Adding Trillions Of Years To The Life Of The Universe

spacedaily.com ^ | 3 May 02 | staff

[john in missouri]

The brane theory is testable, but the equipment is very expensive and not yet available.

How might the brane theory be tested? When would such equipment be available?

The theologically interesting thing of all this, of course, is that it seems to form a plausible many-worlds scenario -- since presumably there would be a relatively infinite variety (perhaps within certain bounds) in the kinds of physical universes that could be produced by colliding branes. Thus, if verified experimentally, it could produce evidence that the universe could have originated without requiring it to be created by an intelligent creator(s). So it joins the Everett version of quantum mechanics in the limited range of plausible many-worlds theories.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

It certainly makes more sense than previous theories. There is something comforting about the thought that the univers has always been, and is reborn over and over.

[RightWhale]

Steinhardt included a testing mechanism in his theory. It has to do with measuring gravitational blue-shift. With new techniques of data mining being used, such as cointegration, computational subtraction, crystallographic analysis, meta-analysis, it could be just a matter of time until someone gets the right combination. Or perhaps the right data doesn't exist yet and can't exist until we have an interstellar interferometric baseline.

[RightWhale]

Yes, it rests easier on the brain. Don't know why, but it does.

[techcor]

You're right. Only the density has to really remain withing limits. Funny, I didn't see that before.

[techcor]

Just think, if the above is true, maybe we are just a zit?

A zit , if we're lucky. I mean it could be worse.

[F16Fighter]

"With new techniques of data mining being used, such as contegration, computational subtraction, crystallographic analysis, meta-analysis, it could just be a matter of time until someone gets the right combination."

Yeah right Spock -- OR we could just sit every primate on planet Earth down at a PC for the next billion years or so and wait for that exact "right combination."

Catch ya at the next Starfleet Command convention...

[MEGoody]

Mankind will always have new 'theories' about how the universe began. The fact is, since no one observed it occuring, it's pretty much guesswork.

[john in missouri]

Steinhardt included a testing mechanism in his theory. It has to do with measuring gravitational blue-shift.

Measuring gravitational blue-shift sounds, relatively speaking, like a piece o' cake.

[onedoug]

Andre Linde of Stanford expressed some of this about fifteen years ago in an article in Physics Today:
"Eternally Existing, Self-Reproducing, Inflationary Universe".

[onedoug]

Though utilizing much of the same educated "guesswork" has yielded our whole technology.

[Wm Bach]

There was an article posted here earlier this week theorizing that black holes were much stranger objects than previously believed, and that furthermore, these objects were solid as opposed to "holes" in space.

It is also theorized that these ultra dense objects have an impossibly dense "shell" whose ability to pull in more matter from the universe at large is balanced by equally forceful internal pressure.

The article also stated that perhaps entire universes existed within black holes.

Might then the occillating of our own universe be the result of outward expansion, followed by collapse which is accompanied by an influx of matter from an external universe?

Who to ask...?

[MEGoody]

Not exactly. The science that has yielded our technology is testable, verifiable - results of experiments can be observed. No one observed the beginning of the universe - it's guesswork pure and simple.

[filbert]

. . . I was wondering if anyone was going to make a Discworld reference . . .

[handk]

Bad, Bad, Branes
Bad, Bad, Branes

Not only that, your brain can't spell brain.

[RightWhale]

That's a good idea, the fractal universe. It could be that. The nested gravastar idea is probably along that line. He expresses the budding idea at least as well as does Guth.

[RightWhale]

That's the gravastar idea. It is akin to the tortoise explanation, at least as far as a hard shell is concerned. Turtles on top of turtles, each turtle bigger than the one above.

[onedoug]

Uh... Quantum Theory? Electronic/nuclear applications. Pretty good guesses. They work!

[Yeti]

. It addresses, for example, the nagging question of what might have triggered or come "before" the beginning of time.

No it doesn't. I can't read on.

[RightWhale]

since no one observed it occuring, it's pretty much guesswork.

Who's to say we aren't looking at it right now and just don't see it?