
No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning - bootload
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html#jCp
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jrapdx3
There was a reference to this article about 2 months ago. I read though the
original paper quickly at the time, intending to go back and try to understand
it more thoroughly. Toward the end of the paper, I was startled to see the
conclusion about the universe having no beginning or end.

Struck me as remarkable coming from _physicists_ , then again, they were using
"Bohmian trajectories", and Bohm was in his own way an unconventional thinker.
In my imagination, Bohm would not have been surprised by an "endless"
universe.

Fascinating. How strange it will be if "science" winds up "proving" an age-old
"spiritual" idea.

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sudoinstallwin
This post is a good example of verbose that doesn't really say anything. ^

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adventured
I've been arguing with people for about 15 years that there is no end or
beginning to the universe, and inherently can't be. I never cease to be amazed
at the anger, and or general instant disregard it generates from big bang
devotees. I've found the big bang crowd to be almost like a religion.

How typically atheistic, scientific minds could think there is a beginning to
the universe baffles me.

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saboot
> I've found the big bang crowd to be almost like a religion.

Have you talked to actual real cosmologists? I suspect you haven't. The big
bang theory is our BEST MODEL for explaining the DATA.

How can you explain galactic evolution without positing that the universe was
different (younger) many billions of years ago? We can see that the universe
was different easily by the types of galaxies that were present.

We know the galaxy is expanding, this is a fact.

The distribution of hydrogen and helium are consistent with a big bang model
of the universe.

We can observe clouds of matter which are distinctly different from matter
present in active areas of space. These "leftover" remnants are additional
evidence of the big bang.

How can you be amazed that cosmologists adapt a theory which can explain all
of the above? Can your endless universe model do that? If it can please claim
your nobel prize. I don't understand how you can be arrogant enough to make a
claim such as yours with no evidence as if it's obvious.

> atheistic, scientific minds

Ah, now I understand why.

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adventured
You're confusing the remnants of an event for the start of the universe. It's
nothing more than a part of a perpetual cycle, rather than proof of a
beginning of existence.

I have no inherent respect for something because it's claimed to be the best
model. I believe it's a false idol, worshiped with a near religious fervor
because so many have staked their scientific livelihoods to it. Dogma is
extremely common in science historically.

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saboot
So, again, you have no evidence and only a belief then to justify your
position?

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psykovsky
Whole religions came to exist using that same method.

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danieltillett
You don't even need a new theory to predict the universe has no beginning.
Since in general relativity time slows down (from our reference frame) as the
universe become denser and hotter, if the universe starts as a singularity
then an infinite amount of time must have elapsed between the initial
singularity and now. This is just another way of saying that the universe has
always existed.

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oelequud
No. Try solving the Friedmann equations for a simple case (e.g. spatially flat
universe, no cosmological constant, dominated by non-relativistic matter) to
see that that's not true.

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danieltillett
How do you solve the Friedmann equations starting from a singularity?

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oelequud
You don't. You solve them starting from now and then trace the solution back
in time to find a singularity.

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danieltillett
Don't all the assumptions breakdown at a singularity?

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oelequud
I don't understand what you mean by that.

In your first comment, you said that general relativity predicted that an
infinite amount of time would have passed since the initial singularity. But
that is not true: If you apply general relativity to a (very simple) model of
the universe, you get the Friedmann equations. You can then solve these
equations and get a solution that depends on the parameters of your model
(spatial curvature, cosmological constant, equation of state of the
matter/energy content). You can then see that all such solutions which fit our
observations of the universe (the universe is currently expanding and not all
energy in the universe behaves like dark energy) have the property that there
was a singularity a finite amount of t ago.

As always in general relativity, one has to determine what exactly "t" means.
But luckily, for the Robertson-Walker metric, the answer to that is relatively
simple: t is the proper time of particles that are at rest relative to the
average matter content of the universe (of course up to arbitrary
translations).

So the result is: General relativity predicts for a universe like ours, that
for matter that was at rest relative to the rest of the matter in the
universe, only a finite amount of time has passed since a singularity. Time
does not slow down near the big bang.

Of course that doesn't mean that this is the whole and perfect truth. The very
fact that GR predicts a singularity means that GR is incomplete; a singularity
is simply not a valid prediction. A theory of quantum gravity is probably
necessary to fix that. But I just wanted to correct the error in your first
post.

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Ujio
No "beginning" does not mean no "big bang", and "big bang" is a completely
shite term to begin with. "God Particle", "Y-Chromosomal Adam", "Mitochondrial
Eve" ... the boffins who think this shit up should be (metaphorically) shot.

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oelequud
Well, the term "big bang" was originally coined by Fred Hoyle, who was a
proponent of the alternative steady state model of cosmology. Many belive that
it was meant to be pejorative and to ridicule the idea of a "beginning" of the
universe.

Similarly, "God Particle" isn't a term that was ever used in physics. If I
recall correctly, it comes from the title of a popular science book, which the
author originally wanted to call "The Goddamn Particle" (because the Higgs was
so hard to find experimentally), but the publisher didn't like that.
Unfortunately "God Particle" stuck in popular science and the media.

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joshmn
I'm assuming my brain is not the only brain that is uncomfortable trying to
understand this...

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dozzie
Given that the most of the article is just throwing jargon at random instead
of explaining anything, it's no wonder you had hard time reading it.

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xtacy
Discussion on reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2vb2fa/no_big_bang...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2vb2fa/no_big_bang_quantum_equation_predicts_universe/)

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dnix
I quite like the top comment. Perhaps we've too narrowly defined our concept
of beginning and end?

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stagas
A finite size universe that this describes also increases the odds of it being
a simulation. Because then it should be possible to program a complete
universe, at a smaller scale of course. Also I could be very wrong because I
hardly understand this.

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empressplay
It could be a simulation or merely a self-contained "universe" inside a larger
universe (that may have different rules.) Or, it could simply "exist without
cause", which I'm not that convinced by, since if that were the case, we
should see evidence of entities within the universe that also "exist without
cause", and we don't.

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mortehu
> if that were the case, we should see evidence of entities within the
> universe that also "exist without cause", and we don't.

Why don't quantum fluctuations count?

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facepalm
"New gravity particle" \- I wonder what is the point of inventing such things?
Does it have any meaning at all? I suspect it is us clinging to our bias of
human perception.

The only reason it could be useful is maybe if "particle" implies a certain
set of behaviors all particles have in common?

To make it clearer: what I mean is that the notion of a "gravity particle"
only gives us the illusion of something we can grasp, whereas presumably there
is no such thing in reality.

Edit: downvote, why? It's a serious question.

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foolmath
niubi

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acd
We are here to experiance different things and the purpose of life is to be
happy! Maybe the higher dimensions in a quantum world gives us experienced to
teach us things that takes many life times to learn. For example humans have
not yet learnt that living in peace is better than war. It's basically where
science meets eastern Buddhism values.

Maybe the universe reborns in cycles expanding and collapsing in forever
ending loops and there are parallel universes that exist to this one in higher
dimensions.

