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As the Big Bang theory goes, somewhere around 13.8 billion years ago the universe exploded into being, as an infinitely small, compact fireball of matter that cooled as it expanded, triggering reactions that cooked up the first stars and galaxies, and all the forms of matter that we see (and are) today.
Just before the Big Bang launched the universe onto its ever-expanding course, physicists believe, there was another, more explosive phase of the early universe at play: cosmic inflation, which lasted less than a trillionth of a second. During this period, matter -- a cold, homogeneous goop -- inflated exponentially quickly before processes of the Big Bang took over to more slowly expand and diversify the infant universe.
Recent observations have independently supported theories for both the Big Bang and cosmic inflation. But the two processes are so radically different from each other that scientists have struggled to conceive of how one followed the other.
Now physicists at MIT, Kenyon College, and elsewhere have simulated in detail an intermediary phase of the early universe that may have bridged cosmic inflation with the Big Bang. This phase, known as "reheating," occurred at the end of cosmic inflation and involved processes that wrestled inflation's cold, uniform matter into the ultrahot, complex soup that was in place at the start of the Big Bang.
"The postinflation reheating period sets up the conditions for the Big Bang, and in some sense puts the 'bang' in the Big Bang," says David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics at MIT. "It's this bridge period where all hell breaks loose and matter behaves in anything but a simple way."
Journal Reference:
Rachel Nguyen, Jorinde van de Vis, Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, John T. Giblin, David I. Kaiser. Nonlinear Dynamics of Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings. Physical Review Letters, 2019; 123 (17) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.171301
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday October 27 2019, @05:01AM (10 children)
IANAP (where P = physicist), and this extreme physics simply does not make intuitive sense to me. I feel much the same about quantum mechanics. I suspect the problem is our poor understanding of nature. It does make sense, but we are just bad at describing what little we have gotten right.
So, yeah, it's hard for me to comment intelligently on this subject. The whole idea of a beginning of the universe, beginning of time, and all, why should reality have a beginning? Take the beginning of the Earth and the solar system. The matter that makes up the sun and the planets existed before accreting into the massive balls we see today. Why couldn't there have been a Big Crunch of a previous universe that lead to a Big Bang and the universe we see today?
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday October 27 2019, @05:13AM (5 children)
It's because us monkeys just cannot comprehend infinity. Even our greatest Mathematicians treat infinity as void.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:41AM (2 children)
Au Contraire, Capitan Normale! Infinity is not a void, it is a plenum, the opposite of a void! But mathematically indistinguishable from one. So who is full of it, now?
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday October 27 2019, @09:50PM (1 child)
Is that a Möbius plenum? That actually makes some quantum sense. :-))
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 28 2019, @05:26AM
More of a Klein bottle: when you are outside, it is full (plenum); but when you are inside, it is empty (chaos). But it is the same reality, nonetheless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @09:05AM (1 child)
Conservative "common sense" at it again!
Ladt I checked all the mathematicians who have tangled with infinity went a little mad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @01:11PM
Even most non-mathematicians had trouble with the Total Perspective Vortex.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:16AM (3 children)
Intellectual masturbation.
It's not falsifiable, doesn't bring any prediction to the table, does not have technological applications. Even the String Theory has move value.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:47AM (2 children)
"Move value". Yeah, that is what I want! Move value! If you cannot be bothered to type correctly, we cannot be bothered to bash in your head with grammatical corrections, you despicable, deplorable, denugatory Anonymous Coward!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:56AM
The strings do wiggle.
But if the wiggly things are in wouldn’t buy that nugat either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @10:36AM
Matthew 7:7
And, oh, you asked it three times. I predict plenty of move will be given to you (falsify that!)
No other corrections were needed. I see. I see you agreed in substance and your only objection came on form. God bless you, you may still be saved!