Big Bang, Deflated? Universe May Have Had No Beginning

[yuiyoshida]

If a new theory turns out to be true, the universe may not have started with a bang.

In the new formulation, the universe was never a singularity, or an infinitely small and infinitely dense point of matter. In fact, the universe may have no beginning at all.

"Our theory suggests that the age of the universe could be infinite," said study co-author Saurya Das, a theoretical physicist at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.

The new concept could also explain what dark matter — the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up most of the matter in the universe — is actually made of, Das added. [The Big Bang to Civilization: 10 Amazing Origin Events]

Big Bang under fire

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was born about 13.8 billion years ago. All the matter that exists today was once squished into an infinitely dense, infinitely tiny, ultra-hot point called a singularity. This tiny fireball then exploded and gave rise to the early universe.

http://news.yahoo.com/big-bang-deflated-universe-may-had-no-beginning-140017504.html

[randome]

1. Reading the article, it's almost like a little part of every theory is true.

String theory, quantum dynamics, expansion of the early Universe (although not the Big Bang), etc. Damn, it's getting harder and harder to know anything certain these days.

But if the Universe is infinite, what does expansion mean? That it will keep expanding indefinitely, long after every particle of heat has dissipated?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"Everybody is just on their feet screaming 'Kill Kill Kill'! This is hockey Conservative values!"[/center][/font][hr]

[wildbilln864]

16. "particle of heat"?? n/t

[randome]

21. Erg of heat, then. After every particle has lost its component parts due to distance.

Hey, I'm no Sheldon Cooper.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[wildbilln864]

23. lol, ok thanks. me either but just hadn't heard heat referred to as a particle. n/t

[randome]

25. It was...inelegant phrasing on my part.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Oneironaut]

20. Yes, that's generally thought to be what will happen.

Eventually, particles will be so dispersed that differences in temperature in the entire universe will be impossible. This is known as the "heat death" of the universe.

[randome]

22. However, if the Universe becomes infinitely large...

...would that mean that whatever underlying principle (if we can say that any exist) would then react as if there were no universe, and create another?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[DallasNE]

33. Big Bang "Singularity" Has Always Had A Problem

This theory speaks of a bounce rather than a bang - kind of like a Ping-Pong ball. That is what makes it infinite. The universe has been expanding and contracting forever - a series of implosions and explosions. But what triggers the start and stop of each of these events. It also opens up the probability of multiple universes - perhaps an infinite number. But a bounce would mean that this expansion is much older than the 13.8 billion years set by the big bang, I presume, because the initial expansion in the big bang had the universe expanding much faster than the speed of light only to slow dramatically and I would think that a bounce would be considerably slower than that because it would be at a constant rate. But what turns it around. With a basket ball it is the floor. Is it a collision of universes? And how would that play out if the size of the universes are materially different.

The problem I always had with big bang singularity is where did the original massively dense ball of material come from. And that relates back to the 6th grade question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

I think we are still just scratching the surface and it could take several hundreds more years to get it nailed down.

[randome]

40. It's come down to physicists postulating that there is no such thing as nothing.

And if you accept that much, then maybe the seeming randomness of the Universe is simply 'nothing' trying to be 'something'.

God, my head hurts when I try to understand this stuff.

But it's a good hurt.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[Oneironaut]

39. There are many theories, but technically, the universe could just go on forever.

Eventually, in a Googol (10 ^ 100) years, the last black hole will have died, and there will be absolutely nothing left in the universe. The universe would still be expanding at this point, despite a state of maximum entropy being reached.

On the other hand, the universe might begin to retract, resulting in the "big crunch." In this case, all matter left returns to a state of singularity.

Due to quantum fluctuations, a big bang may also happen around 10^1024 years from now as well.

More interesting info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe

[randome]

42. So, a ripple effect, then.

One universe expands beyond the limits at which the Universe itself can exist and thus another Universe is born.

An infinite series of ripples as when a pebble is thrown into a lake.

BUT WHERE DID THE FUCKING PEBBLE COME FROM?

God, my head hurts.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[Logical]

2. Interesting, thanks for posting. nt

[bemildred]

3. KnR nt

[joeybee12]

4. Interesting...just watched The Theory of Everything last night...

This seems to be what Hawking has come to believe as well. Anyway, this sort of stuff is hard to wrap my ordinary brain around!

[albino65]

5. WWSD

(What would Sheldon do?)

[Fuddnik]

7. I think Sheldon would laugh.

[skepticscott]

6. It's grossly overstating things to call this a "theory"

More accurately, it is an alternate hypothesis, which seems to solve some theoretical problems, but which has no empirical evidence to support it, and doesn't provide a better explanation of expansion and the microwave background than Big Bang. It is also by no means a given that Big Bang is incompatible with a universe of infinite age.

[stupidicus]

8. hardly

the only thing deflated has been countless egos after discovering they got it wrong

Reports of the death of the Big Bang have been greatly exaggerated. Big Bang theory is alive and well. At the same time, our universe may not have a beginning or end.

http://earthsky.org/space/what-if-the-universe-had-no-beginning

[yuiyoshida]

9. DID you see the comments?

'ERROR 404. Unfortunately, data from other universes is unavailable at this time. Please try again later.'

[bread_and_roses]

14. LOL, good one! (n/t)

[Helen Borg]

19. Ahah!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. This would mean there could be civilizations that go back trillions of years.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. So what does this hypothesis propose for the time before 13.8 billion years ago?

