Universe began in a hot big bang

[Vast]

This is my first post and I’ve got some questions in regards to our universe.
From what I’ve been reading it is known that the universe began in a hot big bang, or evolved from a similar condition. Either way the information we have points to some kind of initial condition, and also a beginning of time.
Is it reasonable to think that there was a preexisting universe, or a cyclic model? And if so would the features of preexistence have the same fundamental laws that govern our universe? I don’t think I’m trying to suggest transmission through a singularity, but merely understand if the dimensions we have in our universe would be the same, and if time had a beginning it should surely have an end, meaning the whole process repeats itself.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Vast
This is my first post and I’ve got some questions in regards to our universe.
From what I’ve been reading it is known that the universe began in a hot big bang, or evolved from a similar condition. Either way the information we have points to some kind of initial condition, and also a beginning of time.
Is it reasonable to think that there was a preexisting universe...

the "beginning of time" idea is becoming obsolete
the model of the universe that cosmologists have used for many decades, called the Friedmann equations or the Friedman model, had a glitch.

it broke down and failed to compute at the beginning of the observed expansion----if you pushed the model back in time then at a certain point it would blow up and develop infinities (which means it was no longer working)

the Friedmann model has been fixed (by Martin Bojowald and others) as of 2001 and the glitch or singularity has been removed, by quantizing the classical version.

this was expected--quantizing a classical model not uncommonly removes singularities or other bad behavior.

Bojowald's quantizing the classical model is straightforward without exotic extra baggage like "extra dimensions" or "supersymmetry" or "colliding brane worlds". He just goes ahead in the conventional and simplest possible way and quantizes the model
with as few extra assumptions as possible
and gets a model which contracts
and then reaches a very high but finite density and then begins expanding
and the model also drives an inflationary scenario

Since Bojowald's landmark 2001 paper
"Absence of Singularity in Loop Quantum Cosmology"
a number of other authors have redone the calculation
in various ways with various assumptions
there has been a miniature "bandwagon"

wavefunctions for the prior contracting phase have been calculated and the computer drawings of them are in some of Bojowald's other papers

Here are some links
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=124320#post124320
scroll down to where it says "Loop Quantum Cosmology"

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by Vast
From what I’ve been reading it is known that the universe began in a hot big bang, or evolved from a similar condition. Either way the information we have points to some kind of initial condition, and also a beginning of time.
Is it reasonable to think that there was a preexisting universe, or a cyclic model?

I think you may be having trouble with the idea of conservation of energy with a creation from nothing model. But conservation laws are only relevant to a universe that exist and does not apply to nonexistence. So there is no violation of such conservation laws to have a universe develop from nothing. We only require that its quantities be conserved once it does start.

 

[Vast]

preexistence

Thank you Marcus, I appreciate your explanation.

I did a little research into Bojowald’s paper, and as I understand it, the model pushes everything back to a point where the volume becomes zero. So quantum geometry extends space-time to a branch preceding the classical singularity, therefore removing any such beginning, or taking time out of the geometry. Can this be viewed as being some form of history? Does this still involve a “bounce”?, as you put it, “and gets a model which contracts, and then reaches a very high but finite density and then begins expanding”

 

[Vast]

Originally posted by Mike2
But conservation laws are only relevant to a universe that exist

Makes sense...

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Vast

...I did a little research into Bojowald’s paper, and as I understand it, the model pushes everything back to a point where the volume becomes zero. So quantum geometry extends space-time to a branch preceding the classical singularity, therefore removing any such beginning...

There are computer-generated picture of the wavefunction
shrinking down (to very high but still finite density) and then
reexpanding. For example on page 16 of Bojowald's
"Homogeneous Loop Quantum Cosmology"
http://arxiv.org/gr-qc/0303073

Quantizing space prevents the volume from quite becoming zero, or if you imagine the classical glitch as one of infinite density, quantizing prevents the density from exceeding a very high but finite limit. So the classical glitch is eliminated and the universe just
collapses and re-expands.
But whether it will eventually start collapsing again, and repeat the process, is unknown and depends on other things like how the (so-far not understood) dark energy behaves.

About all that can be said is there is no reason to suppose that time began at the same instant as expansion. The universe seems to have existed before. Maybe time has no beginning. Or maybe it has some other earlier beginning.

The idea that time began with the BB was an artifact of using an imperfect model that had a glitch. Because they couldn't push the model back further than BB they said "time begins here"
but now the model is improved and they can push it back further, so the point at which time begins eludes our grasp. Like grabbing a slippery fish that gets away. If there is such a beginning it must be somewhere else.

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by marcus
About all that can be said is there is no reason to suppose that time began at the same instant as expansion. The universe seems to have existed before. Maybe time has no beginning. Or maybe it has some other earlier beginning.

