From the New Statesman:
To support Minkowski’s proposal, a 2014 paper published in arXiv, says the universe had no beginning and will have no end (a “block universe”), according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein’s theory general relativity. The model also helps solve the problem of dark matter and dark energy.
What some cosmologists now believe is that rather than matter collapsing, causing a “Big Bang”, the matter bounced (“the Big Bounce”). Ie, they believe the universe has energy levels and goes through a cycle of collapses and bounces.
“[The Big Bounce] is actually in doubt because we now know that our universe is not going to re-collapse. It is actually going to expand forever because of dark energy. 70 per cent of our universe is made of an unknown type of force or energy that we call “dark energy”, whose main impact on the universe is to make the expansion of the universe accelerate with time – so not only is the universe growing with time, it’s growing at an ever accelerating speed,” says astrophysicist Roberto Trotta of Imperial College London to the science radio talk show The Naked Scientists, based at the University of Cambridge.
“The Big Crunch will end the universe and the end will be a state of darkness where all the matter will have been sucked into black holes . . . but it’s about 200bn years in the future so we’ve got nothing to worry about,” he adds.
Our perception of time and space is meaningless. … More.
See also: But who needs reality-based thinking anyway? Not the new cosmologists
Multiverse cosmology: Assuming that evidence still matters, what does it say?
and
In search of a road to reality
How about a road to reality?
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