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Tia Ghose of LiveScience writes:
If a new theory turns out to be true, the universe was never a singularity or an infinitely small and infinitely dense point of matter. In fact, the universe may have no beginning at all.
At issue is that the two most dominant theories of physics, quantum mechanics and general relativity, can't be reconciled.
The new equations are just one way to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. For instance, a part of string theory known as string gas cosmology predicts that the universe once had a long-lasting static phase, while other theories predict there was once a cosmic "bounce," where the universe first contracted until it reached a very small size, then began expanding, Brandenberg said.
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Study: Universe May Have No Beginning After All
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I allow the world to live as it chooses, and I allow myself to live as I
choose.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:43AM
How could such a theory possibly be tested? The suggestion is made in the article that this new claim is based on "new equations", which sounds like nothing more than producing a "functional" solution in known-incomplete math [wikipedia.org], then trying to use it as an explaination without any basis in observation whatsoever.
Isn't this nothing more than a cute math gimmick?
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday March 01 2015, @07:49AM
By reproducing it. If you can't, just close the bug [xkcd.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday March 01 2015, @07:51AM
How could such a theory possibly be tested?
That is, of course, the point, the proper point.
Parmenides of Elea, years before my time, proposed a logical theory that we may consider a progenitor of all this "string theory" stuff. He said that what is, is; and being that it is, it cannot be what it is not. Change is becoming what something was not. Therefore, change is impossible. Now it was his student, Zeno, who produced several paradoxes from Parmenides' theory, proving that motion (which is after all change) is impossible. This is an early version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, we can measure location or velocity. But if something has a location, it has no velocity, and if it has velocity, well it is not where it is! Achilles and the Tortoise is one of the better known paradoxes. So now for the question of proof. If we have a theory that is logically or mathematically necessary, who are you going to believe? Logic, or your lying eyes?
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:32PM
Jesus, I love it when you post this stuff.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Sunday March 01 2015, @11:53AM
Indeed the testing is a bit premature.
Anyway, since currently the big bang theory does not match observations of the current state of the universe and introduces expansion of the fabric of space itself (which sounds terribly like a copout), explaining the background radiation or the red shift in other ways is not completely idiotic. Especially since background radiation has some problems (cit. [google.com])
(Score: 1) by inertnet on Sunday March 01 2015, @01:51PM
If our universe is pulsating, it might be possible to observe evidence of it in CMB data. In my mind it would be logical for a contracting universe to explode again before all of the material from the old universe has fallen in. The explosion would annihilate all the inward falling matter, maybe even resulting in an alternating positive-negative mass universe. Could the clumping in the CMB data show evidence of this?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by VLM on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:00PM
How could such a theory possibly be tested?
Speaking of theories, how about evolution? The big pix might be a challenge but a seemingly infinite supply of small pix from all over the world that always fit the model and no counterexamples other than books written by certain humans living in certain areas all of which disagree with the human written books from everywhere else...
So an interesting side effect would be given this physics observation and that astronomical observation you'd expect to find ... right there at some level, and by golly it always seems to work out without any counterexamples or internal contradictions.
A problem comes up when there are no observables. "Well, when we smoke a lot of weed and contemplate some cool math, the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin seems to be ... but there's no way to test or observe or predict, so ..." and that seems to include most of string theory, the multiverse theories (can you call a model a theory when it predicts nothing that can be observed?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @02:36PM
Huh?
The problem with testing The Big Bang Theory is that it's something that happened billions of years ago. It's not testable in real life except by inventing a time machine. So it's all based on "calculating backwards from now".
Evolution, on the other hand, is happening everywhere even as we speak. It's observable. It's proven. Did it also happen 6000 years ago? Well, unless you can point to something indicating that this has changed (no, a book does not indicate anything), the default answer is "of course".
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 02 2015, @05:32PM
How could such a theory possibly be tested?
Very, fucking, carefully.