This episode of DNews is brought to you by Squarespace.
What if there was no Big Bang and the Universe has been around forever?
Huh?
Hello!
I’m Ian O’Neill, space producer for Discovery News, and I’m having a pretty hard time
wrapping my finite brain around a new model that suggests the Universe has no beginning,
no end, no Big Bang, no Big Crunch, no Dark Matter, no Dark Energy and that the Cosmos
is swamped in some kind of weird quantum fluid.
Seems kind of messy.
This may look like some sort of new crackpot theory, but researchers in Egypt and Canada
have used sound mathematics and physics to potentially answer some of the toughest questions
in modern cosmology.
And this is really exciting as ideas like these have a habit of turning science on its
head if proven to be correct.
A continuing puzzle surrounding the Big Bang is that if you shrink the entire universe
down to a point -- known as a “singularity” -- all known physics breaks down.
Physicists don’t like it when physics breaks down, so the moment of the Big Bang, when
the universe was a singularity doesn’t make any physical sense.
Another puzzle that continues to confound physicists is that Einstein’s general relativity
doesn't play nice with quantum physics.
Gravity, quite simply, does not FIT with our current quantum models of the universe -- and
that’s a huge problem!
The hunt for evidence of quantum gravity is therefore one of the biggest quests going
on in physics RIGHT NOW.
So, in a new paper published in the journal Physics Letters B, the researchers propose
a model for the Universe that solves the “Big Bang singularity paradox” and ties together
gravity and quantum dynamics.
To cut a very long and complex story short, they revisited equations proposed in the 1950s,
and melded them with our current understanding of quantum dynamics and cosmology.
Although it’s not a complete theory of quantum gravity, it works quite nicely.
In our classical understanding of the universe, there MUST be a beginning -- the Big Bang
-- and there MIGHT be an end -- known as the “Big Crunch.”
That’s a product of the equations.
By combining all the observational evidence and formulating theories to help explain what
we are seeing, the classical equations spit out a universe of a finite age -- a universe
that is nearly 14 billion years old
But by melding quantum corrections with a different mathematical approach at describing
the universe, this new model produces a universe that has an INFINITE age.
Once compared with our observations of the cosmos, the theoretical predictions agree
with our measurements of the cosmological constant and removes the requirement for introducing
huge unknowns like dark matter and dark energy -- the two “invisible” quantities that
we are having a real hard time explaining.
But what does it mean physically?
Well, if gravitons exist (and that’s a BIG if), the universe must be filled with a “graviton
fluid.”
Gravitons are hypothetical quantum particles that mediate the force of gravity.
But the only problem is that we don’t know if they exist yet.
Although exciting, I doubt the cosmology textbooks will be re-written quite yet.
Big Bang theory is widely accepted as it is supported by several lines of observational
evidence -- from the cosmic microwave background, thought to be the Big Bang’s afterglow,
to the Universal expansion that suggests all galaxies came from a common point.
However, holes in our understanding about how gravity plays in the quantum world puts
a huge question mark over many cosmological and quantum ideas and our current Big Bang
model could be horribly flawed.
Regardless of whether there was a Big Bang or not, this is a wonderful example of how
science works -- new hypotheses are tested to formulate theories and observational evidence
tests those theories, regardless of how established the models of the universe are.
All we need to do now is detect gravitons in the Large Hadron Collider…
no pressure physicists!
We'd like to thank Squarespace for their support of DNews.
Squarespace is the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for
you and your ideas.
Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24/7 customer
support.
Try Squarespace, at Squarespace.com/dnews, and enter offer code “DNews” at checkout
to get 10% off.
Squarespace.
Build it Beautiful.
Do you think Big Bang theory will be overturned by gravitons?
Let us know in the comments, and subscribe for more DNews every day!