
Big Bang Abandoned In New Model of the Universe - jdub
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25492/
======
Anon84
"Periodic" Cosmological models without a Big Bang are not new. They are easily
extracted form the usual equations under certain conditions and it's one of
the typical exercises you do in an intro do cosmology class.

What seems to be new here is that this specific model seems to explain
something that has yet to be well understood. This is a big win for this model
but it can easily mean that it happens to capture part of real mechanism in
that specific aspect while making unrealistic assumptions elsewhere (like the
possibility of there not having been a Big Bang).

It will be interesting to see how this model affects our current understanding
of the universe. It might be a complete change, or just an incremental one.
Odds are on the latter one but the former makes for much better blog posts...
;)

~~~
Yzupnick
"making unrealistic assumptions elsewhere (like the possibility of there not
having been a Big Bang)"

I'm not sure I agree with this line. Copernicus made the "unrealistic
assumption" that heavenly bodies and motions were not spherical, and Galileo
made the "unrealistic assumption" that earth wasn't the center of the Earth.

This type of thinking hampers scientific progress.

~~~
JshWright
Yeah, and George Smith made the "unrealistic assumption" that the moon was
made of cheese, and John Doe made the "unrealistic assumption" that dogs
communicate telepathically...

While there are certainly a handful of "unrealistic assumptions" that have
lead to scientific breakthroughs, giving credence to an idea simply because it
is unrealistic is... well... unrealistic.

------
Maro
"Shu's idea is that time and space are not independent entities but can be
converted back and forth between each other. In his formulation of the
geometry of spacetime, the speed of light is simply the conversion factor
between the two."

This is already true in Special Relativity. This MIT TR article is so shallow
it shouldn't be linked to.

~~~
saint-loup
No Arxiv paper should be talked about on any non-academic website.

~~~
cromulent
For what reason? Generally HN people are against censorship.

~~~
Maro
It's not censorship, it's just a social seperation of professional concerns.
Non-physicists have no chance in hell to understand arxiv papers, in fact most
physicists don't have a chance in hell to understand arxiv papers, even the
ones from their own field. (I'm saying this as a physicist.)

In this case, the MIT TR writes about a _bleeding edge, unpublished_ paper
written by a non big-name physicist that will most likely be discarded and
never be talked about in 6 months.

The author is from a "Institute of Statistics" and the paper was written in
Word with double-space formatting. That means the author is probably not a
physicist, and non-physicists have a very low chance of being able to grasp
the problems with current models and propose better ones, not to mention
accounting for all the astro observations coming out every day.

Looking at the actual paper as somebody with a cosmology background, what he's
saying is:

1\. Let's take the classical Einstein equations

2\. Let's see what happens if c, the speed of light, is not constant, but a
function of time c(t)

3\. Hm, but to _not break the original_ equations let's also make G be a
function of time G(t) such that c(t)^2/G(t) is fixed

4\. Hm, but then in the derivations, where there are derivatives wrt. to time
new dc/dt and dG/dt terms appear

5\. and so on

There is no new physics in this paper, it's just a routine derivation with a
twist. The TR blogger is probably not a physicist and/or has not read it, he
just pushed out some generic bullshit about space and time.

There's no point in talking about this paper for non-professionals. First,
professionals have to reach concensus whether this makes any sense and is
compatible with observations (the former part is easier, the latter takes
longer and more people). Once a result passes these tests, then it makes sense
to tell people about it.

If the TR wants to push out some sciency newsitem, they could for example talk
about recent Higgs data from the Tevatron, which is bleeding-edge fresh but
fairly uncontroversial, as it is a measurement and has gone through the
Tevatron team:

[http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2010/07/higgs-still-at-
large...](http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2010/07/higgs-still-at-large.html)

-

Reply to scott_s (for some reason I can't reply to the comment): I agree,
total seperation is not good. It's not good if all the physicists involved are
pure academics, because it allows for sub-optimal incentives to dominate. I
believe the good model is fOR physicists with no academic incentives
(positions, grants) to also take part in the discussion, eg. somebody working
at Morgan Stanley or doing a startup. This model would be similar to
programmers donating their time to open-source projects. (The academic
counter-argument which easily wins out today is that if you're not working in
the field, you don't understand the issues and don't have a say.)

