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Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning
by Wired
Thanks to SPS for the link.
Reposted from:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/qa_turok
For decades, physicists have accepted the notion that the universe started with the Big Bang, an explosive event at the literal beginning of time. Now, computational physicist Neil Turok is challenging that model -- and some scientists are taking him seriously.
According to Turok, who teaches at Cambridge University, the Big Bang represents just one stage in an infinitely repeated cycle of universal expansion and contraction. Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end.
It's a strange idea, though Turok would say it's no stranger than the standard explanation of the Big Bang: a singular point that defies our laws of physics, where all equations go to infinity and "all the properties we normally use to describe the universe and its contents just fail." That inconsistency led Turok to see if the Big Bang could be explained within the framework of string theory, a controversial and so-far untested explanation of the universe as existing in at least 10 dimensions and being formed from one-dimensional building blocks called strings. Within a school of string theory known as m-theory, Turok said, "the seventh extra dimension of space is the gap between two parallel objects called branes. It's like the gap between two parallel mirrors. We thought, What happens if these two mirrors collide? Maybe that was the Big Bang."
Turok's proposition has drawn condemnation from string theory's many critics and even opposition from the Catholic Church. But it's provoked acclaim and wonder, too: He and Princeton University physicist Paul Steinhardt published Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang last year, and Turok -- also the founder of the South Africa-based African Institute for Mathematical Sciences -- won 2008's first annual
TED Prize, awarded to the world's most innovative thinkers.
Turok spoke with Wired.com about the Big Bang, the intellectual benefits of cosmology and his bet with Stephen Hawking.
Wired: In a nutshell, what are you proposing?
Neil Turok: In our picture, there was a universe before the Big Bang, very much like our universe today: a low density of matter and some stuff called dark energy. If you postulate a universe like this, but the dark energy within is actually unstable, then the decay of this dark energy drives the two branes together. These two branes clash and then, having filled with radiation, separate and expand to form galaxies and stars.
Then the dark energy takes over again. It's the energy of attraction between the two branes: It pulls them back together. You have bang followed by bang followed by bang. You have no beginning of time. It's always been there.
Wired: But isn't there still a beginning?
Turok: Imagine you have a room full of air, with all these molecules banging around. The vast majority of time, these molecules spread uniformly -- but once in a trillion trillion years, they all end up in the corner of the room. If you look at the room and run the clock forward, they'll eventually make themselves uniform: But it would reverse, and you'd watch them flying into the corner. Then they'd fly out again.
If this is right, it means that time runs forward for a while. Then there's a random state without an arrow of time, then time runs backwards, and then time runs forward again. That's the bigger picture: We're still very far away from understanding it, but that would be my bet.
But my main interest is the problem of the singularity. If we can't understand what happened at the singularity we came out of, then we don't seem to have any understanding of the laws of particle physics. I'd be very happy just to understand the last singularity and leave the other ones to future generations.
Wired: How do you test this theory?
Turok: If the universe sprung into existence and then expanded exponentially, you get gravitational waves traveling through space-time. These would fill the universe, a pattern of echoes of the inflation itself. In our model, the collision of these two branes doesn't make waves at all. So if we could measure the waves, we could see which theory is right.
Stephen Hawking bet me that we'll see the signal from inflation. I said that we won't, and he can take it for any amount of money at even odds. So far he hasn't named an amount. He's richer than me, so he's being nice.
Wired: You've said the standard explanation of the Big Bang is Rube Goldberg-ian, but this seems like quite the convoluted contraption, too.
Turok: The structure of the sandwich was forced on theorists by mathematicians: It's basically the only way you can make the equations consistent and avoid infinity. The extent to which we believe it derives from the mathematics. We're not smoking something and making it up.
However, I feel that the main role for these scenarios of the early universe is to stimulate our thinking. I don't necessarily believe any of them. The most important thing is that the only intellectually honest way to study such questions of cosmology is to make the most precise model you can. I think of the whole thing as a giant intellectual exercise, a stimulating exercise, to make us better appreciate the universe.
Wired: It's stirred a lot of emotion for an intellectual. When Alan Guth criticized you and your theory at a conference, he showed a picture of a monkey. Is this sort of vitriol normal?
Turok: The monkey was maybe a bit exaggerated. But I'm actually good friends with Guth, and I'm sure he did it as a joke. I meet him regularly at conferences, and he's a reasonable guy. The field is driven by reason. The inevitably human things that come into it don't matter in the long run.
In the end, bad ideas will not survive. If you have a good, clean idea that's elegant and precise and agrees with observations, it'll get through.
Wired: The Catholic Church hasn't been very receptive to your ideas, either.
Turok: I think they like the Big Bang for obvious reasons. It's a creation event, and they find that appealing. Whereas if you talk to most physicists, they'd prefer that there was not a creation event, because there are no laws of physics that indicate how time could begin.
