Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang?

io9 ^ | 11/19/10

[LibWhacker]

Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang? The current cosmological consensus is that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang. But a legendary physicist says he's found the first evidence of an eternal, cyclic cosmos.

The Big Bang model holds that everything that now comprises the universe was once concentrated in a single point of near-infinite density. Before this singularity exploded and the universe began, there was absolutely nothing - indeed, it's not clear whether one can even use the term "before" in reference to a pre-Big-Bang cosmos, as time itself may not have existed yet. In the current model, the universe began with the Big Bang, underwent cosmic inflation for a fraction of a second, then settled into the much more gradual expansion that is still going on, and likely will end with the universe as an infinitely expanded, featureless cosmos.

Sir Roger Penrose, one of the most renowned physicists of the last fifty years, takes issue with this view. He points out that the universe was apparently born in a very low state of entropy, meaning a very high degree of order initially existed, and this is what made the complex matter we see all around us (and are composed of) possible in the first place. His objection is that the Big Bang model can't explain why such a low entropy state existed, and he believes he has a solution - that the universe is just one of many in a cyclical chain, with each Big Bang starting up a new universe in place of the one before.

Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang?

How does this help? Well, Penrose posits the end of each universe will involve a return to low entropy. This is because black holes suck in all the matter, energy, and information they encounter, which works to remove entropy from our universe. (Where that entropy might go is another question entirely.) The universe's continued expansion into eventual nothingness causes the black holes themselves to evaporate, which ultimately leaves the universe in a highly ordered state once again, ready to contract into another singularity and set off the next Big Bang.

As alternative theories go, it's not without its merits, but there's no evidence to support it...until now. He says he's found evidence for his ideas in the cosmic microwave background, the microwave radiation that permeates the universe and was thought to have formed 300,000 years after the Big Bang, providing a record of the universe at that far distant time. Penrose and his colleague Vahe Gurzadyan have discovered clear concentric circles within the data, which suggests regions of the radiation have much smaller temperature ranges than elsewhere.

So what does that mean? Penrose believes these circles are windows into the previous universe, spherical ripples left behind by the gravitational effects of colliding black holes in the previous universe. He also says these circles don't work well at all in the current inflationary model, which holds all temperature variations in the CMB should be truly random.

Here's where the fun begins. If the circles are really there and are really doing what Penrose says they're doing, then he's managed to overthrow the standard inflationary model. But there's a long way to go between where we are now and that point, assuming it ever happens.

The inflationary model has become the consensus for a good reason - it's the best explanation we've got for the universe we have now - and so cosmologists will examine any results that appear to disprove it very critically. There are also a couple key assumptions in Penrose's theory, particularly that all particles will lose their mass towards the end of the universe. Right now, we don't know whether that will actually happen - in particular, there's no proof that electrons ever decay.

[MrB]

Determinism (naturalism) leads invariably to deep depression.
It also absolves us from any morality in our choices.

It’s no wonder leftists embrace anti-theism in favor of naturalism.

[Hot Tabasco]

This is because black holes suck in all the matter, energy, and information they encounter

That could possibly explain my missing socks.....

[hosepipe]

[ What about eternity now? ]

Time in 3 dimensions may be missing one..

[hosepipe]

[ I'll tell you why. Because if the universe were eternally old (infinite past) it would already have to have burned out and gone through the cold dark death. We wouldn't be here. ]

What if death is an illusion everything merely morphs into something else..
Your basic Heaven and/or Hell concept..

Could be stuff that "falls" into a black hole becomes dark energy/matter.. and thats where that stuff comes from..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Alamo-Girl]

Their option is better because.....????

I imagine their option is better to them because any explanation, no matter how kluged, will do as long as it lets them officially ignore Who God IS.

[Wildbill22]

“Another thing, if the past is infinite then how did we ever reach the present?”

THAT is the relevant question for me. We think in linear terms; even if time did ‘begin’, then what happened in the linear measurement of time before? Job’s answer from God on such things was that we could not even begin to understand, much less what our purpose here is.

Given the world is flat, the sun revolves around the Earth, and a million other previous scientific “facts” proven wrong in our past scientific certainty, the only thing we can know for sure is that we don’t know for sure.

But as you point out that given what we can understand, an infinite past makes the present impossible. Unless there is a purpose, and a God. Hard to put into words but it works in my mind.

[The KG9 Kid]

Indeed. 'At' the Big Bang.

Thank you. :)

[The KG9 Kid]

Come to think of it, I suppose there was no 'at' there either.

We might have had to give it a second.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kevmo.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kevmo.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kevmo.

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[onedoug]

Gerald Schroeder, The Science Of God

[onedoug]

Thanks for the ping, as always....

[bert]

The singularity explodes at the big bang and the energetic force disperses the infiniten ly compressed atoms into the emptiness and void.

The force is everywhere felt as each and every particle of matter attracts every other. Atoms and then molecules develop.

Then it acretes and accretion continues. Then dust then stars and galaxies, all children of accretion.
Then gravity begins to drag all back into the singularity. It took a very longtime, but in the end, amounted to nothing

[bert]

The singularity explodes at the big bang and the energetic force disperses the infiniten ly compressed atoms into the emptiness and void.

The force is everywhere felt as each and every particle of matter attracts every other. Atoms and then molecules develop.

Then it acretes and accretion continues. Then dust then stars and galaxies, all children of accretion.
Then gravity begins to drag all back into the singularity. It took a very longtime, but in the end, amounted to nothing

[paulycy]

Then gravity begins to drag all back into the singularity. It took a very longtime, but in the end, amounted to nothing

And the lotus blooms and retreats, and blooms and retreats from the navel of Vishnu..

[AndrewC]

in particular, there's no proof that electrons ever decay.

H'mmm appears as if we have reached the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" level. I'm not sure that there is any evidence that protons decay either. If they do their half-life is > 10³³ years.

[KoRn]

Ok, then where did God come from? Did he have parents? Did he just form up from a cloud of swamp gas?

[SuperLuminal]

There they go using that darned 7-year W-band! I’ve always goten crappy results with that...