~~~
omaranto
Very minor nitpick:

> Non-physicists have no chance in hell to understand arxiv papers

You mean "archive physics papers": mathematicians are usually non-physicists
and sometimes understand the arxiv math papers. I used the arxiv for months
before I found out it had physics papers too (and that in fact it was started
for physics papers).

~~~
omaranto
Damn iPhone autocorrect: I meant "arxiv physics papers¨, not "archive ..."

------
TomasSedovic
I was wondering what the theory had to say about the cosmic microwave
background. The answer: "we don't know yet".

Still, it's great that someone tries to find new perspectives to look at. I
wish them good luck in their findings.

------
robryan
Without to much of a technical knowledge in the area (plenty of interest just
not to the paper reading level) I have been sceptical of dark matter as an
undetectable equation balancer. Any good research into dark matter that I
should read that puts forward a better case than balancing equations?

Another problem we have, is that we have one point of observation into the
unimaginably big universe. Given our limited view overfitting the data to
support some model is likely.

~~~
goodside
The present theory concerns the elimination of dark energy, not dark matter.
The existence of dark matter has been demonstrated beyond any doubt through
observations of a collision between two galaxy clusters. In a nutshell, the
clusters were mostly made up of high-energy plasma, and when they collided
almost all of the plasma remained at the point of collision due to
electromagnetic interactions between the gases. However, the dark matter in
the clusters, which was previously difficult to observe independently, passed
through the point of the collision (that is, through each other) as though
nothing had happened. The electromagnetic interactions trapped the visible
baryonic matter in one spot while the dark matter drifted off into space,
allowing us to observe it independently via the effects of gravitational
lensing.

~~~
jimbokun
You know, you could drop your comment directly into a Star Trek the Next
Generation script and it would fit right in.

By the time I got to the end, I was reading it in Geordie LaForge's voice in
my head.

~~~
Maro
Here's a funky explanation with buckets of water and balls, with the astro
photos to go along:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRtGUCLjQ3w>

------
mark_l_watson
I will have to think about this theory for a while since it contradicts
something that I have accepted for a long time (big bang). I'll be visiting my
Dad in a few weeks, and I will enjoy getting his take on this (he is a
physicist and a member of the national academy of science).

I do like that it fits better with conservation of energy, and I was never
comfortable with using dark matter to explain away inconsistencies between the
big bang model and some observations.

It will be interesting to see how much traction tis new theory gets in the
next ten years or so.

~~~
nollidge
Be sure to mention it's completely preliminary, non-peer-reviewed, and posted
on arxiv.

~~~
ajdecon
Especially in high-energy physics and in (I think) cosmology, the community is
small enough that the arXiv is basically the primary means of communication.
Peer review is everyone looking at the article and talking about what they
mean. Published journal articles become more of a way to "keep score" to help
outsiders make hiring decisions.

------
timhastings
Does this means our Big Bang generation will be mocked like the Earth-is-flat
believers?

~~~
username3
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth>

_The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing
cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of
spherical.[1][2] During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars
maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By
the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was essentially
dead. Flat-Earth models were in fact held at earlier (pre-medieval) times,
before the spherical model became commonly accepted in Hellenistic
astronomy.[3]_

