Eternal Universe?

Hi,

could anyone tell me if the theory from Ali and Das regarding an eternal universe has been accepted/dismissed?

What do you all think of it?

a reply to: scorpio84

Universes live and die just like human lives live and die, as with all in creation. Universes start in a big bang, can't tell you how they end, but I believe they just fizzle out.

Universes are as numerous as living things we witness. We reside within a universe, aka: the boundaries of our understanding.

a reply to: scorpio84

In my opinion, universes start in a "Big Bang" as is empirically accepted. But I also believe they end in a "Big crunch" of sorts. The expansion of the universe will slow down to the point where it starts falling back upon itself. The Crunch will eventually compress all remaining energy in the universe into a small pressurized point. When the pressure becomes too great, you'll get another Big Bang, and the cycle starts all over again.

a reply to: Passerby1996

There would have to be something at the focal point of the big bang to exist that calls the matter back to the center. What we see is a universe that is expanding at an accelerated pace. Either we are still witnessing the birth of our universe, or the matter from that focal point has been transferred to all particles moving away from the focal point.

Take a firework explosion for example. The explosion begins very brightly and very hot. The particles move outward from the center at a blistering pace and become colder and dimmer until they fizzle out and disappear. We all know matter cannot be created nor destroyed, therefore it is merely transferred into the medium in which the explosion occurred, the air and particles that make up the air; or in this case, the medium in which our observable universe resides in.

With the advance of telescope power we can see enough evidence to assume the universe began. The logical conclusion recently is that it will end. The real question is what happens next. In a multiverse universes are born and die all the time. Like the difference between a dot and a ball flying across the room.

The idea that the universe is in a state of eternal statistical equilibrium has been shown false. All the physical evidence we have points to an origin some 13.8bn years ago, and physical predictions based on this model are constantly being verified.

However, time itself is a property of the universe, so in a sense the universe has always existed and always will exist. It's just that 'always' has a finite value, stated above.

The idea that the universe is cyclic — an infinite sequence of big bangs tending to big crunches and back again — is thought unlikely, because (as chadderson points out) the acceleration of the universe is increasing. That is to say, the dark-energy-driven expansion of the metric appears to be stronger than the pull of gravity. It looks as if the universe will go on expanding.

The idea, mentioned in your linked article, that our universe is the daughter of a senior universe is certainly possible, but there is no way to establish with any degree of conviction that things came into being that way.

The universe is not eternal.

originally posted by: chadderson
a reply to: scorpio84

Universes live and die just like human lives live and die, as with all in creation. Universes start in a big bang, can't tell you how they end, but I believe they just fizzle out.

Universes are as numerous as living things we witness. We reside within a universe, aka: the boundaries of our understanding.

The problem with what you believe is that you cannot adequately justify a starting point for this universe or any other you seem to think comes and goes. So lets just go with the eternal universe concept. That way we don't have to make anything up. --Yes, I know that a lot of theoretical physicists would have to find another topic to dwell on but perhaps they could find something more relevant to humankind's (continued) existence.

a reply to: chadderson

I'd have to show you a bunch of charts if I were to even begin to explain my theory in a clearer way, but I'm typing this all from my phone and don't have the time.

You could be right, for all I know, but I have different beliefs and they ring truer to me than yours. I respect differing opinions. They make the universe interesting.

a reply to: Aliensun

..In the same way one cannot adequately deliver a starting point for humanity. All we know is that consciousness is here now. We only witness through the window of birth to death. I believe consciousness is eternal, moving from point to point throughout a creation that lives and dies.

Once one comes to grips with our creator being outside of creation; it becomes easier to comprehend.

a reply to: Passerby1996

If you get a chance to share those points I would be happy to read them.

a reply to: scorpio84

I'm old enough to have lived in the glory days of Hoyle and his 'steady state' theories. I preferred them to the BB theories which supplanted them. However with the influx of observations and calculations and the on going success of the theory unto itself, I took it on as being a better representation of the way things are.

But now I wonder again. For me, the BB as being the beginning of our universe is no longer enough. Back in the 70s and onward, this universe that was supposed to be a result of that BB was considered big. Very big. But for me that has changed. Now, with the advent of our telescopes, we are beginning to see just how really big, how really huge, how unfathomably far beyond our ability to comprehend efreekingnorousnous it really is.