Could it be that it depends on HOW it initially expanded. If there is a linear regression of things to t=0, then one might suppose that momenum will continue it to negative time. But if things proceed from a state of zero velocity and accelerated from there, then there is no mechanism to suppose there was negative time. Besides, if things do regress to absolute zero spacetime, then all information about any momentum is lost, and again we loose any mechnism to suppose negative time. So if it did proceed from zero, then what may have been prior to that is lost and become irrelavant and not provable.

 

[Vast]

Under the first link you gave me, Bojowald’s Loop Quantum Cosmology papers indicates that as the universe proceeds inside a quantum geometry, there is no uniform instants of time. Or as you put it “disappearance of continuous time coordinates at the quantum level”.

This only states that when applied to quantum conditions continuous time instants no longer apply. We don’t live at the quantum level, so time coordinates can be used, and given to calculate the age of our universe.

However as continuous time coordinates do not apply at the quantum level, evolution would behave quite differently, but I think also behave in accordance to quantum laws.

 

[marcus]

Vast, this is a technical point and I can provide links to
papers if you want (Ashtekhar, Lewandowski, Bojowald and others)
but it is, as I say, technical. Loop Quantum Cosmology
as Bojowald and the others have developed it has a good
semi-classical and classical limit. That is, even tho
time-evolution is discrete after about as hundred steps it
blends into the same evolution as the old model.

The bounce appears to be qualitatively symmetric in nearly all the papers
(there was one paper by Seth Majors and Franz Hinterleitner, IIRC,
where things didnt turn out that way, but mostly it seems to)
so what we are looking at is an evolution (contraction-bounce-expansion) where ordinary time appears as the limit of little steps, in the limit or as you get far enough away from where the singularity used to be,
and the contraction is pretty much the same as the expansion run backwards.
So time (as a smooth largescale limit of something discrete at small scale) extends back.
Now what I am telling you is only my impression from reading a bunch of articles---and it is just my opinion! After mulling it over, I personally don't see any singularity, or any beginning to time, at that moment. Neither do the authors of the papers, of course.
All that happens at that moment is that the quantized Hamiltonian operator that governs the evolution of the system (by means of a difference-equation) makes a contraction reach a high-density limit and turn around and become an expansion. The behavior appears to me to be not "put-in-by-hand" but a kind of business-as-usual continuation that comes from quantizing the system. Time, in as much as it exists as a continuous process at large scale, just continues.

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by marcus
The bounce appears to be qualitatively symmetric in nearly all the papers... so what we are looking at is an evolution (contraction-bounce-expansion) where ordinary time appears as the limit of little steps, in the limit or as you get far enough away from where the singularity used to be, and the contraction is pretty much the same as the expansion run backwards. So time (as a smooth largescale limit of something discrete at small scale) extends back.

As I understand it, quantum mechanics can be formulated by the Fyneman path integral which assigns an amplitude to each path and adds up every possible path from initial to final states. It is easy to understand alternative paths inside a given space or manifold. But how can you have alternatives paths for the universe as a whole. There simply is no alternative to the given universe. There is no space outside the universe to plot alternative path of this universe. So it would seem that overall spacetime cannot be quantized because there is no higher dimensional space to form the required alternative paths of a quantization formulization of Feynmen. This would seem relevant since you are talking about jumps in time, which could only mean quantum jumps in the expansion of overall space.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Mike2
...There is no space outside the universe to plot alternative path of this universe...

I don't understand why you think it necessary to assume the existence of a space outside the universe in which to plot alternative paths.

Try reading Rovelli's discussion on page 52 and 53 of Quantum Gravity, the section 2.3.2 called "The Disappearance of Spacetime" where he quotes Einstein's words

"...the requirement of general covariance takes away from space and time the last remnant of physical objectivity..."

this is from the 1916 "Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitaetstheorie"

by general covariance what he means is "Diffeomorphism Invariance" the DI property that LQG preserved from General Relativity. For a good accessible discussion read Smolin's SciAm article in the January issue.

There is no manifold. There is no continuum. The quantum states of space are relational and a quantum superposition of enough of them looks and acts like a continuum. It is not necessary to assume the existence of a differentiable manifold in which to define quantum states, or alternative paths, or Feynman "sum over histories".

Rovelli page 52: "...Therefore localization on [a manifold] M is just gauge: it is physically irrelevant. In fact, M itself has no physical interpretation, it is merely a mathematical device...M cannot be interpreted as a set of physical 'events', or physical spacetime points 'where' the fields take value...Contrary to Newton and Minkowski, there are no spacetime points where particles and fields live..."

