No Big Bang?

[radicalaggrivation]

One of my favorite sites for unfiltered science news is physorg.com because they refuse to dumb down their writing. I was perusing a couple of days ago and ran across this interesting article about a new way to imagine our universal model. That is to say, Wun-Yi Shu things the universe could have had no beginning and no end. That means no pesky, infinitely dense singularity at the beginning and no need for sudden expansion to explain the redshift. The theory also does away with a need for the mysterious ( and possibly mythical) entity known as dark matter. A theory that can finally unify many of the things we know about the universe, while also pushing past the issues with previous theories like string theory and the incompatibility of general relativity with newer findings and models is very exciting. Does anyone have experience in the field or perhaps a scholarly interest, that could give us some insight on how this could effect how we deal with universal models or does anyone have any thoughts on this intriguing new study? The link is below.

http://www.physorg.com/news199591806.html

[Tank]

Way beyond my understanding. However, if the theory explains the observed phenomena better than the current theory I hope it gets the attention and informed criticism it will need to become accepted as a better explanation. Most interesting, thanks for the link.

[KDbeads]

hmmmmm interesting. I'll re-read when I get home this afternoon and do some research

[SSY]

Well, lacking an academic subscription, I can't view his actual paper (not that I would probably understand it anyway), but from the report, I'm not too impressed. Sure, he gets rid of dark energy (which I agree, is a massive, massive fudge), but introduces a load of other stuff, which will all need verification.

From the simplified report, I can't see any reasonable explanation for time converting to space and vice versa. The bit about time being converted into space, and the inherent conversion factor seems inherently fishy to me, time and space are certainly related in a traditional view, they both act as means of co-ordinate separations, but while the two forms can be taken as the same in that sense, a direct conversion between the two doesn't make sense to me, as I said though, I only read the abridged version. Also, when the universe is contracting in this model, does mean the flow of time would reverse? That's something that would bork some pretty important parts of physics, you would need a hell of a reason to throw away the arrow of time.

I should point out though, I am slightly suspicious of theoreticals, if you actually hear some of the stuff they come out with, and then have no idea how to test it at all, it becomes pretty boring, fast. Sure, there are some major, major successes in the field, like predicting the weight of the W bosons, but the vast majority of it, you want to take with a titanic pinch of salt.

P.S. I'm afraid to say, everything is dumbed down, even if you take lecture courses in it, short of doing the project yourself, there is almost always going to be a loss of information in communication.

Edit, scratch that, got the paper.

[radicalaggrivation]

Well, lacking an academic subscription, I can't view his actual paper (not that I would probably understand it anyway), but from the report, I'm not too impressed. Sure, he gets rid of dark energy (which I agree, is a massive, massive fudge), but introduces a load of other stuff, which will all need verification.

From the simplified report, I can't see any reasonable explanation for time converting to space and vice versa. The bit about time being converted into space, and the inherent conversion factor seems inherently fishy to me, time and space are certainly related in a traditional view, they both act as means of co-ordinate separations, but while the two forms can be taken as the same in that sense, a direct conversion between the two doesn't make sense to me, as I said though, I only read the abridged version. Also, when the universe is contracting in this model, does mean the flow of time would reverse? That's something that would bork some pretty important parts of physics, you would need a hell of a reason to throw away the arrow of time.

I should point out though, I am slightly suspicious of theoreticals, if you actually hear some of the stuff they come out with, and then have no idea how to test it at all, it becomes pretty boring, fast. Sure, there are some major, major successes in the field, like predicting the weight of the W bosons, but the vast majority of it, you want to take with a titanic pinch of salt.

P.S. I'm afraid to say, everything is dumbed down, even if you take lecture courses in it, short of doing the project yourself, there is almost always going to be a loss of information in communication.

Edit, scratch that, got the paper.

