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If the Universe has no beginning?

 
 
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 04:06 pm
http://m.phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2015/bigbang.jpg
This is an artist's concept of the metric expansion of space, where space (including hypothetical non-observable portions of the universe) is represented at each time by the circular sections. Note on the left the dramatic expansion (not to scale) occurring in the inflationary epoch, and at the center the expansion acceleration. The scheme is decorated with WMAP images on the left and with the representation of stars at the appropriate level of development. Credit: NASA
(Phys.org) —The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once.

The widely accepted age of the universe, as estimated by general relativity, is 13.8 billion years. In the beginning, everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point, or singularity. Only after this point began to expand in a "Big Bang" did the universe officially begin.

Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and unavoidably from the mathematics of general relativity, some scientists see it as problematic because the math can explain only what happened immediately after—not at or before—the singularity.

"The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there," Ahmed Farag Ali at Benha University and the Zewail City of Science and Technology, both in Egypt, told Phys.org.

Ali and coauthor Saurya Das at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end.

See link for the rest of the article
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Finn dAbuzz
 
  0  
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 04:59 pm
@edgarblythe,
No beginning and no end? Sounds like God.
Sturgis
 
  1  
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 05:14 pm
@edgarblythe,
This is one of those mind-boggling (or mind-numbing) things, one which I can become lost in for hours.

Following the fun of trying to figure out the whole beginning and end thing, I wonder where this universe actually came from. It had to come from somewhere, even that beginning spot prior to the big kaboom. Where is it from? How about the place it's from, where did that originate?

It is both interesting and confoundalating at the same time.
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 05:15 pm
@Sturgis,
I haven't a clue. I just hope they can figure more of it out in my lifetime.
dalehileman
 
  0  
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 05:22 pm
@edgarblythe,
Agreeing with the intuitive feeling of many of us that it has always existed in one for or another, obviating the persistent paradox and contradiction of creation

Before the singularity? Well, let's suppose expansion slows down, then contraction sets in
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 06:13 pm
@dalehileman,
The idea of infinite expansion is mind-boggelling isn't it.
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Tue 23 Feb, 2016 06:55 am
To me it makes sense that something always exists. Just a question of what form it takes, since change seems inevitable, throughout the universe.
Setanta
 
  1  
Tue 23 Feb, 2016 07:09 am
@edgarblythe,
One of the hardest problems in understanding the so-called "Big Bang" is the concept that time did not exist until the singularity. In other words, there was no time until the big bang banged.

EDIT: This is not a universally held notion--some proponents of what is called string theory propose that it supports the idea of a "time" before the singularity. This is one of the thorniest problems in that part of cosmology which is purely speculative. From Universe Today-dot-com:

Quote:
It is also possible that asking what came before the big bang is much like asking what is north of the North Pole. What looks like a beginning in need of a cause may just be due to our own perspective. We like to think of effects always having a cause, but the Universe might be an exception. The Universe might simply be.
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Tue 23 Feb, 2016 07:46 am
I know most reputable scientists likely see it that way, but passages like this make me hold out for something different:

because the math can explain only what happened immediately after—not at or before—the singularity.

"The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there,"


0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Tue 23 Feb, 2016 11:35 am
@edgarblythe,
It's funny how you can change the math just a little bit and it paints a picture of a whole different Universe.
0 Replies
 
Leadfoot
 
  1  
Tue 23 Feb, 2016 11:51 am
@edgarblythe,
I love the way they say
Quote:
"The Big Bang singularity is the single biggest problem of general relativity..."

And in the same ******* article say:
Quote:
Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and unavoidably from the mathematics of general relativity

I mean, what double talking non-sense is that?
0 Replies
 
dalehileman
 
  1  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 01:30 pm
@cicerone imposter,
Quote:
The idea of infinite expansion is mind-boggelling isn't it.
Yea cis, also intuitively unsatisfying; maybe paradoxical as suggested by Edgar above

I hafta admit however that the effect of singularity on time and mass stretches the imagination as discussed in #......15 above
0 Replies
 
Foofie
 
  1  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 03:11 pm
It makes the return date on a library book all the more nonsensical.

It also can mean that intelligent, or more intelligent life, existed in the distant past somewhere.

And, if the universe is expanding, the reality is that we will be on a very lonely planet one day, or at least some other form of life will be very lonely (light from distant stars will not even reach this planet I read).
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 03:14 pm
@Setanta,
Isn't time based on the sun? What is time without the sun?
Fil Albuquerque
 
  1  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 03:30 pm
@cicerone imposter,
Time is the measurement of motion of things in space whatever those are. This measurement is of course relative to frames of reference.
You can only account for time pass or anything at all when change occurs and with it it information is produced by comparing one previous state of affairs with another. If there is no change at all you have no new information and thus are unaware of anything going on because there is nothing new going on.
dalehileman
 
  1  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 03:50 pm
@Foofie,
Quote:
It also can mean that intelligent, or more intelligent life, existed in the distant past somewhere
Yea Foof, indubitably

Quote:
'the reality is that we will be on a very lonely planet one day
Apparently so
0 Replies
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 07:41 pm
@Setanta,
Let's say this was in fact the case that until the Big Bang there was no time and so no "before" in the sense that we relate it to our perception of time, but this would not obviate cause and effect and so wouldn't we be in roughly the same position of asking what came before, by asking what caused it?
Foofie
 
  2  
Fri 26 Feb, 2016 09:28 pm
@cicerone imposter,
cicerone imposter wrote:

Isn't time based on the sun? What is time without the sun?

You could be correct. Sun dials do not work on cloudy days.
0 Replies
 
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Sun 28 Feb, 2016 05:19 pm
The Universe might simply be.

Joe(no beginning, just being)Nation
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Sun 28 Feb, 2016 06:09 pm
@edgarblythe,
Our inability to say what happened before the Big Bang need not be any more intellectually embarrassing than our inability to say what landscapes lie South of the South Pole. Our expectation that this kind of question must always have an answer comes from an implicit assumption that the geometry of the world is Cartesian. This assumption feels intuitively obvious, but it's false. In non-Cartesian geometries, such as space-time and the surface of the Earth, the question will sometimes be nonsense, and hence can't always have an accurate answer.
0 Replies
 
 

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