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Study Hints At Time Before Big Bang
canadian_right informs us that scientists from Caltech have found hints of a time before the Big Bang while studying the cosmic microwave background. Not only does the study hint at something pre-existing our universe, the researchers also postulate that everything we see was created as a bubble pinched off from a previously existing universe. This conjecture turns out to shed light on the mystery of the arrow of time. Quoting the BBC's account: "Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular. Describing the team's work at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in St Louis, Missouri, co-author Professor Sean Carroll explained that 'a universe could form inside this room and we'd never know.'"
new universe.
Their they're doing there hair.
They need to get cracking on this. A universe from my closet? Fan*TAS*tic! My rent/sq. ft. is going down as I write...
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
Didn't string theory already predict something like this?
Really though, what (in the background radiation) would point to no time before the big bang? A Kotch curve? A Hilbert curve? Complete order and continuity? I fail to see how 'blips' in the cosmic background radiation proves anything about time before the big bang.
that once we fully understand the universe it will be replaced with something even more complicated.
Others argue that this has already happened...
thhgttg
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Alan Guth described this sort of thing, and many other possible origins of the universe, in his book written in 1998. I think I even remember him hypothesizing that a universe could possibly be its own parent. Definitely old news.
Seriously, I read about this idea years ago in Alan Guth's book, The Inflationary Universe. Chapter Fifteen.
When I first read this, it sounded so strange that I was unable to conceive it in any meaningful way. Then I got really high. Now it seems self-evident. It may not be genuinely insightful, but it sure is fun.
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How can we define time independently of space? Can anybody devise an experiment that can measure time in some fundamental way without needing a displacement and a velocity?
This almost sounds like pseudoscience. Time as we know it can only be defined in our universe because this is the only place we can measure it. There is no logical reason whatsoever to believe that there was a 'before' the Big Bang because you can't assign any physical meaning to 'before' (as in 5 s before or 10 years before).
...String hypothesis.
Sounds like you are insane in the membrane.
Call me when they have observations, not hints and when it is reported by something else than BBC that wouldn't recognize a star from a galaxy
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
AFAIK, it didn't predict anything (experimentally measurable) yet that isn't already predicted by other, simpler theories. I.e., it still fails Occam's Razor. Miserably.
Plus, AFAIK a lot of it has a lot of possible solutions, and for some they don't even have the equations (yet), so there's not much of a prediction you can do with it. So far the majority of it isn't even as much a theory, as in something where you plug your values in a clear formula and get a prediction, but more of a theory that a theory might exist.
Or to put it otherwise, it's more of a mathematical construct than physics. Don't get me wrong, maths is a very very useful tool. Essential, even. But if I'm allowed a bad analogy, it's a bit like a painter's brush: it can be used to paint anything, regardless of whether it's real or outright impossible in the real world. You can use it to paint Mona Lisa or Escher's impossible pictures. So is maths. You can describe an infinity of possible universes with it, most of which have nothing to do with ours. You can use it to describe light propagation through ether, or the raisin pie atom model, or the ancient geocentric model, or even the counter-Earth ideas from waay back, all of which by now we know to be false. It becomes physics (or generally science) when you can test that formula against the real universe and see if it fits or not.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Although the word "universe" is now accepted to mean "the membrane of space that was created by the Big Bang," this is etymologically inaccurate. Outside of playful uses (such as "off in one's own universe" or a TV serial's universe) the word "universe" should be synonymous with "absolutely everything ever," and we ought to come up with some intermediary term (like "brane" if you feel like you require more than ten dimensions in order to explain quantum phenomena) to refer to this nice big bubble of matter-energy we've found ourselves encapsulated in.