I'm not motivated by [theological considerations]. I'd be perfectly happy with a mathematically precise description of how time began. I see science and religion as being two completely different things. I don't see science as relevant to the question of whether or not there's a God.
If the world is cyclical, in a sense you still need a policeman to enforce the laws of physics. If you need a God to do that, fine -- but I think that's a belief in why the world is the way it is. Science studies how the world operates, not why it's here.
Wired: To many people, science is valuable because of the metaphors it gives us -- a poetry of the natural world. Does your work resonate that way with you?
Turok: We need poetry as well as science, but it's completely irrelevant to the science. That doesn't motivate me either. I just feel incredibly lucky and honored to think about these problems and try to make models that may or may not be relevant. It's a fantastic privilege to ponder these questions -- even if we don't succeed, even if all we do is appreciate how hard the problem is, it brings us together. The world is an incredible miracle, and we have to do whatever we can to appreciate it.
Wired: Whatever you find, though, it's not going to have much everyday importance.
Turok: No, but one of the extraordinary things about the field is that whatever culture people come from, they all love this stuff. The popularity Hawking has achieved is due in part to him being an exceptional individual, but it's also because the questions and the science are inherently fascinating.
It's been amazing to see students from all over Africa, from countries that have been disaster areas for 30 years, come to the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and try to best Einstein.
The side effects are quite good, too. I teach math to hundreds of students every year, and because the stuff we work on is high-powered and rigorous, we add to the intellectual environment. Many of the brightest students love to do this. It's like the Apollo moon program, which had a huge spinoff in technology. So even though this kind of science and thinking has no intrinsic economic value, it's hugely motivating and quite cheap.
Wired: With all your work with students from Africa, what do you think of James Watson's remarks on Africans evolving to possess less intelligence than other racial groups?
Turok: I think he's nuts. My students are highly motivated and have a very high success rate. If he really believes they're inferior, he should just come to the institute. I guarantee that if he spends an afternoon with these students, he'll revise his opinion.
Reposted from:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/qa_turok
For decades, physicists have accepted the notion that the universe started with the Big Bang, an explosive event at the literal beginning of time. Now, computational physicist Neil Turok is challenging that model -- and some scientists are taking him seriously.
According to Turok, who teaches at Cambridge University, the Big Bang represents just one stage in an infinitely repeated cycle of universal expansion and contraction. Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end.
It's a strange idea, though Turok would say it's no stranger than the standard explanation of the Big Bang: a singular point that defies our laws of physics, where all equations go to infinity and "all the properties we normally use to describe the universe and its contents just fail." That inconsistency led Turok to see if the Big Bang could be explained within the framework of string theory, a controversial and so-far untested explanation of the universe as existing in at least 10 dimensions and being formed from one-dimensional building blocks called strings. Within a school of string theory known as m-theory, Turok said, "the seventh extra dimension of space is the gap between two parallel objects called branes. It's like the gap between two parallel mirrors. We thought, What happens if these two mirrors collide? Maybe that was the Big Bang."
Turok's proposition has drawn condemnation from string theory's many critics and even opposition from the Catholic Church. But it's provoked acclaim and wonder, too: He and Princeton University physicist Paul Steinhardt published Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang last year, and Turok -- also the founder of the South Africa-based African Institute for Mathematical Sciences -- won 2008's first annual
TED Prize, awarded to the world's most innovative thinkers.
Turok spoke with Wired.com about the Big Bang, the intellectual benefits of cosmology and his bet with Stephen Hawking.
Wired: In a nutshell, what are you proposing?
Neil Turok: In our picture, there was a universe before the Big Bang, very much like our universe today: a low density of matter and some stuff called dark energy. If you postulate a universe like this, but the dark energy within is actually unstable, then the decay of this dark energy drives the two branes together. These two branes clash and then, having filled with radiation, separate and expand to form galaxies and stars.
Then the dark energy takes over again. It's the energy of attraction between the two branes: It pulls them back together. You have bang followed by bang followed by bang. You have no beginning of time. It's always been there.
Wired: But isn't there still a beginning?
Turok: Imagine you have a room full of air, with all these molecules banging around. The vast majority of time, these molecules spread uniformly -- but once in a trillion trillion years, they all end up in the corner of the room. If you look at the room and run the clock forward, they'll eventually make themselves uniform: But it would reverse, and you'd watch them flying into the corner. Then they'd fly out again.
If this is right, it means that time runs forward for a while. Then there's a random state without an arrow of time, then time runs backwards, and then time runs forward again. That's the bigger picture: We're still very far away from understanding it, but that would be my bet.
But my main interest is the problem of the singularity. If we can't understand what happened at the singularity we came out of, then we don't seem to have any understanding of the laws of particle physics. I'd be very happy just to understand the last singularity and leave the other ones to future generations.