~~~
poundy
Very interesting. I was one of those people with the misconception. How did
the ancient greeks think that we were glued onto the planet? Gravity was
something Newton defined? Am I having another misconception?

~~~
joshuacc
The prevailing model of the universe at the time was a sphere with the Earth
at the middle. In this model, the term "gravity" and "weight" meant something
like "the natural level of this object".

Rocks had "low" weight, thus falling to the ground and fire had "high" weight,
thus rising to the sky. Being composed of "earth" and "water", we stuck to the
surface of the Earth because that was our natural place.

A lot of this model was carried over into Medieval science, but it changed
over time to adapt to new discoveries, until it finally broke around the time
of Galileo & Copernicus.

C.S. Lewis wrote a very interesting little work on the Medieval worldview
called _The Discarded Image_ that goes into some of this. He was writing
mostly as a literary historian, but covers the scientific understanding to the
extent that it informed literature.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discarded_Image>

------
carterac
Very interesting. Reminds me of Paul Steinhardt's Ekpyrotic model that
proposes our universe is the result of two colliding three-dimensional worlds:
<http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr/>

For anyone who actually read the paper, if there is no big bang and no
beginning, what does this model imply about the universe 14B years ago?

------
jdub
Was sorely tempted to write in a new headline: "Taiwanese physicist's theory
threatens much-loved TV show, common understanding of the universe."

~~~
younata
When I read the headline, my first thought was about the show.

~~~
chime
I wondered how they'd introduce such a theory to the show. May be one of
Sheldon's opponents comes up with it...

------
arethuza
Reminds me of a quote from James Hutton, the "father" of geology in relation
to _deep time_ :

"we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end"

------
ry0ohki
I've never accepted the big bang as an explanation for the beginning of the
universe. It's an explanation of how the universe ended up in it's current
state, but still doesn't explain how all that matter came to be in the first
place.

This new theory I can at least kind of wrap my head around, there is no
beginning and no end... i don't know why but it makes more sense to me.

------
jmathes
"Shu's idea is that time and space are not independent entities but can be
converted back and forth between each other."

This is not a new idea. This was in my high school physics textbook in 1998,
and it was an old textbook.

------
stcredzero
I wonder what we could do with the prediction that singularities are not
possible?

Ob: Does the theory explain inflation? Could it be used to formulate an FTL
drive.

------
itistoday
I may get downvoted for this, but the Big Bang Theory is a great example of
"scientific faith", the prevailing existence of _faith_ amongst people
claiming to be scientifically rigorous. People who make the absurd claim that
it is meaningless to speak of what happened "before the Big Bang" because
there was no "before."

I've spoken with, and heard many professors speak of the Big Bang Theory as
accepted fact, when in fact it is not, and not only that, but it has very
serious, fundamental problems:

\- It flies in the face of logical reasoning. Something cannot come out of
nothing.

\- The point above actually has a physical law. It's called the First Law of
Thermodynamics, and the Big Bang Theory is in stark violation of it.

That's not to say it's completely invalid. There could have been a Big Bang,
in fact it's very likely there was, but that doesn't mean it was the "start"
of anything, other than rapid expansion, or, converting into mystical terms, a
reincarnation.

The Universe will always be here. It has always been here. It cannot go away.
It is indestructible and everlasting. The mystics understand this, and so does
anyone who understands basics physics.

~~~
yafujifide
Physicist here. Although I am not really a "cosmologist," I have studied
cosmology, and have spent a lot of time pondering the the big bang because I
think it is interesting, and because so many people like you misunderstand it.

The universe did not come from nothing. Consider the following two claims:

* The universe has a finite age.

* The universe has always existed.

Both of these claims are true. It might seem that if something has always
existed, it must have existed for infinitely long. No so. At every time in
history, the universe has existed, even though the age is finite.

Your intuition might disagree. But recognize your intuition has been developed
under very peculiar circumstances on the surface of the Earth. You should be
skeptical of your own intuition when studying things outside of your usual
experience. In this case, human intuition says two things:

* There was always something before.

* There was always something 5 minutes before.

In ordinary human life, both claims are true. That's what your intuition says.
But for the universe as a whole, only the first claim is true, and the second
claim is false. Even though it is true that there was always something
"before" (for any time you give me, I can divide that time in two and give you
an earlier time), it is nevertheless not true that there was always something
5 minutes before (pick 4 minutes after the big bang, and 5 minutes earlier
than that is simply undefined [1]).

