Prof Stephen Hawking has come up with a new idea to explain why the Big Bang of creation led to the vast cosmos that we can see today.
Astronomers can deduce that the early universe expanded at a mind-boggling rate because regions separated by vast distances have similar background temperatures.
They have proposed a process of rapid expansion of neighbouring regions, with similar cosmic properties, to explain this growth spurt which they call inflation.
But that left a deeper mystery: why did inflation occur in the first place?
Now
New Scientist reports that an answer has been proposed by Prof Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University, working with Prof Thomas Hertog of the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory in Paris.
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©NASA
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The new theory believes original estimates of Big Bang expansion are wrong
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Comment: The article says:
"In this theory, the early universe can be described by a mathematical object called a wave function and, in a similar way to the light particle, the team proposed two years ago that this means that there was no unique origin to the cosmos: instead the wave function of the universe embraced a multitude of means to develop."
But why would this "object called a wave function" want to develop at all? Was there a developer not taken into account in the equations? Pulling the strings? And what is the exact relation of this mathematical object to the objective reality?
Then we have these two funny pieces:
Piece A:
"Their idea is therefore to start with the conditions we observe today - like the fact that at large scales one does not need to adopt quantum lore to explain how the universe (it behaves classically, as scientists say) - and work backwards in time to determine what the initial conditions might have looked like."
Piece B:
"The next step is to find specific predictions that can be put to the test, to validate this new view of how the cosmos came into being."
Piece B seems to contradict piece A since, if we find something new tomorrow, we will simply go backward and change our initial conditions. If necessary, we will replace our wave function by a pair or a triple of wave functions. Hawking and Hartle will have fun while the audience will take it seriously and adore these great scientists. Creationists, on the other hand, will have one more enemy and one more target to shoot at!
Comment: The article says: But why would this "object called a wave function" want to develop at all? Was there a developer not taken into account in the equations? Pulling the strings? And what is the exact relation of this mathematical object to the objective reality?
Then we have these two funny pieces:
Piece A: Piece B: Piece B seems to contradict piece A since, if we find something new tomorrow, we will simply go backward and change our initial conditions. If necessary, we will replace our wave function by a pair or a triple of wave functions. Hawking and Hartle will have fun while the audience will take it seriously and adore these great scientists. Creationists, on the other hand, will have one more enemy and one more target to shoot at!