The figure represents our expanding universe as the right branch of the arc. Our time now is located at the 1.8 grid mark on the right side of the drawing. According to Ashtekar’s team’s calculations, when looking backward throughout the history of the universe, ‘time’ does not go to the point of the Big Bang but bounces to the left branch of the drawing, which describes a contracting universe.
“General relativity can be used to describe the universe back to a point at which matter becomes so dense that its equations don’t hold up,” says Abhay Ashtekar…at Penn State. “Beyond that point, we needed to apply quantum tools that were not available to Einstein.” By combining quantum physics with general relativity, Ashtekar and two of his post-doctoral researchers, Tomasz Pawlowski and Parmpreet Singh, were able to develop a model that traces through the Big Bang to a shrinking universe that exhibits physics similar to ours.
In research reported in the current issue of Physical Review Letters, the team shows that, prior to the Big Bang, there was a contracting universe with space-time geometry that otherwise is similar to that of our current expanding universe. As gravitational forces pulled this previous universe inward, it reached a point at which the quantum properties of space-time cause gravity to become repulsive, rather than attractive.
“Using quantum modifications of Einstein’s cosmological equations, we have shown that in place of a classical Big Bang there is in fact a quantum Bounce,” says Ashtekar. “We were so surprised by the finding that there is another classical, pre-Big Bang universe that we repeated the simulations with different parameter values over several months, but we found that the Big Bounce scenario is robust.”
The infinite regression of a material universe still stands as the most logical model. Too bad Fred Hoyle isn’t still around to examine contemporary physics that supports his disagreement with the model he coined as the “Big Bang”. In the late 1940’s.
So…they’re saying there was another universe prior to this one? Prior to what is now referred to as the “Big Bang?”
This is fascinating.
They haven’t taken the postulate as far as Hoyle did — but, yes, essentially, since the known universe is composed of matter and extensions of matter — and is infinite — what is called the “Big Bang” was proposed by Hoyle as one critical node on an infinite series of expanding and contracting universes. The only one we’ve been able to measure — so far.
And in his day, we were just getting to it.
Paul, where’s the imperical evidence for your claim?
In three-dimensional space that has no theoretical or logical limits, I’m not sure we should be quick to reject the possibility of multiple Big Bangs, and not just from the repeatable cycle described in the article above, but in a separate spatial location as well. Would using terminology such as “this” rather than “the” Big Bang be more appropriate to allow for plurality?
And perhaps man’s notion of God is merely the personification of the energy from which this Big Bang emanated, and allowing for multiple Big Bangs might imply the potential for multiple Gods.
Pray for me — my head hurts! I’m out of my league.
How can you even know what’s inside a clay jar without being able to examine the contents? Yet we have no shortage of scientists telling us what the rest of the universe is made of and how it works.
A computer model can be made to do anything, as long as you get to control the rules.
This is similar to “Inflation Cosmology” which is the most accepted model in physics today over the traditional bang model. In inflation gravity also temporarily reverses and causes the initial expansion.
I’m kind of interested in the idea that gravity was pushing, not pulling. How can they prove that?
Contrary to popular belief it is not mathematics that will solve the intricate puzzles of the universe but some yet to be discovered drugs that will expand the human mind to where it can effortlessly delve through the multi-colored tangle of cosmic strings that contain the answers to the questions that we cannot yet see.
And with the Doors playing in the background?
Expect this theory to come under extremely heavy fire… its corolary has a huge impact… it says God, as we know Him, doesn’t exist.
#8. Yes, they actually can. Even though it is “hidden”, in the sense that light doesn’t come out of it, all that mass creates a whole lot of gravity, which is measured by the behaviour of the sorrounding objects.
#9. Other scientists… unlike religion, science is made of challenging previous theories.
#10. Actually, we’re *inside* the jar.
You can measure the mass inside the black hole by looking at the speed object rotate arround it. Put simply the faster they move the heavier the black hole is.
I guess evolution pundits have gotten tired of saying that there could be a “Big Bang” that started it all. And still tiring is the follow up question – where did The Big One get the explosives for its BANG? coughidiotscough…
#16, your question “where did The Big One get the explosives for its BANG?” is certainly no more pertinent than asking “where did God come from?” And if you’re satisfied that your “God” always existed, then an answer that our “explosives” always existed should be no more foreign to you. But while your search has come to an end with the concept of God and a satisfaction that further knowledge serves no useful purpose, those in the evolutionist camp continue to press for more answers even as they improve their tools for the search.
As I said in my earlier post #7, perhaps man’s notion of God is merely the personification of the energy from which this Big Bang emanated. You might want to change the language a little before turning it into a Sunday sermon, though.
Fascinating stuff – both the science involved and the reaction of religious absolutists to the concept of the Big Bang.
There will never be enough emperical data to prove any of this, of course. The data for the proof is, however, greater than zero. Conversely, there is zero emperical data that there is a invisible super deity responsible for the creation of the universe.
The concept of a series of Big Bangs with the universe exploding, expanding, collapsing, imploding, and exploding again has been around for a long time. This is the first study that I have seen that tries to predict what pre-dated the Big Bang. Definitely thought provoking.
# 17 says, “Those in the evolutionist camp continue to press for more answers even as they improve their tools for the search.” Heck, what are you searching for, a trademark to help you accept the obvious fact that this universe was designed by God; do you want a list?
1.) Underwater dolphin sonar ©GOD.
2.) Aqua-dynamic sharkskin texture ©GOD.
3.) Nocturnal bat navigation apparatus ©GOD.
4.) In-ear balancing sensors ©GOD
5.) Ocular aperture with auto-focus ©GOD
6.) Photosynthesis ©GOD
7.) Etc, etc. ©GOD
The image that pops into my mind, when evolutionists proclaim their attempts to prove the godlessness of the universe, is a kid making rickety houses, using a stash of Celerons as building blocks.
They thought decoding DNA would be a simple matter of unraveling chaos. Yet the project proved to be so daunting, it took supercomputers four years of symmetric multiprocessing to decode. Almost a decade later, where now is the promise to excise obesity and cancer in the gene, too tough?
Nothing in this universe becomes simple through deconstruction. That is why King David concluded that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14) The more you peer into the littlest particle of existence, the more you see organized complexity and order. Cells, believed to be simple building blocks, were in fact as complex as a metropolis during rush hour. This is why King David does not mince words regarding proponents of godless existence: “The FOOL has said in his heart, there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1, 53:1) For him, all attempts to prove that anyone can exist uncreated by God is not only impossible, it is foolish. The apostle Paul testifies that creation can only be understood through faith: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:3) God chooses not to be found by mankind’s puny designs, but you will discover Him through faith.
As far as this latest “scientific discovery” implies, it takes just as much (or even more) faith to believe in evolution.
All praise the prophet Darwin,
All hail the supercilious scions of science,
All pray to the infallible, revisionist popes of physics,
All glory to the proud and godless church of evolution.
coughidiotscough…
Well, Paul, we are in agreement There is no empirical data that PROVES the Big Bang. There is, however, lots of empirical data that SUPPORTS the Big Bang. I never said that the data actually PROVED it. Only that the data for the proof (which is far from complete) is greater than zero.