GEEK / By Robin Burks / November 19, 3:47 PM

Why Didn’t The Universe Collapse After The Big Bang? We Have Gravity To Thank

Credit: NASA, ESA, T. Megeath (University of Toledo) and M. Robberto (STScI)

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According to physics, the Universe shouldn't be here. Theories dictate that because the Universe was so unstable after the Big Bang, it should have quickly collapsed. However, it didn't. And now we know why: gravity.

In 2012, CERN discovered the mysterious Higgs particle, which is an elementary particle in the standard model of particle physics. After studying the Higgs, physicists determined that the Big Bang, which resulted in the Universe expanding at an unprecedented rate, should have made it so unstable that it collapsed.

Of course, fortunately, for us, it didn't. But how do we explain why?

Some physicists think that the answer requires an entirely new area of physics that hasn't yet been discovered. However, physicists at the Imperial College London, as well as at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Helsinki, think the answer is much simpler. Gravity held the Universe together when it was unstable.

In modern physics, gravity is part of Einstein's general theory of relativity and is the result of the curvature of spacetime. These physicists believe that it was this effect that held the Universe together when it was expanding so rapidly, shortly after the Big Bang.

(Photo : NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team)

The physicists studied how the Higgs particle and gravity interact with each other, based on different scenarios. They determined that even a small interaction between gravity and the Higgs was enough to keep the Universe stable, preventing collapse.

"This parameter cannot be measured in particle accelerator experiments, but it has a big effect on the Higgs instability during inflation," says Professor Arttu Rajantie, from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. "Even a relatively small value is enough to explain the survival of the universe without any new physics!"

Sometimes, even in science, the best answer is the easiest one. But this theory still needs further investigation. The physicists hope to use cosmological observations to study the interaction between the Higgs particle and gravity and how that affected the growth of the Universe after the Big Bang. They'll study data from both current and new missions by the European Space Agency (ESA) and learn more about cosmic microwave background radiation, as well as gravitational waves.

Of course, we're still trying to detect gravitational waves, but once scientiststurn on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors again next year, there's a chance we'll find direct evidence of those waves, as well as learn more about black holes.

"Our aim is to measure the interaction between gravity and the Higgs field using cosmological data," says Rajantie. "If we are able to do that, we will have supplied the last unknown number in the Standard Model of particle physics and be closer to answering fundamental questions about how we are all here."

[Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, T. Megeath (University of Toledo) and M. Robberto (STScI)]

'' For  thousands of  years  , India  has  peacefully  existed . Here  activities  prevailed   when  Greece  even  did  not  exist , when  Rome  was  not  thought of . When  the  very  fathers  of  modern  Europeans  lived  in  the  forest  and  painted  themselves  blue .
  - - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - -- -- -
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We,,  of  all  the  Nations , of the  world  have  never  been  a  conquering  race ." - P  106


"At  the beginning  of  this  (20 Th)  Century , Schopenhauer, the  Great  German  philosopher, studying  from a  not  very  clear  translation  of  the  Vedas  made  from  an  old  translation  into  Persian  and  thence  by  a  young  French  into  Latin, says  :
"In the  whole  World  there  is  no  study  so  beneficial  and  so  elevating  as  that of  the  Upanishads ".P  109.
==================================================================
From " Complete Works  of  Swami  Vivekananda " :  Vol 3  

Vivekananda  Said  it :
===============
"the  whole  of  the  solid-looking  Nature  is  all  an  Illusion"
--- -------------------
"All experienes    are  in  the  Soul  ; not  in  Nature ".
(Comp. Works : Vol 3 ;  P  71)
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Century ++  later    Einstein  told   the  same   thing  in  another language  in explaining  properties  of  Electro -Magnetic field for Perceptual  World.
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David Freeman Become a fandavid.freeman@huffingtonpost.com

Radical New Quantum Theory Says Other Universes Affect Our Own

Posted: 11/04/2014 8:51 am EST Updated: 11/04/2014 8:59 am EST

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Parallel universes have long been a staple of science fiction. But according to a radical new theory of quantum mechanics published Oct. 23 in the journal Physical Review X, other universes are real--and they exist in vast numbers.

What's more, the scientists behind the theory say the other universes exert a subtle repulsive force on our own universe--and that this force is what makes the quantum realm so mind-bendingly bizarre.

"Any explanation of quantum phenomena is going to be weird, and standard quantum mechanics does not really offer any explanation at all--it just makes predictions for laboratory experiments," Prof. Howard Wiseman, a physicist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and one of the creators of the new "many interacting worlds" theory, told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our new explanation...is that there are ordinary (non-quantum) parallel worlds which interact in a particular and subtle way."

The theory is a new twist on the so-called "many worlds interpretation" of quantum mechanics, which dates back to the 1950s. As Wiseman explained in a written statement issued by the university:

"In the well-known 'many worlds interpretation,' each universe branches into a bunch of new universes each time a quantum measurement is made. All possibilities are therefore realized--in some universes the dinosaur-killing asteroid missed Earth. In others, Australia was colonised by the Portuguese. But critics question the reality of these other universes, since they do not influence our universe at all. On this score, our 'many interacting worlds' approach is completely different, as the name implies."

Wiseman and his collaborators--Dr. Michael Hall, also of Griffith University, and University of California, Davis mathematician Dr. Dirk-Andre Deckert--say that their theory may have important implications in the field of molecular dynamics, which is critical to understanding chemical reactions.

Does it also suggest that humans might someday be able to interact with other universes?

"It's not part of our theory...," Wiseman told Motherboard. "But the idea ofinteractions with other universes is no longer pure fantasy."

What do other experts make of the new theory?

Dr. Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University in Tempe, told The Huffington Post in an email that he was "skeptical." And a popular Czech Republic physicist wrote on his blog that while Wiseman and his collaborators had "managed to present some ideas that are at least slightly original," their paper was "another example of the fact that such efforts are a hopeless enterprise and a huge waste of time."

But Charles Sebens, a philosopher of physics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told Nature that he was excited by the approach taken by Wiseman and his collaborators.

“They give very nice analyses of particular phenomena like ground-state energy and quantum tunneling," he told the journal. “I think that together they do a nice job presenting this exciting new idea.”

Dr. L. William Poirer, professor of chemistry at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, also expressed support for the "many interacting worlds" theory. He told HuffPost Science in an email that Wiseman and his collaborators had made "an important contribution...There is no experimental evidence to support this yet, but if true, it means that their theory will make different experimental predictions than standard quantum mechanics does."

Clearly, there's no consensus. But if Wiseman is dismayed by the uneven reaction to the theory, he's not letting on.

"There are some who are completely happy with their own interpretations of QM, and we are unlikely to change their minds," he said in the email. "But I think there are many who are not happy with any of the current interpretations, and it is those who will probably be most interested in ours. I hope some will be interested enough to start working on it soon, because there are so many questions to answer."

In the meantime, the last word should probably belong to Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988), who once said, "I believe I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

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