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UPI United Press International
Nov 26 2010
Scientist: Big Bang not the first birth
Published: Nov. 26, 2010 at 6:48 PM
OXFORD, England, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- The Big Bang may not have been the
beginning of our universe but rather just the latest in a series of
cosmic deaths and rebirths, a U.K. scientist says.
Theoretical physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford says
circular patterns in the universe's pervasive background radiation
suggest the universe was born long before the Big Bang 13.7 billion
years ago and had undergone repeated cycles of birth and death before
that time, ScienceNews.org reported.
The controversial notion by Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan of Yerevan
State University in Armenia goes against the current standard theory
of cosmology known as inflation, which says the infant cosmos
underwent an enormous growth spurt in its first tiny fraction of a
second.
Inflation would erase the circular patterns Penrose and Gurzadyan say
they have detected.
Penrose claims the circles provide a look back past the "wall" of the
most recent Big Bang into the universe's previous episode.
In a published paper, Penrose and Gurzadyan suggest the circles were
generated by collisions between super massive black holes that
occurred during this earlier universe, creating uniform and spherical
gravity waves that could have entered our current universe.
Other physicists say the idea is intriguing but they aren't convinced.
"The existence of large-scale coherent features in the microwave
background of this form would appear to contradict the inflationary
model and would be a very distinctive signature of Penrose's model" of
a cyclic universe, cosmologist David Spergel of Princeton University
says.
But, he says, "The paper does not provide enough detail about the
analysis to assess the reality of these circles."
From: A. Papazian
Nov 26 2010
Scientist: Big Bang not the first birth
Published: Nov. 26, 2010 at 6:48 PM
OXFORD, England, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- The Big Bang may not have been the
beginning of our universe but rather just the latest in a series of
cosmic deaths and rebirths, a U.K. scientist says.
Theoretical physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford says
circular patterns in the universe's pervasive background radiation
suggest the universe was born long before the Big Bang 13.7 billion
years ago and had undergone repeated cycles of birth and death before
that time, ScienceNews.org reported.
The controversial notion by Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan of Yerevan
State University in Armenia goes against the current standard theory
of cosmology known as inflation, which says the infant cosmos
underwent an enormous growth spurt in its first tiny fraction of a
second.
Inflation would erase the circular patterns Penrose and Gurzadyan say
they have detected.
Penrose claims the circles provide a look back past the "wall" of the
most recent Big Bang into the universe's previous episode.
In a published paper, Penrose and Gurzadyan suggest the circles were
generated by collisions between super massive black holes that
occurred during this earlier universe, creating uniform and spherical
gravity waves that could have entered our current universe.
Other physicists say the idea is intriguing but they aren't convinced.
"The existence of large-scale coherent features in the microwave
background of this form would appear to contradict the inflationary
model and would be a very distinctive signature of Penrose's model" of
a cyclic universe, cosmologist David Spergel of Princeton University
says.
But, he says, "The paper does not provide enough detail about the
analysis to assess the reality of these circles."
From: A. Papazian