B Possibility of Another Big Bang?

[kolleamm]

I see all of these videos and ideas on how it appears that the universe will die out with a big freeze since all of the objects are becoming further and further apart and entropy is increasing. Given a very large amount of time practically everything will be too spread out for any star formations to form or for any sort of life to exist ... but my question is, during even a small fraction of this large amount of time, wouldn't the chance of a another big bang happening somewhere inside our universe be pretty high?
Perhaps I have the wrong idea, but wasn't the big bang merely a spontaneous event that occurred in empty space? Who's to say it can't happen again?

 

[phinds]

wasn't the big bang merely a spontaneous event that occurred in empty space?

If you had definitive proof of that you'd get a Nobel Prize.

The current model of cosmology, called The Big Bang Theory, is totally silent on any creation event so your assumption is not based on any known science.

 

[PeroK]

Perhaps I have the wrong idea, but wasn't the big bang merely a spontaneous event that occurred in empty space? Who's to say it can't happen again?

Yes, you have the wrong idea. See, for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

[kolleamm]

Yes, you have the wrong idea. See, for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

That's a pretty big article could you be more specific?

 

[Vanadium 50]

That's a pretty big article

Oh, the horror! The horror! You might have to spend as much as a half hour reading it (using the article length and the average reading speed of 250 wpm). Instead, you can have PeroK spend that half hour summarizing it for you.

 

[PeterDonis]

could you be more specific?

You have the wrong idea in what @PeroK quoted:

Perhaps I have the wrong idea, but wasn't the big bang merely a spontaneous event that occurred in empty space?

In other words, no, the big bang was not merely a spontaneous event that occurred in empty space.

Reading the article @PeroK linked to will start you on the road to understanding why. But it's still only a Wikipedia article; to really understand our best current models of the universe and the big bang, you need to spend some time with a good cosmology textbook, or the equivalent in online course materials.

I see all of these videos and ideas

"Videos and ideas" are not going to be reliable sources of information. That's why we don't normally accept them as valid references for PF discussion.

That's a pretty big article

Cosmology is a big subject. Cosmologists have spent decades building our best current model of the universe and the big bang. You should not expect to be able to gain a good understanding of it in a few sound bites.

 

[kolleamm]

Thanks for your replies everyone, do you have any good recomendations for a Cosmology textbook? I find this topic to be very interesting and would always like to improve my knowledge about it.

 

[PeterDonis]

do you have any good recomendations for a Cosmology textbook?

Liddle's textbook seems like a decent introduction:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470848359/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[windy miller]

Thanks for your replies everyone, do you have any good recomendations for a Cosmology textbook? I find this topic to be very interesting and would always like to improve my knowledge about it.

My understanding is that we do not know what triggered the big bang ( or inflation assuming that happened) in the first place and so we don't know if it could happen again. There are many ideas such as Conformal Cyclic Cosmology and another big bang from the instability of the Higgs which would match your intuition. But at the moment these are just ideas being exposed by scientists not something confirmed by data. Here are some links to see some of these ideas:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.8106
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

 

[PeterDonis]

we do not know what triggered the big bang ( or inflation assuming that happened) in the first place

Sort of. There are multiple theoretical possibilities and we don't know which one is right.

we don't know if it could happen again

It depends on what you mean by "happen again". None of the theoretical possibilities are things that could happen in our current universe right now. Some of them are things that might happen in the far future of our current universe.

 

[windy miller]

Sort of. There are multiple theoretical possibilities and we don't know which one is right.
It depends on what you mean by "happen again". None of the theoretical possibilities are things that could happen in our current universe right now. Some of them are things that might happen in the far future of our current universe.

As I understand it the model proposed by Bars, Steinhardt and Turok https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.8106 is based on the metastability of the vacuum and could happen at any moment although this is very unlikely even within the framework of the model and of course we have no particular reason to think this model is preferred over any other similarly speculative ideas. But I am not aware that it is ruled out unless I am not up to date here?