Cyclic Universe a Possibility 403
An Anonymous Coward writes "Spacedaily has a post(from Science) about a new theory at odds with the big bang theory. The researchers claim that this theory of an oscillating energy field could be experimentally tested in the coming years."
Universe discreet? (Score:2)
-Sean
Re:Universe discreet? (Score:2)
The Hindu religion contains a cyclic universe, with the universe repeating ever year of Bruma,
a year of a Bruma is the time taken for a bird
that rubs its beak once a year against a great wall across india, to rub the wall down to
nothing.
If you think about it there are only a few
possible fates of the universe, a universe that
repeats or a universe that begins and ends, so
it not surprising that the various religon in
the world have already covered most of the
possibilities.
For instance, Terry Pratchett wrote, an Azrael,
the death of universe, knows the secret: "I can
rembember when all this will be again"
Interestingly the cyclic universe theory is
not quite cyclic, entropy always increases and
each incarnation of the universe is bigger than
the last. They can get away with this because the
universe is infinite, and twice infinity is
still infinity. The previously universes may
then be scattered in tiny high entropy relics in
the next universe.
Re:Universe discreet? (Score:2)
That's the problem, there is no known thing, which can move in the supposed 4th dimension (time) freely.
Time is not a another degree of freedom.
To be precise, (at least in according to the relativity theory) it is a 3+1 dimensional system.
The first three dimensions are orthogonal, but since Einstein, we know time is not orthogonal to space.
You can move freely in one direction without affecting your position in the two other dimensions, but it will always have a temporal side-effect.
AFAIK, the nature of time is still not fathomed, and to quote a someone far more qualified in these matters than me:
All Things Considered (Score:5, Informative)
Re:All Things Considered (Score:2)
Uh oh... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll be interested to hear the religious responses to this theory.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm much more inclined to agree with Spinoza -- basically that the universe is G., that G. is infinite in space as well as time (forward and backword), and G. doesn't decide anything, G. simply "is". Most Judeo-Christians really don't like this because it means that man is actually *part* of G., and that all the "evil" in the world is part of G. too, and that all the "mythological" type stuff (such as creation) in the Judeo-Christian world wouldn't work (especially if G. aka the universe has always existed).
When Einstein was asked by a reporter if he believed in G., he said he believed in Spinoza's G.
I'd highly recommend Spinoza's Ethics [mtsu.edu] to anyone who wants to know more.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
That is an interesting way to think about it (and I agree to some extent with Spinzoa's ideas,) but I'm not sure the above statement makes sense. The universe *could* act on God if God exists outside the universe, but that doesn't mean it does... so it doesn't speak to whether God is perfect or not.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
eh? Name one thing that humans have created that they cannot control... just one. If I make a computer program, sure its a lot quicker at doing math than me but all the quickness in Math in the world isn't going to stop me from pressing Ctrl-C when I'm done using the program. The same idea can be applied to a lot of other things. If you create something you have the power to destroy it or to stop it. If my 2+2 program could suddenly start again without outside intervention (like Jesus rising from the dead) then your theory would be valid.
You name human potential as evidence that we are greater than God. In reality the fact that human potential is so great is a testimant to the mind-boggling greatness of God.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Maybe the explosion of a nuclear bomb? I will give you all the science knowledge currently available, and the knowledge used to create the bomb, and you can see if you can control what it does when it goes off.
serious problems in your... "logic" (Score:2)
Just how do you come to that conclusion, that's ridiculous. There is absolutely no basis for that statement at all, you simply pulled it out of your ass.
That's like saying, "If God ('G.', wtf?) exists outside the universe, he probably eats a lot of *waffles.'
* I just said "waffles" because I've had a craving lately, but I never get to eat waffles...
Re:Uh oh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:3, Insightful)
For thousands of years, the devout managed to convince people that the Bible was the literal Word of God. Then we found some stuff out about the world that didn't line up with the claims made by the Bible. So now different religious groups are either telling us that science is wrong, or telling us that it doesn't matter.
I can actually fathom the conservative viewpoint better. I mean, at least there's a weird logic to their position. But liberal religions don't seem to mind jettisoning things like a literal seven day creation, a literal Noah's Ark, and even a literal Resurrection. I understand why someone would give up on such apparent absurdities, but why continue to worship the vacuous concepts that remain?
It's impossible to just talk about "the existence of God" without explaining the nature of the thing being discussed. A conception of God that is "wide-minded" enough to adapt to any sort of evidence that science might present in the future cannot be informative enough to be compelling. If you're going to believe in God without believing anything in particular about God, why not just be an agnostic and be done with it?
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Why is that? Science relies heavily on the concept of infinity, and it has no nature to be discussed. There are many mathematical properties that involve it, yet do those express its true nature? Why does discussing God have to involve any particular nature? That seems very narrow minded to me (in the literal sense.)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2, Informative)
Infinity was unclear once upon a time, but not any more.
Largely through the work of Georg Cantor, the nature and properties of infinity have been absolutely described.
There was a time when this was unclear and this bothered people. So they went ahead and cleared up the ambiguities.
While this doesn't give a definitive answr to the issue in question, your example did just turn around and bite you on the ass.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Of course there are things which YOU may not believe but may have actually happened. The "seven day theory" isn't in scientific terms seven days at all. If you look at the age of the universe - a guess at this point - and look at everytime it expands to double it's size that would be one day. Of course we think one day around the Sun, but to a God that would be all knowing or powerful one day wouldn't mean anything to him/her/it. Maybe it's just easier to explain these things to idiot humans in simple terms.
