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What if the universe had no beginning, and time stretched back infinitely without a big bang to start things off? That's one possible consequence of an idea called "rainbow gravity," so-named because it posits that gravity's effects on spacetime are felt differently by different wavelengths of light, aka different colors in the rainbow.
Rainbow gravity was first proposed 10 years ago as a possible step toward repairing the rifts between the theories of general relativity (covering the very big) and quantum mechanics (concerning the realm of the very small). The idea is not a complete theory for describing quantum effects on gravity, and is not widely accepted. Nevertheless, physicists have now applied the concept to the question of how the universe began, and found that if rainbow gravity is correct, spacetime may have a drastically different origin story than the widely accepted picture of the big bang.
According to Einstein's general relativity, massive objects warp spacetime so that anything traveling through it, including light, takes a curving path. Standard physics says this path shouldn't depend on the energy of the particles moving through spacetime, but in rainbow gravity, it does. "Particles with different energies will actually see different spacetimes, different gravitational fields," says Adel Awad of the Center for Theoretical Physics at Zewail City of Science and Technology in Egypt, who led the new research, published in October in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. The color of light is determined by its frequency, and because different frequencies correspond to different energies, light particles (photons) of different colors would travel on slightly different paths though spacetime, according to their energy.
The effects would usually be tiny, so that we wouldn't notice the difference in most observations of stars, galaxies and other cosmic phenomena. But with extreme energies, in the case of particles emitted by stellar explosions called gamma-ray bursts, for instance, the change might be detectable. In such situations photons of different wavelengths released by the same gamma-ray burst would reach Earth at slightly different times, after traveling somewhat altered courses through billions of light-years of time and space. "So far we have no conclusive evidence that this is going on," says Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, a physicist at the Sapienza University of Rome who has researched the possibility of such signals. Modern observatories, however, are just now gaining the sensitivity needed to measure these effects, and should improve in coming years.
The extreme energies needed to bring out strong consequences from rainbow gravity, although rare now, were dominant in the dense early universe, and could mean things got started in a radically different fashion than we tend to think. Awad and his colleagues found two possible beginnings to the universe based on slightly different interpretations of the ramifications of rainbow gravity. In one scenario, if you retrace time backward, the universe gets denser and denser, approaching an infinite density but never quite reaching it. In the other picture the universe reaches an extremely high, but finite, density as you look back in time and then plateaus. In neither case is there a singularity—a point in time when the universe is infinitely dense—or in other words, a big bang. "This was, of course, an interesting result, because in most cosmological models, we have singularities," Awad says. The result suggests perhaps the universe had no beginning at all, and that time can be traced back infinitely far.
Whereas it is too soon to know if these scenarios might describe the truth, they are intriguing. "This paper and a few other papers show there could be a rightful place in cosmology for this idea [of rainbow gravity], which is encouraging to me," says Amelino-Camelia, who was not involved in the study, but has researched frameworks for pursuing a quantum theory of gravity. "In quantum gravity we are finding more and more examples where there is this feature which you may call rainbow gravity. It is something that is increasingly compelling."
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Add CommentHowever, the only time clock in the universe is the one humans use where the earth orbits the sun (365 days), and the earth spins a complete turn (24 hours). All time is measured in those increments. So narrowly by definition, time didn't exist prior to the development of this planetary clock. There may have been events, but not measurable by that clock.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Rainbow Universe appears pretty consistent with water surface analogy of dense aether model.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisaetherwavetheory.blogspot.cz/2009/09/awt-and-big-bang-theory.html
Just because the theory is incomplete and widely dismissed, that's no reason it shouldn't be applied to the entire universe!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<%)
That's not true. Atomic clocks etc are the gold standard.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this/* researchers hope to analyze gamma-ray bursts and other cosmic phenomena for signs of rainbow gravity effects*/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey're already did it, but they didn't find anything. The Nature trick is, the dependence of light speed on frequency is very well masked. During remote gamma ray bursts the photons of various frequency travel along different path. These lighter ones simply revolve these heavier ones like the planets are revolving the Sun. As the result whole the cluster of photons will still arrive in a single moment.
Wake up people! There is no such thing as time. What we call time was created by man as a measurement for the passage of the now. Now is, now was and now will be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis should be published in Meta-Scientific American instead of here. Zero evidence, contrary to Einstein.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe desperate search for an eternal past by materialist reductionists must amuse the angels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf my memory serves me well, the Fermi Gamma-Ray satellite group has done tests looking for "quantum space-time foam" that measure the arrival times of correlated photons. If there was a space-time "foam", or if "rainbow gravity" was real then the photons would arrive at slightly different times.