He is talking here about 1915 General Relativity, which we humans have been using as our fundamental model of space time and gravity for over 80 years. Apparently we have not gotten used to it yet. We have not yet heard what Einstein said:

the spacetime continuum, the Riemannian manifold, does not have a physical meaning, is not real.

"...the requirement of general covariance takes away from space and time the last remnant of physical objectivity..."

Einstein agonized and waffled for 3 years (1912-1915) before taking this step. It was the only way he could get a workable theory. He was racing David Hilbert to get a modern theory of gravity and he still worried for 3 years. This step was not taken lightly.
There is an historical account on pages 35-45 of Quantum Gravity, recounting Einstein's journey to reach GR, lots of quotes and firsthand source stuff.

Its great. Read the book online if it is still available, or buy it when it comes out.

This PF post has a bunch of LQG resource links
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=124320#post124320
The first link is to Rovelli's book.

Or you can get it by just saying "Rovelli" to google. That gets you
Rovelli's homepage and down the page from his photo is the link to the final prepublication draft of the book (if it is still available).

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by marcus
There is no manifold. There is no continuum. The quantum states of space are relational

I don't know what you mean by relational. What do you mean, what is it contrast to?

and a quantum superposition of enough of them looks and acts like a continuum. It is not necessary to assume the existence of a differentiable manifold in which to define quantum states, or alternative paths, or Feynman "sum over histories".

All the quantum stuff I can remember is derived from diff eqs or integral formulations which assume the existence of some continuous variable being differentiated with respect to them or being integrated with respect to them.

Rovelli page 52: "...Therefore localization on [a manifold] M is just gauge: it is physically irrelevant. In fact, M itself has no physical interpretation, it is merely a mathematical device...M cannot be interpreted as a set of physical 'events', or physical spacetime points 'where' the fields take value...Contrary to Newton and Minkowski, there are no spacetime points where particles and fields live..."

He is talking here about 1915 General Relativity, which we humans have been using as our fundamental model of space time and gravity for over 80 years. Apparently we have not gotten used to it yet. We have not yet heard what Einstein said:

the spacetime continuum, the Riemannian manifold, does not have a physical meaning, is not real.

"...the requirement of general covariance takes away from space and time the last remnant of physical objectivity..."

How can you say that something that does not exist can then be quantized?

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Mike2


How can you say that something that does not exist can then be quantized?

Mike, I think you are making a mistake not to read directly the non-mathematical parts of Rovelli's book that apply. I pointed to a few sections.

We won't get anywhere if you take my sketchy summary of his points and argue with them. I can't reproduce the whole 5 or 10 page discussion.

Best way to understand is read Smolin SciAm article (have you already?) and then look at a few non-mathematical parts of Chapter 2 of Rovelli.

1915 GR substitutes the gravitational field for the old (diff. manif) idea of space.

The old spacetime (a manifold, a continuum, Newtonian or Minkowskian absolute space, or whatever) has no more physical existence.

You say, "what is to quantize then?"

The gravitational field is what is to quantize.

You will have to want to understand this---how the field can exist independently of a particular differentiable manifold---or you won't grasp the essential and we will find it impossible to converse.

(the manifold, in those cases where it is used for purposes of definition, is a conventional mathematical convenience)

The gravitational field is the arena where things happen where matter fields live and it the vehicle for the geometry----it takes the place of the spacetime continuum----and the gravitational field is what is quantized by the Loop theory.
That is why it is called Quantum Gravity.

Imagine a universe with only one star in it.
I tell you that the star is turning.
You ask, with respect to what is it turning?
It is turning with respect to the gravitational field.

See page 40 of Quantum Gravity for more examples, section
2.2.3 "The Key Idea"

BTW you are welcome to "pass" on quantum gravity. It is what is happening in our era in the history of science, I believe, and it is hardly necessary for everybody to know about it! Scientific revolutions occur largely without the knowledge of contemporaries. You can, if you chose, say "I don't need to know this" (as per Nibles) and just drop the conversation. I'm interested in talking with people who want to understand and don't have time to waste in argument.

 

[Vast]

Originally posted by marcus
Vast, this is a technical point and I can provide links to
papers if you want (Ashtekhar, Lewandowski, Bojowald and others)
but it is, as I say, technical.

Thanks Marcus. Anything too technical is over my head, but I still have some of the other papers to read for now.

The impression I’m getting is that the computer-generated universes that are created extending space-time back, use the cosmological origin as a point in which the density it can acquire is finite.
The cosmological origin seems to be a point where contraction reaches it’s highest density and expands again, where as expansion of our universe reaches it’s lowest density and begins to contract again. (Supposedly)
As the universe doesn’t have a static state, and is either expanding or contracting, our universe simply goes through such a process at the cosmological origin.