Simply - Occam is a fag. It's quite parsimonious for you to say that there is no evidence. It's easy for the human mind to say there is no evidence and move on. The idea of God is one that says there is a being, a spirit or intelligence that we can not see. The idea of God is one that says we couldn't comprehend the idea of it.
We can't even explain the universe we do see. We can't imagine the size of it. There are so many theories in Quantum Phyics alone that suggest an idea of God because of interactions on the sub-partical level.
Shit... you can give me reasons that God doesn't exist but you can't even support some of the science that claims it doesn't.
If you don't believe why bother trying to convince people that it doesn't exist? Put your effort towards science only. The claims made about science from the "Church" (you know who I mean) were all made because they were afraid that they would loose control. This is why you have a problem with people who believe - you want them in your camp. Why bother?
Re:Uh oh... an exercise (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an exercise for you. I realize that I'm not going to change your mind on the global issues raised in your post with a simple post to Slashdot, but I think I can defend this point well. Moreover, it is an interesting psychology point as well, not merely a religious one.
Let us say you wish to describe in writing, in exquisite detail, the internal workings of your computer. By "exquisite detail", I mean not just what it does, but how it does it, at every level from the "computer science" level down to the "quantum physics" level (for the transistors and similar hardware). You've got a lot of ground to cover, but by and large, one dedicated human could hold most of this in their head on a fairly deep level.
Now, let's say you're going to do this two thousand years ago using only Greek. I'll stipulate you a complete understanding of Greek; that's not the point. How will you describe the workings of a laser, the effects of coherent light, and the effect of two mediums in a CD-ROM? And that's just a small part of the CD-ROM drive, a fraction of one percent of the problem you are faced with.
The only solution? You will need to replicate the scientific revolution. You'll need to create news terms, define them, etc., and basically bootstrap from a thoroughly ineffective language into one that is useful to you, quite analagously to the bootstrapping of computer languages from machine language. It's certainly possible, though it's debatable whether one ancient greek would be able to learn this without significant guidance from a real person (i.e., not just from the writing, but with a teacher).
This is an interesting point of psychology, relating to our diffficulty in thinking with concepts we can't express in some language. Math exists to a large degree to give us a language we can discuss and manipulate mathematical concepts in. Understanding this can be valuable any time you are writing about a concept not fully understood by your potential readers, so this is a practical point, too.
Now, you've got one thick bundle of scrolls there, buddy. It would easily fill several rooms solid (just the blueprints to all your computer chips printed out would be quite a lot, and the technology of the time doesn't allow for onion-skin paper!). But it is conceivable that such a resource could exist.
Now, stipulate the existance of the Christian God with me for a moment. He is omnipotent and omniscient; for any precise formulation you care to give about what you want to know about the creation of the universe, he can provide the same sort of resource. (I can't guarentee that there still won't be points where it simply asserts the truth of something; contrariwise, Godel's Theorum would seem to imply that such points are necessary.) Calling it "massive" is probably an understatement. No reasonable estimation of the size of this resource can be given. But I feel confident placing a lower bound on the current lifespan of a human being; you could not absorb this resource to any significant degree in one lifetime. (It is likely that the resource can be made arbitrarily complicated, esp. if this is not the only universe, so merely extending lifespans really doesn't get you anything. There are two basic lifespans on the cosmological scale, finite and infinite.)
But, that's not the real point. The real point is this: What purpose would such a resource serve? It would be a waste of time to transcribe, it would be a waste of time to try and use it, and nobody has time to try, anyhow. So what are you going to do? Observing that God created the universe is an importent point, but futher details are effectively a waste; a person like you will still never be satisfied (because there will always be more details not given as long as you are alive, and forever if the panverse is infinitely complicated, which even many cosmologists currently talk about with those frothing universes of theirs...), others won't care at all. Inasmuch as purpose can be inferred, again regardless of your belief on authorship, it's quite clear that the Bible is not a text on cosmology.
The only thing you can do is be extremely highly metaphorical, and keep only the importent parts, which the stipulated God in His divine wisdom knows which parts they are, and ruthlessly cull the rest. The Bible is already quite long; should a useless cosmological discussion bloat it arbitrarily large for the purpose of failing to satisfy you? My guess would be no.
As for the "confusing" point, I'd submit that given any text, it is for you to bend to the usage and attempt to gain as much understanding of the author's point as possible, not for the author to spend a bunch of time quantifying and qualifying the point to you ad nasuem (and probably still ending up with you rejecting it anyhow). Again, this isn't just for the Bible, it's for all text, up to and including my post, and it goes double for anything written more then 20 or so years ago, and triple or more for anything more then a hundred years old. Given the word palette the author had to choose from, whether you believe the author divine or not, "day" (which of course is not the English word for day, and thus criticizing it on that point commits the additional sin (pun intended) of criticizing a translation) is as good as anything else.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a book by a Rabbi which lays out the age of the universe, and it's expansion, compared with the seven day theory. His theory concludes that we are still in the 6th day and approaching the 7th.
I guess that we could say that the 7th day will be when the whole thing implodes and he gets to rest.
In all reality the idea that God could have worked through the big bang isn't a bad one. Where things get sticky is when we start talking "life". ( Actually evolutionary timelines fit the same scale - the rise of humans is an example. Even the age of the Earth and the times which the skies cleared so that light could be visible from that early primordial Earth fit )
I think where we have all gotten into trouble isn't when we fight over IF God exists - the problems start when we try to measure why's and how's. We start to make crazy claims that we are alone, but I haven't found the backing for this at all. There is a whole list of topics that we try to say this or that about but we have no clue.
