N2NH
10-23-2012, 09:07 AM
Three competing theories on how Life, The Universe and Everything started.
Big Idea 1: The Incredible Bulk
The latest elaboration of Steinhardt and Turok’s cyclic cosmology, spearheaded by Evgeny Buchbinder of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, was published last December (http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRVDAQ000076000012123503000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes). Yet the impulse behind this work far predates modern theories of the universe. In the fourth century A.D., St. Augustine pondered what the Lord was doing before the first day of Genesis (wryly repeating the exasperated retort that “He was preparing Hell for those who pry too deep”). The question became a scientific one in 1929, when Edwin Hubble determined that the universe was expanding. Extrapolated backward, Hubble’s observation suggested the cosmos was flying apart from an explosive origin, the fabled Big Bang.
In the standard interpretation of the Big Bang, which took shape in the 1960s, the formative event was not an explosion that occurred at some point in space and time—it was an explosion of space and time. In this view, time did not exist beforehand. Even for many researchers in the field, this was a bitter pill to swallow. It is hard to imagine time just starting: How does a universe decide when it is time to pop into existence?...
And besides 'Big Idea 1' you get two more! That's 3 for the price of 1! Well, if you're going to have a bang, it might as well be a big one...
3 Theories That Might Blow Up the Big Bang (http://discovermagazine.com/2008/apr/25-3-theories-that-might-blow-up-the-big-bang) Time may not have a beginning—and it might not exist at all...
Big Idea 1: The Incredible Bulk
The latest elaboration of Steinhardt and Turok’s cyclic cosmology, spearheaded by Evgeny Buchbinder of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, was published last December (http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRVDAQ000076000012123503000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes). Yet the impulse behind this work far predates modern theories of the universe. In the fourth century A.D., St. Augustine pondered what the Lord was doing before the first day of Genesis (wryly repeating the exasperated retort that “He was preparing Hell for those who pry too deep”). The question became a scientific one in 1929, when Edwin Hubble determined that the universe was expanding. Extrapolated backward, Hubble’s observation suggested the cosmos was flying apart from an explosive origin, the fabled Big Bang.
In the standard interpretation of the Big Bang, which took shape in the 1960s, the formative event was not an explosion that occurred at some point in space and time—it was an explosion of space and time. In this view, time did not exist beforehand. Even for many researchers in the field, this was a bitter pill to swallow. It is hard to imagine time just starting: How does a universe decide when it is time to pop into existence?...
And besides 'Big Idea 1' you get two more! That's 3 for the price of 1! Well, if you're going to have a bang, it might as well be a big one...
3 Theories That Might Blow Up the Big Bang (http://discovermagazine.com/2008/apr/25-3-theories-that-might-blow-up-the-big-bang) Time may not have a beginning—and it might not exist at all...