Starship Asterisk*

The Big Bang.

Hello All

News flash. Sydney Morning Herald.
quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"London: The universe we live in may not be the only one but just the latest in a line of repeating big bangs stretching back through time, according to the latest theory from cosmologists.
Instead of being formed from a single big bang about 14 billion years ago destined to expand and eventually peter out to the cold, dead remains of stars, the universe may be an endless loop of explosions and contractions stretching forever.
The latest theory has been postulated to account for what Einstein described as his biggest Blunder"", the cosmological constant, a number linking energy and space, which he proposed to account for the galaxies being driven apart."
Physcists have since than measured the number as too small.
The constant is a mathematical representaion of the nergy of empty space, known as dark energy, which exerts a kind of anti-gravity, pushing galaxies apart at an accelerating rate. It hapens to be a googol(1 followed by 100 zeros) times smaller than would be expected if the universe was created in a single big bang.
According to the new theory, published yesterday in the journal Science, the discrepancy can be explained if the universe itself is billions of years older and fashioned from cyclical big bangs.
people have infered that time began then, but there really wasn't a reason for that infrernce, said Neil Turok, a theoretical physcist at Cambridge University in Britain. " what we are proposing is very radical. Its saying there was time before the Big Bang".
There doesn't have to be a beginning of time, Professor Turok said. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinetly large".
If this theory is right, how long have we got until the next big bang?
Professor Turok said " We can't predict when it will happen with any precision- all we can say is it won't be within the next 10 billion years".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I just read it and thought to post it.

harry,
very suspicious this article suddenly appears in your home town newspaper on a subject you have been hammering for as long as I have been privileged to read your posts.

Hello ta152h0

I have been hammering that idea for the last 35 years.

But! that idea has aslo been hammered by many cosmologists.

That artical in the paper was presented to me.

The professor Turok from Cambridge University is no small fry.

Its ok to be suspicious and question it till the cows come home. We all do that. But! never become emotional over any idea.

We all want a theory that will stand on its own two feet and not be supported by fantacy and make up ideas.

That's actually not a new theory at all; it's one of the new versions of the ekpyrotic theory: the cyclic universe theory if I'm not mistaken. I have no idea why the media is suddenly picking up on this now, since it made its first run through the news back in 2002.

Hello Qev

Your right its not a new theory.

Its been around for over 50 years or so.
But! in the last ten or so years it has become an important theory.

For many years I spoke only of the Big Bang until I found the negatives with the BBT.

Here Harry -a relative APOD.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040801.html

Hello All

Hello Martin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040801.html
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/9/6
The attractive force between two surfaces in a vacuum - first predicted by Hendrik Casimir over 50 years ago - could affect everything from micromachines to unified theories of nature.


The above APOD link
states
This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes when I read APOD comments I wander who writes them.
I cannot see the evidence for an expanding universe.

Hi Harry,

The existance of the Casimir effect implies that even so-called empty space has a certain energy density. This ties in well with certain dark energy theories that also require space to have a non-zero energy density. I'm not exactly familiar with the details of these theories though... a bit over my head.

Hello Qev

Your right in what you say.

I'm just wanting to know the extent if any.

I just cannot see the extent and being responsible for if any of the expansion of the visible universe.

Even the redshift and the hubble constant is in question.