Astronomers have presented the most detailed view of the universe’s history, suggesting it may have originated from an “instanton” rather than a singularity. This revelation, visualized through two innovative plots, also delves into the mysteries of the universe’s boundaries.
The most comprehensive view of the history of the universe ever created has been produced by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU).
The study also offers new ideas about how our universe may have started.
Lead author Honorary Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver from ANU said he set out wanting to understand where all the objects in the universe came from.
“When the universe began 13.8 billion years ago in a hot big bang, there were no objects like protons, atoms, people, planets, stars, or galaxies. Now the universe is full of such objects,” he said.
“The relatively simple answer to where they came from is that, as the universe cooled, all of these objects condensed out of a hot background.”
Illustrating the Universe’s Evolution
To show this process in the simplest possible way, the researchers made two plots. The first shows the temperature and density of the universe as it expanded and cooled. The second plots the mass and size of all objects in the universe.
The result is the most comprehensive chart ever created of all the objects in the universe.
Co-author and former ANU research student Vihan Patel said the project raised some important questions.
“Parts of this plot are ‘forbidden’ – where objects cannot be denser than black holes, or are so small, quantum mechanics blurs the very nature of what it really means to be a singular object.” Mr. Patel said.
Boundaries and Beyond
The researchers also emphasize that the plot boundaries and what potentially lies beyond them remain a major mystery.
“At the smaller end, the place where quantum mechanics and general relativity meet is the smallest possible object – an instanton. This plot suggests the universe may have started as an instanton, which has a specific size and mass, rather than a singularity, which is a hypothetical point of infinite density and temperature,” Mr. Patel said.
“On the larger end, the plot suggests that if there were nothing – a complete vacuum – beyond the observable universe, our universe would be a large, low density black hole. This is a little scary, but we have good reason to believe that’s not the case.”
The study is published in the latest issue of The American Journal of Physics.
Reference: “All objects and some questions” by Charles H. Lineweaver and Vihan M. Patel, 1 October 2023, The American Journal of Physics.
DOI: 10.1119/5.0150209
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8 Comments
The logarithmic mass chart lacks room for light energy (electromagnetism is massless). It also lacks room for gravity, or a “true vacuum” with negative energy, or “dark energy.” Supposing gravity subsumes dark sector effects through ultra-long-scale rotational propagation in a vector field gravity, all four of these forms of field energy effects generating information flows may also appear to be closely related at the Planck scale and below.
You can suppose anything allowed, but there isn’t any evidence of gravity having “rotational propagation” or information being objects (as different information measures differ when applied to systems).
Re fields, they are not localized objects described by the chart (but their quantum particles are). The negative energy of gravity is its potential energy (c.f. Newton gravity potentials), similarly to information it is a relative measure.
See “New cosmological constraints on the nature of dark matter.” Of course all the relativity dark matter outreach-to-shutdown experts at phizzorg have ignored it weeks after it showed up.
The Astrophysical Journal published last month images of the galactic scaled ripples I’ve predicted in the dark matter effect in thin-section, in all likelihood entirely due to propagating vector gravity field rotation.
Some people claim there is no evidence of what I’m saying about gravity, but they’re cluelessly loaded with blind Einsteinian gravity pride.
Notice how it’s beneath the GR/DM outreach-and-shutdown expert to admit light and gravity and dark energy all lack mass and the chart is not as complete as advertised by many. It’s pathetic that he still pretends to know what he’s talking about.
“Still, some folks will stubbornly insist, there has to be something deep and interesting about the fact that the radius of the observable universe is comparable to the Schwarzschild radius of an equally-sized black hole. And there is! It means the universe is spatially flat.” [Cosmologist Sean Carroll: “The universe is not a black hole”, my bold.]
Much as I respect Lineweaver’s work in cosmology and astrobiology, this one is a dud – we know that the universe can’t be a black hole since it has a boundary and a general relativistic universe has none. (Note that even Lineweaver admits to that larger embedding.)
From Big Bang to Big Picture: A Comprehensive New View of All Objects in the Universe
This is an ignorant statement, ignorance of the reality of infinity. Humans are an arrogant lot, especially scientists.
Why are those 2 plots invisible on this webpage?
DO THE SCIENTISTS REALLY KNOW? or is it another theory like Big Bang? Look at the following words…. “This is a little scary, but we have good reason to believe that’s not the case.”” what are the good reasons
“On the larger end, the plot suggests that if there were nothing – a complete vacuum – beyond the observable universe, our universe would be a large, low density black hole. This is a little scary, but we have good reason to believe that’s not the case.”