Was the Universe Really Chaotic Right After the Big Bang?

[Descartz2000]

Any thoughts on the article in Science Daily this week regarding the Universe being chaotic immediately following the Big Bang?

 

[Waveparticle]

According to supersymmetry during that period of time all of the four fundamental forces have the same strength and are unified into one theory. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy can never decrease, so the early universe was not chaotic but in fact orderly.

 

[Phyisab****]

Link? It does not sound unreasonable, chaos is everywhere. Even out solar system is slightly chaotic. Waveparticle, I'm not sure what you're trying to say?

 

[Waveparticle]

Link? It does not sound unreasonable, chaos is everywhere. Even out solar system is slightly chaotic. Waveparticle, I'm not sure what you're trying to say?

My point was to say that the early universe was not chaotic because if you look at the universe around you now everything is quite orderly. Since "chaos" theoretically cannot become more orderly only more chaotic.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Chaos means that something is extremely sensitive to initial conditions such as weather patterns and double hinged pendulums and of course, Brownian motion. So if the universe were slightly different everything would change, which is true therefore the Universe is chaotic.

 

[Waveparticle]

Chaos means that something is extremely sensitive to initial conditions such as weather patterns and double hinged pendulums and of course, Brownian motion. So if the universe were slightly different everything would change, which is true therefore the Universe is chaotic.

Since the universe hasnt been affected from these possible changes doesn't that mean that is it indeed very orderly and aesthetically pleasing.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Yes it was orderly at the beginning when it was low entropy but the evolution of any system becomes more disordered therefore it has higher entropy. Entropy is different then chaos, your confusing yourself with entropy.

 

[Waveparticle]

Yes, your confusing yourself with entropy.

Could you help me understand the difference between entropy and chaos because i have been thinking they are one in the same.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Entropy is the following, (this analogy derives for Brian Greene's book The Fabric of the Cosmos) say you have the book War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy the book is 1475 pages long. You have the ordered state, which is sequential pages, 1 through 1475, you can call this state \varphi. Now you take the state \varphi or the book of pages and throw it in the air. Now it is clear that \varphi becomes disordered, so let's call these disordered states \zeta . Now if you throw it unendingly it becomes clear that the amount of disordered states \zeta is far greater than the one ordered/sequential state \varphi. Therefore we can say \varphi < \zeta. This is true because there is one ordered state which is sequential and approximately 10^{500} disordered states, I got this number by just approximating the amount Brian Greene said. Disorderd states \zeta can just have 2 pages out of place or 500. Therefore the book began in an ordered state and as it evolved which is the throwing, it will become disordered. Now chaos (or the butterfly effect) has the analogy that say you have a butterfly in Africa. This butterfly flaps its wings and at first it has a very small effect on the air pressure, but over time as the weather system evolves this small pressure system the butterfly created increases exponentially and hence the slight change in initial conditions can cause a hurricane to be formed across the Atlantic. Or at the beginning of the Universe if the expansion rate was slower by a billionth it would have expanded far to quickly for gravity to create a stable super clusters and structure formation. Or if the electromagnetic force was weaker molecules wouldn't form.

Kevin,

 

[Waveparticle]

Thank you for your explanation, i am having a hard time understanding the "butterfly effect" i can understand how in the early state of the universe any little change could have had a drastic impact on the state of the future universe but does the butterfly actually have an impact on air pressure or were you just trying to help me relate the information to a happening on Earth or can such a small displacement in air pressure actually have such drastic impacts.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Yea, it's just a relation.

 

[Phyisab****]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map

 

[Phyisab****]

My point was to say that the early universe was not chaotic because if you look at the universe around you now everything is quite orderly. Since "chaos" theoretically cannot become more orderly only more chaotic.

Nonsense. Chaos is everywhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem . A chaotic system can certainly become non chaotic if the parameters are varied.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Donnie Darko is a perfect example of chaos. It's a movie about a schizophrenic boy (Donnie Darko) who is awakend by a man in a bunny rabbit suit on October 2^nd 1988 (Frank) and he tells him the world will end in 28 days. When he is told by Frank to come with him in the night a jet engine falls into his room, sparing his life. I recommend you watch it.

"Some viewers theorize, at midnight on October 2, a "Tangent Universe" branches off the "Primary Universe" around the time when Donnie is called out of his bedroom by Frank, immediately before the appearance of the Artifact, the faulty jet engine. The inherently unstable Tangent Universe will collapse in just over 28 days and take the Primary Universe with it if not corrected. Closing the Tangent Universe is the duty of the "Living Receiver", Donnie, who wields certain supernatural powers to help him in the task.
Those who die within the Tangent Universe and would not have died otherwise are the "Manipulated Dead" (Frank, Gretchen). Frank, at least, is also given certain powers in that he is able to subtly understand what is happening and to contact and influence the Living Receiver via the "Fourth Dimensional Construct", water. All others within the orbit of the Living Receiver are the "Manipulated Living" (e.g. Ms. Pomeroy, Dr. Monnitoff), subconsciously drawn to push him towards his destiny to close the Tangent Universe and, according to the Philosophy of Time Travel, die by the Artifact.
Frank appears in the story in two guises (three guises if we assume that he "never" dies on account of the restoration of the Primary Universe through the negation of the Tangent Universe). First, there is the Manipulated Dead Frank who appears to Donnie as a premonition from the future of the Tangent Universe in the disturbing rabbit suit. Dead Frank is aware of Donnie's fate and destiny, and impels him to realize it so that the Primary Universe can be restored at the point where/when the Tangent Universe branched off from it. Second, Frank appears alive as Donnie's sister's boyfriend, whose fate unfolds within the Tangent Universe by means of Donnie's successes in realizing his mission. This living boyfriend is fatally shot by Donnie towards the end of the film, a killing which was foreseen by Donnie." - Wikipedia

So the death of Donnie creates a major disturbance in the future, essentially saving the Universe.

 

[bapowell]

Guys,

I'm pretty sure what you read had to do with 'chaotic inflation', which stipulates that the initial conditions of the universe (particularly scalar field values) were randomly distributed throughout the universe soon after the big bang. Could you provide more details from the Science Daily article.
A universe with random initial conditions for the scalar fields dominating the energy density is chaotic in the sense that some regions will undergo inflation whereas others will not -- and this expansion depends sensitively on the initial field values.

Also, be careful with supersymmetry because 1) it may have no relevance to nature and 2) even if it does, SUSY theories do not necessarily imply a unification of the 4 forces.

 

[Phyisab****]

This thread is useless without a link.