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Cyclic Universe a Possibility
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."
I just want to know what happened 'before' any of these theories ?
A collapsing universe has long been a hypothesized. It would be interesting if this were true, because it implies that each universal state is discrete and has a finite lifetime. I wonder how much time our universe has left?
-Sean
...just like this universe idea.
Honestly, I used to find this debate interesting, but now it's just gotten so dull and boring...
Like we're ever actually going to FIND OUT if the universe will collapse on itself.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Adding Trillions Of Years To The Life Of The Universe
File Image: A universe wide radiation map of the big bang
Princeton - May 01, 2002
A new theory of the universe suggests that space and time may not have begun in a big bang, but may have always existed in an endless cycle of expansion and rebirth.
Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok of Cambridge University described their proposed theory in an article published April 25 in an online edition of Science.
The theory proposes that, in each cycle, the universe refills with hot, dense matter and radiation, which begins a period of expansion and cooling like the one of the standard big bang picture.
After 14 billion years, the expansion of the universe accelerates, as astronomers have recently observed. After trillions of years, the matter and radiation are almost completely dissipated and the expansion stalls. An energy field that pervades the universe then creates new matter and radiation, which restarts the cycle.
The new theory provides possible answers to several longstanding problems with the big bang model, which has dominated the field of cosmology for decades. It addresses, for example, the nagging question of what might have triggered or come "before" the beginning of time.
The idea also reproduces all the successful explanations provided by standard picture, but there is no direct evidence to say which is correct, said Steinhardt, a professor of physics.
"I do not eliminate either of them at this stage," he said. "To me, what's interesting is that we now have a second possibility that is poles apart from the standard picture in many respects, and we may have the capability to distinguish them experimentally during the coming years."
The big bang model of the universe, originally suggested over 60 years ago, has been developed to explain a wide range of observations about the cosmos. A major element of the current model, added in the 1980s, is the theory of "inflation," a period of hyperfast expansion that occurred within the first second after the big bang.
This inflationary period is critical for explaining the tremendous "smoothness" and homogeneity of the universe observed by astronomers, as well as for explaining tiny ripples in space that led to the formation galaxies.
Scientists also have been forced to augment the standard theory with a component called "dark energy" to account for the recent discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
The new model replaces inflation and dark energy with a single energy field that oscillates in such a way as to sometimes cause expansion and sometimes cause stagnation. At the same time, it continues to explain all the currently observed phenomena of the cosmos in the same detail as the big bang theory.
Because the new theory requires fewer components, and builds them in from the start, it is more "economical," said Steinhardt, who was one of the leaders in establishing the theory of inflation.
Another advantage of the new theory is that it automatically includes a prediction of the future course of the universe, because it goes through definite repeating cycles lasting perhaps trillions of years each.
The big bang/inflation model has no built-in prediction about the long-term future; in the same way that inflation and dark energy arose unpredictably, another effect could emerge that would alter the current course of expansion.
The cyclic model entails many new concepts that Turok and Steinhardt developed over the last few years with Justin Khoury, a graduate student at Princeton, Burt Ovrut of the University of Pennsylvania and Nathan Seiberg of the Institute for Advanced Study.
"This work by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok is extraordinarily exciting and represents the first new big idea in cosmology in over two decades," said Jeremiah Ostriker, professor of astrophysics at Princeton and the Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge.
"They have found a simple explanation for the observed fact the universe on large scales looks the same to us left and right, up and down -- a seemingly obvious and natural condition -- that in fact has defied explanation for decades."
Sir Martin Rees, Royal Society Research Fellow at Cambridge, noted that the physics concerning key properties of the expanding universe remain "conjectural, and still not rooted in experiment or observation."
"There have been many ideas over the last 20 years," said Rees.
"Steinhardt and Turok have injected an imaginative new speculation.
Their work emphasizes the extent to which we may need to jettison common sense concepts, and transcend normal ideas of space and time, in order to make real progress.
"This work adds to the growing body of speculative research which intimates that physical reality could encompass far more than just the aftermath of 'our' big bang."
The cyclic universe theory represents a combination of standard physical concepts and ideas from the emerging fields of string theory and M-theory, which are ambitious efforts to develop a unified theory of all physical forces and particles. Although these theories are rooted in complex mathematics, they offer a compelling graphic picture of the cyclic universe theory.
Under these theories, the universe would exist as two infinitely large parallel sheets, like two sheets of paper separated by a microscopic distance. This distance is a extra, or fifth dimension, that is not apparent us.
At our current phase in the history of the universe, the sheets are expanding in all directions, gradually spreading out and dispersing all the matter and energy they contain. After trillions of years, when they become essentially empty, they enter a "stagnant" period in which they stop stretching and, instead, begin to move toward each other as the fifth dimension undergoes a collapse.
