Comments on: Paul Steinhardt on the Cyclic Universe

By: Rudy

Rudy — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:48:40 +0000

Thanks for the comments.

Edes Catto Het, The idea in this theory is that the big bang is not at a point. It is rather something that fill the entire sheets of the two spaces when they pass through each other.

And in this theory we only have two sheets of spacetime, not infinitely many. But we do have potentially infinite space in each universe, and a potentially infinite amount of time in which the cycles reiterate.

I wrote a story about this kind of universe with Bruce Sterling, it was in Asimov’s SF magazine, Feb, 2009, you can read the start of it here: http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0902/collidingbranes.shtml, and eventually it will be in story collections by Bruce and by me.

By: Edes Catto

Edes Catto — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:19:39 +0000

I do not understand why the m-brane theory, the big bang would be the point of contact of two flat membranes.
Instead of having so many universes going to infinite, it would seem easier to consider the brane flat and tending to infinity, have only two concentric sfrere that attract and repel each other with a cyclic of Migliardi years.
and when they collide togheter gravity and dark energy reverse their sign atrction to repulsion.
While on a brane we have the matter or antimatter, in the other the matter is converted into energy with other physical laws.
As for the blacks holes that create a singularity are points of contact between the two branes where matter is asorbed and converted into energy and inverse in the field of energy.
It might work or is one of the many theories socks?

By: Samuel StJohn-Soaper

Samuel StJohn-Soaper — Wed, 25 May 2011 00:16:09 +0000

The spats between the two branes would create new heat/radiation energy but i fail to see how more matter can be produced. Also if the to branes cannot meet where there is a black hole. Then will it have little affect on galaxies because usally a black hole is in middle of them.
I have another point to make if there is a limit to the universe and it has a reflective skin. Some of extreme distance galaxies could even be our own milkyway when it was younger. On the whole i do like string theory/ cyclic universe but it may need refining in the years to come.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:54:23 +0000

We could also look at this same concept from an ideal perspective. If you can swallow the idea of a universe made of mind, or awareness, rather than matter, these two clashing branes could be viewed as perpendicular ideas. This is what we usually refer to as a paradox. Two ideas, each acceptable from their respective vantage points, and yet contradictory of each other, could produce an entire universe if fueled by a sufficiently fiery stream of consciousness. This is, of course, an ancient idea (yin/yang, acid/alkaline, binary code, etc.), but it is interesting to compare it with the “big splat”. As for the appeal to an idealistic perspective, suffice to say that consciousness is still unaccounted for – no reductive explanation accounts for subjective experience. Hence, it is a mystery, and we are justified in viewing it as primary.

By: claudia

claudia — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:40:22 +0000

Maybe my theory could explain why the constant was once much larger, but that its value decayed with each incarnation of the universe.

“The universe rejuvenates itself like a cell in the human body or a new brick replacing an old brick in a building. A universe dependent on an anti digital copying mechanism located in the density of a vacuum?

The human being also replaces its digital self every ten years or so and after the fourth time we lose the ability to copy our self exactly, hence “old age” The resolution of the universes digital self is also lowered until it can no longer copy itself. While the universe is accelerating and expanding the inner core of the constant anti matter is decomposing and shrinking. allowing lighter layers of dark energy to rise and escape through “plugs” throughout the universe of course these plugs are “Dead Stars” stars not only sit on the fabric of the universe but are stretched through layers of vacuums supplying energy to young dark matter that eventually becomes to heavy and descends to the constant.

When a star burns out it is half imbedded between the fabric of space and space, when collapsing into itself it fuses itself to the layers beneath the fabric so it can not be lifted up by the fabric. Like the navel does after the umbilical cord is detached.

Maybe it’s true that we exist now because the universe is weaker but it can also mean that were we to discover within our human race how to copy ourselves again in high resolution then maybe we can be that tiny speck that causes an anti bang.

By: Steve Devine

Steve Devine — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:38:20 +0000

Shimmerring branes in my poor old tired neural heap.

Riffs:

This IS the Big Bang. Now. It didn’t “happen”. It IS what’s happening.

Since the Big Splat is the “cause” of the present, may it not in some sense said to BE the present? Past and future created from Now, spiraling off into chains of algorithms fuzzing themselves into the nose-floor muck of two Heisenbergian horizons, beyond which any sensible theory must pass over in silence. Time past and Time future not so much empirically real as … stipulated … from an eternal now.

On now: Patti Smith – Ain’t It Strange

By: chi

chi — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:55:55 +0000

Thank you for posting this engrossing and stimulating interview. I am just learning about branes, and find the imaginative questions and answers refreshing to think about.

By: Gamma

Gamma — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:00:28 +0000

dear rudy yu gnosis the damns on the surface of Ganymede – i think i remember – and may yu be safe – Zappastuff 2 y’all – i hope the elephants are well in Borma