The Big Bang’s Tiny Pinprick

Did our massive Universe start off as just a tiny pinprick in size? That’s what the standard cosmological model would have you believe. But to paraphrase a well known Gershwin song from the American opera “Porgy and Bess”, ‘those things that you’re libel, to read in Cosmology’s bible, well it ain’t necessarily so’.

  

Recently, a well known physical scientist made the following comment in an article he wrote: “Everyone knows about the Big Bang. (Well, almost everyone. I receive several e-mails a month from people who simply cannot believe that all existence began as a tiny pinprick).” I took certain umbrage at that since it seemed to imply that if you didn’t accept the ‘tiny pinprick’ you were scientifically illiterate and that the Big Bang (as a tiny pinprick) event was somehow set in stone.  

So I sent him one more email to add to his collection that disputes the ‘tiny pinprick’ version of the Big Bang.

But first, that standard model of the Big Bang suggests that the origin of our Universe was such that not only was all matter and related energy created at that point in time, but that time and space itself were created then. First there was nothing; then there was something; and the transition between the two was something akin to a pinprick of stuff in size popping out of the never-never that rapidly expanded until, 13.7 billion years later the Universe is the now massive size that it is with all the stuff that it contains.

However, I’ll first note that this standard model of cosmology’s origin of our Universe, the Big Bang event (as a tiny pinprick), isn’t universally accepted by all cosmologists. There are many variations on the Big Bang ‘tiny pinprick’ origin theme, from two branes colliding (technically called the Ekpyrotic Universe which is the string theory version – and it’s hardly a pinprick scenario); to an origin via quantum fluctuations arising out of the vacuum energy (which is an alternative pinprick scenario); variations of the Steady State theory of cosmology still kick around which postulates our Universe had no beginning and will have no end (obviously no pinprick there); to (and this is my favorite) the contraction of a previous universe that resulted in a Big Crunch which so warped space and time that the contraction inverted itself back into an expansion and thus kick-starting our Universe (which also wouldn’t be a pinprick event IMHO). So, I sort of object when the standard pinprick model Big Bang event is put forth by people (such as the above physical scientist) as something set in concrete.

As to that pinprick itself, take a tiny pinprick (equivalent to the physics term ‘quantum’) object of very high, but finite density (on the grounds that it is ridiculous to have a zero dimensional object with infinite density – say a Black Hole’s singularity as so often portrayed, but equally applicable to the standard Big Bang concept). If you keep adding stuff to a pinprick sized singularity, the volume might remain constant for a while, while the density keeps increasing, but because density can not ever equal infinity, that progression has to stop somewhere. When it does, the volume of the pinprick singularity has to increase and eventually increase beyond the realm of the pinprick sized that equates to all things quantum. The proof of that pudding as if any were needed is that, if you add stuff to a Black Hole (with its three dimensional ‘solid’ singularity centre and finite density) you get a bigger Black Hole. The singularity inside must have grown a bit. If it keeps on growing, it will eventually grow past the realm of the pinprick quantum. Anyway, it’s that ‘beyond the realm of the quantum’ that I see as the real Big Bang ‘singularity’ or whatever you wish to call it (to be honest I still like the term coined by Ralph Alpher and  George Gamow in the late 40’s  - ‘Ylem’ – their term for the sort of cosmic egg our Universe started out from).

Now cosmologists can’t observe any closer back in time than to about 380,000 years after the Big Bang event. It’s only then that electromagnetic radiation (i.e. – that which enables us to observe) was able to escape through the expanding and cooling plasma soup, in much the same way that a photon (the particle associated with electromagnetic radiation) at the core of our Sun takes a very, very long time to work its way up to the Sun’s surface, but once there, it shoots off into space quick-smart. Thus, as far as cosmologists are concerned, anything prior to 380,000 years post Big Bang is beyond the realm of observation and hence pure theory – mathematical equations that may have bugger all to do with an accurate reflection of what’s what. 

