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.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[SunkenCiv]

:’D

[YHAOS]

"something new to replace God"

Almost any old thing will do. It's better because it's not the Judeo-Christian tradition.

[metmom]

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

There, fixed it.

Atheists can mock and ridicule believers all they want for believing in God, but at the end of the day, they have nothing better to offer anyone and no better reason for it.

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed.

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear sister in Christ!

[betty boop]

In the beginning there was . . . something . . . ??? . . . maybe?

Yikes! The title asks, "Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang?"

Unequivocal answer: NO.

There is no "before" the Big Bang for the simple reason that time (and space, presumably including cosmic phase space, not to mention matter itself) "began" with the Big Bang.

On this point, we must bear in mind that at the heart of the Big Bang is a Singularity (such as also found in black holes, only evidently of vastly greater power). Because it is thought that no light — meaning no signals — whatever can escape from a black hole, we have no way of directly knowing what is going on at the level of their singularities.

Similarly WRT the Big Bang, whatever was going on with its Singularity to bring forth and order the Universe that we observe is utterly hidden from our view (and quite possibly may remain forever totally "opaque" to human understanding; i.e., the mind of man, unlike the Mind of God, is limited, finite, and contingent). In other words, it seems the condition of "cosmic censorship" holds equally well at the Singularity of the Big Bang as it does with black-hole singularities....

So physical cosmologists — like the great mathematical physicist Roger Penrose — must conjecture about the early cosmic conditions using a sort of "cosmic workaround." What has emerged is the Standard Model, often referred to as the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) metric. FLRW describes a simply connected, homogeneous and isotropic universe that is either expanding (Big Bang) or contracting (leading to the end state of the black hole). Its great glory is that it satisfies Einstein's relativistic field equations. (In effect, its truth depends on Einstein's theory being correct.)

Its great defect — so far at least — is that it cannot integrate quantum gravity into its picture, simply because quantum gravity remains an elusive beastie to this day, notwithstanding the amazing number of brilliant minds and the plethora of different approaches devoted to "discovering" it. [I imagine quantum gravity remains such an intractable problem because of the task it has set for itself: It has to integrate Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics, in such a way that Newton's Laws are not "violated." A very tall order....]

Against this background, a "boom and bust," or "Big Bang–Big Crunch" cosmological model has been "plausibly" advanced — plausibly, if one agrees simply to overlook the causal and logical problems indicated above. [E.g., it is senseless to speak of a time "before" time existed. Penrose totally avoids questions of origin here by simply postulating the universe as "eternal" — which to me simply kicks the can of original causality down the road.... But IF you are arguing (as Penrose does), in effect, that the universe is no accident (i.e., is not the product of random phenomena), then how long can you evade the question of original causality?]

In this article, Penrose is paraphrased as saying, "...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." [emphasis added]

Note the word "apparently." I gather that's the best one can do when a condition of cosmic censorship obtains. The article avers 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."

The Big Bang model can't explain the (logically necessary, it seems to me) initial low-entropy state — due to the "cosmic censorship" problem. That's the whole point!

But then the next question becomes: If one cannot explain the origin (or initial conditions) of the universe we do observe and inhabit, then of what value is any speculation WRT to universes "before" or "after" the one we live in?

Penrose is not averse to "putting God in the docket." He speaks often enough of the Judeo-Christian view of God as the Creator of all that is —space, time, matter; not to mention natural laws, and mathematics itself. But when he does so, his concept of God is so reduced as to be unintelligible. I imagine this has something to do with trying to locate God somehow within scientific categories.

To illustrate this point, I refer you to Penrose's not-so-modestly-titled but brilliant book, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (2004). On page 730, he presents a figure representing the divine creation of the universe, in "fanciful description!" The caption reads: "The Creator's pin has to find a tiny box, just 1 part in 10¹⁰¹²³ of the entire phase-space volume, in order to create a universe with as special a Big Bang as that we actually find."

