[Ed] In the beginning, there was the world

A new gospel?

Well, sort of. It’s about a new theory in physics which says the Big Bang never happened.

I knew this! And God said, Let there be light...

Hold on. This new theory only says the Big Bang may not have occurred the way we thought it did. In fact, the new theory says the universe always existed.

Mea Culpa! But who says this?

Physicists Ahmed Farag Ali from Benha University and the Zewail City of Science and

Technology in Egypt, and Saurya Das from the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. Their paper in Physics Letters B suggests the Big Bang did not start with a singularity, which is the point in space-time when matter is infinitely dense and can lead to an explosion or expansion.

Are they saying there is no singularity at all?

It’s tad complicated. The Big Bang theory says the universe started expanding after the explosion of a particle some 14 billion years ago. Ali and Das proposed that the universe has existed infinitely, and they examined their theory by applying what science calls quantum error correction techniques. They concluded that since different points in the universe never actually converged in the past, it did not have a beginning. Which means, it lasted forever. Which also means it will also not have an end. There goes your singularity.

That’s quite something!

Indeed. So far, Big Bang has been the most logical theory explaining the origin of the universe. For long has long it helped us in understanding Einstein’s theory of general relativity. But with advancements in science, especially in quantum physics, this theory has been on a sticky wicket.

So what exactly did Ali and Das do?

Their model makes ‘quantum corrections’ to an equation that was already known to science. This equation used a theory (quantum trajectory) proposed by physicist David Bohm. Ali and Das used the corrected equation to fit Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and came up with the new model.

Well, physics is Greek to me. What exactly was wrong the Big B theory?

Experts say a glitch with the Big Bang theory is that none of the equations that try to explain what happened in the singularity can help us trace back the moment the singularity actually happened. The laws of physics only explain what happened from the moment the universe achieved the ‘Planck Temperature’. This is the highest possible temperature that happened after the singularity. Another issue is, if we agree the universe is expanding, it must have been doing so from an area that was, at one point, very (even infinitely) tiny and dense. This leaves a lot of loose ends.

Let me guess; the new model doesn’t endorse the expansion theory.

Quite so. Ali and Das skip the theory of the universe’s previous infinite size and density. They call the “smallness problem” and puts the universe at a finite size by relying on a “cosmological constant” term. In English, this means they propose our humble universe has always been around. The scientists say the theory in fact helps unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. It “serves to complement Einstein’s general relativity, which is very successful at describing physics over large distances… But physicists know that to describe short distances, quantum mechanics must be accommodated,” Ali told media.

What's the impact of this find?

This new model is so radical that it negates most of the known theories explaining the origin of the universe. It can trigger a new set of scientific equations and theories explaining what was actually there in the beginning... if all there was one as we know it. Watch this space.