Wired: How do you test this theory?
Turok: If the universe sprung into existence and then expanded exponentially, you get gravitational waves traveling through space-time. These would fill the universe, a pattern of echoes of the inflation itself. In our model, the collision of these two branes doesn't make waves at all. So if we could measure the waves, we could see which theory is right.
Stephen Hawking bet me that we'll see the signal from inflation. I said that we won't, and he can take it for any amount of money at even odds. So far he hasn't named an amount. He's richer than me, so he's being nice.
Wired: You've said the standard explanation of the Big Bang is Rube Goldberg-ian, but this seems like quite the convoluted contraption, too.
Turok: The structure of the sandwich was forced on theorists by mathematicians: It's basically the only way you can make the equations consistent and avoid infinity. The extent to which we believe it derives from the mathematics. We're not smoking something and making it up.
However, I feel that the main role for these scenarios of the early universe is to stimulate our thinking. I don't necessarily believe any of them. The most important thing is that the only intellectually honest way to study such questions of cosmology is to make the most precise model you can. I think of the whole thing as a giant intellectual exercise, a stimulating exercise, to make us better appreciate the universe.
Wired: It's stirred a lot of emotion for an intellectual. When Alan Guth criticized you and your theory at a conference, he showed a picture of a monkey. Is this sort of vitriol normal?
Turok: The monkey was maybe a bit exaggerated. But I'm actually good friends with Guth, and I'm sure he did it as a joke. I meet him regularly at conferences, and he's a reasonable guy. The field is driven by reason. The inevitably human things that come into it don't matter in the long run.
In the end, bad ideas will not survive. If you have a good, clean idea that's elegant and precise and agrees with observations, it'll get through.
Wired: The Catholic Church hasn't been very receptive to your ideas, either.
Turok: I think they like the Big Bang for obvious reasons. It's a creation event, and they find that appealing. Whereas if you talk to most physicists, they'd prefer that there was not a creation event, because there are no laws of physics that indicate how time could begin.
I'm not motivated by [theological considerations]. I'd be perfectly happy with a mathematically precise description of how time began. I see science and religion as being two completely different things. I don't see science as relevant to the question of whether or not there's a God.
If the world is cyclical, in a sense you still need a policeman to enforce the laws of physics. If you need a God to do that, fine -- but I think that's a belief in why the world is the way it is. Science studies how the world operates, not why it's here.
Wired: To many people, science is valuable because of the metaphors it gives us -- a poetry of the natural world. Does your work resonate that way with you?
Turok: We need poetry as well as science, but it's completely irrelevant to the science. That doesn't motivate me either. I just feel incredibly lucky and honored to think about these problems and try to make models that may or may not be relevant. It's a fantastic privilege to ponder these questions -- even if we don't succeed, even if all we do is appreciate how hard the problem is, it brings us together. The world is an incredible miracle, and we have to do whatever we can to appreciate it.
Wired: Whatever you find, though, it's not going to have much everyday importance.
Turok: No, but one of the extraordinary things about the field is that whatever culture people come from, they all love this stuff. The popularity Hawking has achieved is due in part to him being an exceptional individual, but it's also because the questions and the science are inherently fascinating.
It's been amazing to see students from all over Africa, from countries that have been disaster areas for 30 years, come to the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and try to best Einstein.
The side effects are quite good, too. I teach math to hundreds of students every year, and because the stuff we work on is high-powered and rigorous, we add to the intellectual environment. Many of the brightest students love to do this. It's like the Apollo moon program, which had a huge spinoff in technology. So even though this kind of science and thinking has no intrinsic economic value, it's hugely motivating and quite cheap.
Wired: With all your work with students from Africa, what do you think of James Watson's remarks on Africans evolving to possess less intelligence than other racial groups?
Turok: I think he's nuts. My students are highly motivated and have a very high success rate. If he really believes they're inferior, he should just come to the institute. I guarantee that if he spends an afternoon with these students, he'll revise his opinion.
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Posted: Sunday, February 24, 2008 | PermalinkComments 1 - 50 of 82 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #132219 by Hobbit on February 24, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Why do we even care what the Catholic Church thinks on these issues? They have proven time and time again that they are not interested in the truth of science. Just look how long it took them acknowledge that the earth is not the centre of the universe and to apologise to Galileo!
As for the rest of the article, most of it went over my head, but I do look forward to reading the opinions of the physics contributors on this site such as Eepist.
Other Comments by Hobbit
3. Comment #132221 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 1:38 pm
It is worth pointing out that Turok's ideas aren't that widely supported. There are problems; for example, the arrangement of the branes which would allow for a cyclic system looks like another "fine tuning" issue! Inflation may have problems, but the principle of inflation seems to come naturally from many ideas of how the physical forces work. Other Comments by Steve Zara
4. Comment #132222 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 1:39 pm
So if we could measure the waves, we could see which theory is right.
