Big Bang Abandoned in New Model of the Universe

This is one of the most exciting theories I have heard in a long time. I am going to tell you why and you are going to think I am even nuttier than you already do. But, as you know, I don’t care. One night after watching some documentary about Stephen Hawking and the black hole wars, I was lying in bed just contemplating the Universe. Suddenly and image came into focus and a said aloud to my husband.

“I get it. It has a hole but it has no hole.”

Of course he groggily responded.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I went on to explain that I had seen an image of the Universe. That it was kind of like a doughnut. But, because we are inside the ring so we just keep going around and around. From our perspective it doesn’t have a hole. And the image I saw it was all stretched out so the “doughnut hole” was almost invisible.

“A new cosmology successfully explains the accelerating expansion of the universe without dark energy; but only if the universe has no beginning and no end.

Shu’s idea is that time and space are not independent entities but can be converted back and forth between each other. In his formulation of the geometry of spacetime, the speed of light is simply the conversion factor between the two. Similarly, mass and length are interchangeable in a relationship in which the conversion factor depends on both the gravitational constant G and the speed of light, neither of which need be constant.

So as the Universe expands, mass and time are converted to length and space and vice versa as it contracts.

This universe has no beginning or end, just alternating periods of expansion and contraction. In fact, Shu shows that singularities cannot exist in this cosmos.” Read the full article…

via Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Big Bang Abandoned in New Model of the Universe.

Schedule for LHC’s next few years revealed

The race is on, or continuing between the LHC and the Tevatron.  Regular readers know of my passion for particle physics. I find the work they are doing at the accelerators endlessly fascinating. Will they find this Higgs? Personally I don’t think so. Can I back that up with a reasoned argument? Nope. But, there are some very brilliant theoretical physicists who can. My point, I don’t have a horse in this race. I am watching it for the beauty of the game. It is beautiful.

“Steve Myers, CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology, presented the LHC schedule for the next 10 years today in the first plenary presentation at the International Conference on High Energy Physics. Myers also presented his predictions for the amount of data that the LHC may collect over the same time period. These predictions over the next few years will be scrutinized closely by scientists at Fermilab’s Tevatron, who have proposed extending the accelerator’s life for a further 3 years.” Read full Story»

via symmetry breaking » Blog Archive » Schedule for LHC’s next few years revealed.

Will the Biological Universe Trump Physics?

This is a short article that pretty closely says what I have been trying to articulate for so long. I would appreciate any of comments, insight, and re-tweets.

“most of the comprehensive theories universe are no more than stories that fail to take into account one crucial factor: we are creating them. It is the biological creature that makes observations, names what it observes, and creates stories. Science has not succeeded in confronting the element of existence that is at once most familiar and most mysterious—conscious experience.” Please read full article»

via Will the Biological Universe Trump Physics?.

Beginning and End of the Universe

Universe History

* The diagram below outlines the major Eras of the Universe according to the Big Bang Theory. Click the picture for many more details and a larger image. The one line in the article that caught my attention the most was at the end.

“One important point is that since everything that we learn about the Universe comes from light (photons), if there are no photons there is no information. Thus, before the end of the era of nuclei, we have no information since the photons were trapped. We will never see this era of the Universe with photons, but maybe gravity waves (?).”

That is a point that has been bothering me. Since we can’t “see” most of the Universe why do some (not all) scientists cling so tightly to one theory to the exclusion of all others? Isn’t it possible the standard model is wrong? Or, Isn’t is possible string theory is wrong? or M-theory? or even the Big Bang Theory? People use to think the theory of a geocentric universe was true. We agreed to get over that. Well, most of us did. I am just saying Science is about keeping an open mind about the facts. And the facts are, at the moment, most of the Universe is still invisible.

via Astronomy 309: COSMOLOGY.

Unified Field Theory

We are one. We all started out together as a singularity or super-string then BANG we expanded. We didn’t separate. We are all still connected, every person, animal, rock, tree, star, planet at a subatomic level. We are all connected.

Watch Frank Wilczek First. It is a longer lecture, but well worth it. Plus, it makes John Hagelin look less like a nutter.

FORA.tv – Frank Wilczek: The LHC and Unified Field Theory.

Grand Unified Theory-Wikipedia