Sep 6, 2018 11:48 PM
Another universe may have preceded ours, study finds. May 14th, 2006. Courtesy Penn State University and World Science staff.
Three physicists say they have done calculations suggesting that before the birth of our universe, which is expanding, there was an earlier universe that was shrinking.
The results stem from a theory that claims the fabric of space and time is made up of minuscule, indivisible bits, much as matter is.
Scientists believe our cosmos began in a sort of explosion called the Big Bang, when everything that exists---which had previously been packed into one infinitely dense point---burst outward.
The universe is still expanding according to this view, because it was born expanding.
According to some proposals, the Big Bang is a repeating cycle. Universes might expand, then shrink back to a point, then expand again. Thus the “Bang” would be really more like a bounce.
The idea is appealing in some ways, but scientists have found it far from easy to test. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, a key basis for the Big Bang theory, is silent on what happened before that event.
“General relativity can be used to describe the universe back to a point at which matter becomes so dense that it’s equations don’t hold up,” said Abhay Ashtekar, director of the Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Penn State University in University Park, Penn.
To go further, physicists must use tools Einstein didn’t have, he added. Ashtekar and two post-doctoral researchers developed such tools through a combination of Quantum physics- the science of subatomic particles—and general relativity, which describes the large-scale structure of space and time.
They found that before the Big Bang, there was a contracting universe. Other than the fact it was shrinking, they added, it was similar to ours in terms of the geometry of its space and time, or spacetime, as cosmologists call it since Einstein found the two are interwoven.
“In place of a classical Big Bang there is in fact a quantum bounce,” said Ashtekar. “We were so surprised by the finding,” he added, that the team repeated the calculations for months to include different possible values of some numbers representing the current universe. But the results kept pointing to a bounce.
The findings appear in the current issue of the research journal Physical Review Letters.
While the general idea of another, pre-Big Bang universe isn’t new, Ashtekar said, this is the first mathematical study that systematically establishes its existence and deduces properties of its spacetime geometry.
The notion that spacetime has a geometry involves the idea that it can be curved or flat. A “flat” spacetime is one in which geometry works as we normally expect; for example, parallel lines never meet. But Einstein found that material objects deform this flatness, introducing curvature.
To arrive at their pre-existing universe finding, Ashtekar’s group used loop quantum gravity, a theory that seeks to reconcile General relativity with quantum physics. These two seemingly fundamental theories are otherwise contradictory in some ways.
Loop quantum gravity, which was pioneered at Ashtekar’s institute, proposes that spacetime has a discrete “atomic” structure, as opposed to being a continuous sheet, as Einstein, along with most us, assumed.
In loop quantum gravity, space is thought of as woven from one-dimensional “threads.” The continuum picture remains mostly valid as an approximation. But near the Big Bang, this fabric is violently torn so that it’s discrete, or quantum, nature becomes important. One outcome of this is that gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive, Ashetkar argued; the result is the Big Bounce.
Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, a cosmologist who has explored some related concepts, wrote in an email that the new research “Supports, in a general way, the idea that the Big Bang need not be the beginning of space and time.”
The universe “may have undergone one or more bangs in its past history,” he added.
Steinhardt and colleagues have also proposed a bounce of sorts, but it’s different. It could turn out that the two scenarios are equivalent at some deep level, but that’s not known, he added. Steinhardt‘s scenario makes use of string theory, another attempt to reconcile General Relativity with quantum physics.
Some versions of string theory portray our visible universe as a three -dimensional space embedded in an invisible space having more dimensions. Our zone, called a braneworld-the word comes from its similarity to a sort of membrane-could periodically bounce into another, parallel braneworld.
Such an event might look to us, stuck in a few dimensions as we are, as a Big Bang. “I don’t know if Ashetkar’s case translates into a bounce between braneworlds like we are describing,” Steinhardt wrote. But by his estimate, this cataclysm won’t take place for another roughly 300 billion years—so there is hopefully plenty of time to answer the question.