Of course, such a statement makes God subject to the ordered rules of science, and more generally to the laws of the Creation He made. It seems Penrose conveniently overlooks such a hypothetical being could not be God. Penrose's caption makes God subject to a phase-space volume, which limits divine action from the get-go; and moreover overlooks the practical fact that God probably doesn't go running around putting pins into tiny holes of yet-to-be-existent spacetime in order to make human scientific theories work out properly.

Penrose writes:

....it is indeed misconceived to seek reasons of the above nature, where suitable universe conditions are supposed to have come about from some kind of random initial choice [Choice itself invokes the very idea of a conscious actor, BTW.] There was indeed something very special about how the universe started off. It seems to me that there are two possible routes to addressing this question. The difference between the two is a matter of scientific attitude. We might take the position that the initial choice was an "act of God" [as depicted in the illustration mentioned above], or we might seek some scientific/mathematical theory to explain the extraordinarily special nature of the Big Bang. My own strong inclination is certainly to try to see how far we can get with the second possibility. We have become used to mathematical laws — laws of extraordinary precision — controlling the physical behavior of the world. It appears that we again require something of exceptional precision, a law that determines the very nature of the Big Bang. But the Big Bang is a spacetime singularity, and our present-day theories are not able to handle this kind of thing....

[p. 764–765]

Notwithstanding, if Roger Penrose is following his great colleague Stephen Hawking into "eternal universe," boom-and-bust, Big Bang–Big Crunch cosmologies, then it seems he is prepared to advance to this stage without having first ascertained the nature of the Big Bang and its Singularity in this particular cosmic "cycle".

Question: Is that "good science?"

Or has Penrose frankly taken a "short cut," by crossing over into metaphysics?

Bear in mind Penrose is a self-described mathematical Platonist. Plato himself believed in the "eternal universe" model....

If Penrose has crossed over into metaphysics, then all I can say is: Philosophy and the natural sciences have been "cross-pollinating" for millennia: Philosophy had learned much from science, and does "course corrections" accordingly; just as science has learned much from philosophy — particularly with respect to its foundations in the laws of causation and logic....

And finally the question for Penrose is: This magnificent mathematics that he evidently trusts more than he trusts God — where does he think that came from? I.e., what is its cause, its Source?

He acknowledges the extreme unlikelihood that the universe has a "random" source. Accordingly, it strikes me as entirely likely that he'd be the last to claim that mathematics could have had a "random" source....

I'll just leave the problem there for now in its JMHO FWIW status....

Thank you ever so much for writing, dear YHAOS!

[TXnMA]

"Something to talk about besides the MYSTERY MISSILE..."

Yeah, I've done a lot more work on that thing, and you'll soon see something new -- but I'm also tired of it for a while... '-}

[Quix]

THANKS for the ping to a great post as usual.

[TXnMA]

Thank you, Dear Sister in Christ, for the "intellectual rescue"! I've just about reached "missile burnout"! LOL!

~~~~~~~~~~

"Circles"? (2-D, I presume.) In the CMB?

~~~~~~~~~~

Well, if Generals can see a Chinese sub launching ballistic missiles from LA in 14 seconds of chopped-up video of a UPS MD-11, I guess Penrose should be welcome to his bit of fancy... ;-)

Maybe it's because my mental processes are mostly 4-D visual, but I'd expect one who claimed he saw "circles" to be at least able to produce an image of a few -- maybe with an estimated radius or two... Guess I'll have to read farther to see if this is anything other than imagined patterning of the patternless.

OTOH, I wouldn't totally rule out our Lord, Who is the Master of Order using order in His processes of creation. With Him, of course, all is possible!!!

Thanks for the ping!!!!

[TXnMA]

Jokes about "2-D circles" aside, our present univrse is full of 3-D spherical "bubbles" which, viewed in section from any direction, present as circles.

There is even a long, linked "gallery" list of them available if you go here and use the "Search" function at he top of the page for "bubble"...

