Hints of 'time before Big Bang'

[Knight-Dragon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7440217.stm

A team of physicists has claimed that our view of the early Universe may contain the signature of a time before the Big Bang.

The discovery comes from studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old.

Their model may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow.

Details of the work have been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.

The CMB is relic radiation that fills the entire Universe and is regarded as the most conclusive evidence for the Big Bang.

Although this microwave background is mostly smooth, the Cobe satellite in 1992 discovered small fluctuations that were believed to be the seeds from which the galaxy clusters we see in today's Universe grew.

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, and colleagues from the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), now believes these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe "bubbled off" from a previous one.

Their data comes from Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been studying the CMB since its launch in 2001.

Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular.

Arrow of time

Describing the team's work at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in St Louis, Missouri, co-author Professor Sean Carroll explained that "a universe could form inside this room and we’d never know".

The inspiration for their theory isn't just an explanation for the Big Bang our Universe experienced 13.7 billion years ago, but lies in an attempt to explain one of the largest mysteries in physics - why time seems to move in one direction.

The laws that govern physics on a microscopic scale are completely reversible, and yet, as Professor Carroll commented, "no one gets confused about which is yesterday and which is tomorrow".

Physicists have long blamed this one-way movement, known as the "arrow of time" on a physical rule known as the second law of thermodynamics, which insists that systems move over time from order to disorder.

This rule is so fundamental to physics that pioneering astronomer Arthur Eddington insisted that "if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation".

The second law cannot be escaped, but Professor Carroll pointed out that it depends on a major assumption - that the Universe began its life in an ordered state.

This makes understanding the roots of this most fundamental of laws a job for cosmologists.

"Every time you break an egg or spill a glass of water you're learning about the Big Bang," Professor Carroll explained.

Before the bang

In his presentation, the Caltech astronomer explained that by creating a Big Bang from the cold space of a previous universe, the new universe begins its life in just such an ordered state.

The apparent direction of time - and the fact that it's hard to put a broken egg back together - is the consequence.

Much work remains to be done on the theory: the researchers' first priority will be to calculate the odds of a new universe appearing from a previous one.

In the meantime, the team have turned to the results from WMAP.

Detailed measurements made by the satellite have shown that the fluctuations in the microwave background are about 10% stronger on one side of the sky than those on the other.

Sean Carroll conceded that this might just be a coincidence, but pointed out that a natural explanation for this discrepancy would be if it represented a structure inherited from our universe's parent.

Meanwhile, Professor Carroll urged cosmologists to broaden their horizons: "We're trained to say there was no time before the Big Bang, when we should say that we don't know whether there was anything - or if there was, what it was."

If the Caltech team's work is correct, we may already have the first information about what came before our own Universe.

 

[Mise]

Wow, that's quite incredible.

 

[Perfection]

Ugh, I hate BBC science articles, it says there are hints in CMBR flucuations, but doesn't say what those hints are. It's all results with almost no explination how they arrived to them.

 

[warpus]

So if this true, this means that our Universe was born inside of another Universe.. and that one was likely to have been born in yet another Universe.

Does this repeat infinitely, or was there an unmoved mover?

 

[Luckymoose]

So there is a possibility of life from before our universe, moving from the old to the new. This could be awesome if those pesky aliens would show up.

 

[Veritass]

Much work remains to be done on the theory: the researchers' first priority will be to calculate the odds of a new universe appearing from a previous one.

That will be some interesting math.
How do you check your figures on that one?

 

[Olleus]

I'm confused about "time before the big bang". Wasn't the big bang the start of the three spacial dimensions and the time dimension? If so then time before that makes on sence. Its like saying whats -1m away from a point (without specifying a direction).

And yes Perfection, I agree that the BBC science articles are of quite a low standard. I find that The Economist write the best ones.

 

[warpus]

I'm confused about "time before the big bang". Wasn't the big bang the start of the three spacial dimensions and the time dimension? If so then time before that makes on sence. Its like saying whats -1m away from a point (without specifying a direction).

And yes Perfection, I agree that the BBC science articles are of quite a low standard. I find that The Economist write the best ones.

There could be other dimensions of time, outside of the one that was created during the big bang. (if it was indeed created then)

 

[Olleus]

But then it doesn't make sence to say that it is "before" as when we talk about time we always refer to our dimension of time, as its the only we that we experience. It makes no more sence than to say that an object which is to the left of another is behind or infront of it - it isn't - its next to it.

 

[Mise]

I think they mean "before" in the causal sense; causes always precede effects, so whatever caused the big bang must have come "before" the big bang. We can think of it as defining (ordinal) time in terms of cause and effect. In this way, we don't need to refer to any specific notion of time at all.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

But then it doesn't make sence to say that it is "before" as when we talk about time we always refer to our dimension of time, as its the only we that we experience. It makes no more sence than to say that an object which is to the left of another is behind or infront of it - it isn't - its next to it.

If you have enough perspectives, an object can be both next to, in front of, and behind another object simultaneously.

 

[Mise]

If you have enough perspectives, an object can be both next to, in front of, and behind another object simultaneously.

Yeah. I think a better analogy would be, if you had a small box inside a large box, would the small box be infront or behind the large box.

 

[Perfection]

So how would we determine which universe caused the existance of another?

In other words, what's causality without time (and entropy)?

 

[Souron]

So how would we determine which universe caused the existance of another?

In other words, what's causality without time (and entropy)?

"a universe could form inside this room and we’d never know" suggests that all of a universe is confined to a finite region of space in it's parent universe. Thus the parent universe can be defined as the one containing the other.

Though the whole jargon of "multiple universes" seems self contradicting to me.

 

[Truronian]

I went to an informal lecture about a theory similar to this one last year, I remember the lecturer beleved that any a universe will spawn a new universe once t -> oo, and this new universe will have lower entropy than the last one. I also remember that it sounded like crock, but that might just be because he only had an hour and a half to present his theory.

 

[Perfection]

I wonder if any of this is testible stuff, or just that this guy figured out some math that would allow it.

 

[TheDS]

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

 

[warpus]

I went to an informal lecture about a theory similar to this one last year, I remember the lecturer beleved that any a universe will spawn a new universe once t -> oo, and this new universe will have lower entropy than the last one. I also remember that it sounded like crock, but that might just be because he only had an hour and a half to present his theory.

And let me guess, all those universes are spawned within black holes, and universes with more stable black holes in them are selected for using a process similar to natural selection?

Yeah, I heard that on a street corner once.

 

[Truronian]

And let me guess, all those universes are spawned within black holes, and universes with more stable black holes in them are selected for using a process similar to natural selection?

Yeah, I heard that on a street corner once.

No, although I've heard stuff like that too. The guy that proposed this is pretty famous (Roger Penrose), though I've heard nothing about it since. It was probably just wrong.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

"a universe could form inside this room and we’d never know" suggests that all of a universe is confined to a finite region of space in it's parent universe. Thus the parent universe can be defined as the one containing the other.

Though the whole jargon of "multiple universes" seems self contradicting to me.

I read a science fiction story about some people who created a miniature invisible universe in their science lab. It came as a great shock to them to realize they themselves were probably an invisible universe in somebody else's lab.

I reject the notion that "it's elephants all the way down." Saying we came from another universe only brings the question of The Beginning to one more step -- where did this other universe come from?

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

I have a button that says this, but it adds some material:

Time is nature's way of keeping
everything from happening at once.
It doesn't seem to be working lately.​