Now when I read about the Feynman path integral, I take this to mean histories which contribute to our universe. (Correct me if I’m wrong) Histories which contribute to the inflation of our universe. The Feynman path integral allows every possible history. In a prior universe, it seems logical to me that something would contribute to the observable universe we have now.

There’s only ever been our own universe to refer to, and this gives me the impression that the cosmological origin 13.7 billion years ago, is an initial state. On the other hand in such Ekpyrotic or Cyclic models the initial state is in the infinite past.
I think the real question is whether or not anything can be conserved.

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by marcus
I can't reproduce the whole 5 or 10 page discussion.

Please provide the link to the document, and give the page numbers. Thanks.

1915 GR substitutes the gravitational field for the old (diff. manif) idea of space.

The old spacetime (a manifold, a continuum, Newtonian or Minkowskian absolute space, or whatever) has no more physical existence.

As I understand it, the quantized gravitational field exists in the form of a "graviton" which travels through some background space assumed to exist.

In any event, doesn't the process of quantization require the mathematical tools of differentiation and integration which again assumes some sort of continuous variable to integrate and differentiate with respect to?

You say, "what is to quantize then?"

The gravitational field is what is to quantize.

You will have to want to understand this---how the field can exist independently of a particular differentiable manifold---or you won't grasp the essential and we will find it impossible to converse.

(the manifold, in those cases where it is used for purposes of definition, is a conventional mathematical convenience)

I certainly understand that a manifold can take different coordinate systems. But I'm not aware of any mathematics that can produce quantized states from quantized space? How do the gravitons communicate or interact if not through some continuous space? Are you suggesting a communication through some discontinuity from one graviton boarder to the next? You seem to be suggesting that no distance function can be assigned between one graviton (or quantized bit of space) and the next. But you seem to suppose that they are individualized. Do they have a volume, or are they point particles? If no distance can be assigned between them, then they cannot interact, for you cannot say at which distance they interact.

The gravitational field is the arena where things happen where matter fields live and it the vehicle for the geometry----it takes the place of the spacetime continuum----and the gravitational field is what is quantized by the Loop theory.
That is why it is called Quantum Gravity.

If everything is a graviton, then where do the photons, quarks, and leptons come from?

BTW you are welcome to "pass" on quantum gravity. It is what is happening in our era in the history of science, I believe, and it is hardly necessary for everybody to know about it! Scientific revolutions occur largely without the knowledge of contemporaries. You can, if you chose, say "I don't need to know this" (as per Nibles) and just drop the conversation. I'm interested in talking with people who want to understand and don't have time to waste in argument.

I'm interested in the orgin of the universe. I'm not trying to be argumentative. But I find some objection to the premises being asserted. I've heard this quantized space argument before, and it seems to contradict the notion of information traveling from one point to the next through some none existent medium. If it travels, then there is a medium. Seems obvious enough to me.

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by Vast
In a prior universe, it seems logical to me that something would contribute to the observable universe we have now.

As far as logic is concerned, this is just begging the question as to where this prior universe came from. Also, logic allows for a conclusion to be true when the premise is false. You can logically get something from nothing. You are just supposing that conservation laws apply to a universe that does not exist yet. But it is only after it starts that conservation laws apply. The transition from nonexistence to existence is not something to which conservation law apply.

 

[marcus]

Hi Mike, you asked for links and page numbers. In this thread I gave pointers for getting Rovelli's book in an earlier post, which I will quote here, and some page references. I have given rather a lot of page references to Rovelli's book scattered throughout several posts.

Originally posted by marcus
I don't understand why you think it necessary to assume the existence of a space outside the universe in which to plot alternative paths.

Try reading Rovelli's discussion on page 52 and 53 of Quantum Gravity, the section 2.3.2 called "The Disappearance of Spacetime" where he quotes Einstein's words

"...the requirement of general covariance takes away from space and time the last remnant of physical objectivity..."

this is from the 1916 "Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitaetstheorie"

by general covariance what he means is "Diffeomorphism Invariance" the DI property that LQG preserved from General Relativity. For a good accessible discussion read Smolin's SciAm article in the January issue.

...[SNIP]...

Rovelli page 52: "...Therefore localization on [a manifold] M is just gauge: it is physically irrelevant. In fact, M itself has no physical interpretation, it is merely a mathematical device...M cannot be interpreted as a set of physical 'events', or physical spacetime points 'where' the fields take value...Contrary to Newton and Minkowski, there are no spacetime points where particles and fields live..."

He is talking here about 1915 General Relativity, which we humans have been using as our fundamental model of space time and gravity for over 80 years. Apparently we have not gotten used to it yet. We have not yet heard what Einstein said:

the spacetime continuum, the Riemannian manifold, does not have a physical meaning, is not real.

