Chaotic Inflation Theory

[bloom]

I love this. And by a physicist who is also an artist. How perfect.

What banged? Why did it bang? And what was going on before it banged? Linde's theory, called "chaotic inflation," explained the shape of space and how galaxies were formed. It also predicted the exact pattern of background radiation from the Big Bang that was observed by the COBE satellite in the 1990s. Linde has been amply honored for his achievement, most recently by being awarded the 2004 Cosmology Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation (along with Alan Guth, another pioneer of the theory of cosmic inflation).

Among the many curious implications of Linde's theory, one stands out for our present purposes: It doesn't take all that much to create a universe. Resources on a cosmic scale are not required. It might even be possible for someone in a not terribly advanced civilization to cook up a new universe in a laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how our universe came into being?

"When I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like ours started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter," Linde told me in his Russian-accented English when I reached him by phone at Stanford. "That's enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions and billions of galaxies we see around us. It looks like cheating, but that's how the inflation theory works—all the matter in the universe gets created from the negative energy of the gravitational field. So, what's to stop us from creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!"

..."What my theoretical argument shows—and Alan Guth and others who have looked at this matter have come to the same conclusion—is that we can't rule out the possibility that our own universe was created in a lab by someone in another universe who just felt like doing it."

"You might take this all as a joke," he said, "but perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may be the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird. On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker."

http://www.slate.com/id/2100715/

[wtmusic]

1. "Publish or perish"

manufacturing more completely unverifiable theory from cups of coffee. How interesting.

[omega minimo]

2. Well, there goes the Scientists Are Objective Theory

:hi:

[papau]

3. LOL - putting Science theory in the Religion Forumdoes make sense I guess!

When Linde says "On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker," he is either joking or has not understood the meaning of the word "creation"

The best part of Chaotic Inflation Theory, beyond the fact that it solves the flatness, mass, and entropy problems, is that it really is faith based in many many ways.

We have negative vacuum and positive vacuum energy and extremely curved space with creation of mass being offset by gravity, in a universe having 26 dimensions for bosonic string theories and 10 for superstring theories. We also have D-branes that attach to strings that catch energy running off the string, or give energy to the string. And we have shift-symmetry that is needed because we are playing with strings, but which screws up inflation modeling.

And we have the tachyon which has an imaginary mass so that lower-dimensional branes can be thought of as large collections of tachyons.

Then we have rules that on occasion forbid moving "at right angles to reality".

Not that this stuff requires faith or any thing beyond solving math problems and ignoring "ill defined" constructs because QM says we can ignore them because the effects are so minimal (my first exposure to QM and its division by zero blew my mind - but now I just think of QM as weird).

I'm looking forward to the first experiment that verifies anything predicted by these equations.

[beam me up scottie]

4. You're keeping up with this, papau?

You're full of surprises. :)

[papau]

7. My outdated 45 year old background in physics gives me hope I

will understand this stuff (this time round the details are beyond me, but the thrust of the idea, and what must be assumed, I think I get). But that fact does not justify a comment by me on the idea as others on DU can do a much better job than I can in this area and I don't even have a spin to sell.

What I thought worth a comment was the idea of putting physics discussions in the Religion forum. It really doesn't belong in Religion because in general it is a world of repeatable results from defined experiments resulting in verifiable predictions or laws or theories on what is happening. But QM and now cosmology are another story. As a math geek (I am an actuary), seeing values given to something divided by zero as in QM, or as in this case seeing numbers that blow up ("ill defined") being discarded because in the range of data they are being applied their contribution to the formula's result is very small, is a much like seeing folks working from faith (for the record QM is "good science" as it predicts just about everything and can be reproduced to error levels we can not measure - it just violates many concepts of reality as well as having the math problem and therefore many feel must be an interim concept on our way to a better concept).

Good to see you up this early!

[bloom]

9. I think this topic belongs perfectly well in religion

Ideas about the creation of the universe and all.