The General Relativity equations that govern the Big Bang event break down at the presumed pinprick quantum level. Or, the equations covering quantum pinprick sized events break down under extreme gravity; two sides of the same coin. That’s because General Relativity covers gravity, and gravity is a continuous force. That is, you can have this value of gravity, or that value of gravity, and all values in-between. However, pinprick sized quantum events are not continuous. You can have this value, or that value, but only selected values in-between, if any. A useful analogy is a book. You have the first page, through to say page 100, but while you can have page 50, you can’t have page 49.5 or page 50.1 or page 99.9. Put another way, when it comes to gravity, you can be half-pregnant; in quantum physics, it’s either this or that, no half-pregnancies allowed.

Translated, gravity and pinprick quantum events can not be meshed. What ones needs is a theory of quantum gravity to adequately come to terms with the sort of extreme gravitational conditions coupled with the extremely tiny sizes that the standard model of cosmology puts forth. Alas, there is no theory yet to hand of quantum gravity despite the best efforts over many decades by the finest intellects in theoretical physics. So, there’s no actual meshing between the quantum and gravity and thus I suggest perhaps that in actual reality, gravitational (General Relativity) and quantum equations, well they break down well in advance of the extreme Big Bang conditions so postulated by the standard model, losing all semblance of accuracy. Equations are ultimately theoretical representations and don’t always reflect Mother Nature’s reality, especially when they push the boundaries of the envelope, and the conditions postulated at the time of the Big Bang certainly do push the envelope. 

As to those theoretical equations, General Relativity, quantum or otherwise, and the faith some physical scientists put in them, well let’s just point out that the history of physics is littered with discrepancies between theory (the equations) and reality (the observations). An obvious example is the value of the vacuum energy – theory has it as 120 orders of magnitude greater than experimental observation! You don’t have to understand the ins and outs of what the vacuum energy is; the important point is the massive discrepancy between the equations and the reality.  Then there was the ‘ultraviolet catastrophe’ where classical equations totally failed to explain certain phenomena by their prediction of logically absolute nonsense, which ultimately resulted questioning those classical equations resulting in the beginnings of the transition of classical physics to quantum mechanics in order to come to terms with that classical failure. But, speaking of quantum mechanics, that field is also full of sleight-of-hand parlor tricks like renormalization to deal with the many variations of infinities that kept cropping up in the solutions to the newly formed quantum equations.  You could fill entire books on things that were once considered impossible because the equations said so, yet are now commonplace, like breaking the sound barrier. So, I just don’t put that much faith in what equations predict in the absence of any observational backup.

Now the evidence for a Big Bang event (which happened way before anyone was around to actually observe it and take measurements) rests with observations billions of years after the fact. Observations strongly suggest that our Universe is expanding. It is increasing in volume. So, what happens when you run the expanding Universe clock backwards? The Universe would be getting smaller and smaller. Take that to its logical extreme and you end up with the Universe having to start out as a massive (extreme gravity) object crammed down to a pinprick in size. But, should one take that running the clock backwards to such an extreme, or should one stop well short of that?

Now by analogy, one can think of blowing up a balloon and calculate the expanding mathematical relationships. Then one can run those equations backward – a contracting balloon. But it would be wrong to extrapolate backwards to where the contracting balloon becomes a dimensionless point (or at least a quantum sized tiny pinprick), though you could have of course done it – in theory. But, it would be a case of where theory wouldn’t reflect reality.

One obvious standard model proof-of-the-pudding tactic is to try to get closer than 380,000 years after the actual time of the Big Bang event in order to sort out what’s what. Now the detection of gravitational waves could narrow that post Big Bang interval to a time way closer to the event itself. However, the technical challenges are quite considerable and downright daunting. While that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying to detect the gravitational waves that would have been part and parcel of the Big Bang event, translated, don’t hold your breath waiting for immediate results, but please do stay tuned. 

One other bit of evidence that points towards the relatively pinprick micro-origin to our Universe is the concept of ‘inflation’ – that’s a super-sudden ultra-extra expansion oomph to our Big Bang event. While that concept of ‘inflation’ helps solve many cosmological problems, from magnetic monopoles (the lack thereof) to the overall flatness of the cosmos,  some cosmologists consider ‘inflation’ a bit of an ad hoc add-on, and also that there is no such thing as THE inflation model, rather there are several versions floating around, each with their own champions. Thus, ‘inflation’ is not proof-positive that the standard model is the be-all-and-end-all. If it were, the textbooks would be definitive and cosmologists would be out of a job. The textbooks are not definitive and cosmologists remain gainfully employed. The standard model of the pinprick Big Bang remains the leading contender, but it’s not the only game in town. I’m playing a different game!