"...the requirement of general covariance takes away from space and time the last remnant of physical objectivity..."

Einstein agonized and waffled for 3 years (1912-1915) before taking this step. It was the only way he could get a workable theory. He was racing David Hilbert to get a modern theory of gravity and he still worried for 3 years. This step was not taken lightly.
There is an historical account on pages 35-45 of Quantum Gravity, recounting Einstein's journey to reach GR, lots of quotes and firsthand source stuff.

Its great. Read the book online if it is still available, or buy it when it comes out.

This PF post has a bunch of LQG resource links
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=124320#post124320
The first link is to Rovelli's book.

Or you can get it by just saying "Rovelli" to google. That gets you
Rovelli's homepage and down the page from his photo is the link to the final prepublication draft of the book (if it is still available).

I would say the two essential pieces of reading material for Loop Gravity are Smolin's SciAm article and the non-mathematical parts of Chapter 2 of Rovelli's book.

If you want to learn about the subject these are good places to begin. The SciAm article is not free-online---it means a trip to the public library. If you have any trouble downloading Rovelli's book from his website please let me know. I am worried that he may take the draft version down, now that the book is at the publisher.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Vast
... where as expansion of our universe reaches it’s lowest density and begins to contract again. (Supposedly)...

You've stimulated so many thoughts in my head that I don't know where to begin.

where the universe came from is a Great High Question---the question of Origin.

what happened 13.7 billion years ago is a practical mundane kind of question. The work of Bojo and others "demystifies" it. We have a model now that works better so we can work back in time past the 13.7 mark.

So that mark does not have to be confused, any longer, with the mysterious Origin.

However there is a huge amount that is not mundane and is still mysterious---huge questions to which Loop Cosmology and other quantumgravitybased theories provide little by way of clues.

You seem to like the oscillating picture. But as far as I am aware, there is no hard evidence that the current expansion phase will ever end. Particularly because of the positive Lambda term in the model, associated with accelerating expansion, one cannot on the basis of present data predict that the expansion will ever turn around and give way to contraction. I think we need to be extremely patient, adopt a kind of "agnostic" open mind and honestly admit to how little of the whole story we really know.

All right 13.7 ago there was no grand Origin. But what about 13.7 or 50 before that? And what about 13.7 billion years or 50 billion years in our future? Our minds do not like infinite expanses of time and tend to try to put bounds on them, or to put cycles on them (which is another way to achieve intellectual control of the infinite). For aesthetic or psychological reasons we have this urge to impose Termini---great beginnings and ends----on time, or to impose Cycles. The Ancient Hindu picture of time with its 50(?) billion year Kalpa or "Day of Brahma" was a nice cyclic picture. Perhaps it is even correct but I feel certain that we don't have nearly enough data to assess that!

You ask challenging questions but all I have by way of anser is extremely limited. Loop Gravity is, as far as I know, the simplest quantization of the model of the universe that cosmologists have used for 80 some years. It just conservatively quantizes the model that has worked for us, with as little extra baggage and extra assumptions as humanly possible. So compared with other things it is barely different from the tried-and-true Gen. Rel. that has worked for us for 80 years and passed many a predictive test.
And all the application of Loop Gravity to cosmology (i.e. Loop Cosmology) has done so far is get rid of the singularity 13.7 billion years ago and provide an explanation for how inflation may have been triggered. That is, Loop sheds a little light on one brief moment---and dispels the Aura of Mysterious Origin only from that one moment.
All that happens is that the Aura of Mystery drifts off and collects somewhere else. It is a foggy nimbus which is always in some corner of the picture. I hope that my speculations about this in some sense parallel or paraphrase your own, so that they connect. Its a vague area of speculation for me, but interesting to think about.

 

[Vast]

Originally posted by Mike2
As far as logic is concerned, this is just begging the question as to where this prior universe came from.

Mike, you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying. The prior universe that contributes to the universe we're in now, is our own. Our universe is basically Everything that exists right? So if we extend space-time back we should get a bounce which expands the universe into a prior existence.

 

[Vast]

Originally posted by marcus
You've stimulated so many thoughts in my head that I don't know where to begin.

where the universe came from is a Great High Question---the question of Origin.

I accept that things are incomplete, and the mysteries of quantum mechanics won’t be solved any time soon.

But can everything really come from nothing?
Because for everything to come from nothing, it would seem that there really is no limit to how much can come into existence. The impression I get from LQC is that the density is finite, (At point of origin) which implies that it is not a state of non-existence, but simply an initial state for our universe.

It even seems to suggest that the process of expansion and contraction is an infinite cycle.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Vast

It even seems to suggest that the process of expansion and contraction is an infinite cycle.

