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I was watching one of the graphicly revamped episodes of Cosmos today and got me thinking about this subject again...... so I did a little reading.

the idea was the rage in the scientific community 40 years ago......only to fall out of favor........only to be revived again a few years ago by theoretical physicists who now have theories to circumvent the problems found 40 years ago when the idea fell out of favor. (yes, I'm intentionally dumbing this up...making it as easily understandable and laymen friendly as possible)..........

for those unfamiliar....

The oscillating universe theory suggests that our universe began from the big bang......which will cause it to expand outward until the mass of the matter contained therein gravitational pull becomes stronger than the momentum of the mass as it slows down......pulling everything back together again to end in a big crunch. From that big crunch, a huge explosion....another big bang sending matter on it's merry way again for several billion more years until once again the momentum of the mass slows enough so that the gravitational pull becomes stronger and pulls it all back together again.....wash, rinse, repeat. An infinite cycle of universes....created, destroyed, created, destroyed every several billion years.

what do you guys think about the subject? I find it much easier to believe (even if it's only because I WANT to) than a simple big bang.....which results in matter expanding into infinity....until all stars die......all matter decomposes.....and only a void remains. I also believe it simply "fits" better with what we already know about nature.....natural cycles.......everything from weather patterns to reproduction of life to celestial revolutions happens in cycles. It doesn't lend any more creedence to the theory........I just like everything to be pretty much uniform.

I post this in the philosophy forum because it does have philosophical implications. If this theory were true, it would mean a closed universe....the same amount of matter would release the same amount of energy each time (neither can be destoyed)......producing the same amount of mass meaning the universe would start to collapse at the same point each time.....producing an actual edge to the universe, an end...a limit.

With a limited universe, this could mean that our entire universe......as hard as it is to fathom it's grandeur to us humans could be nothing more than one single electron in another larger universe......which in turn could be nothing more than a single electron in a larger universe...on to infinity. This ofcourse means that every electron in existence in our universe could be an entire universe unto itself.

That's the stuff philosophy is made for. As for our position, relative to all this, it is impossible for us humans to ever know a universe existing beyond our own on this infinite scale.....larger or smaller. Just something to think about........Men in Black style.

PS. for all you religious nuts.......this wouldn't change anything. No matter how many times our universe has expanded/collapsed, the energy to bring it into existence the very first time would still be un-explained........there's your god-out.

I tend to agree that this would make more since since the Big Bang has holes in it's theory....It is interesting for the universe to react in this way. What if other universes also react in the same fashion.........Maybe it would better explain things such as black holes.
Also there could be universes inside universes, even on a micro type scale....

Originally posted by debbiejo
I tend to agree that this would make more since since the Big Bang has holes in it's theory....It is interesting for the universe to react in this way. What if other universes also react in the same fashion.........Maybe it would better explain things such as black holes.
Also there could be universes inside universes, even on a micro type scale....

You just like anything that is oscillating.

You better not ruin his thread, he's gonna yell at you........


Hmmmmmmm yes, oscillating.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
You just like anything that is oscillating.

Oh, mama...

The idea of the Oscillating universe was nice up until 6 or 7 years ago, but then the accelerating expansion of the universe was discovered. Assuming that is really happening, dere ain't gonna be no oscillations.

Of course, there is accelerating expansion... naughty

Evil Dead > yeah, I really liked that fractal universe idea...utterly mind-blowing.

Originally posted by The Omega


Heck, it will actually be harder to explain, seeing that quantum events CAN explain the creation of matter/energy from NOTHING, but not an oscillation like this.


Really? Can you elaborate?

Originally posted by The Omega
If you wait long enough the improbable will happen.
If you wait forever the impossible will happen.

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'impossible' that I wasn't previously aware of.

I mean, I have heard it before, but that cannot actually be true, can it?

wow, this is fascinating, i wish i had something to add....

gravitational problems aside........ how would the oscillation theory in regards to matter/energy be any different from any other big bang theory? Okay.....they are created from nothing once, and only once.......they expand then collapse to bang again, forcing the very same energy to propell the very same matter into expansion again.........matter and energy were still created once, never to be destroyed.......

I find talk of infinite space and universes to be so mind boggling that when I think about it I start feeling miniscule and irrelevant. So I squash a bug.

It's fascinating though, I want to travel through space and see other dimensions and all of that, it's just too big.

Originally posted by Great Vengeance
Hrm, I dont quite understand. Besides the concept of unlimited time making the impossible...possible(which is new to me) I still dont see what could be the *prompt* to creation.

That's just not true....the wording is totally wrong.

Nothing can make the impossible possible.

actually it's quite right. Something is deemed impossible by our natural laws, the laws of physics. If something occurs before the creation of our universe and it's natural laws, laws of physics and therefore does not fall subject to them then it is indeed possible..........yet impossible by the very standards set for "impossible".