The sheets meet and "bounce" off each other. The impact causes the sheets to be charged with the extraordinarily hot and dense matter that is commonly associated with the big bang. After the sheets move apart, they resume their expansion, spreading out the matter, which cools and coalesces into stars and galaxies as in our present universe.
The sheets, or branes, as physicists call them, are not parallel universes, but rather are facets of the same universe, with one containing all the ordinary matter we know and the other containing "we know not what," said Steinhardt.
It is conceivable, he said, that a material called dark matter, which is widely believed to make up a significant part of the universe, resides on this other brane. The two sheets interact only by gravity, with massive objects in one sheet exerting a tug on matter in the other, which is what dark matter does to ordinary matter.
The movements and properties of these sheets all arise naturally from the underlying mathematics of the model, noted Steinhardt. That is in contrast to the big bang model, in which dark energy has been added simply to explain current observations.
Steinhardt and Turok continue to refine the theory and are looking for theoretical or experimental ideas that might favor one idea over the other.
"These paradigms are as far apart as you can imagine in terms of the nature of time," said Steinhardt. "On the other hand, in terms of what they predict about the universe, they are as close as you can be up to what you can measure so far.
"Yet, we also know that, with more precise observations that may be possible in the next decade or so, you can distinguish them. That is the fascinating situation we find ourselves in. It's fun to debate which ones you like better, but I really think nature will be the final arbiter here."
You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.
On April 25, All Things Considered on NPR did a five-minute story on this new Science article. Highly recommended, gives some good background not only on how this theory fits better with some of the current data that we are collecting, but also talks about how difficult it is for a new theory to gain acceptance in the scientific community when it flies in the face of a long-established theory.
modern choral music...
This one might piss off the religious right. The Big Bang could sort of be reconciled with the idea that God created the world in 7 days, since maybe the Big Bang happened on the first day. But the idea that the universe has always existed (and therefore predates creation) is a big problem, since it excludes God from the picture.
I'll be interested to hear the religious responses to this theory.
If you are under the impression that death exists, and you fear it, you do anything to avoid it. (This is the same way pain operates. Naturally we strive to avoid negative emotion/pain.)
I spent the last 5 hours tied up while I was being whipped and told how inadequate I was.
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.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
You have nothing to loose but your ignorant American oppressors!
Afcourse there are universe cycles, is there anything that does not have cycles?
-C
What bugs me about the M-theorie, is that they had to introduce the 11th dimension in order to make the math work. They made the theory fit the math. It sounds like crappy science to me, when you start adapting your theory of the universe to your math, instead of the other way around. It's like saying: it has to be this way, 'cause that's the only explanation we have'
So ill post it here! ;)
Triple Kernel Release
Linux kernels 2.5.13, 2.4.19 and 2.0.40 Released!
Its a triple relase today. Download it here Don't forget the mirrors, and the patches
--------
I sig, therefore I was.
Some more info on,
http://feynman.princeton.edu/~steinh/
Wonder if we could overclock it =-)
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right
Spacedaily is accepting JonKatz submissions!
"A new theory of the universe suggests that space and time may not have begun in a big bang, but may have always existed"
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.
The latest versions of the big bang theory, with the addition of dark energy or whatever, of an extra repulsive force, predict, basically, the entropic death of everything - the universe as we know it today, with hot stars and habitable planets and the like, exists for some finite period and then disperses forever.
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.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
After a big bang, lots of people need to wait a while before they can go again.
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.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I've heard talk about this theory for years now, what's so new about it? And how does it explain temperature? When things expand and collapse (including universes) they produce heat, right? If this has been happening forever, then how come there isn't infinite heat?!? Am I oversimplifying this?
Kinda like a politician in an electoral cycle ;).
<couldn't resist/>
Sky and Telescope 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.
It all goes downhill from first post
You have the right idea, just that your a bit confused. The idea is that heat will be lost when the unvierse expands and heat will be generated when the universe colapses. (The whole idea of friction and the galaxies rubbing up against each other creating a singularity hotter then the average sun... but that according to this new theory isn't the case ;) Anyways... that's about as basic as it gets.
eh, food for thought...
This is how the universe has been structured in Asteroids. You leave the screen on one side and return on the opposite.
They're just now figuring this out?
If the universe oscillates with a period of however many billion years, does this mean we get to relive life again exactly as we are now?
Well, if I'm ever posting this comment again, we'll all know that even subatomic particles follow through with predictable motion, and chaos is just an explanation of what we can't explain.