I would rather a theory which states that there are many galactic clusters out there within the boundless cosmos, each cluster in its own position in Space-time, consisting of billions of Galaxies falling inward toward a Great Abyss, Black Hole, or Bottomless Pit, where, once torn to pieces molecule by molecule, atom by atom, sub-atomic particle by sub-atomic particle, and reconverted into the electromagnetic energy from which they were created and accelerated along the dark worm hole to speeds far, far in excess of the speed of light, where that liquid like Magnetic energy is spewed out in the trillions of degrees, somewhere far beyond the visible horizon of the boundless cosmos, where, from the cooling quantum of that electromagnetic energy a new universe is created, to which the light from its old position in space-time, would take billions upon billions of years to reach it.
In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen used the theory of general relativity to elaborate on the idea of black holes and worm holes, proposing the existence of "bridges" through space-time. These bridges connect two different points in space-time, theoretically creating a shortcut that could reduce travel time and distance; Billions of light years to mere metres.
According to general relativity, the gravitational collapse of a sufficiently compact mass forms a singular Schwarzschild black hole. In the Einstein–Cartan–Sciama–Kibble theory of gravity, however, it forms a regular Einstein–Rosen bridge.
The gravitational collapse of a single star such as the star of our solar system, can form a White Dwarf, the gravitational collapse of bigger stars can create a neutron star, or a Black Hole, depending on its mass, but not necessarily a Worm Hole.
A worm Hole could theoretically be used as a method of sending information or travelers through space unfortunately, physical matter which includes humans journeying through the space tunnels would appear to be an impossibility as there are strong indications that material objects travelling through a worm hole is forbidden by the law of physics.
But now that it has been discovered that Physical matter is but an illusion, and all is, but the eternal energy, which has neither beginning or end, perhaps one day new technology may develop a way to teleport bodies of energy along light beams and reconstruct them to their original form, with no damage done.
Wormholes may not only connect two separate regions within the universe, they could also connect two different universes.
Three physicists say they have done calculations suggesting that before the birth of our universe, which is expanding, there was an earlier universe that was shrinking.
The results stem from a theory that claims the fabric of space and time is made up of minuscule, indivisible bits, much as matter is.
Scientists believe our cosmos began in a sort of explosion called the Big Bang, when everything that exists---which had previously been packed into one infinitely dense point---burst outward.
The universe is still expanding according to this view, because it was born expanding.
According to some proposals, the Big Bang is a repeating cycle. Universes might expand, then shrink back to a point, then expand again. Thus the “Bang” would be really more like a bounce.
The idea is appealing in some ways, but scientists have found it far from easy to test. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, a key basis for the Big Bang theory, is silent on what happened before that event.
“General relativity can be used to describe the universe back to a point at which matter becomes so dense that it’s equations don’t hold up,” said Abhay Ashtekar, director of the Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Penn State University in University Park, Penn.
To go further, physicists must use tools Einstein didn’t have, he added. Ashtekar and two post-doctoral researchers developed such tools through a combination of Quantum physics- the science of subatomic particles—and general relativity, which describes the large-scale structure of space and time.
They found that before the Big Bang, there was a contracting universe. Other than the fact it was shrinking, they added, it was similar to ours in terms of the geometry of its space and time, or spacetime, as cosmologists call it since Einstein found the two are interwoven.
“In place of a classical Big Bang there is in fact a quantum bounce,” said Ashtekar. “We were so surprised by the finding,” he added, that the team repeated the calculations for months to include different possible values of some numbers representing the current universe. But the results kept pointing to a bounce.
The findings appear in the current issue of the research journal Physical Review Letters.
While the general idea of another, pre-Big Bang universe isn’t new, Ashtekar said, this is the first mathematical study that systematically establishes its existence and deduces properties of its spacetime geometry.