The Fermi group's research published so far has found absolutely no evidence for photon delays.
However, negative empirical evidence is not considered an impediment to postmodern theoretical pseudo-physics.
Robert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity/Fractal Cosmology
Wow, you need to up the dosage on your meds...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"However, negative empirical evidence is not considered an impediment to postmodern theoretical pseudo-physics."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice back-handed insult towards thousands of scientists. You're probably just upset that they think your unscientific blatherings are just silly. Please spare us the unfounded alegations until you have some proof.
Souffle de lumière.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUne lueur dans
l'immensité du
ciel cristallin,
une image de
jeunesse quand
l'ombre de la
nuit rappelle
l'émotion d'un
moment de joie.
Francesco Sinibaldi
You might need to cut back on the number of the little drops of whatever you are on?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisspace is remarkably flat. observations made at different wavelengths overlap, ergo this hypothesis cannot be correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne second = 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. We haven't used astronomical terms since the 1960s.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFunny - there's no evidence of Angels either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou just said that 'now' is all there is of time, and that 'now' passes. Or, our awareness passes progressively during our lives. I am reminded of a child looking out a car window and exclaiming that the world is passing by, because the car, after all, is still.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing wrong in testing a weird idea, however:
- might be another neutrino faster than light;
- talking very high energies, are photons the weapons of choice? Why not particles?
- and if the latter, maybe E=mc2 can be tweaked to differences in gravity rather than mass, experienced mass so to say.
- can we have negative gravity, too?
But really, I don't see why this should cause troubled emotions :-)
That is a really inane comment. Time is a concept that goes beyond how we humans measure it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe idea of rainbow gravity is not particularly insulting to common sense, except if you are wedded to the established theories. Let's see if sensitive enough instruments can discern the diffraction of electromagnetic radiation by spacetime. Then we can start wondering in earnest as to what the cosmological implications might be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome Proof Like for Rainbow Gravity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlmost a singularity, but not Quite?
Infinite Repulsive energy closely Holding hands for infinity Gazing in the face of the Rainbow!
Yes, time did exist before we started measuring it, I would recommend learning about relativity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe frustration with trying to unlock the first 380k years of the Universe mathematically has repeatedly revived the 'eternal' Universe(s). It's nothing new - Fred Hoyle & Co. tabled it over half a century ago without any bang, and String Theory does it with an endless number of bangs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMath be smashed; the available observations and predictions that found evidence have a Big Bang, the hole Big Bang, and nothing else but the Big Bang.
This sounds very good to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMay I suggest that you scan the daily postings at arXiv.org to keep up-to-date on physics developments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Fermi team's results have been published in ApJ and PRL.
If time is the rainbow, what was the storm that preceded and produced it? Is there a calculation of (bend of 470nm by 900g) - (bend of 660nm by 900g) = X degrees ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@bsardi
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you'll find time is now measured using transition between two energy levels of the caesium-133 atom. But have defined a second as 9192631770 cycles.
Good one! Like the saultbot could or would read or understand a published paper. :D
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislol, reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0I80hWOFS8
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs has been said, it is possible we do not possess the instruments capable of measuring the changes, necessary to backup this theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlways keep an open mind. Physicists no doubt balked at the idea of Einstein's model at one point. A theory is nothing more than an idea that needs to be proven. If there is no evidence, then it remains a theory.
This would go along Jain philosophy stating that Universe is eternal there is no beginning or end, universe simply exists there is no creator or some higher intelligence creating us, soul and universe are simply eternal. There are something the ancient civilizations knew about
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisindeed it would confirm also with eastern philosophies proclaiming time as illusion aka " Maya "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@bsardi :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you must appreciate the invalidity of your argument when you recognize that a clock is simply a device to perform a measurement.
"A parallel argument would be to say that only distance-ruler in the universe is the one humans use where the ruler measures one length (1 yard), and the ruler can be laid end to end to measure the earth (24901 miles). All distance is measured in those increments. So narrowly by definition, distance didn't exist prior to the development of this wooden ruler. There may have been things, but not measurable by that ruler."
