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."

Comments

A little wishful thinking, perhaps?

[sam_handelman]

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.

Re:Uh oh...

[slackerweb]

The big bang or any other theory of the universe does not contradict the existance of God, it only contradicts their narrow-minded view of God.

Is this new? And other thoughts

[Reality Master 101]

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.