It would seem to me that any orb in unconstarined space-time will produce a spherical structure whenever it reaches the point where its internal energy is grater than its cohesion. (IOW, it "explodes"...)

However, I would expect entropy in those sort of events to be headedt he opposite direction of Penrose's supposed new "discoveries". (I don't doubt the discovery of something; I just have seen no evidence and no mathematics applied to it.)

[TXnMA]

I must admit to enjoying a cordial, intelligent audience, but the addressee list for #90 was a bit much! <LOL!!>

It was supposed to be addressed to you fine folks... ;-)

[YHAOS]

”NO,” you answer to the topic, Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang?

It seems to me that the question itself begs the question. Framed in a scientific context, the question must then be asked in a scientific context. What evidence do we have of the existence of any universe prior to the Big Bang? None of which I am aware. The question seems to proceed from an entirely unsupported assumption, and we are, apparently, expected to seriously discuss the proposition while ignoring the underlying assumption.

Surely, some will argue that there had to be something prior to the Big Bang. But to address that issue we must depart from the venerated halls of sacred Science and wander about in the sordid confines of Philosophy. And that brings us to the musings of Plato, Aristotle, and a myriad other of the Old Ones, who long ago dealt with the issue of First Cause.

From this, you can see the fundamental philosophical level upon which I dwell. Sorry. Best I can do.

But of the storied Sir Roger Penrose or of anyone, I do have some fundamental questions (which no one seems inclined to essay):

*Can something be the cause of itself?

*Is ‘Free Will’ a fact or an illusion?

* Can a causal chain be of infinite length?

* Can an infinite temporal regress of events exist (other than as a mathematical construct)?

Thanks, Betty, for the reply. Illuminating, as always.

[r9etb]

Of course, such a statement makes God subject to the ordered rules of science, and more generally to the laws of the Creation He made. It seems Penrose conveniently overlooks such a hypothetical being could not be God.

Not so sure I can agree with your objection, Ms. Boop.

After all, ours is a God Who calls Himself (according to various translations) "I AM," "I WHO I AM," "I AM WHAT I AM," or "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE."

We cannot really say what sort of being God is describing there, but the name itself touches on the eternal in just the sort of way that Penrose's idea would require.

And, too, I think it would be a strange sort of God that had no fixed properties of His own. Further, I would think that a God Who creates a coherent universe would impose certain rules on it (else it would not be coherent....) -- and there is no reason to suppose that those rules must be arbitrary.

So, rather than objecting to Penrose on the grounds that God would be subject to scientific rules, perhaps it's more appropriate to turn it around.... but what if, instead, those rules just reflect who and what God is like? The universe is accessible to mathematics and logic, because that's the nature of God and His choices.

[betty boop]

The universe is accessible to mathematics and logic, because that's the nature of God and His choices.

Yes dear r9etb. But to say as much is not to say that God's choices are determined by mathematics and/or logic.

Which I daresay Penrose suggests — or at least what this article represents his statements as saying....

Thanks so very much for writing, dear r9etb!

[TXnMA]

"unconstarined" --> unconstrained

(Dyslexic fingers...) ;-(

[TXnMA]

I believe the objection is that God made/makes the rules -- He is not subject to them...

[TXnMA]

Funny thought - how would you describe the beginning of “time”, especially that “moment” BEFORE it started?

...guess Whose hand...

(Humor; I don't believe in an anthropomorphic God.)

[BroJoeK]

wendy1946: "In fact I'll show you a man who needs to be horsewhipped, the idea is so flagrantly ludicrous."

Can you please not discuss your kinky sexual preferences on Free Republic?
After all, there might be children, or other innocents watching...

;-)

[wendy1946]

I’d rather have my mind poisoned by bad sex than bad science if I had to choose between the two....

[sand lake bar]

I’m not sure that everything must have a beginning. If there’s “nothing,” then how can anything begin?