Quantum equation suggests no Big Bang, eliminates dark matter & energy

http://ift.tt/2m0UwH7

Quote:

The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once. The widely accepted age of the universe, as estimated by general relativity, is 13.8 billion years. In the beginning, everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point, or singularity. Only after this point began to expand in a "Big Bang" did the universe officially begin. Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and unavoidably from the mathematics of general relativity, some scientists see it as problematic because the math can explain only what happened immediately after—not at or before—the singularity. "The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there," Ahmed Farag Ali at Benha University and the Zewail City of Science and Technology, both in Egypt, told Phys.org. Ali and coauthor Saurya Das at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end.

The paper itself can be read here (and there is a link to that and a previous paper mentioned in the article at the end of the article itself), but I'm not going to pretend that I know enough about the subject to assess it for myself. I've found the journal in which the research was published on a site that assesses journals reputability, but I don't have enough knowledge to interpret the data.

Can anyone with more of a knowledge of physics than me and a grasp of the mathematics weigh in? It's fascinating, if true, but I'm of the opinion that the more excited you are about a claim, the more conscious of the need for scepticism of it you should be.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2E9Lezi