If (a) God exists we shouldn't try to fit our narrow view into his/her dimension of reality. For all we know he/she/it sits down and writes our DNA with an old feather plume, selecting which genes go and which stay. Of course this is in the lines of "Design" theories of life and I don't personally believe that....
The point is that we can only know what science tells us and our religions suggest. If we try to combine the two we walk on shady ground.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:3, Interesting)
My belief is that God, being all powerful and infinite and inconceivable in the minds of men, could certainly create all the universe and all its laws and properties in any way. So, if one has any faith in God or His omnipotence, he/she shouldn't be discouraged by new theories of science that seem to contradict His existence.
For the simple minded, think of it like this: if you were a divinity, wouldn't you be able to make it seem as though you don't exist to test the faith of those who are less powerful?
A Christian example is when Christ appeared to the apostles, all except Thomas. Thomas didn't believe that He had risen from the dead. Later when Christ appeared to him, he said, "blessed are you who have not seen and yet still believe."
So, the final answer for a religious person in any case like this is the single word "faith". Science isn't going to get in my or anyone else's way.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
The savior (pun) is that it can be interpreted many ways. "Creating the heavens" could mean the birth of the solar system, the birth of our galaxy, etc.
The vast majority of what we see in the sky with the unaided eye is in our own galaxy. Thus, it could be argued that "the heavens" is a lay man's way of translating Milky Way Galaxy.
IOW, the scope of the creation story is not clearly stated.
A creationist Ready to get flamed (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, I also don't value religion over science or believe they are at odds. Obviously, if an omnipotent God created the world from nothing he set up the rules by which it would be governed.
Really, I see this situation as a case of a theory on something we know practically nothing about coming up to challenge a more commonly held theory about something we know practically nothing about.
As a six-day creationist, will I be any more wrong in the long run than all big-bangers out there if the cyclic theory turns out to be true? Or what about the next big origins theory?
Science is supposed to be observable, measurable, and repeatable, but when we're talking origins, particularly universal origins, one really doesn't have that evidence to support one's ideas. All we really have is what we can observe right now, subject to human interpretation, and we have to use that data to project back some huge amount of time. I've always been told in my engineering classes that it is very dangerous to project your data out farther than you have measured, so that doesn't exactly reassure me about these theories.
Well, I've been interrupted by more than one excessively long phone calls while writing this, and I've completely lost my train of thought, so I guess I'll just post this as the rambling mess it is.
I would be interested to hear if there are any die-hard big-bang people who have problems with this new theory.
Your opinion doesn't upset me, I just disagree. (Score:2)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, why is it that everytime there is an article on
Most religious people (most not all) can think. Most of them don't really care how the world began because they realize that the Bible book of Genesis doesn't give a scientific explaination of the beginning of the world. Rather boiled down into a nutshell it says that the world is here and God is responsible for that. So whether its been here for 200 years or 200 trillion really doesn't matter, whether God spoke or if he caused the processes we see today, it really doesn't matter.
Now there are some people who believe it happened like the Bible describes. Which is okay too. Because just like everyone else at least in the US they have the freedom of speech. And they can say what they want.
So much for mod points
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Well I don't know about you, but I am..
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
I don't know that science should be concerned about religion at all. I would prefer it that way.
Infalliable "truth" and the scientific theory are irreconcilable, anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. Notice how "god" becomes ever more distant and reserved as science becomes ever more accurate in its measurements?
I'll be out with it... I'm semi-religious, and I have not noticed god becoming distant at all. The base teachings of most religions (even mine) are vague enough that everything I know of that we have discovered as infalliable truth in science does not conflict with those teachings. It may conflict with the teachings of your pastor, your friends at church, or your neighbor, but 50,343,234th person accounts of what religion is about should not mean anything. I'm personally awed that we have come to the point where we can begin to understand these things... it's something of a testament to the greatness and complexity of it all... will we ever figure it all out? If you ask yourself that every once in a while, you might find God staring your right in the face as you look at facts and figures.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Oh, they're nice and vague now, because they have to be -- science, fighting uphill against religion every step of the way, has increased our knowledge of the universe enough that religion has had to retreat into platitudes. But every religion I know of has some very explicit (and contradictory with other religions' versions) things to say about how things got to be the way they are. That few people, even believers, take these origin myths seriously (and those who do, e.g. creationists, are rightly considered fools) is because science is better at explaining the world than religion is; it is not because religion does try. It does try, it just does a lousy job.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Scientists who have a problem with metaphorical thinking have been reading and writing scientific texts for too long. And religious people who think that the first woman was made out of the first man's actual rib should get thier heads out of thier asses. It's one paragraph in a book... and it's going to take us 1000s of years to figure out how it all works. In the meantime, there are things to ponder, and that is (IMHO) at least half of what being religous is all about.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
Imagine starting a "linux religion" and converting people to it. This could solve open source's problems of repetition and duplication (like KDE/Gnome) if people are *forced* to follow it. The religion has commandments, e.g.
Actually... (Score:2)
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
Now, for ancient society, the heavens referred to everything that wasn't the earth.
As you read the rest of Genesis, you can see that God filled the heaven with "light." I would assume that means stars, the cosmos, etc. So its most likely that He created the universe in those 7 days. Still, there are some basic questions about what a day means to God.
Personally, I believe that God is omnipresent, which, in light of some current theries about space time, I think He exists in every point in space-time simultaneously. An easy ramification for us to understand about this is that God would be omnitemporal. I wonder what the "beginning" means to a being who is omnitemporal?