I must confess that to some extent I agree, it does "seem to suggest" cyclic behavior

but at best we have only just now gotten a close-up look at one "bounce"---one turnaround from contraction to expansion

if you see a ball bounce once
even if you watch a microscopic motion picture of the instant
when it is bouncing you don't yet have enough data or overall understanding to conclude that it goes on bouncing forever

(I know, you realize this too. I am just emphasizing how limited
the knowledge is)

the biggest missing piece in a cyclic picture is an understanding
of how the "cosmological constant" (a positive energy density currently causing expansion to accelerate) could gradually become zero and then go negative so as to reverse the expansion

humans have only just now measured the CC, in 1998, and still don't even know what to call it ("dark energy" "quintessence"...) and don't understand it at all, and still should probably be skeptical that it even exists! We are at a very strange and interesting time in the history of our understanding the cosmos. 70 percent of the energy in the U is something we totally don't understand----if that energy cannot change then space expands non-stop and never turns around and re-contracts----if that energy can change then perhaps some sort of cyclic behavior is possible.

for now about all there is to know about "dark energy" is that it has been measured at about 0.6 joule per cubic kilometer

soooooooooo tenuous! a joule is a quarter calorie: the amount of heat to raise a cc of water by one quarter of a degree celsius.

or a joule is the amount of mechanical work to lift a kilogram weight by about 10 centimeters----say 4 inches.

so then think of six tenths of that amount, 0.6 of a joule,
and spread that amount of energy evenly thru a cubic kilometer.

this energy is observed both by its effect on past history of expansion and also by its contribution to overall flatness of space (it's just enough to make the total angles of even very big triangles add up to 180 degrees----one expects small triangles to add up to 180 degrees but unless the total energy density is just right one expects a kind of warping to show up at very large scale. how peculiar this sounds! but it is the theory of space and gravity we have been living with since 1915 and it checks out every time we test it!)

so, unbelieveable as it seems, there is this observed and measured very thinly distributed energy throughout space, which, as far as the observations can tell so far, shows no signs of changing!
It looks, at least tentatively, like 0.6 joules per cubic click (plus/minus some experimental error or uncertainty bound) as far back as the observations go.

We can hope, however, that more and better observations will detect a sign that the dark energy can change. Why not? It has only been measured recently and there is a lot of room for surprises

sorry if I am loading you with unnecessary detail
its just that there is this big missing piece in the cyclic picture
(we know contraction can turn around and become expansion but we
have no model for the opposite: for expansion turning around and becoming contraction)

 

[Vast]

There seems to be a consistent pattern emerging.
Since the beginning of the expansion period. There’s been a pattern of formation of earlier and earlier foundations. The CMB shows that widely distributed areas of space were once in close contact with each other. This has further supported the notion that the universe had an origin, and that the origin was of a high but finite density.
It seems to me that Dark Energy was not thinly distributed in our universe towards the beginning, because space was simply more compact, thus expansion must have been much faster, and distribution of Dark Energy much denser. So could it be that as the universe grows even larger, it reaches a point where there’s just not enough energy to keep it expanding? Already it would suggest that the expansion rate was somewhat consistent or even show signs of a steady reduction of expansion in the not too distant future.

What this seems to suggest is that the rate of expansion and its point of turnaround, determines the “height” of the bounce. Therefore giving an age for the cosmological origin, and an age for the turnaround, would give a single frame for the full cycle of the entire picture.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Vast
...What this seems to suggest is that the rate of expansion and its point of turnaround, determines the “height” of the bounce. Therefore giving an age for the cosmological origin, and an age for the turnaround, would give a single frame for the full cycle of the entire picture.

You might like Ned Wrights computer animation of an expanding and then contracting universe
(with galaxies drifting farther apart and then back together, and even little squiggles which are photons of light traveling from one galaxy to the next and getting stretched out or redshifted along the way, or blueshifted as the thing re-contracts)

The computer animation might even repeat like a film-loop. I do not remember.

I will see if I can fetch the link. Here:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/Balloon2.html

BTW this model does not turn around until t=50, that is until 50 billion years, which is compressed into several minutes. So you have to be patient and watch it until the little time-counter at the lower left corner reaches 50 before you can see it start contracting.
As in all things, especially with the universe, patience is required

You are right that IF people could find a finite age for the turnaround then they would have a frame on one full cycle.
But the age of turnaround, and even whether or not there is a finite age of turnaround, is a big unknown.
No present observations, that I know of, give a handle on it.
But there are always new observations and every so often totally surprising ones turn up (like the 1998 supernova ones that nobody expected and which revealed that expansion is now speeding up)
so all one can do is stay openminded and alert.

