Posted on 03/28/2004 4:53:18 AM PST by PatrickHenry
The Universe was not born in one Big Bang, it has been going through cycles of creation and annihilation for eternity, according to a controversial new mathematical model1.
It's a compelling claim. The new cyclic model removes a major stumbling block common to existing theories of the Universe - namely, that physics can't explain what came before the Big Bang.
Because the model relies on new mathematics, it is having some teething problems, admit its proposers. Indeed, most cosmologists are treating the hypothesis with interested scepticism. Some are vociferously critical.
Criticism is to be expected, concedes Neil Turok of Cambridge University, UK, who developed the cyclic model with cosmologist Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University in New Jersey. "We're taking on some very fundamental issues here," says Turok.
Strings attached
Steinhardt and Turok draw on the emerging science of string theory. This mathematical idea uses up to ten dimensions - instead of the usual four - to explain the weird behaviour of tiny things in physics called fundamental particles.
When applied to big things like cosmology, string theory invokes weird mathematical entities called membranes - branes for short. In the cyclic model there are two branes at any one time, one containing our Universe, the other a parallel Universe that is the mirror image of our own.
The researchers suggest that these branes regularly collide, as they did 15 billion years ago, resulting in the massive release of energy previously ascribed to the Big Bang. And just like the Big Bang, "this collision made all the radiation and matter that fills the Universe," says Turok.
The branes are then flung apart. The Universes on each brane expand outwards over billions of years, as ours is doing today.
According to the model, a fifth dimension that we can't see or travel through bridges the branes. As each Universe expands, its matter and energy spreads ever thinner and is diluted. When the spring-like fifth dimension overcomes this expansion energy it heaves the branes back together, they collide, and the whole process repeats. "It's just like reproduction in biology," says Turok.
As well as solving the problem of what came before the Big Bang, the cyclic model could explain numerous other cosmological conundrums, such as dark energy. Our Universe should contain more energy than can be measured, and there are no good theories to explain why. Turok and Steinhardt's model suggests that this is because energy, in the form of gravity, leaks across the fifth dimension between our Universe and its complementary braneworld.
No braner?
Steinhardt and Turok's idea sounds appealing, but fellow astrophysicists are not greeting it with open arms. "The community is very, very sceptical," says David Lyth, a cosmologist at the University of Lancaster, UK.
Others are more scathing. "It's a very bad idea popular only among journalists," says one of the chief critics of the cyclic model, Andrei Linde of Stanford University, California. "It's an extremely complicated theory and simply does not work," adds Linde, the originator of a rival model of the Universe.
String theory is still in its infancy, and applying it to cosmology stretches it to its limits, explains Cambridge University cosmologist George Efstathiou. "Its connection to fundamental physics is really rather weak," he says, so until string theory matures, models that use it will be flawed and misunderstood. But on the whole, he says, "the cyclic model is a cute idea and some elements of it may survive."
Steinhardt and Turok agree that problems with the mathematics could be their undoing. "There may be disasters waiting for us at higher levels of calculation," says Turok. But, if it does add up, their theory overturns many ideas about the Universe, they say - like time and space being created in a Big Bang.
Footnote 1: Steinhardt, P. J. & Turok, N. A. Cyclic model of the Universe.Science, published online April 25 (2002). |Link to Science online.|
I am not sure I understand the question, but I have a couple of comments:
Actually, there is no inifinity at all. The infinite is a mathematical concept. Remembering that mathematics is only a method of dealing with aspects of reality that can be counted (absolutes) or measured (relatives) and that concepts like the infinite and the Calculus are always, "as ifs." Derivatives are derived by treating a function "as if" one of its elements were contintually reduced until it was nothing at all. It works as a method, but would actually be dividing by zero except for the, "as if."
Infinity is the concept for the number one would reach, "as if" they continued any series indefinitely. Of course, if it is continued indefinitely, the end is never reached and never can. However, it works as a method.
Neither the infinite or the infinitesimal describes anything in material existence.
Hank
I guess the difference between notional concepts and actual existents is a real evolutionary bummer.
Is existence finite or infinite?
Existence is not a thing, it is a quality. Everything that is has it. Everything that isn't, doesn't.
Sometimes "existence" is used to mean, "everything that exists." Every existent (thing) is finite.
Maybe your question is, "how many finite things are there?"
Sorry? I don't know; but I'm sure it's a finite number of things, but probably more than can ever be identified.
No actual existent of any kind can be infinite.
This automatically excludes the Gods of almost all religions which define their God as infinite, or eternal, or omniscient, or omnipresent, which are all kinds of infinities.
Hank
So there's your answer. I wonder if LogicWings has a different take. To paraphrase your view, infinity as a quality (there are kinds of infinity) does not apply to things. So we can't properly say that notional concepts exist, but just are?
( To be frank, hank, I'm really not interested how many finite things there are. Although the supposed question leads on: is omniscience finite? )
I've always had a suspicion that the first words ever spoken were were the ancient Sanskrit equivalent of "Oh no! Not again!"
Don't forget though, the ancient Kings of Sumeria bragged in Sanskrit text about being able to read the "ancient" writings from before their own time.
Even civilization is cyclic.
Your questions are important ones, and I can tell you my personal beliefs and HOW I believe them, but they don't satisfactorily explain the birth of the universe any more than the most recent physical theories (which don't even come close).
The problem is people use words that have no meaning other than in their heads. They are called floating abstractions. I agree with you about the “birth of the Universe.” I don’t think anyone, anyone, anyone, can explain that. I, personally, don’t think there was a birth to the Universe. It has always existed in one form or another. I don’t accept the “Big Bang” and even if I did, that doesn’t explain anything. What went BANG?! I know that's abstract, but I can tell you why I believe in something at all. I have been conscious and completely aware outside my body.
I don’t accept this. You “believe” you have been outside your body, but that doesn’t mean you were. I have had all kinds of experiences. I can become fully aware of myself inside a dream, know that is a dream, and go anywhere I wish. It doesn’t mean I have actually done so. Now, if I could get the Swiss bank account of Saddam and transfer all his money to my bank account, I might consider this valid. But until your “OBE” experiences have practical, real, results, they must be considered nothing more than fantasy. When this happens to you, you pass the point of BELIEVING to the point of KNOWING that there is existence outside the purely material body.
Only if you decide so. Until you no longer have a material body, you can’t make this claim since your consciousness is still rooted in your material body, it could merely be a body/mind projection. Actually, from a Hindu point of view, it is just your higher material body in which your consciousness is lodged. You still have a material body, just a different material than this plane. And you can’t prove this theory wrong, because there is no basis by which to judge. There is no evidence either way. On a side note, I am a research scientist by profession, so no stranger to scientific atheism.
I have a really big problem with this statement. So what? You are a research scientist. Doesn’t mean you have superb logic skills, otherwise you wouldn’t equate this with “scientific atheism.” You couldn’t define “God” so I doubt you’d define “atheism.” The errors here abound, and no one ever addresses them. But I often note with irony some of my colleagues' fervent belief that nothing exists after death based on a lack of evidence, even though not a shred of evidence exists to support their own strong faith (in nothing).
As I said, these are logically invalid conclusions, by both you and your colleagues. The very wording here hurts to contemplate. I have made this point many times, the word “faith” has a specific meaning. To conflate the different connotations is the favorite pastime of religionists. One cannot have a “faith” in nothing, in the religious sense. But one can in the “confidence” sense, which is not the same.
In my estimation, logically, both are wrong.
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