Does the universe get ever smaller and denser, going back in time? Or was there a 'bounce' of some sort?

[starroute]

12. The most interesting implications may be for religion

I read an article on Hasidic atheists (yes, they exist) last week that contained one quote that was interesting enough for me to save:

"Moishe explained: on the one hand, Maimonides felt that the belief that the earth was eternal could be destructive to the Jewish religion. On the other hand, he also said that if the infinite character of the earth could be proven, he would accept it as true. Moishe’s conclusion? Maimonides ‘knew the first part of the Torah was iffy at best and bunk at worst’. Moreover, Maimonides’ attempts to reconcile what he thought was true with what he claimed was true were, in Moishe’s words, an ‘epic fail’."

It isn't just Judaism but all the creation-based religions that that are threatened by an eternal universe. For example, the Catholic Church endorsed the Big Bang at a very early point. (Unlike Protestant fundamentalists, the Catholics long ago gave up trying to fight science in favor of cherry-picking the science they prefer.)

An infinite universe doesn't undermine all religions -- just those that are invested in a universe with a discrete beginning and end. But that means most of the belief systems of the West, along with the social structures that grow out of them.

[ND-Dem]

17. religion isn't threatened by an eternal universe.

..as it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

[BlueJazz]

13. After reading the comments @ Yahoo about the article, I'm going to take a shower.

"There's only one explanation. God did it."

[yuiyoshida]

29. You mean like this one:

JO' 32 minutes ago

Ah..God's just playing with them, when they think they have it figured out, he'll just throw in another unknown. Just go ahead and admit it, God made the universe and everything in it. It wasn't so long ago they thought the world was flat!

[BlueJazz]

36. "It wasn't so long ago they thought the world was flat! "

I understand..it was only like 40,000,000,000 seconds ago !

Wasn't it the ancient Greeks (?) that noticed that ships "sank" as they went further from land ?

Good trivial question: If you're standing on the shore by a big lake, how far is the horizon?. (only about 3 miles)

[frankfacts]

15. The big bang always seemed suspiciously like the detonation of a nuclear bomb

As described to laypeople by scientists. Perhaps an intentional conflation for us people to ponder

[ND-Dem]

18. interesting considering the timing of the theory.

[randome]

24. Agreed. Our theories are still restricted by our imaginations...

...and that depends, in large part, on what we can imagine at any given moment in time.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[ND-Dem]

27. +1

[seveneyes]

26. An exponent of linear thought

Requires one to keep looking for all the answers that interest them. Some stop at God because it is the simplest answer and all they need to feel correct.

[ND-Dem]

28. and some stop with other authority figures

[Cleita]

30. Here's a note from Mother Nature's handbook.

You know how when you plant a seed and it grows into a plant and flowers, then it withers and dies? But it leaves behind it's seed or seeds and the cycle of life starts all over again. Maybe this is how universes work.

[Orrex]

31. This is a hell of a time to de-fund Homeland Security.

[randome]

32. LOL!

"Will all non-essential personnel please leave the Universe in single file? Thank you!"
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[yuiyoshida]

34. THIS!

[Rex]

35. So would that be an infinite range inside an infinite domain?

Someone help me out, it has been a while and I am probably wrong.

[yuiyoshida]

37. or one hell

of a huge golf course!

[hifiguy]

45. It's infinite in either case.

Einstein was therefore correct when he posited that stupidity, unlike genius, could be infinite.

[Rex]

46. LOL!

Well we are heading toward a time when advanced civilizations denounce evolution and global warming, so obviously Einstein was a prophet.

[Silent3]

38. What happened 13.8 billion years ago was a F*cking Big Bang, even if it wasn't...

...the beginning of everything. Nothing yet has been called into question about the known, observable universe having expanded rapidly outward from an incredibly hot, dense, atomically-tiny space.

The Big Bang doesn't have to be a unique event, it doesn't have to be the beginning of everything, to be a Big Bang.

[hifiguy]

41. The beginnings of our universe, such as it is,

could have been the result of a brief collision of parallel universes on separate branes, ripping a hole in spacetime and allowing another universe, ours, which is one among many. to come into existence.

I am reading Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality, a book about multiverse theories and speculations made possible by the development of string theory. Fascinating stuff.

I wish I had been born with the math gene. I'd have become a cosmologist or a theoretical physicist instead of going to law school.

[randome]

43. Hell, studying law seems just as complicated as math to me!

Yeah, I like Greene's book, too. But in general, I don't like the idea of multiverses because it's too 'easy'. When we can't understand something, we invent something like this.

It still only puts off where everything came from in the first place.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

[hifiguy]

44. I am inclined to think that something has always existed.

I am reminded about the joke about the philosophy exam.

The professor comes into the classroom and says the exam has one question. He writes "WHY??" on the board and tells the class to begin.

Everyone is stumped except for two students, who write briefly and turn in their papers. They wound up being the only two students who receive As.

One answered "Because." and the other "Why not?"

[freshwest]

47. Never believed in the Big Bang. It's just 'scientific' Creationism.

Last edited Mon Mar 2, 2015, 07:32 AM - Edit history (1)

Logically, he universe is infinite, what they have described is a local space perspective. Wondering why they are announcing just now what myself and doubtless millions realized decades ago.

I suspect that voices from on high insisted on this narrow conception and by repetition, made it TheTruth!© until 'no one dare say nay.'

NASA isn't operating on that low level, they are going for empirical facts. Those who are incapable of doing hard sciences are fed 'pop science.'