No. With enough data you might be able to show that one or both are wrong. When he says "right" in this context, he (hopefully) means "is not inconsistent with what we are able to measure." That is not the same as what the public hears in "right" which leads to all kinds of conclusions from false analogy.
Other Comments by Quine
5. Comment #132224 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Quine: this is typical of String Theorists. What he means by "right" is "not going to stop us working on our favourite idea"! Other Comments by Steve Zara
6. Comment #132225 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 24, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Wired: But isn't there still a beginning?Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad
7. Comment #132228 by Jiten on February 24, 2008 at 1:47 pm
We're not smoking something and making it up.Brilliant! This is the difference between Science and the Catholic Church! (OK to be fair all religious nonsense)
Other Comments by Jiten
8. Comment #132229 by Szymanowski on February 24, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Very interesting interview (although the final question was utterly random).It is worth pointing out that Turok's ideas aren't that widely supported. There are problems; for example, the arrangement of the branes which would allow for a cyclic system looks like another "fine tuning" issue! Inflation may have problems, but the principle of inflation seems to come naturally from many ideas of how the physical forces work.
It's also worth pointing out that 99.9999% of the world (hopefully) doesn't understand a word of this!
Other Comments by Szymanowski
9. Comment #132231 by FightingFalcon on February 24, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I've always been open to the idea of a circular explanation for the history of the universe rather than a linear progression of time. We as human beings are obsessed with everything having a beginning and an end and therefore would never be able to understand a universe that has simply always existed. For me personally, I'm very content in believing that the universe was always here and follows a pattern that resembles a circle more than a line. I'm hoping that at some point in our lifetime science will be able to provide a little more light on the subject of the "beginning" of the universe, should there even be one. As of right now, the creation of the universe and its complex nature are the only arguments left for Theists. O how I wish for the day that we can provide a scientific answer to those questions and watch as Theists fade into the ash-bin of history.
Other Comments by FightingFalcon
10. Comment #132233 by Quetzalcoatl on February 24, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I'd heard about this theory before, but it's good to finally get some detail on it.
I'd be interested to know on what basis they postulate that the dark energy in this previous universe was unstable, and in fact how the energy could change from stable to unstable.
If this is right, it means that time runs forward for a while. Then there's a random state without an arrow of time, then time runs backwards, and then time runs forward again
Another interesting question would be what provokes this transition in the state of time. If any of the physics contributors have any insights, I'd love to read them.
Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl
11. Comment #132234 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It's basically the only way you can make the equations consistent and avoid infinity.
Again, "only way" means "only way we have thought of so far." This is not in the same class of statement about what cannot be done as is something like the impossibility of squaring the circle. If he really thinks so, let's see the math steps of the proof.
Other Comments by Quine
12. Comment #132236 by Bonzai on February 24, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Quine,Stop the pedantic nitpicking, would you?
I hate to keep saying this, somehow it seems only philosophers have problems understanding people making simple points without spelling out everything explicitly.
My theory is that all *real* discussions happen within a context and the context would clarify the intended meanings of words. For example, scientists or just people who have some basic understanding of how science works would have no problem parsing Turok's statement and understand his intended meaning.
But philosophical discussions often take place at such a high level of generality and abstraction that they are divorced from any concrete context,--in other words they may very well be just BS pretending to be profound discussions.
In the absence of any context words are the only tool for philosophers to convey "meanings",--though I would be somewhat hesitant to consider much of metaphysics or ontology "meaningful", but that's just me.
Spending too much time on these scholastic activities may lead to an occupational hazard for the philosopher, namely a failure to understand how people use language informally in real communications and the tendency to appear like condescending smart asses when he tries to "correct" others' perceived misuse of language,--this may actually be a health hazard because it may lead to beating in some circles
EDIT: Not to single out philosophers I notice the same affliction in some lawyers as well, though not as serious.
Other Comments by Bonzai
13. Comment #132238 by Rational_G on February 24, 2008 at 1:57 pm
"I think of the whole thing as a giant intellectual exercise..."as opposed to a useful scientific theory. (Yawn.)
Other Comments by Rational_G
14. Comment #132239 by 82abhilash on February 24, 2008 at 1:58 pm
1. Comment #132217 by Ian Bamlett on February 24, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I see science and religion as being two completely different things. I don't see science as relevant to the question of whether or not there's a God.
Shame on Turok for buying into the terrible idea of non-overlapping magisteria. As RD points out time and time again, a universe in which there is a god as opposed to one in which there is not is very much a scientific question. All evidence points to the latter, Turok knows that, and should have the guts to say so.
Good article otherwise though!