This was on the BBC website a short while ago, here are the links:-
Universe in 'endless cycle'
Q&A: The 'cyclic' Universe
Q&A2: The 'cyclic' Universe
Just wondering why the article "An Improvement Upon Heisenberg's Uncertainty Theorem" http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/
dissapeared from slashdot's front page. It was between "Megaspammer Monsterhut Loses On Appeal" and "Science: Viruses Enlisted as Nano-builders".
What is up here? Do this happens frequently?
Right. So these guys cooked up a really good story over a spliff one night, and decided to share it as hard science. The basic problem is that science is based on Observation. Hence:
The new model replaces inflation and dark energy with a single energy field that oscillates in such a way as to sometimes cause expansion and sometimes cause stagnation. At the same time, it continues to explain all the currently observed phenomena of the cosmos in the same detail as the big bang theory.
Is basically pointless - rather than come up with some solid model and then refine it, they looked at existing models and made a new one which replicates the results they give - which can't be tested.
Wake me when they discover how those tiny toys get inside atoms.
-Dave
-- fighting the war, on drugs!
A trans-dimensional, parallel universe, alternate timeline BEOWULF CLUSTER of universes!
Why do these people blindly believe such idiotic theories like that? Don't they know that God created the universe? And they call themselves scientists.
Yes, this post is sarcastic. Jackass. Denounce your religion and become free.
It's really weird that I was telling out of nowhere, I was thinking of this theory while having a beer with my girlfriend. I told her this and she thought I was crazy!
.. the prophets are just people that remember the mistakes of the prior universe, the problems with mankind and how it results into the cycle of the universe. Budhist teaching talks a lot about cycles in that you want to break out of the cycle and achieve enlightenment. Other people like Nostradamus also "remember" the events of the prior universe and go off to "predict" it and write about it. At the bookstore the other day, I was skimming through a book called Bible Codes; it's about how modern events are predicted in the Hebrew bible.
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...
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
I remember reading about this, except that this was in a book on Hindu philosophy. Also, Carl Sagan mentioned it in Cosmos.
I've already thought of something like that a while ago. Think of space as a 3D object, easy, right? Now think of this 3D object as a plain. Now think of it as a ball. While the surface of the ball is the universe, the fact it's "3D" is time. Now think of this ball as a plain in time. Now you imagine a ball that has time/space on it's surface, and it's cycling.
Back to the first "ball", think what will happen if you could go THROUGH this ball. Think about a time/space flux, a worm-hole.
Now think of the 2nd ball. Since it's all repeating itself, think about going FORWARD in time for a whole cycle minus a year. You have just "travelled back in time"..
^^^ Me = crazy dude.
^_^
Cyclic universes might explain the origin of the primordial soup. If there indeed were infinite cycles of the universe, then there must have been infinite number of possible universe configurations occuring (have occured). One of those cycles (perhaps our current one) may have triggered the successful formation of the proteins found in the primordial soup, leading to the origin of life.
Suppose, in that cycle, that life was able to form, and evolved enough to comprehend the nature of the universe. That intelligent life might have decided to propagate the instructions to create life to the next cycle -- perhaps as simply as primordial proteins, or perhaps affecting the next cycle's energy configuration to produce those proteins.
It may seem a bit far fetched, but the big idea here is that with infinite cycles, and thus, infinite configurations of the universe, it makes the creation of the primordial soup much more plausible and likely.
This seems like the kind of article that will produce a happy sum of heated religious/scientific argument - even though it need not, so I feel like putting my two cents in.
;)
My problems with this very old "new" theory:
1.) Not enough mass. The universe needs approximately 10x more mass in order to slow its expansion down to a stop. Does this theory account for that?
2.) How does it start up again? Even should it collapse, and we all turn into a black holish sort of thing, what starts the process up again? Relativity states outright that it would be impossible.
3.) Its a law in physics that whatever is contracted and expanded repetatively will gain heat. e.g. a metal bar bend backwards and forwards. So if the universe has been expanding a collapsing forever . . . where's all the infinite heat? It certainly isn't here in New England.
Furthermore, for all those who believe they can crush religion with science, you must first establish that the universe has/can do this more than once. Then you must establish that it has/can do this infinitely. And even then, that means nothing about God - but it certainly would be interesting. Aristotle in fact held that the universe did something along these lines, and called it an "emission" from his deity (the first mover).
So really exploring these ideas doesn't touch religion, though perhaps some of the people doing research on this think it does, and mostly likely many people who read this will think the same. I'm just upset with it since it seems to be ignoring science. If anyone can enlighten me how this theory accounts for my problems, please respond, or just mod me down.
But how does this theory counter the current thought among almost all physicists that there is 10 times too little mass to cause the universe to implode?
Furthermore, how does it respond to the other theory that even if it were to collapse, the result would be an enormous black hole out of which nothing could ever come?
It's all going according to
plain thinking made little silly me think of this theory years ago, and others as well, way before me.