So I gotta ask, All of it? Really? All of it?

So I'm moving back to some form of steady state, with a big bang. That our big bang was real enough just not the beginning of all this. More, a transformation, a mutation, a stimulant on a localized field of a larger steady state platform. Larger may or may not be infinite.

In either event, I also do not think that the Big Bang was an event in the past. I think that we are still in it, whatever that event really is.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

In either event, I also do not think that the Big Bang was an event in the past. I think that we are still in it, whatever that event really is.

Well, from a layman's perspective an expanding universe certainly seems to support the idea that the "explosion" is still occurring.

a reply to: Astyanax

The idea that the universe is in a state of eternal statistical equilibrium has been shown false.

You mean unchanging? Sorry, I need science dumbed down for me sometimes.

All the physical evidence we have points to an origin some 13.8bn years ago, and physical predictions based on this model are constantly being verified.

That would be to say around 13.8 billion years ago is when matter in our universe came into existence? What of the non-physical, such as energy, particularly in the form of photons?

The universe is not eternal.

it certainly would boggle the mind if it were, yet it seems that, at least in some way, it is. At the very least existence is eternal. However, an eternal universe would have implications probably best discussed in the philosophy section. Also, perhaps our particular universe is not eternal - but that doesn't mean there was nothing before the first planck moment of the Big Bang. Could the birth of our universe be simultaneous with the death of another?

a reply to: scorpio84

You mean unchanging?

Oh, no. Changing all the time, but with a tendency to return always to the same state of energetic equilibrium. In the steady-state model, new matter is constantly being created. This is necessary because we know the universe to be constantly expanding, and the steady-state model cannot hold good unless it increases in mass as it increases in volume.

There is a charming story, not taken seriously by all historians, about how steady state theory began. The idea came in 1947, Hoyle claimed, when he and his fellow scientists Hermann Bondi and Tommy Gold went to a movie... The movie was a ghost story that ended the same way it started. This got the three scientists thinking about a universe that was unchanging yet dynamic. According to Hoyle, "One tends to think of unchanging situations as being necessarily static. What the ghost-story film did sharply for all three of us was to remove this wrong notion. One can have unchanging situations that are dynamic, as for instance a smoothly flowing river." But how could the universe always look the same if it was always expanding? It did not take them long to see a possible answer — matter was continuously being created. Thus new stars and galaxies could form to fill the space left behind as the old ones moved apart. Big Bang or Steady State?

That would be to say around 13.8 billion years ago is when matter in our universe came into existence? What of the non-physical, such as energy, particularly in the form of photons?

Matter and energy were not distinct in the original singularity. And — as everybody thinks they know — they are mutually convertible (nucleosynthesis turns energy into matter, as do collisions in particle accelerators). Matter and energy are conjoined twins, like time and space, and like time and space they came into the world together.

it certainly would boggle the mind if it were, yet it seems that, at least in some way, it is. At the very least existence is eternal.

The thing we have to understand is that time is a phenomenon local to the universe. In other words, eternity isn't just outside time; it's outside everything. Eternity is precisely nothing. Even empty space isn't that: it has properties. Eternity, however, is a predicate with no attributes.

I find my vocabulary no longer has a use for the word 'eternity'.

Also, perhaps our particular universe is not eternal - but that doesn't mean there was nothing before the first planck moment of the Big Bang. Could the birth of our universe be simultaneous with the death of another?

Didn't we already discuss this? The point to bear in mind is that there was nothing of the Universe — a word that means what it says, you know — before the Big Bang. The existence of other universes is irrelevant, another artifact produced by the illusion of temporal linearity and duration. The Universe does not experience Time as we do.

Anyway, there's no need to destroy another universe to create ours. Lee Smolin has suggested that every black hole may contain a daughter universe.

a reply to: Astyanax

Lot of interesting points that I'll need to look into further if I'm going to reply with any semblance of understanding on the subject. Getting bogged down with work and other stuff, so it may take some time - dropping a line to say thanks for that response.

Change is the key

The Universe we perceive is always in a state of change


Death is ultimately change


Existence is a constant state of transforming energy from one state to another


Change is transcended through nirvana( cessation)

a reply to: scorpio84

I hate to do this.

You say the universe is not eternal.

Okay then do they know its source?

no

a reply to: scorpio84

The universe is expanding like inflating, according to the scientists