Just as with the church and Galileo, a lack of belief in science is due to a limited understanding of God and His words. There are still a lot of theories that have been brought into existance for the sole purpose of rejecting the existance of God while providing little or no evidence whatsoever (such as the multiple universe theory).
Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I had to do it.
Simpsons quote actually appropriate (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, it turns out that Steinhardt, when he was a grad student decades ago, either published or was on the verge of publishing a paper on some theory of inflation or other. Dammit, but I can't remember exactly what the theory was right now. Anyway, Stephen Hawking accused Steinhardt of stealing his own idea. Steinhardt was at a critical moment, because being a graduate student accused of plagiarism or idea-theft, he could serious problems with his advisors and future co-workers.
The original printing of Brief History of Time even referred to Steinhardt as stealing Hawking's theory. Hawking narrowed down the 'theft' to a talk he gave, I believe at Drexel University. What Steinhardt was able to do to redeem himself was to obtain a video recording of the Drexel talk and prove that Hawking didn't mention that theory anywhere in the talk.
The result is that the community now recognizes Steinhardt's genuinity in the matter, and Brief History of Time has been revised. It now only alludes to a copying of idea, instead of outright accusation, by saying something like "in a suspicious circumstance, a similar theory was published on the east coast at the same time" or something like that.
Brief mention of this is in the 4th paragraph of this link [geocities.com].
Moderators easily fooled... (Score:2, Insightful)
Finally, he made an Off-Topic statement about human vanity. As desserts, he added some new-age "cool" poem-y.
Great.
I suggest the poster go read some theories before passing judgement.
Re:Moderators easily fooled... (Score:2)
Better yet, ask that poster to run through derivations or predictions MATHEMATICALLY of even very simple theories and see how far (s)he gets before passing judgement.
Coming up with very simple qualitative ideas is not difficult at all. Implementing them is the hard part.
Re:Simpsons is the dough (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoa, calm down there, AC.
Firstly, I agree with you that people come up with ideas simultaneously all the time! And I agree that Hawking was being much of a baby complaining about Steinhardt.
The point was that Steinhardt had to FIGHT to prove he didn't rip off Hawking's work, to regain face in the scientific community. You probably don't realize what it would be like to be looking for a post-doc position while being simultaneously accused of plagiarism. Not many would trust their data or theories with you. It just shows how silly some people can be, and how Steinhardt had to jump through many hoops.
I said genuity, I should have said innocence. That is, innocent from blatantly ripping off Hawkins.
Now, as far as your idea of coming up with theories, yeah sure. That's simple. I can sit here for an hour and come up with 1000 different theories of the universe. I can talk about N or N+1 or N+2 dimensions (the +1 or +2 being time dimensions), or contemplate negative mass or imaginary mass or cyclic boundary conditions on the universe, etc etc.
That is NOTHING NEW, these things have all been thought about and proposed. If you wanted to come up with a theory that NOBODY else thought of, you'd probably be more hard pressed to do it than you might think.
Anyway, coming up with an IDEA like this is easy, but the devil is in the details. The math and physics gets Insanely Difficult as even small amounts of complexity are added to such systems. People resort to all kinds of clever tricks and approximations to come up with results to validate or invalidate theories, etc.
So, here's a summary in bold, becuase you seem to have missed the basic idea of my post without further clarification. It is very simple to come up with basic new theories in ARMCHAIR PHYSICS, this is just philosophical masturbation. Not many scientists would accuse others of plagiarism for such basic or general theories. Now, forging through the mathematical details and reducing something WITH SCIENCE to a quite simple and elegant theory, now that is the hard part! And that is the part that you don't want to be accused of plagiarising!
Experimentally tested? (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, so that's how new universes come into being.
Paper abstract (Score:3, Informative)
The Cyclic Universe: An Informal Introduction
Authors: Paul J. Steinhardt, Neil Turok
The Cyclic Model is a radical, new cosmological scenario which proposes that the Universe undergoes an endless sequence of epochs which begin with a `big bang' and end in a `big crunch.' When the Universe bounces from contraction to re-expansion, the temperature and density remain finite. The model does not include a period of rapid inflation, yet it reproduces all of the successful predictions of standard big bang and inflationary cosmology. We point out numerous novel elements that have not been used previously which may open the door to further alternative cosmologies. Although the model is motivated by M-theory, branes and extra-dimensions, here we show that the scenario can be described almost entirely in terms of conventional 4d field theory and 4d cosmology.
In spite of the "informal" claim, the paper is fairly dense - IAAPA (I am a professional astronomer) and I found it heavy going. But the link above has PDF versions if you're interested.
Re:Paper abstract (Score:2)
Whatever else this model is it's neither new nor radical. It's actually a re-statement of Hindu mythology which has been around for thousands of years. It would be funny though is a six thousand year old myth did indeed describe the universe correctly.
Re:Paper abstract (Score:2)
One Word : (Score:2)
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
--------
Re:In other news.... (Score:2)
Rest in Peace, dear friend Puggles.
[de5jdk7635uyt237]
More Information (Score:2, Informative)
http://feynman.princeton.edu/~steinh/
Re:More Information (Score:2)
A little more sense (Score:2, Interesting)
To my line of thinking, it is totally illogical for this massive place this earth is floating around in, to have exploded out of nothing... and then _somehow_ created the amazing order we are able to observe thruout our window and in our linux boxes.
A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is certainly a desire - I feel it, myself - that the universe not be that way. It is far more pleasant to think that it will regenerate itself and that complex phenomena like life could re-emerge in some subsequent cycle. However, it is important, as scientists, that we not give in to wishful thinking of that sort.