..
geeez, if this is how far western studies are in the works of life, perhaps I should start writing down my thoughts.
only thing to say about it, is that I stopped bothering when I learned some folks in asia calling themselves taoists talking about energi (ch'i) and all came before me. (no I haven't stopped, really, really I have/haven't)
taoism proved others had walked this path before me.
bottom line, you can't have everything without nothing.
all we know and don't know is a donut.
outside everything there is nothing.
dots dots dots dots dots dots dots
..0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0..
..1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1..
..0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0..
dots dots dots dots dots dots dots
dots = infinity as long as there are dots.
when the dots are everywhere, there will be lesser dots until there are no dots left and then dots will appear again. out of nothing. nothing can't exist without everything.
.. and in reverse
welcome to my world: "Inside the Outside"
beware of copycats when I will write a book to confuse the clever people, the title will be "Inside the Outside".
..but I warn you, thinking about it can make you nuts and people may think of you as a very distant and far out person, simply because of the fact that they don't know anything really. at least thats one of the reasons, the other may be a simple subconcious defensive mechanism helping them to keep their sanity.
If I know I am insane, am I then concidered sane?
please release me.. make me a blond with no brains, blue eyes, huge tits and no thoughts/worries..
;0) big smile, wink wink, blink blink..
hubbah hubbah..
want an answer? everything is about love.
love is all that matters.
The universe isn't cyclic: there was just a math-error when they used polar coordinates instead of rectangular koordinates, thus they got a polar rectangle which is a circle.
qed
This theory has been around for aagggeesss. Hmmm, it is one of my personal favourites though.
"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov.
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.
What does it mean for the universe to be cyclic if the cycles are infinite-length?
Sheesh, learn some physics before posting please.
You're not 'oversimplifying' you're just plain wrong.
In general compression increases energy density and temperature, and expansion the opposite.
K-Pax told us about it.
``Repetition is a form of change''
Now, that's what I call an appropriate fortune entry . Or are these slogans hand-selected by a Swarm of Orange Mummies, after all?
I love how all these new theories are "O so much better" than the Big Bang theory. Oftentimes they cite how this new theory takes into account all of these interesting phenomena which the Big Bang theory does not, or does with this additional theory...
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.
Okay, a lot of people have been saying that an infinite cycle of exands and contracts would NOT generate infinite heat. Here's what Steven Weinberg has to say:
"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.
It's all going according to
No one will probably respond to these questions because I'm an Anonymous Coward and not a physicist, even as a hobby, but I'll ask anyway:
What is it about the Big Bang theory that is so compelling? Have there been competing theories before this? Why were they discredited?
I just can't believe the Big Bang theory is the best someone can come up with. I've never really understood it--what was before the bang? There had to be SOMETHING. And wasn't that something part of the universe? If not, then WHY did we get something from nothing? Or am I misunderstanding things, and it's just something from something else? In which case it would seem to me that the Big Bang theory doesn't explain the beginning of the universe, just its incarnation in present form.
The Big Bang theory always seemed to me something like this:
There was nothing.
Then "BANG!" there was something.
That's not very insightful if you ask me.
And no, I'm an atheist.
How come no-one has noticed that this is exactly
what Hinduism teaches?
Perhaps scientists should approach this long time question from another angle. Instead of looking into space why not look at the essence of the question and conciousness itself.
What are the definitions, or parameters which allows human thought to come to a conclusion about a matter/question?
To form a conclusion (ie: answer) one has to transcend the point of body from where this question is contained. You have to be able to evaluate from the inside and the outside of the question.
Until we can find a means to trandscend our own boundaries, this old age question will always be left unanswered.
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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I already posted this same story (different source) on April 25th.
One thing to consider in the religious sense when addressing this topic is the idea of time. Of course, human ideas of time have always been flawed, which causes leap years and such. But remember, since God was here before the Universe was created, the rules that apply to the Universe do not necessarily apply to God. For example, since God was here before time, time does not restrain God. So, when one is looking at the Universe from an orgin, one must not keep the perspective of time linear. Time does not necessarily have to go one way. It can spread out in different directions, or it can ebb like a tide. So, when addressing creation, the beginning might coincide with the end. Hard to understand, but something to consider before you go to sleep at night.
bah.
This really isn't a huge idea........ you just take two theories about the universe, and put them together.... and wow, they fit perfectly...
I made that statement in a frekin slashdot post last week, but I'm not famous for it....
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. :-)
Whoa... think about what this means. This would mean that space is not like a sphere expanding from a point of almost nothing into the fourth dimension, it means that space goes on forever! An infinite number of civilizations, and an infinite number of civilizations that are almost exactly like ours. And how many civilizations in the last cycle tried in vain to survive heat death and the next Big Clang?
