Recent content by MrQG

Anyone? Any thoughts?

I'm working with universal enveloping algebras, specifically U(sl(2)). Does anybody know of a nice way of determining what the group like elements are. Of course, one could go a direct route and compare the coproduct Δ(v), v\in U(sl(2)), directly with the desired outcome v\otimesv, but the...

That's an interesting hypothesis. Does it have much support? However, it sounds more like a metaphysical theory than a scientific one.

So, would you say that Hawking is actually postulating that "imaginary" time is something real, as in, actually there? Is he saying that this proposal actually describes reality or is it merely a mathematical model meant to make accurate predictions? Does he somehow "refuse" to convert back...

I've heard some people criticize the proposal claiming that the use of imaginary time is simply for mathematical convenience. What do you think? I appreciate your thoughts.

And what about its use of imaginary time?

What are everyone's thoughts on the (Hawking's) no-boundary proposal of the universe? Thank you in advance.

It is a rather strange idea that time could have a beginning. But remember that Einstein showed that time is actually part of the fabric of the universe. This is why we speak of spacetime rather than separate the two. We can therefore consider time to be a dimension of our universe. To say...

While I don't know if he was the first, I did read that Einstein flirted with the idea of an oscillating universe in the 1930's. As for the second part of your question, if I understand you correctly, it is possible that a previous "big crunch" didn't crunch everything. In such a case the...

According to Robert J. Spitzer there are three reasons why an infinitely bouncing universe is not plausible. The first reason he calls "the radiation paradox". This involves the star light versus cosmic radiation ratio. He calls the second the "entropy paradox". Here he mentions that entropy...

Thanks for your responses agnifire. Do you suppose that there is anything that would prevent the universe from collapsing completely into a singularity, like a build up of pressure due to the build up of energy released from starlight or something else? If this is the case, then certainly it...

Right. So technically, there could have been an infinitely bouncing universe. It cannot be disproved by using the Second Law... right?

By the way... Thank you Marcus for the links!

Well that is my question... would "information" be preserved from cycle to cycle? If each cycle is separated by a singularity, then it seems that all information would be erased. I don't think this entails each cycle being identical, since a singularity is a point of lawlessness and literally...

I'm not necessarily worried about "repeating", but Robert J. Spitzer argues that we can get an idea of how many past cycles there were (assuming there were any) by noting the ratio between the amount of cosmic background radiation versus starlight.