Before our universe and it's laws existed, anything was possible........yet looking back now we can deem the very same occurances impossible because it would violate our current laws of physics........it's all in relativity. In this time and place it's impossible........in another place, before time......it is possible.

his wording was very correct.....as he did not attribute it to all time/space. The very same event can be possible yet impossible at the same time........depending on what space/time it is occuring. Try to drive a golf ball hard enough to send it in orbit around the planet. Impossible from our perspective, earth...........yet try it on another planet with a much weaker gravitational pull, very possible. Same occurance.....both possible and impossible, depending on the time/space.

What she said is mathematically correct, but in physics we must pay attention to the physical meaning of equations. After all, physics is not mathematics.

The equations will say that after an infinite amount of time the impossible can indeed happen, but physically there is no infinite amount of time. So physically the impossible cannot happen. We will never see an infinite amount of time.

For example... physics laws says that with an infinte amount of energy, an object that has mass can be at the light speed, and that is impossible accordingly to the same laws, but an object will never have infinite energy... you will never be capable to add infinite energy to something, you know, even if it was possible you would need infinite time to do it. Infinite time means that something will never happen. So, that is only an idealization not a physical event actually.

Of course you can always give try to give a different physical interpretation where infinite has some kind of physical meaning, but infinite in physics was never taken as having physical meaning. Infinite just indicates where an equation fails to make predictions. But as I said it is mathematically correct.

Originally posted by Evil Dead
actually it's quite right. Something is deemed impossible by our natural laws, the laws of physics. If something occurs before the creation of our universe and it's natural laws, laws of physics and therefore does not fall subject to them then it is indeed possible..........yet impossible by the very standards set for "impossible".

Before our universe and it's laws existed, anything was possible........yet looking back now we can deem the very same occurances impossible because it would violate our current laws of physics........it's all in relativity. In this time and place it's impossible........in another place, before time......it is possible.

his wording was very correct.....as he did not attribute it to all time/space. The very same event can be possible yet impossible at the same time........depending on what space/time it is occuring. Try to drive a golf ball hard enough to send it in orbit around the planet. Impossible from our perspective, earth...........yet try it on another planet with a much weaker gravitational pull, very possible. Same occurance.....both possible and impossible, depending on the time/space.

That's something else. The sentence just doesn't make sense. Something that is impossible WILL never happen. What someone actually says with it is that there is nothing impossible and that over an infinite amount of time everything will happen.

"Something Always Was." Period. It is that simple; in fact, it doesn't get any simpler, and Occam doesn't get any happier.

Originally posted by Mindship
"Something Always Was." Period. It is that simple; in fact, it doesn't get any simpler, and Occam doesn't get any happier.

What's up with everyon loving Occam's Razor lately...isn't one of the Theories that what we seem to perceive as "time" was only created with the Universe?

Originally posted by Bardock42
What's up with everyon loving Occam's Razor lately...isn't one of the Theories that what we seem to perceive as "time" was only created with the Universe?

Occam's principle is that the simpler something is, the less opportunity there is for error. It appeals to common sense.

"Time" is generally interpreted as meaning that dimension in which things familiar to us occur. Lately, though, as consideration of events/entites outside our particular universe take on more importance (especially with unification theories), the defintion/concept of time has been expanded to give some meaning to events outside of/prior to our universe. It's kinda like Wheeler's concept of superspace but applied to time.

Originally posted by Mindship
Occam's principle is that the simpler something is, the less opportunity there is for error. It appeals to common sense.

"Time" is generally interpreted as meaning that dimension in which things familiar to us occur. Lately, though, as consideration of events/entites outside our particular universe take on more importance (especially with unification theories), the defintion/concept of time has been expanded to give some meaning to events outside of/prior to our universe. It's kinda like Wheeler's concept of superspace but applied to time.

Maybe but it is in no way infallible.

Could you explain how you define this term time?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Maybe but it is in no way infallible.
No, it is isn't. But it is likely less fallible than other approaches (ie, going for the complex to explain the same phenomenon).

Could you explain how you define this term time? Man, if I could do that, I'd have a Nobel Prize on my mantle, and as I once indicated in another thread, I don't even have a mantle.
In any event: Wheeler coined the term "superspace" so that he could refer to a spatial context greater than our universe (kinda like a multiverse). Broadening the "scope of time" serves the same purpose: it allows us to discuss events which, given our normal useage of terms, would otherwise be impossible. It is convenience more than accuracy. "Supertime" in no way should be regarded in the same manner as we would ordinary time. Kinda like when Hawkins talks about "imaginary time," or when physicists give quarks "flavors," like "charm" and "top."

Wow, this discussion's way out of my league. Fascinating though. Omega, you have schooling in this?

Originally posted by Janus Marius
Wow, this discussion's way out of my league. Fascinating though. Omega, you have schooling in this?

She's our Super-Scientist.

I heard in 2000 that it was popularly supposed that the universe would simply continue expanding forever until everything winds down to background radiation and black holes... ad infinitum.

A universe after this one might very well have to have different fundamental laws which by definition is not conceivable. A pop up book on the cosmos illustrated the Big Crunch theory by showing a new type of universe that was resembled an emerald instead of alot of little galaxies. I wish I knew how the idea of multidimensional space could be fitted into this.

Originally posted by The Omega
... What we need is another Einstein working at a paten office and revolutionising theoretical physics...

You know it's going to happen. One day, someone's going to come along and write an Equation, and it's gonna blow everything away. Even this dark energy business: what a discovery!

What was the term not too long ago: the "End of Physics?"
Not even close.

It means that if you do not have the variable TIME possible, impossible, probable and/or improbable will have the same value.

Originally posted by The Omega
It means that if you do not have the variable TIME possible, impossible, probable and/or improbable will have the same value.

But if you look at an endless amount of time isn't there still a variable time?

Originally posted by Bardock42
But if you look at an endless amount of time isn't there still a variable time? No. Time is out of the equation, infinite is equal to zero it's the name we give to something which is forever, it has no limit, no end.

Originally posted by Mindship
You seem to have a better grasp of this than I do. Isn't one of the problems with ZPE as dark energy, the question, Why did it become a dominant effect 7-8 gigayears ago? The wave effect--implying some kind of cosmic frequency--was an effort to account for dark energy's rise to power.

We are so in the "dark" with this.

Oh, yes. What caused inflation in the VERY early Universe? Was that ZPE going nuts in the beginning, deciding to take it easy for some billion years, and then suddenly go "zap" again??

Originally posted by Mindship

Isn't that why some physicists say our spacetime could be a false vacuum?

I think so, yes. My old supervisor has all these crazy ideas with "vacuum-bombs", and false vacuas. Maybe inflation and the sudden acceleration of the expansion of the Universe is caused by some kind of phase-transition?? If that's so, the current acceleration might slow to a halt again some time in the future, and the Universe will "just" expand?? It's not my field of expertise, but I think the idea is, that our current vacuum can "feel" other vacua-ground-states, and the ZPE might accelerate the expansion as a side-effect to REACH this "other" vacua-ground-state.
VERY hairy stuff...

Originally posted by Magee
No. Time is out of the equation, infinite is equal to zero it's the name we give to something which is forever, it has no limit, no end.

Okay...that's it...I will stufy physics now and see if you are all shitting me....

Originally posted by The Omega
It's not my field of expertise, but I think the idea is, that our current vacuum can "feel" other vacua-ground-states, and the ZPE might accelerate the expansion as a side-effect to REACH this "other" vacua-ground-state.
VERY hairy stuff...

If I understood that right, then our universe is like a balloon in a vacuum chamber: the balloon expands. The air molecules (ZPE) in the balloon (universe) "seek" the extra room of the vacuum chamber, because that's their nature if extra room (a lower ground state) exists.

Originally posted by Mindship
If I understood that right, then our universe is like a balloon in a vacuum chamber: the balloon expands. The air molecules (ZPE) in the balloon (universe) "seek" the extra room of the vacuum chamber, because that's their nature if extra room (a lower ground state) exists.

In a way, yes... If time-travel is impossible then spacetime is also 5-dimensional, and our 3+1 dimensional spacetime is the boundary of something we do not understand yet. Perhaps some weird transition-dimension exists?
It's more like the ZPE in our false vacua starts to PUSH out the Universe, to reach the "true" vacuum...
There is some evidence to suggest inflation was caused by ZPE.

Again, I simply wonder why many physicists disregard the ZPE, which will be enourmous in the stress-energy tensor of the Einstein Equations.

Originally posted by The Omega
In a way, yes... If time-travel is impossible then spacetime is also 5-dimensional, and our 3+1 dimensional spacetime is the boundary of something we do not understand yet. Perhaps some weird transition-dimension exists?
It's more like the ZPE in our false vacua starts to PUSH out the Universe, to reach the "true" vacuum...
There is some evidence to suggest inflation was caused by ZPE.

This kind of speculation makes me start to think "fractals." What if this 5D field is a boundary to a still vaster configuration, on and on in an infinite progression? I start to wonder--as perhaps Sagan did in his Cosmos series--about an unending hierarchy (universes within universes). In other words, Hello, Metaphysics.

I'm sure you've asked yourself, "I wonder what physics is going to be like 100 years from now, or 1000 years?" Go far enough and might one leave even metaphysics behind for consciousness, mysticism and God? An "oscillating universe" seems quaint and simplistic by comparison.

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

...which will be enourmous in the stress-energy tensor of the Einstein Equations.

I love when you talk like that.

Originally posted by The Omega
Quantum gravity is the one thing I am looking forward to the most! You?

There are certain mind-blowing, horizon-expanding, possibly paradigm-shifting events/discoveries I am hoping to see in my lifetime. The discovery of mega-galactic structures like the Great Wall; Shoemaker-Levy slam-dunking pieces of itself into Jupiter; the accelerating expansion of the universe: all these fall into that category for me. Quantum gravity would be another, as would be the discovery of extraterrestrial life (even if just a fossilized Martian microbe!). Also, I wouldn't mind finding out what the Great Attractor is, either.

Yes those all seem interesting. Im looking foward to it also.