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A Glimpse Past the Big Bang

A Glimpse Past the Big Bang

Last updated on: July 2, 2007 at 6:28 am by Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

A Glimpse Past the Big Bang 2007-07-02T06:28:00-05:00 Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

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The following story is from Space Dot Com. The further I read, the greater my joy. My totally neanderthal comments are in italics.

It may be possible to glimpse before the supposed beginning of time into the universe prior to the Big Bang, researchers now say.

A man I met in El Paso last summer, John, had a “theory” about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise — especially its connection to evolutionary theory. That is, that what we call home, the Earth, was part of the Big Expulsion (or Bang). In other words (my words), subjects such as the fossil record, man’s co-existence with dinosaurs, etc, were/are affected by the Fall or Expulsion. Thus, any “missing link” is linked to the Fall — that’s where one finds the major hiccup (or, I guess, bang).

Unfortunately, any such picture will always be fuzzy at best due to a kind of “cosmic forgetfulness.”

The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time, making any questions about what happened during it or beforehand nonsensical. Recently scientists have instead suggested the Big Bang might have just been the explosive beginning of the current era of the universe, hinting at a mysterious past.

Like, say, a war in heaven perhaps.

To see how far into history one might gaze, theoretical physicist Martin Bojowald at Pennsylvania State University ran calculations based on loop quantum gravity, one of a number of competing theories seeking to explain how the underlying structure of the universe works.

Past research suggested the Big Bang was preceded by infinite energies and space-time warping where existing scientific theories break down, making it impossible to peer beforehand. The new findings suggest that although the levels of energy and space-time warping before the Big Bang were both incredibly high, they were finite.

Forgive me this silly suggestion, but you can read the above paragraph and have a notion that the Creation in Seven Day Thing might actually have a hint of truth to it.

Scientists could spot clues in the present day of what the cosmos looked like previously. If evidence of the past persisted after the Big Bang, its influence could be spotted in astronomical observations and computational models, Bojowald explained.

However, Bojowald also figures some knowledge of the past was irrevocably lost. For instance, the sheer size of the present universe would suppress precise knowledge of how the universe changed in size before the Big Bang, he said.

Kind of like an Angel with a flaming sword? Especially if the sword was similar to the Memory Pens in Men in Black …

“It came as a big surprise that some properties of the universe before the Big Bang may have only such a weak influence on current observations that they are practically undetermined,” Bojowald said of findings detailed online July 1 in the journal Nature Physics.

One implication of this “cosmic forgetfulness,” as Bojowald calls it, is that history does not repeat itself-the fundamental properties of the current era of the universe are different from the last, Bojowald explained. “It’s as if the universe forgot some of its properties and acquired new properties independent of what it had before,” he told SPACE.com.

I keep thinking … The Fall. Then I keep forgetting … The Fall. Then I keep thinking … The Fall.

“The eternal recurrence of absolutely identical universes would seem to be prevented by the apparent existence of an intrinsic cosmic forgetfulness,” he added.

These findings differ from a cyclic model of the cosmos from cosmologist Paul Steinhardt at Princeton and theoretical physicist Neil Turok at Cambridge, which envisions an infinite series of Big Bangs preceding our universe caused by additional membranes or “branes” of reality perpetually colliding and bouncing off each other. Steinhardt said he felt Bojowald’s calculations were concrete, but needed further elaboration to include the interplay of different kinds of matter and radiation.

“Branes of Reality colliding” … now that’s the coolest thing I’ve read all day!

Cosmologist Carlo Rovelli at the Center of Theoretical Physics in Marseilles, France, found it “remarkable” that the new work could delve past the Big Bang. He added the work had to lead to predictions that could be compared to cosmological observations “in order to become credible.”

Here’s a handful of other instances (there’s more in the Archives, if you care to poke around) of neanderthal reactions to the Theory of Evolution Religion That Must Be Believed:

Darwin’s Extinction

Ain’t Nuthin Divides Christians Like Darwin

Here They Come, Walking Down the Street

In a related note, the following is stolen from yesterday’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac (noting the anniversary of the introduction of Darwin’s Theory):

It was on this day [July 1st] in 1858 that a paper by Charles Darwin about his theory of evolution was first presented to a public audience. Darwin had actually come up with the theory twenty years before that, in 1837. Back then, he drafted a thirty-five page sketch of his ideas and arranged with his wife to publish the sketch after his death. Then, for the next twenty years, he told almost no one about the theory. He practically went into hiding, moving to a small town and living like a monk, with specific times each day for walking, napping, reading, and backgammon. He was so reclusive that he even had the road lowered outside his house, to prevent passersby from looking in the window.

He was reluctant to publish his ideas, because he didn’t want to create a controversy by offending anyone’s religious beliefs. Atheism was a crime punishable by prison at the time, and Darwin feared that people would object to the idea that God hadn’t created each creature individually. When he finally told one of his friends about his theory of evolution, he said it was like confessing a murder.

But then after his daughter died of typhoid, Darwin began to worry that his children might not be able to provide for themselves. So, to help assure his children’s well-being, he began writing a book about evolution, which he hoped would become a scientific classic. He worked on the book seven days a week. He had struggled to complete a quarter of a million words when, on June 18, 1858, he learned that a man named Alfred Russel Wallace was about to publish a paper about a similar theory. In order to get credit, Darwin had to present an extract of his work to a scientific society in two weeks.

Almost the same day he received that news, his household was struck by an epidemic of scarlet fever. His children and several nursery maids came down with the disease. Most everyone recovered, but Darwin’s youngest son, Charles, died. And so it was that Charles Darwin wasn’t even in attendance when his theory of evolution was first presented to a public audience on this day in 1858. He was at home, grieving the death of his son.

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