Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Did our cosmos exist before the big bang?
New Scientist ^ | 12/10/08 | Anil Ananthaswamy

Posted on 12/12/2008 3:08:09 PM PST by LibWhacker

ABHAY ASHTEKAR remembers his reaction the first time he saw the universe bounce. "I was taken aback," he says. He was watching a simulation of the universe rewind towards the big bang. Mostly the universe behaved as expected, becoming smaller and denser as the galaxies converged. But then, instead of reaching the big bang "singularity", the universe bounced and started expanding again. What on earth was happening?

Ashtekar wanted to be sure of what he was seeing, so he asked his colleagues to sit on the result for six months before publishing it in 2006. And no wonder. The theory that the recycled universe was based on, called loop quantum cosmology (LQC), had managed to illuminate the very birth of the universe - something even Einstein's general theory of relativity fails to do.

LQC has been tantalising physicists since 2003 with the idea that our universe could conceivably have emerged from the collapse of a previous universe. Now the theory is poised to make predictions we can actually test. If they are verified, the big bang will give way to a big bounce and we will finally know the quantum structure of space-time. Instead of a universe that emerged from a point of infinite density, we will have one that recycles, possibly through an eternal series of expansions and contractions, with no beginning and no end.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: anilananthaswamy; bigbang; cosmology; cosmos; gravity; loop; quantum; stringtheory
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-34 last
To: LibWhacker

Duh - friggin idiots


21 posted on 12/12/2008 4:22:14 PM PST by Williams (It's The Policies, Stupid.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

Well, logically, if the scriptures are right and “in Him we live and move and have our very being” and “He is the Alpha and the Omega”, then any sort of “carbon dating” will show basically - infinity of all matter since everything is a part of Him or created by Him using ancient matter to create things with. (We never gonna figger it out just right cause there are things above our finite minds.)


22 posted on 12/12/2008 4:29:11 PM PST by Twinkie (TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KoRn; AdmSmith; bvw; callisto; ckilmer; dandelion; ganeshpuri89; gobucks; KevinDavis; ...
Thanks KoRn.

before the big bang site:freerepublic.com
Google

23 posted on 12/12/2008 4:38:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, December 6, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

The Universe as a perpetual motion machine.


24 posted on 12/12/2008 4:43:54 PM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed.... so how could it be Redistributed?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RightWhale
Just wait. 5 trillion years. You'll see.

Exactly...

...the theory is poised to make predictions we can actually test.

Instead of a universe that emerged from a point of infinite density, we will have one that recycles, possibly through an eternal series of expansions and contractions, with no beginning and no end.

No doubt measurable too.

Sheesh, what a farce!

25 posted on 12/12/2008 4:51:08 PM PST by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

Old, old, old news. This was being discussed over 25 years ago in an astronomy class I took.


26 posted on 12/12/2008 5:27:42 PM PST by Kirkwood
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker
something about matter cannot be created nor destroyed...
27 posted on 12/12/2008 5:46:28 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist -)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kirkwood

You left out the word billion between 25 and years. =) j/k


28 posted on 12/12/2008 6:37:44 PM PST by Redcitizen (This is an invisible tagline)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker
...with no beginning and no end.

how convenient

29 posted on 12/12/2008 11:26:47 PM PST by csense
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker
Cosmologists are still very much in the dark about dark energy.
Dark energy: a matter dark, indeed.
30 posted on 12/13/2008 5:49:41 AM PST by samtheman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kirkwood
It goes back even further. I first heard about it in the 60s. At the time, a philosopher friend told me that Nietzsche had come up with the idea, but it turns out it goes back much further than that even: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return. The difference, of course, is that Ashtekar, Bojowald, et al. have taken the physics further than anyone ever has.
31 posted on 12/13/2008 8:31:10 AM PST by LibWhacker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

Well, God did.


32 posted on 12/13/2008 12:00:43 PM PST by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Young Werther

Such sturm und drang from young Werther!


33 posted on 12/14/2008 2:37:21 AM PST by PasorBob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker
From 1960:


34 posted on 12/14/2008 2:43:54 AM PST by js1138
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-34 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson