Off-Message But Of Deepest Significance

Regular readers of S&F know of our abiding interest in and fascination with all matters cosmological. Well, we've just read an intriguing article in Scientific American that proposes that the big bang theory of the creation of the universe really ought to be thought of as the big bounce rather than the big bang. To wit:

Einstein’s general theory of relativity says that the universe began with the big bang singularity, a moment when all the matter we see was concentrated at a single point of infinite density. But the theory does not capture the fine, quantum structure of spacetime, which limits how tightly matter can be concentrated and how strong gravity can become. To figure out what really happened, physicists need a quantum theory of gravity.

According to one candidate for such a theory, loop quantum gravity, space is subdivided into “atoms” of volume and has a finite capacity to store matter and energy, thereby preventing true singularities from existing.

If so, time may have extended before the bang. The prebang universe may have undergone a catastrophic implosion that reached a point of maximum density and then reversed. In short, a big crunch may have led to a big bounce and then to the big bang.

We don't know how that new theory makes you feel, but it makes us feel hugely comforted as it does away with the almost impossible to fathom and maddening to contemplate notion that the big bang singularity came into being ex nihilo.

RTWT here.

(Our thanks to 3 Quarks Daily for the link.)