While these branes are a cute idea in a number of respects - not just because a parallel plane full of dark matter is 100% cool old school science fiction - it strikes me that they answer "how can we match our observations to what we want to be true?" rather than "how can we match our explanations to what we observe?"
Which is not to say that it isn't an excellent theory - merely that there is extreme intellectual danger associated this sort of speculation.
Let me say also - Entropy is a thorough bitch. Whatever the laws of physics turn out to be, and whatever cycles they may allow, if subsequent phenomena depend in any way on previous phenomena (phenomena being the most general term I can manage), there will be a tendency for the whole shebang to degenerate, to move into a more likely state. It is possible that the most likely state for the whole universe involves repeated regeneration of galaxy-rich explosions like the one we all inhabit, but it is also possible that subsequent big bangs would be smaller and smaller in size, eventually dwindling below some critical threshold to generate stars and the like.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:3, Interesting)
While these branes are a cute idea in a number of respects - not just because a parallel plane full of dark matter is 100% cool old school science fiction - it strikes me that they answer "how can we match our observations to what we want to be true?" rather than "how can we match our explanations to what we observe?"
Which is not to say that it isn't an excellent theory - merely that there is extreme intellectual danger associated this sort of speculation.
I think that you are overly restrictive in your requirements of how we generate our theories. Really, there should be absolutely no constraints on how we generate our theories. Theory generation may be driven by observation or driven by the fantasies of a madman---it doesn't matter. In the end, all theories have to stand up to experimental scrutiny, irrespective of how they were generated.
After all, even Einstein was driven by need for beauty when he came up with General Relativity. By your standards he definitely was working in an intellectual danger zone. In fact, I would prefer theorists operate in the danger zone more often than they currently do.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
He was referring specifically to a scientist's method, not his motivation. Discarding hard evidence because it's incompatible with one's hopes/expectations is downright wrong.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
I know that this new theory isn't exactly like the "big crunch" which noone believes in anymore. There was a time when Hawking thought the big crunch meant that the second law would run backwards, and that order would emerge out of disorder. However, he gave that up while many people still held out the big crunch as a possibility, because it turns out that the universe can crunch together without violating the second law.
So, if this new speculative theory is true, it might just be that the universe is inflating and deflating in a periodic manner. It does not mean, however, that entropy decreases in the deflation stages. I wish someone who knows more about this could say whether this theory is consistent with the sort of "oscilation heat death" where in each cycle of oscilation, energy gets more evenly spread out until all matter and structure is dissolved?
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2, Insightful)
Try this: While entropy is indeed happening, something else is happening at the same time and because/causal of it: the `low-grade' energy predicted is more organized. This increased level of organization happening in parallel with entropy may metaphorically be similar to the `branes' mentioned. Nevertheless, although I agree that this hypothesis is not (yet) compelling and may not be well-founded, I feel it is more nearly accurate than the `big bang' booshwa we've been handed.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
Once it is reached, there is no tendency to leave it.
If the motion from a less likely state to a more likely state is what drives the repeated generation of big bangs - and it is what drives *everything else that we have ever observed* - eventually it will run down and new big bangs will no longer be generated.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
Actually, I just took a seminar on Visualizing Higher Dimensions and one of the last thing we covered was the idea of M-theory or string theory. Specificially, the idea that there's another "universe" full of dark matter, which accounts for all the extra mass we can't see. And rather than it being far away, it's right next to us, a distance about 1x10^19 times smaller than the nucleus of an atom.
If you've ever noticed how a squirrel manages to stay on the exact opposite side of a tree when you chase it, the idea's the same. That "universe" is just on the other side of space-time, and no matter which way we move, we can't see it, 'cause it's always on the opposite side. Perhaps that's where anti-matter comes from. Who knows.
Anyway. AFAIR, I think that Stephen Hawking proposed something similar for his phD thesis, except more along the lines of: "The universe will eventually stop expanding, collapse, and re-big-bang." So cyclic theories are not new.
So the branes might be a "cute idea" to you, but they might also be right. The important thing is to keep your mind open about what possibilies there are, and not just focus on what "feels right" or wrong.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
Entropy, huh? My ex-girlfriend told me her name was Diane, that bitch!
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
Entropy, huh? And my ex-girlfriend always told me her name was Diane!
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
It addresses, for example, the nagging question of what might have triggered or come "before" the beginning of time.
I too wonder if there is some wishful thinking in there. It does not make the theory any less valid but many scientists don't like the lack of closure with the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory has some philosophical implications of a creator (or creating process) that does not fit nicely in the philosophical belief of Naturalism. This theory fits better with that Naturalistic belief. I suspect that many scientists will adopt this theory because of its Naturalistic implications, and that it the concern over the old Big Bang proponents squashing it will be misplaced. There will be 2 strong competing theories in the future.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
The heat death of the universe is something I rank up with the Big Crunch and the sun going nova. These are things that, if humanity is still around at that point, I'm confident we'll have a solution figured out by then.
Re:A little wishful thinking, perhaps? (Score:2)
But if it doesn't depends on the preceding occurences, there is no way to say that anything has any influence on anything else and everything "just happens." You reading this text isn't effecting the thoughts in your mind, they "just happen" to be happening at the same (or however it looks in your relativistic frame of reference).
Maybe I need to read up on entropy more, but it seems that there's an inherent flaw in trying to go back to exactly the way things were in the beginning of the cycle becasue you're only resetting three dimensions.
