@farmerman,
Correct! Science confirms that a singularity was all that existed before this particular period of universal activity began its expansion, and the scientific evidence suggests, that this universe is in the process of regression to its point of origin.
Another universe may have preceded ours, scientific 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. 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 Ashetkar argued; is that gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive, 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 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.
Just as the Big Bang theory has been evolving over the years and is continuing to evolve as new data becomes available, these big Crunch theories that are just beginning to emerge are still in their infancy.
Because three-dimensional time as we know it, does not exist prior to the Big Bang: From the return of the previous universe to the supposedly infinitely hot, infinitely dense and infinitesimally small singularity of origin to the next Big Bang when three dimensional space and time would begin again, it would appear that no time had elapsed, thus [As is believed] the erroneous Big Bounce theory.