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What Happened Before The Big Bang - Breaking News
A couple of weeks ago I linked to a BBC Horizon programme that asked the question what happened before the Big Bang. In new research published this weekend Roger Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan claim to have discovered evidence for a universe that existed before our own universe. The BBC explains it poorly here. Penrose and his collaborator explain it better here (the drawing is theirs). The idea is very simple. If indeed there was a universe that existed before our own the most dramatic event in that universe would be the impact of two galaxies crashing into one another. At the heart of every galaxy is a black hole and big galaxies have "supermassive" black holes at their centre. When huge two galaxies are drawn together by gravity the supermassive black holes eventually will also smash into one another. This event is so powerful, Penrose argues, that it will create enormous energy pulses that will reverberate throughout both that universe and into a new universe which is formed in the wake of a new Big Bang. Penrose and Gurzadyan say that they have found structural evidence for these events in the cosmic microwave background. If this paper is correct then the cyclical model of the universe is probably also correct and the entire history of the universe from birth to entropic death has happened countless times, almost certainly an infinite number of times in the past. And of course if the universe (or perhaps multiverse would be a better word) is infinitely old then logically, a previous Adrian McKinty typed this exact blog entry and a previous you read it and scratched your head, exactly the way you are doing now, a long, long, long time ago.
31 comments:
I don't see why other pre-exsiting universes would have to be anything like this one.
I also still wonder about a beginning. Not just to a universe, but to everything, as now a universe is beginning to sound pretty insignificant.
Damn it, I now did just literally scratch my head. A coincidence. I swear it.
I'm sure I heard that before the big bang there was some kind of cosmic soup.
Admittedly, I heard it on Triple J this morning.
I'm just annoyed that I won;t be around when they finally do get the answer
I don't know if you will be or you won't be, Rob, but if these guys are right, apparently you will be or you won't be over and over again.
Seana
If there were an infinite number of universes then most of them would be totally different. However, logically, one of them would be EXACTLY like this one. This is what happens when you're dealing with infinity.
For more on the cyclic model check out this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model
I think the Turok model makes a lot of sense.
What Penrose may have discovered is evidence for at least one previous universe.
Rob
No what you heard was Matt Preston on giving his recipe for sweet and sour balsamic soup.
That soup sounds delicious.
If there is an infinite number of universes, it sounds like I will never be bored.
Unless I become infinitely bored. Which does seem possible.
Um, does he reheat his soup in a cosmic microwave?
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
...thought of a better line...
If you want to experience infinity read The Finkler Question twice.
Peter
Its a lot tastier than his quantum soup I can tell you.
Just give me good, old primordial soup.
What I wonder is why Hindu thinking seems to be more consonant with theories like this: the cycles of lifetimes, and mathematical thinking that included numbers incomparably larger than anything Western thought came up with for many, many centuries afterward.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Saw both, and yes, the second one was better. In another universe, though, the book would be in your top ten and we'd all be laughing uproariously about it.
In this one I'm just glad it will be relatively short. Also that I won't be getting to it till 2011.
Peter
And they invented the concept of zero didnt they?
Seana
Finally starting Freedom this week.
When I saw the programme two months ago I recognised it as a 25 billion year-old repeat - but that's the BBC for you.
Phil
Nice one.
It occurs to me that another thing that could cause these galactic power surges would be some kind of catastrophic intergalactic war.
Is it true that the hissing / crackling noise you hear when you tune your radio some of that noise is radiation left over from the Big Bang?
Yes, Philip, that was very good.
I think that today is the day that the Franzen/Oprah will air, so you are very au courant, Adrian. I don't know if I'll see it, though I'd like to. For the spectacle, really.
Funny you mention intergalactic space wars because I was trying to watch Battlestar Galactica--the pilot-- last night. Here's the funny thing and maybe the joke's on me. Well, it is, one way or the other. I'll try not to be too spoilerish about it for anyone else on the planet who hasn't actually seen it yet, but within the first hour, there is a major enemy attack which affects the power sources, communications, everything.
I thought it was really cool how they were doing the whole thing without sound except for background effects until about ten minutes went by and I realized that they couldn't even talk to each other outside of the spaceship. I think that what happened was that the DVD had somehow lost a whole track of sound at just the right moment. Either that, or the show is a lot more artsy than I'd heard. A little tedious, though, when you have to guess what everyone is saying, even though, basically, you can.
This would seem to give some scientific support to the idea of reincarnation then, wouldn't it?
Frankie
That is completely true. A few percent of the static is the background radiation from the Big Bang.
Seana
Yes, dud DVD. I think the mini series pilot of BSG is quite good. In fact the whole thing is quite good until the disastrous season 4 and the terrible terrible ending.
Alicia
The more I read about physics, esp quantum physics, the more I think pretty much everything is possible.
India and Babylon each had a zero, I think.
What I wonder about the vast numbers and time spans in Indian belief what made Indian thinkers attach numbers to such great magnitudes, far too large ever to be of any use to anybody. (A great kalpa, Wikipedia tells me, is 1.28 trillion years.)
We have (a)eons, but I don't know that anyone has tried to figure out many years in an eon. Perhaps ancient Indian thinkers embraced paradox by attaching numbers to magnitudes far too vast ever to be enumerated.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
None of these models of the universe work perfectly yet. I wonder if the laws of physics could change a bit each time the universe is crunched and "re-big banged."
Peter
Yeah you're right, although its hard to comprehend even those numbers. As I understand it the heat death of the universe will take a couple of trillion years.
Dennis
As long as the Anthropic Principle isn't jiggered with too much I dont see why not.
But the fundamentals would have to be the same wouldnt they? I cant see how Pi for example could be a different number in different universes.
Is Ladbroke's taking bets on how the long the heat death of the universe will take?
I wonder who were the first in Western culture to conceive of such larger numbers. The Maya calendar is supposed to have embraced big time spans, I think, but nothing like kalpas and mega-kalpas and super-kalpas and so on.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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This is pretty exciting.
Unlike The American.
Brian
I agree completely. Its a potentially huge development.
Mate. This blog is amazing. How can I make it look this good ?
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