Er, so am I (Score:2)
Even if no energy dissipates, my thinking is that each "subsequent universe" must depend in no way on what the previous universe was like, in order for it to go on forever.
Otherwise, if some sort of characteristic is inherited from one cycle to the next, there will be a movement towards a maximum likelihood position, over the course of many cycles; since entropy is "really" a movement towards maximum likelihood, which is only disorder because disordered states are more likely than ordered ones - I view this is a form of entropy. It's very close in concept to a "maximum entropy" analysis from statistics, which is really what I'm thinking of.
Of course, if that "inherited characteristic", and I am being purposefully vague, can never interfere with the universe regenerating, it isn't a problem.
Well, this just makes sense (Score:2, Funny)
Big Rewind Button in the Sky (Score:2)
Personally, I always like the idea of another structure operating at another order of magnitude beyond what was observable.
Some folks think that such a cyclic universe would be literally repeating, which is plain silliness in my mind. It is not the big rewind button in the sky, so far as I can see.
Sky and Telescope also has an explanation (Score:5, Informative)
Sky and Telescope [skyandtelescope.com] also covered this story, but didn't obscure it with piss-poor scientific writing like this other source did.
As an aside, the other source over simplifies things, and leaves you with the feeling that you learned nothing but marketing hype. It's target is obviously non-astronomers (or we would have read the original paper in an original journal.) Because of that, they should have explained "branes" (and other terms) with more than sound-bytes from involved physicists. Think diagrams, break-out boxes, etc.
Craziness (Score:2)
Anyways, what I had explained was that there will come a time when the universe goes back to the beginning. At that point, the entire civilization will start anew. However, there will be certain people that will "remember" their previous life in the previous cycle. These people will go on to spread the "truth" which will turn into modern day religion. People like Jesus, Mohammad, Tao te Ting, etc
Anyways...that's just my little theory...
Re:Craziness (Score:2)
graspee
Re:Craziness (Score:2)
The books do contain plenty of fact, and some that could support your idea.
I personally believe in God, but in a different way than many do. If you look into the bible (actually the torah-damn christians!) you learn that God was known before Abraham, but not followed until he choose to speak up. I think that God is all knowing and everywhere. No matter what happens to us God will still exist, and if the Universe collapses then God will still be there playing around. Maybe if we break out of our cycles and become enlightened then we can stop the cyclic idea. Maybe God will stop it? (hey, it's just a thought)
You must remember that the people you mentioned like Jesus (yuck), Mohammad, Buddha, and Abraham were prophets. They likely got their information from that source we know as God.
Occam's a fag so don't bother responding with that crap slashdotters. (if the simple answer is what you want why bother with advanced quantum theory etc?)
Re:Craziness (Score:2)
We were smoking pot (he is in med school now, go figure) and he was thinking of the theory of the expanding and collapsing universe. He still believes that time is circular and because of this the universe will never "die" but rather become reborn.
There are many levels of reality to shamanistic people which could suggest that the universe has no end or begining. They say that everything, not just life, has a soul and is connected to each other through a spiritual net. No matter what, when the universe 'dies' nothing will be lost.
If you want to read into these types of things I suggest Hank Wesselman's books, the Spiritwalker trilogy. I kind of take them as fiction mixed with facts, so take what you will from them...
Here is his site I just found [sharedwisdom.com]
Re:Tao te Ting? (Score:2)
The Last Question (Score:3, Interesting)
The story begins in the year 2061, when a colossal computer has solved the earth's energy problems by designing a massive solar satellite in space that can beam the sun's energy back to earth. The AC (analog computer) is so large and advanced that its technicians have only the vaguest idea of how it operates. On a $5 bet, two drunken technicians ask the computer whether the sun's eventual death can be avoided or, for that matter, whether the universe must inevitably die. After quietly mulling over this question, the AC (analog computer) responds: "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Centuries into the future, the AC has solved the problem of hyperspace travel, and humans begin colonizing thousands of star systems. The AC is so large that it occupies several hundred square miles on each planet and so complex that it maintains and services itself. A young family is rocketing through hyperspace, unerringly guided by the AC, in search of a new star system to colonize. When the father casually mentions that the stars must eventually die, the children become hysterical. "Don't let the stars die," plead the children. To calm the children, he asks the AC if entropy can be reversed. "See," reassures the father, reading the AC's response, the AC can solve everything. He comforts them by saying, "It will take care of everything when the time comes, so don't worry." He never tells the children that the AC actually prints out: "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Thousands of years into the future, the Galaxy itself has been colonized. The AC has solved the problem of immortality and harnesses the energy of the Galaxy, but must find new galaxies for colonization. The AC is so complex that it is long past the point where anyone understands how it works. It continually redesings and improves its own circuits. Two members of the Galactic Council, each hundreds of years old, debate the urgent question of finding new galactic energy sources, and wonder if the universe itself is running down. Can entropy be reversed? they ask. The AC responds: "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Millions of years into the future, humanity has spread across the uncountable galaxies of the universe. The AC has solved the problem of releasing the mind from the body, and human minds are free to explore the vastness of millions of galaxies, with their bodies safely stored on some long forgotten planet. Two minds accidentally meet each other in outer space, and casually wonder where among the uncountable galaxies humans originated. The AC, which is now so large that most of it has to be housed in hyperspace, responds by instantly transporting them to an obscure galaxy. They are disappointed. The galaxy is so ordinary, like millions of other galaxies, and the original star has long since died. The two minds become anxious because billions of stars in the heavens are slowly meeting the same fate. The two minds ask, can the death of the universe itself be avoided? From hyperspace, the AC responds: "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Billions of years into the future, humanity consists of a trillion, trillion, trillion immortal bodies, each cared for by automatons. Humanity's collective mind, which is free to roam anywhere in the universe at will, eventually fuses into a single mind, which in turn fuses with the AC itself. It no longer makes sense to ask what the AC is made of or where in hyperspace it really is. "The universe is dying," thinks Man, collecitvely. One by one, as the stars and galaxies cease to generate energy, temperatures throughout the universe approach absolute zero. Man desperately asks if the cold and darkness slowly engulfing the galaxies mean its eventual death. From hyperspace, the AC answers: "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
When Man asks the AC to collect the necessary data, it responds: "I will do so. I have been doing so for a hundred billion years. My predecessors have been asked this question many times. All the data I have remains insufficient."
