The standard model of cosmology, the Big Bang event, not only postulates an origin for all matter and energy (out of nothing) but of time and space too (equally out of nothing). First there was nothing, and then there was something. The Big Bang cosmology is seriously flawed IMHO. That the Big Bang event, our entire universe, started out being smaller than the head of a pin puts the icing on this cake of the absurd. Fortunately however, there are alternatives.
The current standard model of cosmology (the origin and evolution of the Universe) would have you believe that 13.7 billion years ago there was this Big Bang event that kick-started everything off. There was no ‘before the Big Bang’ in the same sort of way as there’s no ‘south of the South Pole’. First there was nothing; then there was something. There was no cause to the Big Bang’s effect; causality didn’t rule there and then, OK? The Big Bang event created in one microsecond from the get-go, not only all the matter and energy that now make up the Universe, but those nebulous metaphysical bits we call time and space as well. The Big Bang event created all the natural physical laws, principles and relationships, including the birth of causality. Finally, the Big Bang event was a quantum event – the Universe started out as something of pinprick (actually way less in) size.
All of this creation by the way was a quite natural event, under the watchful ‘eye’ of Mother Nature, not a supernatural event under the control of one or more deities. Well at least that’s something I can agree with!
Now to be asked to accept all of that – well, it’s a pretty big ask. It’s like being asked to believe six impossible things before breakfast, something apparently Alice’s White Queen could accomplish quite easily. But then that was a fantasy world. Perhaps it’s not so easily accomplished for the rest of us. Certainly not for me, and certainly not for all professional cosmologists, for there are alternatives to the standard Big Bang event, so the standard model is not set yet in concrete even though there is quite a bit of supportive observational evidence for the standard Big Bang scenario.
Of course one shouldn’t be just negative about things. One should try to put forward a constructive alternative(s). If the standard model of the Big Bang event were the only game in town, then this essay would be an exercise in futility. Fortunately for me; unfortunately I guess for proponents of that standard model it’s not the only game in town. Here’s a list of various alternative cosmologies.
1) The Vacuum Energy Model – There are those who claim that empty space has intrinsic properties like the vacuum energy / quantum fluctuations / quantum jitters, and above all ‘dark energy’ (which I think, if not identical to, is at least a kissing cousin of the vacuum energy). So, the more space you have (and space is apparently expanding) the more ‘dark energy’ and/or vacuum energy you have. Call the Universe a box with sides of one unit length. The volume of the Universe is one cubic unit. Now double the length of the sides to two units. That’s an eight-fold increase in volume, hence of activity associated with ‘dark energy’ or the vacuum energy. (The mathematics is straight forward: 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 cubic unit; 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 cubic units.) Regardless whether of not the ‘dark energy’ and/or the vacuum energy is a property of space itself, or manifests itself in some other way, in either case if you have more space you have room for more activity inside your space box. You have more something, so you can apparently get something from nothing, or, in other words, a free lunch! Could the ‘free lunch’ be an entire universe?
In the infinite beginning there was the vacuum energy, a quantum state where energy can create matter – antimatter particle pairs (even if the matter is just composed of virtual particles) and where the particles then annihilate each other back into pure energy again. The vacuum energy resided in space and time (or space-time, post relativity theory). From the vacuum energy (which again is a quantum phenomenon often termed vacuum or quantum fluctuations or the quantum jitters), at least one macro universe arose. This is theoretically possible – just don’t ask me to explain the technical details although I strongly suspect it has an awful lot to do with the quantum mantra that ‘if it’s not forbidden, it’s compulsory’ – at least if you’re willing to wait long enough. Of course maybe more than one universe arose from the vacuum energy. The more the merrier!
