Skip to main content

Endless Universe – Neil Turok & Paul J. Steinhardt ****

The standard big bang inflationary model of cosmology describes our Universe as beginning as an infinitesimal point of infinite density, energy and mass known as a singularity, where all of the known laws of physics break down. For reasons we are still not certain about, this singularity started to expand. In order to explain certain features of the universe around us (mainly the smoothness of the cosmic background radiation), it has been proposed that our early universe went through an exponentially rapid period of expansion – this is dubbed ‘inflation’.
Although this is the conventional view that cosmology holds about the origins of our universe, it is not without its flaws. In particular some astrophysicists are unhappy about the proposed singularity at the start of our universe. Inflation theory has also had to be tinkered with in order to take in to account the existence of dark matter and more recently dark energy, driving our universe’s expansion to accelerate, contrary to the expectations from the original inflationary theory.
Turok and Stienhardt have been developing their repost to the inflationary model for a number of years. Known as the ekpyrotic (without fire) theory – in essence this puts forward the idea that instead of a singularity, our universe was created as the result of two branes colliding with each other and triggering a ‘big bang’ event. They take this idea further and propose that we live in a cyclic universe (this is not a new idea in itself) where the two branes move along higher dimensional space and regularly collide and separate over periods of billions of years. If they are correct their model could successfully explain the features of our universe that the inflationary model fails to cover.
This book describes in a highly accessible and readable manner the outline of Turok and Stienhardt’s new theory. Mercifully, in place of complex mathematics, diagrams are employed to get across the complex ideas featured. This is no mean feat given the fact that the book’s topic is at the cutting edge of 21st century cosmology.
After deftly describing inflationary theory and pointing out where its flaws lie, the authors give an account of how they developed their theory. Parts of this are auto-biographical, which really gives you a flavour of how cosmologists work.
At present there is little observational evidence to support the ekpyrotic model – as the authors themselves point out. This may be about to change within the next decade or so as gravitational wave detectors could detect the characteristic energy signature from gravity waves created in the brane collision.
The idea that there may well have been a universe before ours has also gained credence as some cosmologists have claimed as recently as this week to have detected imprints in the cosmic microwave background that suggest our universe may have ‘bubbled off’ from a previous universe.

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Scotty_73
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - Henry Gee *****

In writing this book, Henry Gee had a lot to live up to. His earlier title  The Accidental Species was a superbly readable and fascinating description of the evolutionary process leading to Homo sapiens . It seemed hard to beat - but he has succeeded with what is inevitably going to be described as a tour-de-force. As is promised on the cover, we are taken through nearly 4.6 billion years of life on Earth (actually rather more, as I'll cover below). It's a mark of Gee's skill that what could have ended up feeling like an interminable list of different organisms comes across instead as something of a pager turner. This is helped by the structuring - within those promised twelve chapters everything is divided up into handy bite-sized chunks. And although there certainly are very many species mentioned as we pass through the years, rather than feeling overwhelming, Gee's friendly prose and careful timing made the approach come across as natural and organic.  There was a w
Post a Comment
Read more

On the Fringe - Michael Gordin *****

This little book is a pleasant surprise. That word 'little', by the way, is not intended as an insult, but a compliment. Kudos to OUP for realising that a book doesn't have to be three inches thick to be interesting. It's just 101 pages before you get to the notes - and that's plenty. The topic is fringe science or pseudoscience: it could be heavy going in a condensed form, but in fact Michael Gordin keeps the tone light and readable. In some ways, the most interesting bit is when Gordin plunges into just what pseudoscience actually is. As he points out, there are elements of subjectivity to this. For example, some would say that string theory is pseudoscience, even though many real scientists have dedicated their careers to it. Gordin also points out that, outside of denial (more on this a moment), many supporters of what most of us label pseudoscience do use the scientific method and see themselves as doing actual science. Gordin breaks pseudoscience down into a n
Post a Comment
Read more

Michael D. Gordin - Four Way Interview

Michael D. Gordin is a historian of modern science and a professor at Princeton University, with particular interests in the physical sciences and in science in Russia and the Soviet Union. He is the author of six books, ranging from the periodic table to early nuclear weapons to the history of scientific languages. His most recent book is On the Fringe: Where Science Meets Pseudoscience (Oxford University Press). Why history of science? The history of science grabbed me long before I knew that there were actual historians of science out there. I entered college committed to becoming a physicist, drawn in by the deep intellectual puzzles of entropy, quantum theory, and relativity. When I started taking courses, I came to understand that what really interested me about those puzzles were not so much their solutions — still replete with paradoxes — but rather the rich debates and even the dead-ends that scientists had taken to trying to resolve them. At first, I thought this fell under
Post a Comment
Read more