Clearly, this is circulatory logic. The statement, "One could not measure a length with a ruler until a ruler was invented" is not only tautological, but has absolutely no implications on the existence of "distance".
There is no such a thing in the universe as space-time. Time is not 4th dimension of universal space, time is a duration of change in space. Sure big bang makes no sense, universa is a non created system in a permanent dynamic equilibrium. But photons cannot move in different areras of space-time as it not exists. Photons move in a 3D quantum vacuum and their speed is related to the energy density of quantum vacuum which depends on the presence of material objects which diminish energy density of quantum vacuum. Less vacuum is dense lower is light speed. Light has same speed in all inertial systems because light is a vibration of electromagnetic quantum vacuum in which source of the light and inertial systems move. The idea that light can move in an "empty space" is false. Empty space has merely mathematical existence, universal space is not empty but full og itself...we can cakll it better electromagnetic quantum vacuum where time is a duration of change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"However, the only time clock in the universe is the one humans use where the earth orbits the sun (365 days), and the earth spins a complete turn (24 hours). All time is measured in those increments. So narrowly by definition, time didn't exist prior to the development of this planetary clock. There may have been events, but not measurable by that clock."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-Common fallicy. We chose to commonly use the second day year etc to measure our daily events, but that doesn't mean that time didn't exist prior to the evolution of humanity. To suggest so is philosophical fodder, which really doesn't have much place in science outside of armchair discussions.
To suggest that time did not exist prior to the formation of the Earth because 'time' is made up of days and units thereof is silly.
All time is is a progression within the 4th dimension. That progression can be measured in any way you can imagine. You could measure it in periodic beats of an elephants heart. Elephant heart beats aren't perfectly standard, so it would be a poor measure- but it would be valid.
If we used the time it took a photon of light to travel 299792.458 meters in a vacuum (one light second) to measure our time instead of the minutes hours and days (ha. c wut i did thar?) it would have no bearing on the length of a light second, nor the time it takes light to move from point A to point B.
Democritus and the 5th century BC Greek Atomists also viewed the cosmos as eternal and without any designer or hairy thunderer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey also knew about atoms, conservation of energy, the heliocentric Solar System, that the Sun is a star, that the Milky Way is composed of very distant stars, etc.
Not too shabby for 2500 years ago.
Democritus also proposed an analogy between atoms and stars.
Robert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity/Fractal Cosmology
Yes, the concept of time is man made, and the spinning of our planet is it's basis, so what? The span of "?/time" still happened, and since man came along we simply apply our 'measurements of time' to establish way points, from some beginning to some happening along the way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe number of miles or kilometers over a certain distance, while different numbers, still covers that same distance.
"What if the universe had no beginning, and time stretched back infinitely .... "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe it went back "eternally" instead. Not sure time can go to "infinity," but perhaps somebody here can clear that up.
What is all this talk about time not existing just because we invented the concept? Sounds like philosophy, not science. Yes, our concept of time is based on our planets rotation about it's axis split up into 24 segments and so on. Also our trip around the sun, one year. If man did not invent the measurement of time would that mean the earth didn't go around the sun and cover the same distance? I suppose some of you would say distance doesn't exist either because man invented it also.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf our axial rotation took 48 hours our time scale would most likely be different. In that case our year would only be 182.5 days but the distance would not change, now matter what name you gave the measurement.
If we named time "something" then wouldn't we be saying, "something" passed by from the big bang until now?
Why do some of you think just because man invented the concept of time that "something" didn't exist before man did?
I can promise you that humans did not invent causality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe cosmos obeys ordered causal sequences and we call this ordering time.
Without causality there would be unimaginable chaos, and no one here or there to observe it.
Robert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity/Fractal Cosmology
If Time has no beginning and no end we would in fact call it 'im'! (or 'er' to be inclusive) Since it is time, we can impose limits on it and measure it any way we wish: between a and b; starting at a and going endlessly on; or not having a start but a definite end in sight - b. And that is philosophy, not Physics. Physics lies in the manner of measurement of the phenomena.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEinstein already proved that time passage is Relative to the observer (er, that be the one making the measure of it).