A timeless interval passes, and the universe has finally reached its ultimate death. From hyperspace, the AC spends an eternity collecting data and contemplating the final question. At last, the AC disovers the solution, even though there is no longer anyone to give the answer. The AC carefully formulates a program, and then begins the process of reversing Chaos. It collects cold, interstellar gas, brings together the dead stars, until a gigantic ball is created.
Then, when its labors are done, from hyperspace the AC thunders: "Let their be light!" and there was light.
Re:The Last Question (Score:2)
So it's kind of like a Microsoft operating system, is it?
Makes sense that when the Universe blue-screens at the End of Time, you can just reboot it and the Universe will come back online (though you'll have lost all the work and have to start over)
Re:The Last Question (Score:2)
Otherwise, a neat story!
How Universe Theory is Like Code (Score:2)
It reminds me of how some programmers wish to totally rewrite a program with a different design, stating that the new design will take into account all of the issues which were fixed with patches in the other program.
Well, if this new theory (program) DIDN'T take those phenomena (bugs) into consideration, the theory (program) wouldn't even be considered....
Hindsight is 20/20.
Steven Weinberg (Score:5, Informative)
"Some cosmologists are philosophically attracted to the oscillating model, especially because, like the steady-state model, it nicely avoids the problem of Genesis. It does, however, face one severe theoretical difficulty. In each cycle the ratio of photons to nuclear particles (entropy per nuclear particle) is slightly increased by a kind of friction (known as "bulk viscosity") as the universe expands and contracts. As far as we know, the universe would then start each new cycle with a new, slightly larger ratio of photons to nuclear particles. Right now this ratio is large, but not infinite, so it is hard to see how the universe could have previously experienced an infinite number of cycles."
Pysicist Sidney A. Bludman says:
"Our Universe cannot bounce in the future. Closed Friedman universes were once called oscillatory universes. We now appreciate that, because of the huge entropy genereated in our Universe, far from oscillating, a closed universe can only go through one cycle of expansion and contraction. Whether closed or open, reversing or monotonically expanding, the severely irreversible phase transitions give the Universe a definite beginning, middle and end."
If any of you have counter-quotations from equally famous physicists, I would love to read them. This is all I have found on the matter so far.
Is this new? And other thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this really new? I don't know where I first heard it, but I know that a "big crunch" has certainly been theorized. I've always thought that it seems likely that a big crunch might cause a big bang to follow. I don't know, maybe I was assuming something.
Be that as it may, one perhaps unusual bit of evidence I've always thought in favor of a cyclic universe is the existence of intelligence life on Earth. First of all, I'm pretty much of the belief that intelligent life is hugely, extremely, unbelievably unlikely. I have a feeling that if we inventoried the universe, we would find a small proportion of single cell life, some but almost nonexistent multicellular life, and higher life forms totally absent except for us.
If you look at the complexity of human beings, it's just crazy how many things have to go right to get intelligence. I mean, it took 2-3 BILLION years just to get us, and no other animal form is even close to us.
When you combine that with the fact that it only takes 2-3 million years to fill a galaxy once you have intelligent life even at sub-light speeds, that means it's probably never happened before in this galaxy.
So given that intelligence almost never happens, and it took about 1/7th - 1/4th the age of universe for it to happen here, I think that gives evidence that we needed a hell of a lot of universe cycles to get it to happen.
Cyclic Universe models are NOT new (Score:2)
No not at all new.
There have been theories about cyclic expansions and contractions lasting say a 100 billion years. But these theories were killed by the realisation that there was not enough mass in the universe to reverse the contraction.
Also there is a class of theories, which I guess this theory belongs to where the universe reproduces itself. Scientific American had an article on this about 10 years ago. About how after a very long period of time the universe could spontaneously generate a new big bang withough contraction.
In fact, an update on the original article can be found here [sciam.com].
As you can see this looks a lot like the current theory at first sight, but they are quite different since the latest one involves 'branes'.
Completely different (Score:4, Informative)
In the old models, the universe collapsed from many billions of light years across (or even larger - we really have no idea of how big the universe is) back to the singularity of the big bang.
In this model, the universes (plural) only have to move a few millimeters. The big bang occurs when the branes separate (we're in one brane, the other universe is in another), and the big crunch occurs when they collapse again. The point of intersection can even travel faster than the speed of light without violating relativity - it's okin to the scan of a lighthouse beam against a wall a very long distance away.
Re:Is this new? And other thoughts (Score:2)
A few years ago I tried tackling The Elegant Universe (string theory and such). I remember reading that one of the fundamental parts of string theory is the idea that distance (space-time) is quantized (much like energy) and there is a lower limit to how close two things can be, and when you try to bring them closer you actually bring them further apart (what did you expect? It's partly quantum mechanics!). One of the examples given was that how a potential Big Crunch would shrink the universe to a smaller and smaller size until it reaches this finite limit and the very forces that are contracting the universe end up expanding it again.