Big Bang theory is a self-consistent, meaningful mathematical theory. It does
not fly in the face of logical reasoning. Rather, it is a spectacular case-in-
point of the power of logical reasoning to describe and explain the universe.

Your second point is that the Big Bang disobeys the first law of
thermodynamics, which is the conservation of energy. False. You are assuming
there was a period of time when there was no energy, and then suddenly energy
came into being. That's not what happened. The energy has always been around,
for all time, and thus the first law is not violated.

[1] It so happens that "negative time", or even time t=0, is equally as
meaningless as Elephant Time or Verb Time. They are all undefined.

~~~
itistoday
I understand perfectly well your point of view, you don't need to lecture me
on it, I've heard it many times before, as I alluded previously.

    
    
      The universe did not come from nothing. Consider the following two claims:
      * The universe has a finite age.
      * The universe has always existed.
      Both of these claims are true.
    

This is a perfect example of the reasoning I described, thank you.

Here's the other bit:

    
    
      [1] It so happens that "negative time", or even time t=0, is equally as
      meaningless as Elephant Time or Verb Time. They are all undefined.
    

I understand this concoction you've formulated, but it isn't very convincing.
There's absolutely no evidence that this interpretation of the word "always"
is true, and further, it's a violation of Occam's Razor. It would be simpler
to take "always" literally, but you are in fact, through what amounts to
simple verbal trickery, changing its meaning.

You can state it's "meaningless" to speak of t=0, but you provide zero backup
for this, other than it satisfies your fantasy.

You can state it's "meaningless" to ask what happened X minutes before the Big
Bang, but again, this is only in the service of satisfying your fantastical
theory.

Meanwhile, back in the Universe and the realm of Logic, it's very _meaningful_
to ask what happened at "t=0", because such a state did exist. It even existed
in your Big Bang Theory, which states there was an "initial state."

It is highly improbable (if not provably impossible), that such an "initial
state" is realistically feasible, and it certainly violates Occam's Razor.
Your "initial state" has no explanation. You in fact vehemently object to any
attempts at an explanation, deriding them as "undefined." This is faith in its
purest form.

Sorry, but I think you are a very religious man and don't realize it. Thank
you, however, for the wonderful illustration of my point, I can use it as a
historical example of the problem. :-)

~~~
itistoday
To those downvoting me, you're welcome to speak up. This is a game of logic,
and I was hoping that this community could keep the religious knee-jerk
reactions down to a minimum. :-\

~~~
yafujifide
FWIW, I did not downvote you. But you still do not seem to comprehend the fact
that the standard theory assumes time is finite. In order to disprove such a
theory, you cannot just assume that time is infinite, because you are assuming
the conclusion. If you convince me that you actually understand this, I will
continue responding to you.

~~~
itistoday
_FWIW, I did not downvote you._

I know, HN doesn't allow downvoting of responses. :-p

 _But you still do not seem to comprehend the fact that the standard theory
assumes time is finite._

Really? I thought I was very clear in demonstrating that I understood this
through and through, hence the accusation of faith. I did not simply use an
assumption that time is infinite as disproof, in fact I did not disprove BBT
at all in my response, but merely gave reasons why I thought it was extremely
unlikely to have a start.

~~~
jmathes
You sound like a crackpot. You don't sound like you understand physics. You
also sound cranky. If you want to have a discussion, you should stop using
grandiose language.

------
motters
It sounds as if the universe is a giant pulsating amoeba.

------
brianmckenzie
Why not just admit we don't know?

~~~
Anon84
Research always implies not knowing... If it's already known, there is no need
to research it.

However, it also implies wanting to know. The consequence of your comment
seems to be that we should not research because we will never know and that
goes against the entire body of knowledge collected by Humanity over the last
10,000 years.

~~~
brianmckenzie
The entire body of knowledge collected by humanity over the last 10,000 years
is one of war, famine, and neglect for others. We can do better.

~~~
KoZeN
_We can do better._

We already have, unfortunately ignorance will always shield you from the
wealth of knowledge that exists beyond your contempt for human nature.