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.)
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Comme on, let's get the facts straight: the galaxies are not "rubbing" against each other. First, if we have a lot of stars together it will be HOT. Like when you are in a crowded bus. And 2nd, the exclusion principle: a lot of matter means the subatomic particles will be very close together. But if some particles are VERY close they have to have VERY diferent speeds (the exclusion principle). And heat is speed seen from a macro level.
I probably should have pointed that out at some point in my schpeal. I'm a molecular biologist, too.
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.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
...the non-stop usage of "Occums razor" as a method of discounting every theory that comes up since is really starting to get on my nerves.
Perhaps if anything, this will start a drive for the truth instead of simply resorting to a lazy surrender of fact finding to settle on the Big Bang.
The sheets, or branes, as physicists call them, are not parallel universes, but rather are facets of the same universe, with one containing all the ordinary matter we know and the other containing "we know not what," said Steinhardt.
LOL!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
... he's suggesting a bit of hot between-the-sheets action results in something new and/or unexpected.
Science. Gotta love it.
this would come as no surprise.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
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 .
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'.
Bitter and proud of it.
Those who promote the cyclic-universe theory, shall hereby be called cyclists. The conventional way of seeing the universe is just a lot more pedestrian.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
On April 25, All Things Considered on NPR did a five-minute story on this new Science article. Highly recommended, gives some good background not only on how this theory fits better with some of the current data that we are collecting, but also talks about how difficult it is for a new theory to gain acceptance in the scientific community when it flies in the face of a long-established theory.
Conservatism is fundamentally a survival trait, notwithstanding relative labels such as "liberal". Change may lead to disaster or at least threatening change (approaching starvation or war in older times, these days sudden loss of one's assumed knowledge of the world and therefore emotional security, or of course financial security as one is suddenly presumed an old fogey in need of firing), while staying the same at least seems to suggest that one will stay "alive" more or less as one is at a particular moment. This attitude tends strongly to slop over into even so-called "scientific inquiry", since people are people regardless. Also, as expected, there's the usual snottiness (ego games such as monkey dominance games between the old and the young).
I've been for some time studying this within the context of memetic engineering. The internally detailed insight (from my own thinking, and of course from years of study of useful and sometimes brilliant thinking from other people) suggests possible avenues of thought upon how to describe or push new scientific lines of thought without running into "fear triggers". None are easy, though. There are deep patterns of behavior within society that tend strongly to reinforce each other. It's not quite as simple as figuring out which tools and in what order, to use to build and finish finely a copy of an ornate antique table.
None of this is particularly new, but it's a different way to think about it (which of course is itself potentially obstructed in mainstream study by the exact mental characteristics already described, ho-ho ...).
Ah, well. Back to the usual babble, then.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
(new word: cumulassumptive - the accumulation of assumptions) has always bugged me as far as theoretical science is concerned, but I guess there's no other way really.
You start off with some idea/theory, which probably has an error in it. This idea is then extended, incorporating not only its own errors but also those upon which it was based. So on, so forth.
I think.
While there's a superficial resemblence, there's a huge difference between the old oscillatory models and this one.
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.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I'm sure I've seen it in the last cycle...
So given that intelligence almost never happens [...]
The rest of your post made some sense, but this statement made me really itchy. Yes, within the context of your post, this is a "given." But I don't think science at large would agree.
The universe has been around for quite some time, and during that time, stars and their host systems have formed and died already. In fact, IIRC, the galaxy and even the group we call home are nowhere near as old as the post-BB universe itself.
I agree that it is extraordinary that we, intelligent life (sometimes), exist. We beat all kinds of odds to simply exist, and those numbers are really unfathomable. However: the observable universe has been around for quite a while, and is a very big place. I think, based on the scale in terms of time and space, the odds are being beaten in quite a few places.
- DDT
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
The article says that all of the 'normal' Universe lives on one of these 'planes', and the dark matter lives on the other. This seems to be a handy explanation for "astral plane", "demon world", "dimension X", etc. etc. and many other paranormal observances -- perhaps some people can open gateways (physically or mentally) to the other plane. I guess this also raises the possibility of time/space travel via this plane.
Now I am not an astronomer, or a physicist, but I'll add my knowledge to this thread.
;-)
Einstein's theories assume that space-time is one 4D continuum. In 1919, Kaluza sent a paper to Einstein taking it one step further, as long as he was allowed 5 dimensions, explaining light as vibrations in the 5th dimension. Einstein didn't like it because... where is the 5th dimension?
Later, Klein proposed that we could not see this dimension because it was curled up into a space smaller than an atom (remember that even 4D space time is curved... think rubber sheets). If you curl it round on itself it will look like a line - ie. non-existant.