Ian, for the longest time science never made claims on religion, it was in fact religion trespassed on science. That was the root of the problem and still is today. The theocrats trying to destroy science by introducing creation and so on.
Science as a field makes no comment on the supernatural.So Turok is right when he says, "I don't see science as relevant to the question of whether or not there's a God." Although the other statement, "I see science and religion as being two completely different things." I kind of disagree. Because the truth value of the claims made by the religious can be evaluated scientifically.
Even RD has never claimed there is no God, just that it is very less likely there is one. Richard Feynman once said something that very well sums it up for me, although he was talking about UFOs, "I think it is more likely from my knowledge of the universe that this phenomenon is the result of known irrational behavior of terrestrial intelligence rather than unknown rational behavior of extra-terrestrial (read here super-natural) intelligence.
Other Comments by 82abhilash
15. Comment #132241 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 2:01 pm
It's also worth pointing out that 99.9999% of the world (hopefully) doesn't understand a word of this!
Apologies! Let me try again.
Turok's idea involves parallel universes banging together after having moved towards each other in another dimension of space (a fifth dimension!). That "bang" released a lot of energy, and gave rise to the matter and energy we see. It is an explanation of why the universe looks so smooth on large scales. Another explanation is "inflation", which is that the universe stretched exponentially for a very short time after it first formed. That stretching smoothed things out.
There is a problem with the parallel universes banging together idea, according to some people, which is that to bang together the right way, they would have to be very, very precisely positioned.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
16. Comment #132242 by Spinoza on February 24, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Spinoza would be smiling if he were alive today.As would Einstein.
Bonzai, that's because non-philosophers are content to misunderstand others without realizing it.
You're also just rehashing a debate that went on in philosophy 100 years ago. Check out "Ordinary Language Philosophy" (Austin, Ryle, Strawson, Wittgenstein, etc).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinary_language_philosophy
As for this: "In the absence of any context words are the only tool for philosophers to convey "meanings""
That's nonsense. There is no such thing as "meaning" independent of context.
Other Comments by Spinoza
17. Comment #132243 by Brian English on February 24, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Bonzai. I know nothing of string theory. So what context am I to understand this article under? I take high level science on faith, faith that the scientific methodology deserves from past successes. But if a scientist is just putting forward his views, and not the product of the scientific methodology, then without the context of understanding that string theory isn't a theory (thanks Steve Zara)...well.... I don't think a bit of nit-picking hurts. Just my opinion though. Other Comments by Brian English
18. Comment #132249 by Bonzai on February 24, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Brian,Quine's nitpicking has nothing to do with string theory, it is about the inductive nature of science.
His second post on "only way" is equally misplaced. By that Turok means the only way compatible with known constraints imposed by relativity and Quantum mechanics etc. No one in physics would be talking about logically impossibilities, again showing that Quine missed the context,
EDIT; That was an interview about some ideas on the speculative end of cosmology, Turok was not giving a lecture on scientific method 101 for Zeus' sake.
Other Comments by Bonzai
19. Comment #132250 by Brian English on February 24, 2008 at 2:10 pm
OK, my mistake. Thanks Bonzai. Other Comments by Brian English
20. Comment #132268 by Rational_G on February 24, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I think the nitpicks are illuminating. They reveal the zeal in which string theorists present their untestable ideas.However science is a big room - big enough to consider alternative ideas. As he says, time will tell.
Other Comments by Rational_G
21. Comment #132271 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 2:32 pm
However, I feel that the main role for these scenarios of the early universe is to stimulate our thinking. I don't necessarily believe any of them. The most important thing is that the only intellectually honest way to study such questions of cosmology is to make the most precise model you can. I think of the whole thing as a giant intellectual exercise, a stimulating exercise, to make us better appreciate the universe.
I am, actually, rather glad to hear this part. One of the problems I have with all the speculation about the very early Universe is that it relies (necessarily) on the assumption that energy/matter and space/time interacted then as we see now (or can see near then by looking far away). In and of itself, that is not too much of a stretch, except that at very close to time zero we are out of fossil picture (background microwave) and just have to keep extrapolating physical laws that have not been tested at the energy levels or space/time curvature the math goes up to. Physicists recognize that they have a problem when the values go to infinity, but really don't know at what point they are in trouble on the approach.
This kind of thing has happened throughout the history of science. A good example is the problem with the precession of the orbit of the planet Mercury, which showed that Newton's gravity law (which worked so very well everywhere else) was not always true. It turned out that close to the sun the curvature of space/time was just enough to cause a difference that made a difference, requiring General Relativity. We have no way to know if there isn't another force in Nature that is many orders of magnitude weaker than gravity (we would not see it on our scale) that did interact when distances were very small and space/time curvature was very large. I am not presuming to propose any theory, I just want to remind everyone that models extrapolated into situations beyond conditions of experimental testing are not necessarily valid sources of prediction. I look forward to data from future attempts to increase the resolution of the picture of the fossil background microwave asymmetry, and of course, to gravitational wave telescopes.