Personally I think that anyone who believes based on pure abstract mathematical theory that the observable universe, far less our entire Universe can be squeezed into a volume or space that’s atomic sized or less (i.e. – that pinprick) is living in cloud cuckoo-land. Now readers well versed in cosmology have got to believe what they’ve got to believe, but I see no compelling evidence that the Big Bang was an actual quantum pinprick event. It was far more likely to have been, IMHO, a macro event. So, if you don’t go along with the pinprick model, I personally don’t consider you scientifically illiterate.

In summation, the origin of the Universe is still a very fluid one and I’ll bet dimes to donuts that any similarity between a cosmology textbook published in 2011 will be not only be out of date by 2031, but be viewed as quaintly as Lowell’s books on the canals of Mars are today.

Multiroads to the Multiverse: Part One

If Mother Nature can create one Universe (ours), Mother Nature can create more than one universe – a Multiverse! The concept of a Multiverse, that there exists more than one universe, that is our Universe – perhaps an infinite number of them existing sequentially in time, or at one go in space, maybe both, is one of the hottest topics in current cosmology.

At the outset, there’s no law of physics (or even of God) that says that there can be (or must be) one and only one universe, our Universe.

Three questions arise – the mechanism for the origin and evolution of other universes; what types of Multiverses can be generated; and what can the concept of a Multiverse explain that the existence of our sole Universe cannot explain?

Ways, Means and Mechanisms That Generate a Multiverse:

In the infinite beginning, there existed from square one, more than one universe. No origin event(s) are required. However, those universes will evolve and ultimately morph into other universes. 

The Many Worlds Interpretation of all things quantum states that when anything within our Universe is forced to make an either/or decision, between two or more pathways or alternatives, each and every pathway or alternative is taken – because Mother Nature cannot make up Her mind between equal probabilities! Thus, to accommodate each and every possible choice, the Universe splits into as many other universes as is necessary to cater for all possible outcomes. Thus, where there existed initially one universe – our Universe – now there must exist an extra one, or two, or three, or whatever number of universes because our Universe had to make a decision between two, three, or whatever number of choices confronted it. Multiply that by how many crossroads our Universe comes to each and every microsecond, and you have the beginnings of a Multiverse in real quick-smart fashion.

Baby Universes via Black Holes: An advanced extraterrestrial technology might be able to create or manufacture baby universes by creating or manufacturing Black Holes. The recipe itself is simple – take a lump of matter and squeeze it down to such a density that its gravitational escape velocity exceeds that of the speed of light. Such is the text of ‘Universe Manufacturing 101’. Of course one doesn’t of necessity need ET. A universe with the sort of physics that permit Black Holes to form will ‘breed’ because those Black Holes will produce baby universes, presumably with the sort of suitable physics that will allow for further Black Holes, etc.

Bubble Universes via Inflation: To adequately explain various observational properties of our Universe, the concept of a rapid period of inflation around the time of the Big Bang event (I’ve seen inflation invoked both just before and just after the ‘bang’ itself) has been proposed. For the briefest of times, the Universe’s expansion accelerated at a fantastic pace before running out of puff. The fly in the ointment is that if inflation didn’t stop at the exact same nanosecond everywhere, then you’d get smaller pockets or bubbles of inflation continuing, and that each separate inflating bubble wouldn’t stop at the exact same nanosecond, creating more bubbles, etc. Each separate pocket or bubble would inflate so fast and break off from the parent inflationary event to form another universe. An analogy is to shake up a say, 1/3^rd empty bottle of fizzy soft drink and open the top cap. What do you get – rapid inflation, that’s what! Bubbles form and expand and give rise to other bubbles which create new bubbles. Each bubble is its own separate universe.

Quantum Fluctuations: The vacuum energy can give rise to virtual particles, which can turn into actual particles under suitable conditions. It’s possible for the energy to come together intensely enough to perhaps create not just a pair of virtual particles, but an entire universe of particles. That could happen again and again, a multitude of times.