 

[Vast]

Thanks for the link Marcus, it's a good site with some interesting information.

The grand design is just getting more and more mysterious, and from listening to leading physicist, they seem to have very little in the way of answers.

There was one thing that confused me, and that’s the supernova of 98 which revealed that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Not that that’s a problem, but is there a difference between the expansions first discovery, and that of the supernova of 98? Because, as it has occurred to me that perhaps expansion isn’t uniform, as in dark energy which may accumulate within the massive voids between galaxies, stretch space unevenly, and perhaps be incorrect in assuming that the speed is the same in all directions?

 

[marcus]

Hi Vast, I like this line of questioning and will answer as best I can. However these questions are ones that several people (Phobos, other mentors, Nereid, hellfire, meteor, I forget all who) could answer very well and if I was sure someone else would step in I would just be quiet and wait.

but they might not get around to it. So let me at least start responding.

There were two studies published in 1998 which used data from observing many tens of supernovae. It was not just one supernova but data from scores of supernovae that had been observed over the course of several years.

So when I referred to "1998 supernovae data" it could be confusing---it was the data that was interpreted and published by two independent teams in that year. It doesn't PROVE acceleration beyond all doubt and it doesn't prove the acceleration is uniform in space and time. But there was an appearance of uniformity and it persuaded a lot of cosmologists.

In science the first model they use to explain something is often the simplest model and the simplest way to reproduce the observed acceleration trend and match the data was to assume that a parameter called Lambda that Einstein had put in the original equations in 1915 (but which people had been assuming was zero) was actually not zero but some very small constant amount.

This was seen as the easiest way to fit the data (the apparent flatness of space, the minimum amount of extra invisible matter needed to hold galaxies and clusters together, and the evidence of acceleration)

But the simplest model is not always the one that wins out. As more data comes in it may be necessary to revise and refine the picture.
Maybe dark energy is not well modeled by simply setting Lambda equal to some small constant energy density. Maybe "it" is several things, maybe "it or they" change, maybe their distribution is not uniform.
Maybe the relation of energy density and pressure is different from what Einstein originally supposed---this is the "equation of state" issue which people are trying to resolve now. Maybe a completely different picture will come in and supplant the simple model we have now which really goes back to some equations written down in 1915 almost 90 years ago!

So the simple picture, which is widely accepted now as a working basis and a way to fit the observations, could get more complicated.

For now the cosmology mainstream seems to be going on the assumption that "dark matter" gathers together in clouds around galaxies and in clusters, under the influence of its own gravity and the gravity of ordinary visible matter. So it can flow into places that it is needed to add mass and stability and help hold concentrations of matter together.

But the extremely curious assumption that is made regarding "dark energy" is that it DOES NOT CLUMP. It is not able to flow around like a substance and gather in clouds. It is a constant attached to empty space itself and is everywhere uniform. This is what people assume because it is the simplest way to get a workable picture using the classic 1915 equations. But it does have that curious "non-clumping" assumption. And that may have to be discarded later as the picture is made more complicated.

Actually, if I may make a personal side comment, I like the current simple picture very very much. A constant vacuum energy density uniform and steady thruout space and time, with a constant negative pressure, appeals strongly to me. I am just trying to be objective (when I say the picture may get more complicated) and not let my personal preferences interfere. What I hope is that some smart person comes up with an explanation of why a cubic kilometer of otherwise empty space should have exactly 0.6 joules of vacuum energy in it---constantly and uniformly thru time and space. That would be
as wonderful as the number pi and put our historical era on par with that of Archimedes. But merely wishing won't make that so.

Originally posted by Vast
Thanks for the link Marcus, it's a good site with some interesting information.

The grand design is just getting more and more mysterious, and from listening to leading physicist, they seem to have very little in the way of answers.

There was one thing that confused me, and that’s the supernova of 98 which revealed that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Not that that’s a problem, but is there a difference between the expansions first discovery, and that of the supernova of 98? Because, as it has occurred to me that perhaps expansion isn’t uniform, as in dark energy which may accumulate within the massive voids between galaxies, stretch space unevenly, and perhaps be incorrect in assuming that the speed is the same in all directions?

 

[marcus]

Loop Quantum Gravity trying to explain Lambda

Vast, you raised the issue of the cosmological constant
(the assumed constant energy density used to make the model have accelerating expansion so it will fit the data)

The next related conference talk I know of about that is early next month in a Feb 4-14 special seminar where Lee Smolin is supposed to give a talk on

"Cosmological Constant and Quantum Gravity"

here is the webpage that lists the talks:

http://www.ws2004.ift.uni.wroc.pl/html.html

You can say it is the current LQG bid in the "Lambda Sweepstakes"

Quantum gravity is the quantum theory of what space consists of, at very small scale, and it seems to me that it is exactly the branch of physical theory you would want to be able to come up with an explanation of Lambda

(if this constant vacuum energy density exists and is 0.6 joules per cubic km, like they say it is)

Dont hold your breath though. No idea what Smolin will say but it is too hard a problem to expect solutions to come quickly. Maybe some incremental progress this year...