Other Comments by Quine
22. Comment #132274 by Andrew Stich on February 24, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Bonzai, there's no need for pedantic accusations of pedantic nitpicking.On the other hand, I suppose there's no need for pedantic accusations of pedantic accusations of pedantic nitpicking...
I'll let this pedantic situation speak for itself.
Other Comments by Andrew Stich
23. Comment #132275 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 2:37 pm
We have no way to know if there isn't another force in Nature that is many orders of magnitude weaker than gravity (we would not see it on our scale) that did interact when distances were very small and space/time curvature was very large. I am not presuming to propose any theory,
That really isn't very likely. The scales of time and space at which gravity gets significant are so extreme that it is questionable whether time or space make any sense below them. This suggests that any weaker force could not be unified with the others.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
24. Comment #132277 by Bonzai on February 24, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Spinoza,Bonzai, that's because non-philosophers are content to misunderstand others without realizing it.
Misunderstanding occurs, that is life. It is not difficult to rectify, the technique is called "ASK IF IT IS UNCLEAR"
I don't think you need to study sophisticated philosophy to master this technique.
On the other hand, witnessing philosophers having informal talks among themselves doesn't convince me that they are better in communicating themselves than the non philosophers.
In fact just the opposite, very often you see their conversations degenerate into massive confusions because of the tangential word games that only philosophers would play.
You're also just rehashing a debate that went on in philosophy 100 years ago. Check out "Ordinary Language Philosophy" (Austin, Ryle, Strawson, Wittgenstein, etc).
I wouldn't be surprised that it is old hat, many philosophers are still doing Plato, But then not knowing what the movement was all about I would expect that "ordinary language" was found to be inadequate for the purpose of Scholastic philosophy because the later often doesn't have a specific enough context and a shared substrate of meanings except through words. .
That's nonsense. There is no such thing as "meaning" independent of context.
Yes, of course. But what is peculiar about philosophy is that the context is often also constructed with words with nothing else to anchor the words (consider metaphysics)
In physics, for example, there is a vast substrate of shared meanings made up of intuitions, data, facts, equations etc. People with shared access to this substrate of meanings can communicate even without spelling out everything in details and making all the qualifying clauses. Words are just pointers.
Sometimes even mathematics is just pointers, mathematicians would cringe at some mathematical procedures that physicists use, for example getting rid of infinities with renormalization. It is definitely mathematically wrong (anyone who writes infinity -infinity = 0 in a first year calculus course would definitely get a zero)but it works. The reason why it works in the context that physicists use it is not to be found in the mathematical formalism, the physics is hidden somewhere, it is important to find that out. But my point is, in this case the math is just a "pointer", it would be missing the point to just say that the math is not kosher, more important is to explain why unkosher math actually works for these problems.
Since I don't want to start another fight with yet another philosopher I will just leave it as that. Let's agree to disagree.
Other Comments by Bonzai
25. Comment #132281 by Ian H Spedding FCD on February 24, 2008 at 2:45 pm
It's also worth pointing out that 99.9999% of the world (hopefully) doesn't understand a word of this!
...and the 0.00001% that do only do so when their brains come together in perfect alignment with a massive release of creative energy?
Other Comments by Ian H Spedding FCD
26. Comment #132282 by Brian English on February 24, 2008 at 2:47 pm
"ASK IF IT IS UNCLEAR"
OK Bonzai. I just didn't get Engineering mathematics very well in Uni. To say it was unclear to me is an understatement. Any tips on getting maths without doing a boat load of study? I did quite well in High-school calculus, etc, just not Uni.
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27. Comment #132284 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Quine,
Stop the pedantic nitpicking, would you?
It's a dirty job; but somebody has to do it.
--this may actually be a health hazard because it may lead to beating in some circles
Good thing I am, also, a martial arts instructor.
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28. Comment #132288 by Geoff on February 24, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Steve, are physicists anywhere near being able to test this, using the gravitational waves, or is it likely to remain err..."just a hypothesis" for a long time yet?I'm quite keen on the idea, if only to piss off the Catholic church...
You quite rightly say that it's a minority viewpoint at present, but so are many other ideas in "cutting edge" physics, and Turok does have credibility (trying to avoid the "Argument from Authority" here, but it seems to be, in principle, testable).
Basically a long-winded way of me saying "I dunno, but...".
Just got a wonderful thought of the theists postulating their god with a brane in either hand, like a couple of table-tennis bats, and banging them together.
Other Comments by Geoff
29. Comment #132292 by jeepyjay on February 24, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end.
It's a strange idea, though Turok would say it's no stranger than the standard explanation of the Big Bang: a singular point that defies our laws of physics, where all equations go to infinity and "all the properties we normally use to describe the universe and its contents just fail.