Video Games Analogy: There are a Multiverse of videogames within our Universe (i.e. – Planet Earth) – in two ways. One is the collective set of the thousands to maybe hundreds of thousands of individual video games within the marketplace. Each videogame equals one possible universe. The other is that each individual videogame has hundreds to hundreds of thousands of identical copies.  So the videogame Multiverse has both individuality, and sameness. Perhaps our Universe is one copy of one individual ‘video game’ or ‘computer simulation’, within a sea of thousands of identical copies of that game, within a sea of thousands of other individual games/simulations! 

Types of Multiverse:

Parallel / Shadow / Alternative / Mirror / Many Worlds / Higher Dimensional (String Theory’s Branes perhaps) universes – collectively, these universes would have the same laws and principles of physics that we know and love (unless you’re a physics student at exam time), although the ultimate nature and evolution of each and every one might differ. In other words, all these universes will be bio-friendly, though that doesn’t mean of necessity that all will contain life. Basically, these universes are all variations on a theme of our own Universe.

Simulated / Video Games Universes – Okay, within these universes, anything goes. A computer program does not have to follow or obey or simulate the existing laws and principles of physics. You want faster-than-light-travel? You got it! You want antigravity? You can have that too! Do you want your heroine to survive travel through wormholes and Black Holes? Fine! All the terrestrial superheroes and superhero powers – a Superman, a Spiderman, a Green Lantern, the list is near endless – all is possible. You can botch an operation – the patient survives. You can crash a plane – no causalities. You can make the Sun stand still; perform miracles like the resurrection; create new life forms and new civilizations, and boldly go where in our Universe, no one can every go! You can have a Heaven and/or a Hell, or live unprotected upon the surface of Venus (which is the same as Hell only worse).

Bubble / Baby / Quantum Fluctuation Universes / Cyclic or Oscillating Universes (standard Big Bang expansions followed by Big Crunch contractions followed by Big Bang expansions, etc.) – collectively, these universes could be as different as chalk and cheese in that the laws and principles of physics could vary to a greater or lesser extent – but vary, well these universes just might. Think of all the laws, relationships and principles in physics and vary them to your heart’s content. While each universe might be unique, the rules and regulations for each and everyone one is fixed.

To be continued…

Cosmology and the Darwinian (Reproducing) Universe

The concept of a Multiverse, that there are lots of universes out there, not just ours, is now taken very seriously by many (though not all) cosmologists. If Mother Nature can create one universe, Mother Nature can create more than one. If universes are constantly being formed, can the concepts central to Darwinian evolution be applied to them? The surprising answer is, 'yes'.

The standard model of cosmology, the origin of our Universe, the Big Bang event, suggests that the Big Bang created space, time, matter and energy, and was a quantum sized event. Thus theorized, our Universe must have created itself; such is the weirdness of quantum physics. First there was nothing; then there was something. No cause and effect. Of course if you are your own parent as it were, there's no requirement for any actual act of before-the-fact sexual or asexual reproduction. Now I can hear you muttering now that it's silly, even downright ridiculous to even contemplate a universe reproducing itself. I mean Johnny Universe doesn't have a one night stand with Mary Universe and produce nine million years later little Joey Universe! Yet, where did our Universe come from if it didn't create itself? Perhaps our Universe is the cosmic offspring of some other universe. How?

Well, my variation on the standard cosmological model has the Big Bang event originating in existing space and time, the event spewing forth already existing matter and energy. Further, that event wasn't a quantum sized (micro) event, but a macro happening. In my scenario, a previous universe had sufficient mass to cause the universe to undergo contraction due to its universal gravity, ultimately coming closer and closer together to form the mother of all Black Holes. That ultimate Big Crunch so warped space-time that the contents were spewed back out again (a White Hole) due to sheer momentum as a quasi-explosion - our Big Bang. That's sort of like asexual reproduction - one parent giving rise to one offspring. But that's not as interesting as trying to reproduce universes by more exotic (erotic?) means.

The standard model of cosmology postulates that our very early Universe underwent an extremely brief period of very, very rapid inflation (in addition to the normal expansion caused by the Big bang itself). The concept of inflation helps explain various observations about our Universe and the technical details needn't concern us. One variation on the inflation theme has been called 'eternal inflation'. Basically, it means that the inflation didn't stop everywhere at the exact same instant. So, one tiny region continues to inflate (a budding off creating a baby universe), and when that shuts down, one tiny region of that (a second baby universe) continues to inflate and bud off, and so on.

Eternal inflation is one way of producing lots of baby universes (a Multiverse), but that's a sort of asexual budding process with no real scope for Darwinian evolution. It's sort of like shaking a bottle of soft drink - you get lots of bubbly foam where bubbles give rise to other bubbles, etc. where each new bubble is a new universe. But if you start with ginger ale bubbles, you end up with ginger ale bubbles. Not much in the way of Darwinian evolution!

However, there might be two mechanisms by which a universe can in fact reproduce itself, reproduction that will exhibit Darwinian fitness by the creation of other universes that would maximize their reproductive capabilities.
The two means are:
1) natural selection via Black Holes, and
2) artificial selection via extraterrestrials (E.T.).

Firstly, it should be noted that it does not follow automatically that all universes are going to have the same laws, relationships, and principles of physics - the physical laws, relationships and principles that we know could well be different. This is akin to the fact that a child is not an identical copy of either parent. So, relative to our Universe, another universe could have a stronger gravitational constant; the speed of light might be different; the mass and electric charge of an electron might have differing values than the ones we know.

Back to the creation of universes, we note that while the precise physics of the internal doings of normal Black Holes aren't clear, there is reason to theorize/speculate, based on what we suspect that physics might be, to further suspect that Black Holes give rise to other universes, albeit ones forever beyond our reach. All the stuff, information, etc. which forever goes down the Black Hole gurgler, while lost to us, has to go somewhere. That somewhere is a new universe, a new universe that owes its existence to a Black Hole in our universe.

The fitness element is this. Any universe which has the right set of physics that give rise to Black Holes, will form new universes via those Black Holes. If a universe doesn't have the right sort of physics that produces Black Holes, then it's like a human that doesn't leave behind any offspring. Black Hole universes that produce other universes, well those offspring universes will probably also have the right stuff - the right kind of physics that will produce Black Holes (though that's not guaranteed any more than the offspring of two parents will in turn produce offspring), and so on.

Then what about a highly intelligent and technological extraterrestrial civilization that could be ideally placed to create an entirely new universe if it wanted to? I mean, our Universe started out, according to the accepted standard model, at a size where quantum physics rule. That is, a very tiny size. So I don't mean that extraterrestrials could be creating in the laboratory fully matured universes billions of light years across at one go. Rather, perhaps they could create a tiny quantum universe, akin to what ours was - if you accept the standard model - 'in the beginning'. Such a quantum sized universe would perhaps expand and inflate and grow up to become the sort of universe that we'd accept as a bona fide universe. Or maybe not - perhaps a baby universe could be confined to something smaller and more manageable. That might not be beyond the ways and means of a super-technological civilization. Such a civilization would probably be classed as a Type III civilization. That's a civilization that has the ability to harness and manipulate the energy output of an entire galaxy - they would be few and far between

The fitness element is this. Any universe which has the right set of physics that gives rise to suitable chemistry and ultimately biochemistry and hence ultimately those Type III ultra-super-advanced-technologically-capable beings, well those beings could create new universes via that advanced technology. If a universe doesn't have the right sort of physics that produces the right sort of chemistry, hence biochemistry, hence advanced intelligences, then again it's like a human that doesn't leave behind any offspring. E.T. rich universes that produce other universes, well those offspring universes will probably also have the right stuff - the right kind of physics that will produce suitable chemistry, biochemistry, and Type III intelligent life forms and so on.

So, any universe that has had a natural selection by which its physics are the sort of physics that's conducive to producing either a lot of black holes, and/or advanced technological civilizations, will be the sort of universe that will produce offspring, a universe in turn which might produce even more universes which will produce even more, and so on. Sounds sort of like terrestrial sexual biology to me!

In short, this is a nice variation on the creation of a Multiverse, which would probably contain a lot of copies of you!