More than one big bang?

Question

ok so the thought just popped in my head about this whole big bang thing. what do you think about the possiblility of big bang type events going off in our universe on a somewhat regular basis? like maybe there wasnt just one huge explosion that gave us everything in the universe but a few different ones that happend over a long period of time. maybe there is a possibility that the universe is infinite and every so often some of those dark areas explode for whatever reason and fill up with matter. really though i know this question cant be answered but i just want to know what you all think.

Answer 1

Regarding the first answer, what they're proposing isn't new.  People have been theorizing a cyclical universe for a couple of generations. In fact, I believe the whole push for "dark matter" is motivated by a need to show that the universe has enough mass to collapse back on itself.  This appears to be more of the same kind of garbage that many other cosmologists have been coming up with over the past couple of decades -- ideas which are nothing more than wild speculation.  It gets them media attention, book offers, speaking engagements, and makes them popular among those who think science is a fashion show and popularity contest.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support this claim.  In fact the "missing mass" has not been found, even with the huge imaginary mass of dark matter.  The idea of saying the universe is infinite is a supreme cop-out.  They just can't stomach the idea that they can't say what was before the big bang.  They can't stomach the notion that there WAS no "before." It's not aesthetically pleasing to them. So they make up things like M-theory, parallel universes, and now this bunk. And they shamelessly gain recognition through the popular press, where they have an addle-brained, wide-eyed, adoring legion of followers who keep believing, incorrectly, that their pseudoscientific heroes have discovered the ultimate secrets of the universe.  

They haven't discovered anything.  This "theory" is not only unverifiable and unscientific, it isn't even original.

Maybe this -- maybe that, what if and suppose --- all pseudo-intellectual dribble.  Sorry.  I'm just getting sick of it.

Now, as for your idea, like I said, others have considered such things for a long time. You know why they're still just speculation?  Because they were never verifiable or even investigable in the first place!  I'd really like to see how these people square their claims with the observed evidence.  In my opinion, people like these mentioned above, are to Astronomy what Carl Jung was to Psychology.

These things can be temporarily fun to think about, but you soon realize it is about as satisfying and useful as discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Answer 2

The universe is at least 986 billion years older than physicists thought and is probably much older still, according to a radical new theory.

The revolutionary study suggests that time did not begin with the big bang 14 billion years ago. This mammoth explosion which created all the matter we see around us, was just the most recent of many.

The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs.

"People have inferred that time began then, but there really wasn't any reason for that inference," said Neil Turok, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, "What we are proposing is very radical. It's saying there was time before the big bang."

Under his theory, published today in the journal Science with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University in New Jersey, the universe must be at least a trillion years old with many big bangs happening before our own. With each bang, the theory predicts that matter keeps on expanding and dissipating into infinite space before another horrendous blast of radiation and matter replenishes it. "I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though," said Prof Turok. "There doesn't have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large."

Today most cosmologists believe the universe will carry on expanding until all the stars burn out, leaving nothing but their cold dead remains. But there is an inherent problem with this picture. The Cosmological Constant - a mysterious force first postulated by Albert Einstein that appears to be driving the galaxies apart - is much too small to fit the theory. Einstein later renounced it as his "biggest blunder".

The Cosmological Constant is a mathematical representation of the energy of empty space, also known as "dark energy", which exerts a kind of anti-gravity force pushing galaxies apart at an accelerating rate.

It happens to be a googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes) times smaller than would be expected if the universe was created in a single Big Bang. But its value could be explained if the universe was much, much older than most experts believe.

Mechanisms exist that would allow the Constant to decrease incrementally through time. But these processes would take so long that, according to the standard theory, all matter in the universe would totally dissipate in the meantime.

Turok and Steinhardt's theory is an alternative to another explanation called the "anthropic principle", which argues that the constant can have a range of values in different parts of the universe but that we happen to live in a region conducive to life.

"The anthropic explanations are very controversial and many people do not like them," said Alexander Vilenkin a professor of theoretical physics at Tufts University in Massachusetts. Rather than making precise predictions for features of the universe the anthropic principle gives a vague range of values so it is difficult for physicists to test, he added.

"It's absolutely terrible, it really is giving up," said Prof Turok, "It's saying that we are never going to understand the state of the universe. It just has to be that way for us to exist." His explanation by contrast is built up from first principles.

But if he's right, how long have we got until the next big bang? "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." Good job, because if we were around we would instantly disintegrate into massless particles of light.