///
You have no beginning of time. It's always been there.
So to get rid of one infinity, at the big bang singularity, you introduce another infinity, time without beginning or end. I just don't think any model involving infinity can be the answer, since it is a non-physical concept.
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30. Comment #132293 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Steve, are physicists anywhere near being able to test this, using the gravitational waves, or is it likely to remain err..."just a hypothesis" for a long time yet?
Very hard to say. The next generation of instruments to measure gravitational waves might start to pick up big signals (such as the collision of black holes), but the waves from the beginning of the universe (or this cycle) would be very faint. Another way to check for them would be to look for the right patterns in the cosmic microwave background. This may be only a matter of years away.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
31. Comment #132294 by Radesq on February 24, 2008 at 3:05 pm
OK leaving string theory aside because I clearly don't understand it. Steve Z and others have helped me with some of the astrophysics of big bang and inflationary universe theory. Still, I am human and humans like to form patterns and to mentally categorize things. It seems to me much more likely that the universe does behave cyclically like many other systems in nature. Forever is along time to stay in a state of endless expansion or even stasis. I keep coming back to the phrase "and then what happened next".
I don't have any science to back this up with of course, right now the evidence appears to the contrary or you have to contort yourself with theories as outlandish (though not necessarily wrong)as the above. There is I suppose dark matter, dark energy, ...the dark side of the force. I just have a feeling that the universe is not a one shot deal (it would be too wasteful -- you know like we are all just recycled stardust man -- isn't that a trip man:) and I think someday we might figure out why it isn't.
I am open to persuasion on the ever expanding universe -- as it stands right now proponents of it seem to have the better of the argument. Still, a universe that goes on forever and just burns itself out doesn't seem naturally thrifty enough for me [insert Scot joke here].
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32. Comment #132296 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 3:07 pm
So to get rid of one infinity, at the big bang singularity, you introduce another infinity, time without beginning or end. I just don't think any model involving infinity can be the answer, since it is a non-physical concept.
Basically, I agree. I don't like "the universe always was" explanations with an eternity already behind us. However, not for the reason you suggest. The infinities of singularites are not the same sort of problem as with infinite time. The former breaks physical theory, the latter doesn't.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
33. Comment #132297 by Uhtred on February 24, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Turok's idea is not necessarily a new one. A universe caught in a never ending cycle of fiery birth, cooling, and fiery rebirth - an ekpyrotic cosmology - was one that Marcus Aurelius was schooled in.I can't understand why it has received such a fiery/cool reception?
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34. Comment #132298 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I am open to persuasion on the ever expanding universe -- as it stands right now proponents of it seem to have the better of the argument. Still, a universe that goes on forever and just burns itself out doesn't seem naturally thrifty enough for me [insert Scot joke here].
In some versions of the idea that Turok presents, the universe does keep on expanding forever. What happens is the universe expands, then, at some future time, probably when it is only sparsely filled with matter, and slowing down, the branes collide and fill it up with energy again and give the expansion another kick.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
35. Comment #132299 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on February 24, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Steve Zara seems to be the resident physics expert so I'll address my question to him.Why does the cyclical universe get rid of the need for a beginning, a first cycle if you will?
And are you just a keen amateur or do you work in the field?
Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad
36. Comment #132301 by Corylus on February 24, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Quine
Good thing I am, also, a martial arts instructor.
Cool!
Do you call out "Bonzai" during tameshiwari?
Excuse me if this is a personal question ;-)
----
Bonzai/Quine - only playing with you both :-)
P.S. I take a balanced view on nitpicking - tis sometimes irritating, but it is also sometimes vital in that is stops people talking at cross purposes and wasting each other's time.
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37. Comment #132302 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Why does the cyclical universe get rid of the need for a beginning, a first cycle if you will?
That is a good question. I don't think it does, even if that beginning is considered an infinite distance in time away.
And are you just a keen amateur or do you work in the field?
Mostly a keen amateur, although I have postdoctoral experience in science.
I can't understand why it has received such a fiery/cool reception?
Because this version contradicts the established idea of inflation.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
38. Comment #132307 by Bonzai on February 24, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Brian,OK Bonzai. I just didn't get Engineering mathematics very well in Uni. To say it was unclear to me is an understatement. Any tips on getting maths without doing a boat load of study? I did quite well in High-school calculus, etc, just not Uni.
If you just want to have some conceptual understanding of the kind of topics discussed here, you probably don't need a lot of math.
Steve Zara is good at explaining things, he probably can point you to some good books that give a conceptual survey on some of the topics.