That was one of my first thoughts as well. When space begins to contract does time contract as well. Even if it doesn't reverse would it slow? I guess we will have to wait for the heavy hitters to do a peer review of his models. I would keep my skepticism on tap but let us not forget that a great many theories that unified exiting theories (like GR) moved the ball forward while still having it's own issues. The fact that GR has yet to be reconciled with quantum physics does not diminish the fact that it was a breakthrough in how we understand cosmology. This new model is very elegant and explanatory,so let's see where it goes.

[Ellainix]

It was an exciting read nonetheless.

[KDbeads]

Ok.... I have read. Interesting though it is I have to agree with Sophus with the conversion between time and space, seems off.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I can get the idea of the interchange between space and time by analogizing to the interchange between energy and matter; but then, when it comes to physics, I'm good at ice-hockey.

[hackenslash]

I'm nobbling one of my sources to grab the paper now. There are a few thoughts that immediately occur to me, just from the article and the abstract.

The first is the whole issue with the varying speed of light. The relativistic implications of that are not inconsequential, as mass/energy equivalence is directly related to it. Not only that, but observations of light from pretty close to the big bang all arrive at c, so this conversion would have to impart some sort of force, and that arouses many questions.

Some of the things that it addresses are not necessarily things that need to be addressed. The solution to the flatness problem provided by Guth's inflationary model does require some parameters to fit within a very narrow band of values, there is no good reason to suppose, as yet, that those values weren't met.

The citation 'no beginning or end to time' being a distinguishing feature of this model is not accurate, because Guth's model again addresses this (indeed, that was the motivation for the formulation of the inflationary model), as does the Turok/Steinhardt model, and the Hwking/Hartle No-Boundary model.

The singularity problem is also addressed, but this time by Turok and Steinhardt's 'brane-worlds' model. Now, of course, this model is rooted in M-Theory, which often gets the purists' backs up, but at least they have provided possible falsification for it, meaning that it is, in principle, testable. We'll have to see what the LHC's GWDs turn up when they're up to full power physics runs for a bit of time.

Also, when the universe is contracting in this model, does mean the flow of time would reverse?

That's an interesting thought. I wouldn't have thought so. I actually have issue with the bang/crunch idea anyway, given the acceleration of expansion.

Edit: Ah, thought the paper was behind a paywall. Reading now.

[hackenslash]

Hmm. Maybe it's just because I'm an audio geek and the notation is different, but I've hit upon a thing or two that have me concerned. Firstly, on page 13, the following notation is given:

Since the speed of light c , wavelength λ , and frequency ν are related by c=λν

In the first place, that's not my understanding of the notation. In my understanding, v is phase velocity and frequency is f. As I say, that might be differing notation, but I don't think so. Secondly, frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength, yet in this model, one is given as constant while the other varies. Some of this is, I admit, a bit above my head, but there are other issues, as well. Pretty much every constant cited in the paper is now a variable, for one thing, which gives me pause, especially since some of these constants form the foundation of much of modern physics.

Either this model is set to replace a lot of modern physics, and not just the competing cosmological hypotheses, but I mean some of our best established physics, or it's nonsense. I can't tell which.

Oh, and it still doesn't provide us with quantum gravity, as far as I can tell.

[Tank]

What is the pedigree of the author of the paper?

[hackenslash]

I can find several papers with him as co-author (or somebody else named W.Y. Shu at the National Tsing Hua University Institute of Statistics), but they mostly seem to be biology. Stuff like 'gene expression microarrays', 'Zero-Force Binding Energetics of an Intercalated DNA Complex by a Single-Molecule Approach', etc.

Edit: All the citations I can find for this lead back to the arxiv page, and I can't find a serious review of it yet.

[Tank]

Hmmmm So while not in the same area he appears legitimate so unlikely to be 'making shit up'?

[hackenslash]

Indeed. Probably not a crackpot, but this will take some serious re-writing of the laws of physics, if I read it correctly. I'll PM a link to some of the physics geeks at RS and see what they say. Newolder might have some interesting insight, among others.

[Tank]

Newolders input would be very valuable.