challenge for modern physics and cosmology, but just a factual consensus in many ancient cultures.

[Christian Rioux]

Everything has to start, using our undetstanding of TIME.

[Simon Salosny]

Most try to elaborate some intelligent conclusion, and others accept total ignorance, but nobody shows any interest in the more immediate challenge, which is the Human Brain; a sub universe on its own, that may offer all of the solutions to apparently unsolvable mysteries.

[Q]

As our observable universe grows year by year, we find more clues to the nature of it. There are enough oddities in our observations for me to doubt the BB theory and accept that an explosive event occurred IN our universe but not one that CREATED all of it. Whether or not this is a cyclical event that has happened before or will happen again at some future time is an unanswerable question at this moment.

Q

[Steffen]

If there are multi-verses then perhaps our universe goes in waves or circles with no start and finish line. Perhaps a different universe than this universe does have a start and finish line. Our universe loops indefinitely until this other universe stops at the finish line. We will seem to loop indefinitely because of huge time difference between the universes, but when the other one stops then we stop.

[Raygunner]

If you look at our universe as a simple bubble embedded in a larger mass (the quantum foam is all I can think of right now), and also assume this external mass attracts in a classical gravitational fashion, then the following might be possible. Maybe the bubble in the foam was caused by the singularity that created the universe and the force of the big bang "blew a hole", or void, in this quantum foam. As the universe expanded the internal mass concentrated near the original singularity's center was such that this gradually slowed the expansion early on. But once the universe expanded beyond a certain size, the external foam-mass around our bubble started affecting this expansion. So as the universe grows the overall internal pull weakens and the external pull starts to accelerate the expansion in the outer regions. I think there is a dividing line (or tipping point) where certain parts of the universe nearest to the center will eventually slow to a stop and be pulled back in, whereas the rest of the universe on the other side of this line will be accelerated outwards and pulled into the foam (or great attractor or event horizon?).

You would think the universe would loose mass this way but I believe when it contacts to a singularity again, and the void has collapsed, the missing mass is replenished from the foam surrounding the singularity, thus causing the cycle to start again when a certain critical threshold is reached. Just rambling here and getting some thoughts out.

[Raygunner]

Concerning the circles: When overall CMB temperature variations are measured you get the classic CMB image. But when you factor in the "variations of the variations" and graph the result, the circles appear as regions with slightly less variations than the other areas. Do I understand this correctly?

I assume the CMB is like a spherical shell around us near the edge of our observable universe. Using gravitational lensing as an example, could there be objects between us and the CMB that could "lens" a particular band or frequency of radiation to cause these circles? Or these objects may cause a disturbance in the region that would cause the CMB to show slightly less variation around this mass.

I remember (back in the 80's I think) reading a science article showing an image with great perfect arcs of light. The writer was all excited about this "artifact" and how it would be impossible for such a thing to occur naturally. Less than a year later astronomers realized it was the very first example of gravitational lensing. I wonder if we will see the same thing with the circles but would like the circles to be a window into the previous universe. I really hope this "previous aeon" theory stands up under review.

[Justin]

It sounds like these black holes grew fast and big from all the gases and matter early in the creation of the universe, and when the bigger stars blew up and collapsed in on themselves, there were billions of them that all were attracted to each other and lots of black holes came together, and when they sucked up most of their surrounding gas, they gravitationally held the leftover gas that created smaller stars that take longer to die out. and the spinning of the galaxies is what causes other gases to form into stars because they are swirling around. But the universe was so big that there were billions of super massive black holes. another thing I was thinking about was what really can't a robotive computer actually do? Is live life, so what does it do, create billions and billions of life to study the nature of life in general.