For physics my favourite is Roger Penrose's monster "the road to reality", but it takes a bit of work to get through. He started from the Pythagoras theorem and elementary calculus and leads you to string theory and quantum gravity and sketching the mathematics required along the way. He claims the work is self contained and he assumes the readers know only how to add and multiply fractions, but I think this may not be realistic.
The reason I like Penrose is that he always has something original to offer and he doesn't dumb things down like Hawkings does. He shows you the math and actually tries to explain what is going on behind the equations. The downside is that it would require a lot more work on the reader's part. How often do you see a "popular science" book that comes with exercises?
Another book that one may find interesting is Lee Smolin's "the troubles with physics" (that seems to be the title) No math in this one. This is a rather scathing critique of string theory and comments on what he thinks has gone wrong in physics research. It is a controversial book and decidedly partisan, but it provides a good balance to the hypes you find in many popular books on string theory,--I haven't read Brian Greene's "the elegant universe" but his TV documentary comes across like propaganda IMO.
Engineering math textbooks emphasize on computations for good reasons, but they are not very good in developing conceptual understanding and appreciation. For that purpose I would recommend "What is mathematics" by Courant and Robbins http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Elementary-Approach-Ideas-Methods/dp/0195105192
Other Comments by Bonzai
39. Comment #132309 by Uhtred on February 24, 2008 at 3:21 pm
"Because this version contradicts the established idea of inflation."Does it really?
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40. Comment #132311 by Steve Zara on February 24, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Does it really?
Yes. Inflation is an attempt to explain why the universe looks so smooth. With this theory, the universe is smooth because of the way the banes collide.
If you want the details, look up "ekpyrotic" on wikipedia.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
41. Comment #132314 by Uhtred on February 24, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Thanks, Steve Zara, its the details I'm after.Other Comments by Uhtred
42. Comment #132315 by Radesq on February 24, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Ack... this article just caused me to visualize our universe as one bubble colliding with another in God's giant pint of Guinness. Somebody help! Other Comments by Radesq
43. Comment #132320 by Geoff on February 24, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Radesq, more Guinness, quickly; it's the only thing that will save you! In fact, I'll have one myself, just in case... Other Comments by Geoff
44. Comment #132321 by jonjermey on February 24, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Am I the only one here who finds that modern cosmology has a lot in common with religion in that they both use language in inexplicable ways? I can't even begin to pretend that I understand what it is like for time to have a beginning or to stop, even temporarily. Does this kind of statement have any real intellectual content -- and I ask this quite seriously -- or is it merely a shorthand way of saying "if we plug THESE values into THIS equation then we get THIS result"?If this is an attempt to talk about the phenomenon we describe in everyday language as 'time' then it desperately needs to be explained. If it's a mathematical deduction then let's call it that and stop pretending that it relates to everyday 'time'.
The difficulties that string theory itself is getting into lately stems partly, I believe, from this tendency to confuse mathematical outcomes with statements about real phenomena. And it's not too dissimilar to the flap that theologians get into when trying to explain why a 'good' God does 'bad' things.
Other Comments by jonjermey
45. Comment #132325 by Radesq on February 24, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Good advice Geoff, since I've no Guinness available I'll make do with an India Pale Ale. Cheers, Other Comments by Radesq
46. Comment #132349 by Rational_G on February 24, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Mmmm... Guinness. Some of us yanks love it too. Other Comments by Rational_G
47. Comment #132365 by pulsar1z on February 24, 2008 at 4:26 pm
This is a subject that is dear to my heart. To those who are interested please consider the following linkhttp://www.astronomy.netfirms.com
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48. Comment #132394 by Reg on February 24, 2008 at 5:37 pm
The Ekpyrotic model by Paul J. Steinhardt can be found at http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr/.Fascinating, yes, but this is not so new. The last paragraph may satisfy all here.
Other Comments by Reg
49. Comment #132399 by LorienRyan on February 24, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Please forgive a layman for contributing to this thread, but...
If Steven Hawking is right about black holes being a point at which all information is completely lost, then it would only be possible to trace the origin of a universe to the point of it's big bang. So even if there were billions of bangs before into infinity it would be impossible to know anything about previous universes. Therefore our relavent big bang is the beginning of our universe as we know it, it's just that the universe could've had an infinite amount of 'beginnings.'
Other Comments by LorienRyan
50. Comment #132408 by bluebird on February 24, 2008 at 6:04 pm
pulsar1z, thanks for that link!
Will delve more into your site later; (I like the Planetarium music...thanks to clear skies here, the Lunar eclipse was awesome).
Other Comments by bluebird
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1. Comment #132217 by Ian Bamlett on February 24, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Shame on Turok for buying into the terrible idea of non-overlapping magisteria. As RD points out time and time again, a universe in which there is a god as opposed to one in which there is not is very much a scientific question. All evidence points to the latter, Turok knows that, and should have the guts to say so.
Good article otherwise though!
Other Comments by Ian Bamlett