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A new theory of quantum gravity has suggested that the Universe may not have had any beginning at all. The new theory could give great insight into the Big Bang, when the Universe is traditionally thought to have 'begun' and give us greater insight into the workings of our Universe.
Developed by Bruno Bento, a physicist at the University of Liverpool, the theory uses causal set theory. Causal set theory breaks time and space down into definable measurable pieces, meaning there is a definable fundamental unit of space-time.
This idea of a single fundamental unit of space-time goes against traditional theories regarding space-time which see it as an indivisible and continuous entity. Should Benton's casual set theory be correct, this means that there are limits to how close atoms and other sub-atomic particles could be to one another, making the traditional 'singularity' of the Big Bang impossible.
Using this basis Bento and his team suggest that the Universe had existed for an infinite amount of time before the Big Bang, meaning it has no real beginning.
Traditional physics states that the Universe is from what is known as a singularity, a point of infinite smallness and infinite density, something the new theory can do without. Certainly, traditional quantum physics breaks down when it reaches the singularity, such as at the centre of black holes or at the hypothetical point of the Big Bang.
Bento told Live Science:
"I was thrilled to find this theory, which not only tries to go as fundamental as possible – being an approach to quantum gravity and actually rethinking the notion of space-time itself – but which also gives a central role to time and what it physically means for time to pass, how physical your past really is and whether the future exists already or not."
"A huge part of the causal set philosophy is that the passage of time is something physical, that it should not be attributed to some emergent sort of illusion or to something that happens inside our brains that makes us think time passes; this passing is, in itself, a manifestation of the physical theory… In the original causal set formulation and dynamics, classically speaking, a causal set grows from nothing into the Universe we see today. In our work instead, there would be no Big Bang as a beginning, as the causal set would be infinite to the past, and so there's always something before."
Benton and his team's paper will now be peer-reviewed but could lead to a ground-breaking understanding of how our Universe began and how it works.
[h/t: science alert]
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