Could there have been a universe before the current one?

Question

Scientists predict that if there is enough matter in the universe to create a gravitational force large enough to stop the expansion and reverse the direction then it will lead to a contraction of the universe. Therefore all matter will be packed into one infinitely dense point and another Big Bang would take place. It will then expand again and if there is enough mass then contract again until one universe expands forever. So could there not have been a universe before our current universe? If there was, is there of knowing when the first universe spontaneously created itself?

Answer 1

Well, there certainly are theories of it, and I haven't seen any contradictory evidence to the theory. So, I believe that it's possible there was another universe before this one, but I don't know if science will ever be able to know for sure. Well, in our lifetime, anyway.

Answer 2

This is the "oscillating Universe" theory, invented by Y. A. Zel'dovich, the famous Soviet astrophysicist.

It has largely been abandoned, because:

1) It seems likely that the total energy content of the Universe is zero, or near zero, with positive energy being balanced by negative gravitational potential energy.  Therefore, no "stuff" is needed to make the Big Bang.

2) The end state of our Universe seems to be an empty, inflating space.

3) There is no real idea about how to convert a collapsing Universe into a new Big Bang.  The entropy of the two situations is entirely different, so different that it seems much more likely to make the new Universe out of new stuff than to somehow grant a vast change in entropy to a collapsing old Universe.

Of course this is all speculation.  We know that we don't know about anything prior to the first second of the Big Bang.

Answer 3

It's definitely possible. Evolution started out as a theory...

As for knowing... I doubt it. According to what you said, if the previous universe did contract everything would have been wiped out, except for a dense ball of matter consisting or crushed up tiny pieces of everything from the past universe. With all that contraction, though, a lot of heat would be generated and cause all that matter to melted into basically one form of matter. Then when the expansion happened again, it would all be forced apart then all it would gather in it's separate entities (eventually forming solar systems and planets)

It makes sense because black holes do the same thing. When a star becomes a black hole after a looong time that black hole eventually explodes and forms a new star :) so why not the entire universe?

Answer 4

That is called the Big Crunch ( you know like the big bang theory ). The thing is people ask this type of questions on Yahoo answers every day...and they know that it has currently no solution.

Yes, of course there could have been a universe before this one...but there may not have been. You just don't know yet...  

Answer 5

First, the evidence is that there is exactly the amount of mass to balance the expansion of the Universe.  It wouldn't collapse back on itself, but expand forever, with slowing expansion that will approach zero expansion speed.

However, 11 years ago, Dark Energy was discovered.  The expansion of the Universe is accelerating, and will forever.  Unless Dark Energy - which is something we know very little about - has some property, uhm like decay, and stops working.

There currently is no evidence of anything from before the big bang.  However, the CMBR - the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation may provide clues.  The Plank space craft might even have the sensitivity to detect it, if it exists.  My best guess - no.

Answer 6

This spiritual matrix is much older than you know:

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/02/0506/...

Answer 7

I am interested in these kind of things as well and I saw a show on the Science channel with Michio Kaku.  There was a theory that two reality's clashed and exploded into one thus creating our own universe. So by this theory our universe didn't exist until the other two reality's collided and created ours.  It was a really good show and I am a huge fan of Michio Kaku.  But weather its true or not who knows.