I recently started a thread about Pantheism - and there was various discussions about Einstein being a Pantheist and other physicists and such. For some people - it's where science and religion can come together.

I think this article was a playful piece - and what a fun concept - esp. the idea that what if someone started a new universe in a physics lab - trying to figure out creation - and people in some other place and time were sitting around trying to figure out who created the universe. :rofl:

Of course it's quite a different concept from how people usually consider the "creator" - the idea that someone got a universe going in a lab vs. the idea that there is a being who is/was aware of every kind of action and cause and effect and was actively arranging them. But still...

Being that this is the sort of thing that people choose/base/form their religion on - it absolutely belongs here.

[papau]

10. I disagree - science makes no attempt to explain creation - it is all

after creation that we discuss. Even here the writer in his joke assumes creation of the creators so as to have that small amount of matter to start a new line of universes of infinite number.

The prior way to solve Bell's point about QM was to say we had a non-infinite but very large number of universes equal to all the quantum state combinations possible since creation.

This does not go that route. As string theory it is interesting math. His joke as an explanation of creation isn't. However it does follow the atheist argument of who is the creator of the creator - meaning there is no creator in the religious sense - which is of course a classic of two sides not discussing the same thing and speaking past each other.

It is good science, or at least interesting math, and should be posted in science.

But his "playful" comment re lab dishes does not make this into a creation explanation. Please note that in the actual paper nothing happens until after creation. All he is saying is what has been said for the last 25 years since the first inflation model - namely that if you start with a very small amount of matter you can find math that will predict - but only more or less as there are always problems, as there are in this fellows math - the development of what we see today.

He is playing with the "very small amount" in the above and noting that small things can exist in a lab. And that is a statement that is not really a science nor a religious discovery.

The only religious aspect I see is do you take on faith 10 dimensions or 26, and do you accept dimensions that do not interfere with our 4 dimension reality. We could have an interesting discussion on which faith is more "valid" - the 10 dimension folks, or the 26 dimension folks - and along the way we might discuss how we feel about positive matter, negative matter, and imaginary matter.

Now that would be an interesting discussion! :-)

[bloom]

11. For those of us

who aren't physicists - it belongs in R/T. If you wish to start a thread about it in science - go right ahead.

From the OP - "Linde has been ... awarded the 2004 Cosmology Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation"

"Inflationary theory describes the very early stages of the evolution of the universe and its structure. A modification of cosmology's Big Bang theory, it holds that all matter in the universe was created during a period of inflation, as the universe expanded at an incredible rate: It doubled in size each 10 to the minus 37 seconds. (Imagine a pea growing to the size of the Milky Way in less time than the blink of an eye).

Models of inflationary cosmology had been considered by others in the 1970s, but in 1981 Alan Guth pulled the ideas together and pointed out the cosmological problems solved by inflation, publishing his work as The Inflationary Universe: A Possible Solution to the Horizon and Flatness Problems."

http://www.petergruberfoundation.org/cosmologynews_2004.htm

Science

cosmology (koz-mol-uh-jee)
A system of beliefs that seeks to describe or explain the origin and structure of the universe. A cosmology attempts to establish an ordered, harmonious framework that integrates time, space, the planets, stars, and other celestial phenomena. In so-called primitive societies, cosmologies help explain the relationship of human beings to the rest of the universe and are therefore closely tied to religious beliefs and practices. In modern industrial societies, cosmologies seek to explain the universe through astronomy and mathematics. Metaphysics also plays a part in the formation of cosmologies.

Wikipedia

cosmology

Cosmology, from the Greek: ?????????? (cosmologia, ?????? (cosmos) world + ????? (logia) discourse) is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, man's place in it. Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the Universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, and religion....

Disciplines
...Cosmology is often an important aspect of the origin beliefs of religions and mythologies that seek to explain the existence and nature of the reality. In some cases, views about the creation (cosmogony) and destruction (eschatology) of the Universe play a central role in shaping a framework of religious cosmology for understanding humanity's role in the Universe.

http://www.answers.com/topic/cosmology

For those of us who take into consideration as part of our worldview whatever scientific theories are currently operating about Cosmology and the Universe is general - this IS a part of our religion, sprituality, or whatever you want to call it.

I think it makes sense to combine religion and science - as long as whatever is the most current scientific understanding is what is accepted as the best explanation for the universe at the time.

You might celebrate the numbers in a mathematical way - I celebrate the overall concept of Chaotic Inflation Theory (etc.) - as a kind of enlightenment - where more layers of onion are being pulled off.

I'm not going to worry about the creator of the creator of the creator - and while obviously the big bang had to start with something - to some extent knowing about the creation of this particular universe - is about our creation - it is something - not nothing - to have an explanation about the creation of the universe in which we are residing. And I expect that Linde felt pretty good about that aspect of the thing as well.

[papau]

12. I agree - Linde should feel good about an excellent concept and paper that

expands the universe of possible ways to begin to understand fundamental particle and cosmology relationships.

Indeed the topic itself, as you said, has a spirituality about it.

I'm just into doing science without religion.

But I now do see where you are coming from.

peace.

:-)

[Random_Australian]

30. 10 or 26? Pffffffffffft, half the point of M-theory is that it unifies the

five with there different amounts of dimensions into 1. (with 11 dimensions)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

28. Since Sufis have been talking about science and mysticism

for some years, with leaders and senior teachers quoting various scientists, I think it is highly relevant that it is placed here.

This is from "In Search of the Hidden Treasure-A conference of Sufis" by Hazrat Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, late head of my order:

p. 5

As our mind takes wing beyond the fragmented mode of existential thinking and explores transcendent modes of thinking, it grasps interconnections instead of categories. Precisely as modern physicists do, the mind perceives a nonlocal, acausal relationship between events--synchronicity rather than linearity. This mode of thinking is very challenging to our conditions habits of thinking and sparks a sense of freedom and bliss.

[Silent3]

5. Maybe all intelligent species eventually conduct this experiment.

I'm looking forward to the first experiment that verifies anything predicted by these equations.

It turns out, however, that this experiment produces an explosion as powerful as a supernova.

So, whenever we see a far-away powerful flash of radiation, usually it's just the natural evolution of a star, but, every now and then, it's a technological civilization we'll never get to talk to because it, just like all the others before it, finally asked the wrong question.

:think: :o :wow: :nuke:

:evilgrin:

[beam me up scottie]

6. NOOOOOOOOO!!!

I said cut the RED wire, not the blue one, the RED ONE! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

:rofl:

[papau]

8. LOL - finding predicted remnants of the last "experiment" is as far

as we should go I guess - but the fellow does suggest folks should start a universe or two in the lab which then generate an infinite number of other universes to which he then applies the anthropomorphic "principle" (I can't see because I can't see :-) ) to get our universe, all the while not explaining how the first step - the creation of the first matter can happen even in the weird world of mathematically amazing QM.

Wonder if there is a big bang on the other side of creation - it would make future labs more fun!

:-)

[ozone_man]

13. But who created the physicist?

He evolved, naturally. There, the end of religion as we know it. :)

Another article on M-Theory.

NARRATOR: But this isn't quite the end of the story. Now that the Theory of Everything may have been found some are keen to use it. Physics is preparing for the ultimate flight of fancy: to make a universe of its very own without any mysteries or unanswered questions at all.

ALAN GUTH: I in fact have worked with several other people for some period of time on the question of whether or not it's in principle possible to create a new universe in the laboratory. Whether or not it really works we don't know for sure. It looks like it probably would work. It's actually safe to create a universe in your basement. It would not displace the universe around it even though it would grow tremendously. It would actually create its own space as it grows and in fact in a very short fraction of a second it would splice itself off completely from our Universe and evolve as an isolated closed universe growing to cosmic proportions without displacing any of the territory that we currently lay claim to.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitr...

[bloom]

14. That's where they really lose me

the idea that someone could be creating a universe and it wouldn't displace this one.

I guess that's where you have to accept various dimensions or something.


As noted on the prize page:

"Inflationary theory describes the very early stages of the evolution of the universe and its structure. A modification of cosmology's Big Bang theory, it holds that all matter in the universe was created during a period of inflation, as the universe expanded at an incredible rate: It doubled in size each 10 to the minus 37 seconds. (Imagine a pea growing to the size of the Milky Way in less time than the blink of an eye)."


At any rate - if a new universe DID displace us - it sounds like we would never know what hit us - or even that we had been hit. That's not so bad.


(missing/broken link @ the BBC)

[ozone_man]

15. Fixed link.

Oh, it wouldn't displace us. It makes it's own space. I don't think it can be entered once it is created though. It must be frustrating for the physicist not being able to observe his/her work. x(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml

[SPKrazy]

18. After Reading That, I Am Humbled

I don't know shit

of course, I wonder if any of this will be actually done (in my basement?)

Very interesting read

I hope our universe isn't on a "pea brane"

and I wonder if we would know if there were a collision with another universe (ours and another one)on a membrane that would create another universe? Would we feel it? Would it displace our own universe? (Since such a small part of our universe would be required to create a new one, it's likely to me that there would be nothing that changed noticably)

[ozone_man]

22. Curioser and curioser.

NEIL TUROK: The existence of branes before the singularity implies there was time before the Big Bang. Time could, can be followed through the initial singularity.

BURT OVRUT: You sort of go back and back and back until you get near the place where the expansion would have taken place and then it just sort of changes into another world. When the branes collide the collision of those can be explained within M Theory, so it just simply enters the realm of mathematics and science now rather than being a, an unknown point that exploded.

NARRATOR: The singularity had disappeared and it had taken them just under an hour.

PAUL STEINHARDT: Then we went to see the play.

NARRATOR: This idea is so new it's only begun to be discussed, but if it's accepted it will mean Einstein's missing theory has finally been found. M Theory may really be able to explain everything in the Universe, but the victory will be bittersweet, for at the end of its long quest, science has discovered that the Universe it's thought to explain may be nothing special. It is nothing more than one of an infinite number of membranes, just one of the many universes which make up the multiverse.

MICHIO KAKU: The latest understanding of the multiverse is that there could be an infinite number of universes each with a different law of physics. Big Bangs probably take place all the time. Our Universe co-exists with other membranes, other universes which are also in the process of expansion. Our Universe could be just one bubble floating in an ocean of other bubbles.

So, what kind of feeling does it leave one with upon contemplating that we may be just one of an infinite number of universes? And I thought this universe was so special. Who knows where this theory will go, whether it will eventually become the Theory of Everything. An interesting read like you say.

Another, more recent article by Michio Kaku:

http://www.mkaku.org/articles/mtheory_superstrings.shtml

[bloom]

20. Thank's for posting that article.

It's a good one - for trying to explain this....

MICHIO KAKU (City University of New York): That there could be an infinite number of universes each with a different law of physics. Our Universe could be just one bubble floating in an ocean of other bubbles.

NARRATOR: Everything you are about to hear is true, at least in this Universe it is. For almost a hundred years science has been haunted by a dark secret: that there might be mysterious hidden worlds beyond our human senses. Mystics had long claimed there were such places. They were, they said, full of ghosts and spirits. The last thing science wanted was to be associated with such superstition, but ever since the 1920s physicists have been trying to make sense of an uncomfortable discovery. When they tried to pinpoint the exact location of atomic particles like electrons they found it was utterly impossible. They had no single location....

<snip>

MICHIO KAKU: There was a war between the tenth dimension and the eleventh dimension. In the 10-dimensional bandwagon we had string theorists, hundreds of them, working to tease out all the properties of the known universe from one framework: a vibrating string and then we had this small band of outcasts, outlaws, working in the eleventh dimension....