2) The Big Crunch/Cyclic Model – Most of the standard Big Bang (BB) texts deal with the question of what would happen if our Universe’s expansion rate slowed, stopped, and reversed direction (under the attraction of gravity), ultimately contracting in what’s called a “Big Crunch”. The idea is that the Big Crunch (BC) would result in another Big Bang and the cycle (BB – BC – BB – BC, etc.) would repeat endlessly. However, since it looks extremely likely that our Universe will never slow, stop, and reverse, it’s a moot point. However, if there’s a Multiverse, then perhaps some other universe did undergo a Big Crunch turning into the Mother of all Black Holes and singularities in the process, so warping the fabric of space and time that the contents of that universe spewed out and became our Big Bang event and hence our Universe.
3) String Theory’s Colliding Membranes Model – Despite my bucketing string theory for having lacked the ability (to date) to put experimental runs on the board, the mathematics can easily come up with a quantum theory of gravity, a key to understanding what happened before our Big Bang event. The basic idea is that string theory predicts the existence of branes (short for membranes) separated by something called “the bulk”, all existing in higher dimension space-time. If two of these branes (or braneworlds) collide, and our Universe is one of those braneworlds by the way, then that event mirrors what we observe as the Big Bang. The branes would collide, separate and re-collide at regular intervals, a sort of variation on the cyclic universe theme.
4) The Dual Matter/Antimatter Model – Nobel Laureate physicist, the late Richard Feynman, proposed that antimatter was the same as normal matter, but matter traveling backwards in time. To the best of my knowledge, not having seen the proposal anywhere else – yet – I did an extreme extrapolation of that to suggest that, because the standard Big Bang event model predicts that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created at that event, that in fact the Big Bang created two universes – ours of normal matter going forward in time; another equal but opposite universe going backwards in time (from our point of view) and composed of what we call antimatter.
5) The Multiverse Model(s) – For reasons way too numerous to mention, one of the current in-topics in cosmology is whether or not our Universe is unique, or one of many. If many, that’s termed a Multiverse, and there are in fact many theoretical roads which lead to a Multiverse. I sum it up this way – if Mother Nature can create one universe (ours), she can create more than one. It is getting to the point by the way, where the evolution of the concept of a Multiverse, or parallel universes or alternative universes has passed from sci-fi through to not just scientific speculation but to the point of becoming nearly a scientific/cosmological requirement.
6) The Steady State/Quasi-Steady State Model – The original Steady State cosmology, proposed by Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, was once a serious rival to the Big Bang cosmology. It suggested that our Universe has always existed and will always exist and wouldn’t change in its overall appearance. The way that was accomplished was to suggest that as the Universe expanded and stuff got diluted, new stuff was being ever created and thus the density of the Universe never changed. However, the Steady State theory has gone the way of the dodo because it failed various observational tests. In particular, the original Steady State theory failed to predict the cosmic microwave background radiation, and couldn’t actually explain it. However, Hoyle, Geoffrey Burbidge and Jayant V. Narlikar have proposed a modified version, which they term the “quasi-steady-state-cosmology”. Unfortunately, Sir Fred passed away before the layman’s text was published.
Casting one’s fate into the wind could the original Steady State theory and the Big Bang theory both be right? Not in our Universe, as one, the Steady State, has no beginning, and one, the Big Bang does (even if both may have no end – at least they are compatible that way). But, if you scale a Steady State universe up – super-size it – then you could have Big Bangs inside the super-sized Steady State. These Big Bangs replace the creation of bits of matter in the original scaled down Steady State. Of course we’re in one of those Big Bang bits contained in a larger super-sized Steady State universe.
Going one weird step further, in a similar way, of our Universe on a micro scale produces all these virtual particles via the vacuum energy which pop into and out of existence, in a super-sized universe, the equivalent might be Big Bangs yielding to Big Crunches – an equivalent of particles coming into existence and popping out of existence.
So you see, there really are lots of alternatives to, or variations on, the standard Big Bang cosmological model, and many propose, indeed require, a before-the-Big-Bang scenario.
You’ll note that I never said there wasn’t a Big Bang event, it just wasn’t IMHO 1) a quantum event, and that 2) it occurred in existing space and time, just like every other happening you’ve ever learned about, witnessed, studied in depth or otherwise experienced in one way or another.