in World News

No Big Bang? New Equation Suggests Eternal Universe

Timeline_portrait

A diagram showing universe expansion via the Big Bang Theory

No Big Bang? New Equation Suggests Eternal Universe

It’s important to remember that the Big Bang Theory is just that – a theory.

A new quantum equation developed by Ahmed Farag Ali and Saurya Das, from the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, shows it to be possible that the universe has no beginning, or end, and is in fact eternal.

According to the Big Bang Theory, ‘everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point’ called the singularity. ‘Only after this point began to expand in a “Big Bang” did the universe officially begin’, which gives the universe an age of 13.8 billion years. The problem with this theory is that it cannot explain what happened before, or during, the singularity.

This new work and equation examines older theories, attempts to explain dark energy and looks at hypothetical gravity particles called gravitons.

The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once.

The widely accepted age of the universe, as estimated by general relativity, is 13.8 billion years. In the beginning, everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point, or singularity. Only after this point began to expand in a “Big Bang” did the universe officially begin.

Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and unavoidably from the mathematics of general relativity, some scientists see it as problematic because the math can explain only what happened immediately after—not at or before—the singularity.

“The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there,” Ahmed Farag Ali at Benha University and the Zewail City of Science and Technology, both in Egypt, told Phys.org.

Ali and coauthor Saurya Das at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end…

Continue reading the full story on PhysOrg

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,