No no no.. Units of measurement have no effect on the thing being measured. Whether time is just another physical dimension that we experience differently from the others, or whether its a different 'type' of dimension altogether, the fact that humans use revolutions around the sun as a means of measuring it, does NOT mean it didnt exist before we started doing so. Example: Before the advent of the metric system, length, width, and height very much existed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCombine this theory with the idea that consciousness has been around since the beginning of time, and we have a theory about everything. Of course I have that merged theory. www.crestroy.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIncorrect. The basic measure of time is the level of entropy before and after an event. This indicates the direction of time and the delta of time passage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ConcernedCitizen
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn idea without evidence is better described as conjecture.
A theory has at least some evidence.
With LOTS of evidence, we sometimes call the theory a Law, but it remains a theory.
While evidence suggests a theory is right, a theory can never be proven right. It can only be proven to be wrong.
e.g. Newton's theory works very well and has lots of evidence within the realm in which it applies. It is wrong however in the context of high speeds (approaching light speed). There Einstein's theory works. But even it is incomplete!
HTH
All things are present with God, time is only measured to man, but man will progress to be like God, in a timeless state, where all things can and will be present to us. viz new discoveries of further distant universes, no longer beyond the range of our astronomical ability. Further discoveries yet to be made will show that man also has no beginning and will have no end.....eternal lives. God has stated "This is my work and my glory, to bring pass the eternal life and exaltation of man" In spite of the apparent gap between science and religion, all things (the mysteries) which are unknown to man in his present state, will become known,(revealed) through mans scientific progress, which proceeds at an incremental speed ,ever gaining pace as scientific knowledge and theory meet with religion and inspiration.The unknown and theoretical coming together in an ever increasing knowledge for our combined everlasting progress. Knowledge, and the intelligence in wisdom use of this great gift, is the key to our
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisprogress throughout the endless aeons to come.
Google is paying 75＄/hour! Just work for few hours & have more time with friends and family. On Sunday I bought themselves a Alfa Romeo from having made ＄5637 this month. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try this Buzz95.ｃｏｍ
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know that wrong, right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll things being equal, and that includes scientific theories that are as yet unproven, it amuses me to watch little egos come into play, leading to the inevitable childish bickering predicated upon a misguided sense of the proprietary (which has no foundation whatsoever), and the usual ensuing defensiveness. It's made all the more amusing by the fact that ideas belong to no one, threaten no one, and can only be useful (or not) if they can be put into practice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow difficult can it be to simply wait and see? Which, after all, is exactly what everyone involved has to do.
The mind boggles.
Wait, what? The LIGHTER ones?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"However, negative empirical evidence is not considered an impediment to postmodern theoretical pseudo-physics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRobert L. Oldershaw
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity/Fractal Cosmology"
Surely you mean "lack of empirical evidence" Bob? And isn't "postmodern" properly a literary criticism term? I think what you mean is "postpunk theoretical pseudo-physics".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell sometimes it is the lack of empirical evidence: say the whole black hole/info/"firewall" tempest in a teacup or the hermetic holographic scenario.
Sometimes it is negative empirical evidence like 40 years of negative "WIMP" searches, or the failure of sparticles (especially the lowest mass unicorn) to show up at the LHC.
I like "postmodern" because it conveys the anything goes attitude that typified postmodern literature/deconstructionism and postmodern theoretical fizzics. But "postpunk" is ok, as is "junk bond".
Rob
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rlodershaw
Time is one of the greatest of all mysteries. We can all certainly agree it is a manmade system and it is totally related to how that planet orbits its star and its rotational speed. So, if time is totally arbitrary to the orientation of the observer cant we agree that in nature time does not actually exist? There is only the NOW and lets just accept its completeness for experiencing what we call life. Time is merely a passage of events around us. Without us here to desire to measure that passage of time is there any real time to be had? Its all made up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMHO, Bigbang theory discussed so far is just for our owned Universe. In fact, no one on earth knows if there are other Universes existed. We have not found other Universes because they are so far away. Our current technology therefore is not applicable to find them. Bigbang could still be true if our owned Universe started with a Universe-supernova. Other unknown Universes may have different origins.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way, our Universe should have a unique name before we find other Universes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to the discrete fractal model, our observable universe when compared to our exploding metagalaxy is the size of one mildly excited atom deep within a stellar supernova.
It is hard to imagine how we would ever observe anything other than the interior of our metagalaxy, although an infinite number of other metagalactic systems would be out there at unimaginable distances.
A name for our metagalaxy? We call our galaxy the Galaxy, so the Metagalaxy? Maybe someone could come up with a more colorful name. Thinking of Kurt V, THE GRAND AWHOOOOOM!
RLO
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw