Overview

In 2020, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the English physicist Roger Penrose for his contributions to the study of black holes. He now claims that the Big Bang is an erroneous model and that this event was not the one that actually gave rise to the birth of the cosmos. This is unquestionably a daring proposal that requires a prompt review of the information gathered thus far in both directions.

The science and other stuff to know

Ever since Edwin Hubble observed the recession of distant galaxies in 1929, the answer to the question “where did the universe come from?” began to take shape. Hubble noted that the farther away the galaxies that his telescope mapped, the faster they seemed to be receding from us. This led to the later admission of a theory that holds that if everything in the universe is moving away from everything, then all that matter had to be contained in a small region of unimaginably high density and temperature at some point in the past. This original ball would have “exploded,” giving rise to the event known as the Big Bang.

The inflationary model complements and reinforces the Big Bang theory by answering questions about the moments preceding the “explosion,” such as the nature of homogeneity and isotropy—a property of our universe when viewed on a large scale. This theory happens to establish models that fit the observational data we have so far very well; that is, it is a model capable of making reliable predictions.

The Cosmic Microwave Radiation Background (MRCF), the oldest picture of the observable universe, which shows clear signs of a universe that has been subjected to a brutal process of harrowing expansion, is the most reliable proof that a Big Bang occurred preceded by an extremely short inflationary period.

Despite the enormous amount of evidence that shows the occurrence of cosmic inflation and the accelerated expansion of the universe—which shows no intention of stopping—Roger Penrose along with other colleagues maintain that this was not the beginning of the universe we know, since that it would not have a beginning as such.

According to the study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) posits that the universe repeats itself through infinite cycles. Proving this postulate implies obtaining evidence before the Big Bang that we cannot access because the same laws of physics that Penrose knows perfectly well prohibit it.

So what?

Although the evidence in favor of the inflationary model is overwhelming, Penrose and other enthusiasts in the field remain convinced that CCC is the path that will lead to the ultimate explosion of the nature and behavior of the universe while the current model will ultimately collapse.

Such is his conviction that he declared to The Telegraph: “We have a universe that expands and expands, and all the mass disintegrates, and in this crazy theory of mine, that remote future becomes the Big Bang of another eon [cycle of life-death of the universe].”

What’s next?

Penrose argues that the study of gravitational waves could shed light for years to come and provide evidence for his alternative cosmological model. He suggests that the evidence before the Big Bang must come from early gravitational waves that are products of the collapse of the universe before the “explosion” that gave rise to ours.