 

[Vast]

Hi Marcus, thank you, there’s a lot of information to take into consideration, but as far as dark energy is concerned, I think the simple model does work better, for the reason that dark energy is divided with conventional matter.
I get the impression that dark energy is simply “explosive energy”, that which occurs in supernova, and at the big bang.
How it gets divided in the early phase of the universe is indeed still a huge question, and as I understand it String theory or M-theory cannot predict how it gets divided.

Quantum Gravity, or Quantum Geometry, is quite hard to understand, but what occurs in that region, does cause energy to be divided. How a quantum structure can divide itself, when conventional matter doesn’t seem to exist yet, may show that different phases have different behaviors, thus the universe divides itself into a cosmological constant and conventional matter some time after inflation.

Well at least they’re focusing on what seems to be the key questions.

 

[Mike2]

Originally posted by marcus
a cubic kilometer of otherwise empty space should have exactly 0.6 joules of vacuum energy in it---constantly and uniformly thru time and space.

How is this energy manifested? Do some of virtual particles survive and carry off this energy?

Thanks.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by Mike2
How is this energy manifested? Do some of virtual particles survive and carry off this energy?

Thanks.

Mike you might want to ask several different people to explain why the cosmologists have come up with a figure of 73 percent. Nereid or selfAdj or various others could.

All I have done is translate the 73 percent they say matches the CMB and supernova observations---the observed flatness and observed increase in expansion rate over time.

You probably need to believe Einstein 1915 GR (as simplified into the Friedmann equation) to understand.
According to GR the curvature and expansion depend on the
average energy density.
So far GR has been passing all tests so it doesn't look like its going to be thrown out so you just have to accept what the equation says
which is that the

observed flatness implies the average density in space
is 0.83 joule per cubic click including all forms (regular matter, transparent matter, visible light, transparent energy, ...everything)

you asked how it manifests itself. the energy content (energy in all forms) manifests itself by space being flat.

if it were more than 0.83 the equation says curvature would be positive, which we don't observe

if it were less than 0.83 the equation says curvature would be negative, which we do not observe

Personally I respect all the work they have put into verifying flatness and also in taking a count or census of different kinds of energy

by counting all the galaxies and other stuff in a given volume they estimate that visible matter only amounts to average 0.033 joule per cubic click

(I tried it one time with a box of space around our galaxy and androm and the rest of the local group out about halfway to the next group and I got an estimate like the official one more or less. It is hard but you can do it.)

Nereid has been giving reasons why the dark matter density should be what they say it is, namely about 0.19 joule per cubic click.
A recent one of her posts gave about 3 reasons. computer sims, obserations of gravitational lensing, stability of clusters etc etc.

Again it is hard but people have been mapping the dark matter and accounting for it and estimating and so on and it manifests itself in various ways by holding galaxies together and lensing etc. So I respect their esimate of 0.19 joule

So you just add it up. What is not accounted for (in the total 0.83 which we have to have because of observed flatness) is about 0.61 joules


0.61 + 0.19 + 0.033 = 0.83

That is the first way it manifests itself. The next is by a fantastic coincidence that blew people away in 1998. This 0.61, or 0.6 not to be too precise, is exactly the right size to explain the accelerating expansion seen in the supernovae!

So that is the second way it manifests itself.

According to the Friedmann equation, again, a constant energy density (a constant number of joules per cubic click) represents a negative pressure of the same amount------minus 0.6 nanoNewtons per square meter if you like metric----minus 0.6 nanoPascals----and if you believe GR and the Friedmann this has an expansive effect. Causes just the right amount of acceleration so as to agree with the data.


I expect you might not like this and might prefer, in the last resort, to disbelieve the Einstein equation and the Friedmann derived from it. You are heartily welcome to do so! In that case you may say that the dark energy is not manifested! Deal with it however is best for you.

My point would be that the paradigms in physics are changing and that increasingly GR is calling the shots and saying "this and this is energy and this is how much energy is there, and this is how it is manifesting, and this is its pressure that we observe." It is a changed paradigm and a slightly different scene and different problems and answers, from what it looked like 20 or 30 years ago in the heyday of particle physics where you had different expectations about how energy was going to "manifest" itself.

Like maybe there was a bubble chamber?

And now the bubble chamber is 5 billion light years wide and what you see making tracks are supernovae.