What if the universe had no beginning? [View all]
By Paul Sutter about 14 hours ago
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
In the beginning, there was
well, maybe there was no beginning. Perhaps our universe has always existed and a new theory of quantum gravity reveals how that could work.
"Reality has so many things that most people would associate with sci-fi or even fantasy," said Bruno Bento, a physicist who studies the nature of time at the University of Liverpool in the U.K.
In his work, he employed a new theory of quantum gravity, called causal set theory, in which space and time are broken down into discrete chunks of space-time. At some level, there's a fundamental unit of space-time, according to this theory.
Bento and his collaborators used this causal-set approach to explore the beginning of the universe. They found that it's possible that the universe had no beginning that it has always existed into the infinite past and only recently evolved into what we call the Big Bang.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/universe-had-no-beginning-time