The notion that spacetime has a geometry involves the idea that it can be curved or flat. A “flat” spacetime is one in which geometry works as we normally expect; for example, parallel lines never meet. But Einstein found that material objects deform this flatness, introducing curvature.
To arrive at their pre-existing universe finding, Ashtekar’s group used loop quantum gravity, a theory that seeks to reconcile General relativity with quantum physics. These two seemingly fundamental theories are otherwise contradictory in some ways.
Loop quantum gravity, which was pioneered at Ashtekar’s institute, proposes that spacetime has a discrete “atomic” structure, as opposed to being a continuous sheet, as Einstein, along with most us, assumed.
In loop quantum gravity, space is thought of as woven from one-dimensional “threads.” The continuum picture remains mostly valid as an approximation. But near the Big Bang, this fabric is violently torn so that it’s discrete, or quantum, nature becomes important. One outcome of this is that gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive, Ashetkar argued; the result is the Big Bounce.
Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, a cosmologist who has explored some related concepts, wrote in an email that the new research “Supports, in a general way, the idea that the Big Bang need not be the beginning of space and time.”
The universe “may have undergone one or more bangs in its past history,” he added.
Steinhardt and colleagues have also proposed a bounce of sorts, but it’s different. It could turn out that the two scenarios are equivalent at some deep level, but that’s not known, he added. Steinhardt‘s scenario makes use of string theory, another attempt to reconcile General Relativity with quantum physics.
Some versions of string theory portray our visible universe as a three -dimensional space embedded in an invisible space having more dimensions. Our zone, called a braneworld-the word comes from its similarity to a sort of membrane-could periodically bounce into another, parallel braneworld.
Such an event might look to us, stuck in a few dimensions as we are, as a Big Bang. “I don’t know if Ashetkar’s case translates into a bounce between braneworlds like we are describing,” Steinhardt wrote. But by his estimate, this cataclysm won’t take place for another roughly 300 billion years—so there is hopefully plenty of time to answer the question.
I would rather a theory which states that there are many galactic clusters out there within the boundless cosmos, each cluster in its own position in Space-time, consisting of billions of Galaxies falling inward toward a Great Abyss, Black Hole, or Bottomless Pit, where, once torn to pieces molecule by molecule, atom by atom, sub-atomic particle by sub-atomic particle, and reconverted into the electromagnetic energy from which they were created and accelerated along the dark worm hole to speeds far, far in excess of the speed of light, where that liquid like Magnetic energy is spewed out in the trillions of degrees, somewhere far beyond the visible horizon of the boundless cosmos, where, from the cooling quantum of that electromagnetic energy a new universe is created, to which the light from its old position in space-time, would take billions upon billions of years to reach it.
In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen used the theory of general relativity to elaborate on the idea of black holes and worm holes, proposing the existence of "bridges" through space-time. These bridges connect two different points in space-time, theoretically creating a shortcut that could reduce travel time and distance; Billions of light years to mere metres.
According to general relativity, the gravitational collapse of a sufficiently compact mass forms a singular Schwarzschild black hole. In the Einstein–Cartan–Sciama–Kibble theory of gravity, however, it forms a regular Einstein–Rosen bridge.
The gravitational collapse of a single star such as the star of our solar system, can form a White Dwarf, the gravitational collapse of bigger stars can create a neutron star, or a Black Hole, depending on its mass, but not necessarily a Worm Hole.
A worm Hole could theoretically be used as a method of sending information or travelers through space unfortunately, physical matter which includes humans journeying through the space tunnels would appear to be an impossibility as there are strong indications that material objects travelling through a worm hole is forbidden by the law of physics.
But now that it has been discovered that Physical matter is but an illusion, and all is, but the eternal energy, which has neither beginning or end, perhaps one day new technology may develop a way to teleport bodies of energy along light beams and reconstruct them to their original form, with no damage done.
Wormholes may not only connect two separate regions within the universe, they could also connect two different universes.