Good show about the microwave radiation, though. Now, let's hope that there isn't a film of Angels & Demons that is conveniently timed or anything.
i don't see why the universe can't be endless in time and space, and the expansion and contraction we see is local, while somewhere else they are having a pinch. kind of like the choppy surface of the ocean on a windy day: troughs and peaks
once we thought the earth was the center of the universe. we threw that centrism out the window. can't people see that the big bang theory is the same kind of centrism?: "this is all we know, therefore, that's all there is"
if there is anything science teaches us, it is that we are not the center of everything
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As Hawking put it; asking what happened before the Big Bang is like asking what's north of the North Pole.
What I take from his statement is that the universe can possibly map to a system with complex numbers where concepts similar to north of the North Pole exist. However, time does not apply until there are particles interacting with each other at rates that can be described with probability functions.
The rates must be non-zero otherwise the universe would be over instantly. Going faster than the speed of light would be the same as going faster than the speed of time. Is this article claiming otherwise?
More like :
Universe newUniverse = new Universe(oldUniverse);
Slipping shoelaces ?
1. Engage in baseless conjecture about alternative, unproveable universes.
2. Define new branch of mathematics that can support a complex multi-dimensional model reinforcing your baseless conjecture.
3. Publish in academic journals and popular media.
4. Lecture to gullible masses.
5. Profit!
6. Avoid performing any work beneficial to mankind. ~
Invenio via vel creo
What is the root and history of the word 'pedantic'?
Languange and definitions evolve. Get over it. The term 'multiverse' has been around for a long time as has the concept of multiple 'Universes'. Relax. Have a beer.
Although the word "nazi" is now accepted to mean "a person who is fanatically dedicated to, or seeks to control, some activity, practice, etc." this is etymologically inaccurate. Outside of playful uses (such as "grammar nazi" or a TV serial's "soup nazi") the word "nazi" should be synonymous with "a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party," and we ought to come up with some intermediary term (like "asshole" if you feel like you require a more abusive term) to refer to this kind of pedantic overbearing we've found ourselves saddled with.
Word definitions and connotations have a tendency to move around quite a bit. The word "stink" for example, was once a neutral term to describe something giving off a scent, and now has decidedly negative connotation, if not being outright denotative of giving off a bad odor. Similarly, nazi once meant the members of the political party that established a murderous and expansionist totalitarian regime in Germany. Now it used to describe someone who likes to pick on people's misuse of its vs. it's.
Interestingly if they've found evidence of something from before the Big Bang then our entire notion of spacetime having being created at that point are mute, it's not a Big Bang, perhaps a Cosmic Strangulated Hernia?. This then is the biggest news in physics since, well, since forever. To have then described something of the nature of that preexisting universe
The article the slashdot summary links to is basically a drastically shortened version of this recent article in Scientific American, plus a nutshell presentation of this paper.
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Indeed, but that's not what Occam's Razor is about. You may predict or explain any event or thing, no matter how complicated. Occam's Razor is only about _how_ you explain it.
Basically, imagine that you walk through an apple orchard on a windy day, and an apple falls on your head. Let's pick two possible explanations:
1. Probably the wind shook a branch and an apple fell.
2. The Illuminati hired a secret Ninja clan from Japan, to follow you around and drop an apple on your head when a good opportunity presents itself. And they picked a windy day so the rustle of leaves would hide their noises.
Basically Occam's Razor just says that if explanation #1 explains it well enough, go with explanation #1. There is no need to complicate it with unneeded extra elements.
Incidentally, from a science point of view, #1 also has _some_ predictive power. You can, for example, calculate what the probability is to get hit by an apple, or in what season it's more likely, or whether you need to wear a hard hat or it'll likely be just a minor bruise. Explanation #2 is pretty worthless, since there's no way to predict who the Illuminati want to drop an apple on and on what date. You don't even know whether to wear a hard hat, since they might drop an apple made of lead if they want to. (Ninjas can do stuff like that;)
On the other hand, if explanation #1 doesn't explain it, _then_ you can look for a more complex explanation. E.g., if you were walking through a banana plantation and an apple fell on your head, maybe it wasn't the wind after all.
But again, this all has to do with the explanation, not with the thing you explain or predict.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.