Morgan BellA Cyclic Universe
May 10th 2006 02:00
Hindus and Buddhists may have it right with their belief in reincarnation.
Physicists Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and Neil Turok of Cambridge University have been working on the theory that the Universe constantly goes through cycles of “Big Bangs” and “Big Crunches”. Our Universe is “merely a child of the previous one”.
The physicists arrived at their conclusion after close analysis of the cosmological constant, a theory suggested by Albert Einstein later to be referred to as “the greatest blunder of my career”. The cosmological constant is a parameter that describes the energy density of the empty space in the Universe. As it is an inherent property of spacetime, measures of the cosmological constant should be the same everywhere, under normal circumstances.
Cosmologists have long been perplexed as to why the cosmological constant seems too small considering constant expansion of the universe. The new theory addresses these concerns by suggesting that time must have started before the Big Bang. This means that the Universe is much older than the currently estimated 12-14 billion years old.
Their proposal has previously been published in the journal Science in 2002.
(Image from NASA)
The physicists arrived at their conclusion after close analysis of the cosmological constant, a theory suggested by Albert Einstein later to be referred to as “the greatest blunder of my career”. The cosmological constant is a parameter that describes the energy density of the empty space in the Universe. As it is an inherent property of spacetime, measures of the cosmological constant should be the same everywhere, under normal circumstances.
Cosmologists have long been perplexed as to why the cosmological constant seems too small considering constant expansion of the universe. The new theory addresses these concerns by suggesting that time must have started before the Big Bang. This means that the Universe is much older than the currently estimated 12-14 billion years old.
Their proposal has previously been published in the journal Science in 2002.
(Image from NASA)
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