If this turns out to be the case, concepts like "Big Bang" and "Big Crunch" could end up being meaningless, or at least synonyms.
Re:Is this new? And other thoughts (Score:2)
Re:Is this new? And other thoughts (Score:2)
What if there was a lot of time where things were happening, but not towards our development as human beings?
I think there was a lot of time developing the "infrastructure" needed to support self-aware intelligence. Clearly you can't jump from a single cell to human brain overnight. I'm not going to venture a guess what the "minimum" time-line would be, but there have clearly been a LOT of failures before we came along.
Well, our galaxy is about 150,000 light years across. [nasa.gov] It also has about 400 billion [gmu.edu] stars. Even if we had the capability to transport lots of people at the speed of light, we could only send 1 person to every ~40 stars!
The theory is that once a civilization achieves space travel, after a couple of centuries (or 1000 years, pick your number) they would tend to seed the nearest star systems using multigeneration sub-light ships. Of course, once those are seeded, the cycle begins again and more systems get seeded in a geometric progression. It only takes a few million years give or take to fill a galaxy. That sounds like a lot, but it's a wink of an eye compared to the age of the galaxy. Given that we weren't seeded by now and had the time to develop, it argues that this galaxy at least has never had intelligent life before us. It's possible that we are developing "simultaneously" (i.e., in the same million-year window) with other species, but again the odds are very unlikely given the billions of years we're talking about.
Of course, it's highly unlikely that a civilization would seed other galaxies, since the typical distance between galaxies is too immense even for multigeneration ships. So this argument only suggests that our own galaxy is empty other than us. But it still suggests that intelligent, self-aware life is extremely unlikely.
NP-hard problem of all times. (Score:2, Interesting)
Properties of local regions differ tremendously (from the real picture) in the Universe, as all the classical physicists found out, much to their dismay, in the early 20th century. I am pretty sure, more advanced civilizations around the universe have written it off as the NP-hard problem of all times.
Existence exists; deal with it. :-)
The different schools of cycling^W science (Score:2, Funny)
Lexx was right! (Score:2)
And another one bites the dust! (Score:2)
Rather than actually make sense, these theories get weirder, stranger, more incomprehensible, and more imaginative with each cycle.
Pretty soon, they'll be talking about the "archangel" as though he/she/it were proven!
Perhaps, rather than looking at the "cyclical theory of the universe" we should be looking at the "cyclical view of universe theory"?
Oh what a relief it is to know..... (Score:2)
Quote: (Score:2)
Re:Me theory... (Score:2)
Re:How is this a new theory? And does it make sens (Score:2, Informative)
Re:We gotta do this again? (Score:2)
graspee
Re:Speculation, and nothing else. (Score:2)
All theories in cosmology starts with speculation. However, this is nothing like they cooked up over night. They've been working on this for a very long time.
Then, there is this challenge of getting good tests. This is very, very hard in cosmology, but I can tell you, it is not an issue these guys simply ignore. But you don't put everything in one article.
Re:grasping at straws (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:IANAP (Score:2)
Infinite! (Score:3, Interesting)
What if the sheets "roll" across space together? If this could happen before heat death in our area, we'd all just be wiped out like a rat on a beach caught in a title wave.
(It would also mean this exact post has been posted on a much superior Slashdot, far far away.)
Re:Infinite! (Score:2)
....that conclusion of yours has nothing to do with what was being discussed...
And it does actually mean that it is a sphere that is expanding from a single point.... it just returns to that point when it collapses in again.
Space (by its basic definition) does go on forever. That has been accepted for a long time. You are thinking that matter expands forever. This theory says nothing of the sort, but instead the opposite...
...did you even read the article?!
Yes, I read the article before it was mentioned on Slashdot.
We're not talking about the universe being a sphere in this new theory. An analogy: Two infinitely long, FLAT sheets of paper run parallel to each other. They draw near each other and collide like cymbals every time the universes become "empty" (heat death). Then they seperate again. Each sheet is its own universe. That's where the proposed "dark matter" that pulls on our universe resides.
The big bang proposes the 4-D balloon what you speak of. In this new "Big Clang" theory, there is no contraction, just "stagnation" and expansion. I guess you could picture the new theory as a balloon within a balloon, but it's harder to conceptualize infinitely large nested spheres and those balloon layers don't ever shrink to a small point.
And what's this nonsense about matter expanding? If you got that silly idea it wasn't from me. If space goes on forever like this new theory proposes, the Big Clang makes pure energy (that becomes matter) at every point in that infinite universe. That means that somewhere out there there happens to be a section of space that developed just like ours did and is almost identical to ours. It's like looking for "214159265358979323846" in PI. It's in there, somewhere. Any finite number sequence can be located in PI.
Here's a little advice: Before asking someone if they actually read the article, make sure you understand it yourself.
Unfortunately, all of these theories run slap bang (Score:3, Insightful)
Also what's this about `an energy field that pervades the Universe then creates new matter and radiation'? What energy field? How does it get recharged? God of the gaps again? Continuous creation? Didn't we just have an article on scientific something-for-nothing scams?
Re:Everything cycles, time and space, in a big sph (Score:2)
That's assuming that everything happens the exact same way each cycle. If you're wrong, you could find yourself in the cold blackness of open space. Or worse, in the heart of a star.
Happy travels.
Re:Origin theory and saved state between cycles (Score:2)