NARRATOR: The tiny invisible strings of String Theory was supposed to be the fundamental building blocks of all the matter in the Universe, but now, with the addition of the eleventh dimension, they changed. They stretched and they combined. The astonishing conclusion was that all the matter in the Universe was connected to one vast structure: a membrane. In effect our entire Universe is a membrane. The quest to explain everything in the Universe could begin again and at its heart would be this new theory. It was dubbed Membrane Theory, or M Theory, but so enigmatic and profound did the idea seem that some thought M should stand for other things....

----

[SPKrazy]

21. Let's Just Hope The "Bubbles" Don't Pop!

was my thought reading that segment

really interesting transcript though.

made my brain ache for how little I understand physics, especially theoretical physics.

Dancing Wu Li Masters
Tao of Physics

Those are about my level of barely understanding theoretical physics.

[lvx35]

16. What the hell?

"When I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like ours started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter," Linde told me in his Russian-accented English when I reached him by phone at Stanford. "That's enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions and billions of galaxies we see around us.

How does that work? Where does the energy come from? Its there just buttloads of potential energy laying around in the "spaces" between universes? No comprendo. Anybody know?

[ozone_man]

17. If we knew how it worked

we'd be God or the physicist on the other side, or in my case, it's just chance collisions of menbranes that are responsible, i.e., nature. ;)

I think it's safe to say that physics and thermodynamics as we know it might have to be changed somewhat to allow this to happen. M-Theory proposes an 11-dimensional space, so whose to say what mass and energy are doing in the other dimensions? M-Theory (Membrane Theory) allows a physics that transcends the singularity of the big bang, which has been a troublesome issue for cosmologists for a long time.

Haven't heard much about chaotic inflation theory.

[lvx35]

19. Wow, now that's interesting stuff.

So I guess what you're saying is that classical thermodynamic models break down when your looking at things at the level of singularities and multiple dimensions, and that their could be vast reserves of untapped energy sitting right next to us in another dimension...So my question is, how do I get to it to power my car!!! I just paid like $10 for 3 gallons! :)

[SPKrazy]

23. Reduce Gravity

figure out how to move our universe farther away from the dimension that is allowing gravity to leak into ours

then their would be less resistance, right?

less resistance, less fuel, more possibilities

of course, floating off the planet isn't a good one, or having the planet drift out of orbit.

so many variables have to be just right for our planet to work right.

maybe gas is cheaper, or maybe people fly (without planes) in another universe

[lvx35]

25. Oh totally...Imagine the basketball!!!

There's enough reason to reduce gravity right there, seeing Shaq make the 200 foot jump to score 2 points...;)

[SPKrazy]

29. From The Other Side Of The Court

yeah, the rules might have to change to accomodate the new environment

[Silent3]

24. There can be only one. :)

Fascinating article. But there's a bit of semantics which I think is important here: What does one means by "universe".

The fullest and most important meaning of "universe" includes everything. In that sense of the word, it is impossible to speak of multiple universes -- there can, by definition, be only one universe.

This is not a denial of what is said in the article, this is just to say that if one holds the strictest and fullest meaning of "universe" in mind, the terminology of the article must be recast. What the article calls a "universe" would be a subdomain of the larger universe, a universe which contains all of those separate big bangs, giving birth to all of those subdomains with all of their local conditions and local laws of physics.

We are left with even bigger questions to ponder, a bigger universe to ask "where did it come from", an even more abstract physics to explore -- the rules of the true Universe which govern how and in what way and within what bounds all of these subdomains, all of those "universes" in the older sense of the word, can form.

[lvx35]

26. Oh yeah, that's right.

Our "universe" would have to be a subdomain. hmmm. Maybe we should use the subdomain naming convention from the web, and refer to our universe as our.universe as opposed to other.universe! :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

27. Why not?

It is indeed an interesting thought to put your mind around. I don't know much about science, but I have heard that what we consider matter is, at a subatomic level, mostly empty space.