To explain forces, it turned out that people needed to bring in more dimensions than Kaluza did. But to make a theory that describes all the forces, they ended up with 10 dimensions (all curled up). This was (or is) superstring theory, named because everything is made up of little strings vibrating in multiple dimensions.
Edward Witten then came up with M-theory which explains many problems with superstring theory... if he can have one more dimension! M-theory, or membrane theory, says now the tiny strings are replaced by sheets known as membranes. Additionally there is something mathematically special about 10 and 11 dimensions, suggesting maybe we don't just keep adding more every time we hit a problem
I think M-theory says that the 11-dimension sheets hit each other at the time of the big bang and many dimensions got squashed.
A lot of the information above was gratuitously lifted from "Black holes, wormholes and time machines" by Jim Al-Khalili which I recommend if you want some light reading about this sort of physics (ignore the oxymoron). I heard about membrane theory as described in the article many months ago... but I wish I knew where!
A challenge to the big bangers was mounted over a decade ago by plasma physicists, who don't use gravity and matter as the fundamental starting points in their ideas on a QSSC. They also don't ignore E-fields (electromagnetic filds) like big-bangers but make them central to their notions. Apparently, this avoids many of the unobservable entities postulated by big-bangers to explain (away) the data everybody is observing in cosmology. In plasma cosmology, these observations have easy explantions because E-fields are taken into account!
Is this Gonzo science? I don't know but for more on this challenge from plasma physics, check out this link, www.anomalist.com/gonzoscience/plasma.html
Now think of the 2nd ball. Since it's all repeating itself, think about going FORWARD in time for a whole cycle minus a year. You have just "travelled back in time"..
:)
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.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
ah, i don't believe in the big bang theory or any other theory of universal development, if you will. i'm a devout Christian, and i would hope you all know what i believe. i'm not looking to pick a religious battle with anyone. i'm not gonna start quoting scripture and fire verse after verse at y'all (pardon the southern slang) from genesis all the way to the maps. i like to keep an open mind about things, but i won't change the way i believe. after all, the big bang theory is just a theory. but i sometimes just laugh at what somethings science spits out. please don't attack me verbally! i am weak!
If we give our two cents, but it's a penny for our thoughts, do we get change back?
...into the Anthropic Principle.
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?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Was that in the article? I think that's a mangled version of the scalar field that is actually discussed in the paper. You should read the paper, where they discuss its properties in detail.
People confuse time and matter. Time does not exist in matter, matter exists in time. Time is the control, and matter is just along for the ride.
Personally I don't think time and matter have any interaction. I think time is just a way of measuring intervals of action... and it's not another dimension...
I suppose that some people won't buy the below; I'll just assert it:
Time is merely the 'by-product' of energy/matter in motion. 'Time' is what energy/matter does, 'moment-by-moment', in the space-fabric which is created by energy/matter's merely existing, dimensionally. If energy/matter wasn't structured, it couldn't have 'moved'. There could be no 'clock-tick' to show how one part of a structure created/moved-into another, etc. What would halted energy/matter be, but the absence of time itself? How could energy/matter even exist dimensionally -- i.e. how could space itself exist - if it did not move? To be structured is to have moved previously; and motion is the constant state of energy/matter -- and the measure of that constant motion is time.
So what I'm saying is: without energy/matter, what the hell could 'time' be? There is no time without energy/matter. Time is energy/matter in motion.
And nothing mystical about it.
EON condensed matter distributed-computing project.
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...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
If the show Lexx, with it's concept of time existing in cycles that happen over and over again, is proven to be the most scientifically realistic sci-fi show ever, imagine what other stuff from the show could be true...(shiver!)
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Are you referring to the book "Tao te ching" which is attributed to Lao-tsu?
or is this some other person about whom I should learn?
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"?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
There is a point one reaches when discussing temporality, casualty, and Yhe Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything that a scientific question becomes a philosophical one. A point where convincing oneself of something "better" than what one convinced himself of yesterday becomes the goal. When the use of "better" in the previous statement is defined by the previous statement. The recursive practice of defining the universe. Knowing the history of our universe is one thing. Knowing the future is another. The field these scientists dabble in is trying to logically decide on one theory. Occam's Razor, the concept that of any two theories with equal proof, the simpler one is usually correct, is supposedly used. The fault is that all of the "proof" is built upon ramifications that the scientists could never fully comprehend, much less observe, about the theory previous to this new developement. The new developement which would completely disprove what we thought we knew about the universe is and must always be based on what we thought we knew. The entire field eventually becomes an exercise in some overarching form of self-justification. When faced with the art of making the next big theory about the universe, one thinks how much simpler being a creationist must be. All in all, I prefer "42" to this crap anyday.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
How anyone thinks we know the origins of the Universe at all. Our perception could be a small part of what is real. What makes anyone think their brain is the exception to the rule? HAHA..we aren't smart enough to figure out any of this really.. only what we think we've figured out. Surely I would beleive the cyclone theory over the big bang.. the big bang is total horse crap. Infinity makes much more sense over our feeble time minded society than a something out of nothing explosion that will eventually turn into nothing again.. THAT MAKES A WHOLE LOTTA SENSE NOW DOESN'T IT?
That the world is not going to end in my lifetime.....
Jainism, one of the oldest religion of the world,
believes that the Universe has a cyclical nature -
without a beginning and without an end.
Check out JainNet: http://www.jainnet.com/intro.html
Science is just beginning to understand it.
Veer Bothra
I think its pretty clear by Genesis 1:1 that God created everything at some particular point in time.
"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).
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Well, perhaps a better approach to cosmology would be to realise that if your model has singularities its because you don't yet have a full model of reality, and it does not mean that singularities really exist anywhere. The singularities that this new model is supposed to remove almost certainly would not be present in a complete theory of quantum gravity: they are only an artefact of General Relativity which is an incomplete theory which fails at very small distances.
There are many difficulties with the new theory: It assumes that the branes are perfectly parallel, and that the conditions at the point of collision never vary enough to stop the branes bouncing. These are pretty big assumptions, which are almost certainly contradicted by quantum mechanics, and mean that this theory requires the Universe to be in a more complex state than the very simple initial conditions required by Big Bang + inflation.
Too bad the author, Neil Turok, didn't go into archaelogy. Then he could have been "Neil Turok, Dinosaur Hunter." (groan)
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
Discarding hard evidence because it's incompatible with one's hopes/expectations is downright wrong.
...
... science often offers us unpleasant answers to our questions, and we have to accept those answers in a realistic way even when we don't like them. But I think you are wrong to assume that is what is at play here, merely because the simpler theory also happens to be a little more appetizing to those of us who find a 30 billion year lifespan of the universe to be abysmally short. :-)
Very true, but the article makes it clear they did not do this. Indeed, quite the opposite, their theory fits the current data better than the standard big bank theory, and in a much more concise and elegant manner. Occams razer suggests their theory to be more likely than the big bang theory, but
1) Occams razer is merely a rule of thumb which is often correct, but not an absolute law which is always correct, so without hard data to differentiate the two theories it only offers a sense of likelihood, nothing more.
2) The truth will be in the experimentation, once an experiment can be derived to determine which, if either, theory is the correct one.
If both theories had been published at the same time, rather than this one appearing decades later after the other had gained widespread acceptance, it would likely be the one favored because of its simplicity. What we are dealing with here is inertia in the scientific establishment, a natural and long understood phenomenon of human nature not to want admit one has been wrong for the last several decades. Of course, critical thinking and the scientific method gets people beyond that and new ideas are accepted, after rigorously prooving themselves within the limits of the available data, as contrasted to say, some religious dogma that flies in the face of all evidence and is nevertheless clung to decades, centuries, even millennia after it has been demonstrably shown to be false.
You are right to denounce wishful thinking
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Actually, I read their paper, and I didn't see anything that it fits better than the standard inflationary model. Nor do I see anything "more concise and elegant"; they're really just using a different kind of scalar potential than inflation. It might be more natural within the context of M-theory, if you buy M-theory -- but even within that theory it's hardly the only scenario that exists.
I mean, really Alan Cox has nothing to do with the creation of the Universe... it like aint free and stuff!
Please explain why God, who is supposed to be all-knowing, all-wise, and all-good, would communicate the creation story in such a deliberately confusing way?
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.
It might be more natural within the context of M-theory, if you buy M-theory -- but even within that theory it's hardly the only scenario that exists.
... I based the comment WRT elegance off of reviews of the theory I read in the article linked to by /., and a few others, which of course is a logical fallacy in itself (appealing to 'authority' such as it is).
... if that report is wrong or exaggerated then so too are of course the conclusions based upon it. Nevertheless I think my point stands ... rejecting the theory simply because it paints a more palletable picture may be something we as skeptics instinctively want to do, but IMHO that is as much a mistake as accepting a theory for the same reason. It will either fall or stand on its own merits.
... from what I gather both entire branes are subjected to big-bang levels of energy throughout during each 'boot' sequence (when they touch), so for an immortal wannabe like myself both theories are equally unworkable. :-)
Fair enough. My knowledge of physics is limited to college courses through quantum physics, and reading such layperson gems as "The Elegant Universe." I cannot follow the deeper math of M-Theory or the various scenerios people draw off it
It is being reported that this theory fits the data better
To be honest I don't find either theory more palatable than the other, as long term sustainability of life through the cycles this theory proposes is probably as impossible as it would be through a cyclical big-bang/big-crunch universe (let alone the various other big bang, non-cyclical scenerios)
Which is why I'm still looking for the escape hatch to the universe altogether, thus far with no luck...
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
- Science and religion have preset rules. Religion refers to these as your creed/catechism/etc. Science calls them basic laws. For example, a religious person will say "God is all powerful." This implies that there is a being God who can do anything he pleases (depending on the religion). A physicist will say "The derivative of the expression describes the velocity of the object at time T." This implies things like velocity, trajectory, time, and the idea that such things may be quantified.
- Religion and science build on the rules (laws) that they have established. Sometimes these exist as thou-shalt-nots (e.g., blaspheme, levitate, etc). This extends to things like "God can cause floods, famines, etc." and "If object 1 is moving in such a manner and object 2 is moving in a different manner, then the collision of objects 1 and 2 will be like
..."
- Religions usually admit to a degree of faith being required to operate (mind, I'm not addressing things that claim to be religions but may not be). Science disclaims faith, demanding that things be proven. And this is where we have the rub.
Proof of something works often for math and physics. It sometimes works in CompSci. You can't, however, prove some things that science alleges. There is a big difference between a correlation of data and absolute certainty. For example, people are digging up hominid-type bones all over the place. They even suggest similarities between different finds such that they conjecture that there is an evolutionary chain. What they miss is that they have no proof of this. They take what they refer to as Darwin's theory of evolution as the Gospel truth, forgetting theories are very different from laws, as any good first level science class should teach.As an example: If I see a series of numbers, say, [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13,
That's a bit contrived, and certainly not the obvious answer if you recognize the series, but the point stands: If I see a piece of the whole picture, I can attempt to describe it. This is making a theory. I can attempt to apply that theory to the world and see how things fit. However, just because it fits some of the time does not mean it is correct. In this case, the theory that my series is based on adding a prime to the last number in the series to get the next number is clearly wrong. I've used a Fibonacci sequence.
Back to my point: Science, and to some extent, religion, try to describe the world we live in. Science concerns itself primarily with what can be quantified, while religion deals with the unseeable. Religions usually speak from the "God told us, therefore" perspective. This is fine for religion, so long as what God says does not translate to inhuman behavior (a la the Inquisition or modern Muslim extremists). Science is heard through the channels of "peer review." I'm not going to speak on the big bang theory one way or the other as to its validity, but I will say this: Just because a theory makes it through the peer review process does not make it true.
What is your Slash Rating?
If God were all powerful, he could communicate everything in a single word that would be immune to misinterpretation or change no matter how much time went by...or are you saying that God, the all-powerful, couldn't do this?
Nonsense remains nonsense, even when attributed to God. God can't square a circle. God can't "make a rock so heavy he can't lift it". . . no such entity can exist, so it's just logical nonsense to babble about how something is limited because it can't do the contradictory.
Creating such a single word immune to misinterpretation implies by necessity a removal of free will from the receiving agent, as interpretation is something done by choice. Again, by definition, one cannot remove free will from the equation by forcing choices and still have free will.
As for the other part of the argument, Christian theology says the communication exists; it's the universe, including the Bible. Insisting on being forced to respond to it is a generally self-defeating demand. You have the choice.
I'm glossing over a lot here, because this is Slashdot, and I have no idea what your background is, or where to start a real explanation of this, so I wouldn't waste your time trying to nitpick this post; even I could do that and I agree with me! But if I could have an extended discussion, this is fairly true to what my main points would be.
...although it still doesn't help the article's case. Magic scalar fields aren't a part of science, AFAICT.
WTF was (s)he modded to zero?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Is actually up to each of us to discover. There is probably an actual 'true' definition, but it has likely been drowned by the millions of man-made definitions that have surfaced since.
Why is it that so many people think I'm insane for not believing in God, yet don't mind that they believe in a God that they can't seem to tell me anything about?I don't think you are insane, but I do think that you have a very positive outlook on things, contrary to many 'religous' people I know.
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?I hear you on this one. Why indeed do so many 'religous' people throw the concepts of their belief system so freely out the window? Most likely to gain public acceptance. Personally, I feel that if you are going to believe in a God, then task number one is figuring out who exactly it is that you are believing in. Then you don't have to worry about those things. Furthermore, if you are really deeply rooted in your religion, then what scientists say shouldn't sway your views even a little bit.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
I'll answer that one.
Is God capable, yes. But the God I believe in doesn't arbitrarily override our freedom to choose and grow. Besides, whose to say that the right thing to do is to create a text that is impervious to misinterpretation?
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Does anyone have the link to the online Science post of 4/25 mentioned in the article?
the normal online archive at sciencemag.com lists 4/26 as the date of the weekly (print) publication.