Something wrong with the theory of Big bang

May 10, 2001 by Maziar Aptin

Updated December 2014

Although I am not a physicist, I have been very interested in science, especially in theoretical astrophysics. I have subscribed to Scientific Americans Magazine since the early 1980s and have read other scientific publications.  In the early 1990s, I read A Brief History of Time – from the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawkins, and I loved it.

I do understand the basic principle of the theory of the Big Bang, but I take issue with the theory’s assumption that the size of our universe, right before the Big Explosion, was equivalent to a size of a ballpoint pen.

Allow me to explain what is bothering me: The Big Bang theory was born in the mid-1920s when American scientist Edwin Hubble had mathematically figured out that the universe is constantly expanding at an accelerating pace. This, in turn, infers that as we go back in time, the universe must have been smaller and smaller.

The assumption is that, because the volume of matter in the universe is so vast (almost infinite), the size of the universe just before the Big Bang (due to the inward pressure) must have been almost infinitely small.

In my opinion, the above assessment is mathematically correct – “the opposite of infinity is zero”; hence, the opposite of “almost infinite” is “infinitesimal”, or almost zero. In other words, because the amount of matter in our universe is almost infinitely large, if all that matter were pressed into a small place, the inward gravitational pressure would make the size of the concentrated matter close to zero: This is the principle of the Theory of Big Bang.

My Problem

In my opinion, even though mathematically the above assumption is correct, the law of physics will not allow the concentration of such a vast amount of matter in such a small place, as the theory of Big Bang suggests. In my opinion, long before the concentration of matter reaches to the assumed point, it will explode.

For example, in our own Milky Way Galaxy (which is only one of billions of galaxies in the universe), when gigantic stars grow too large, the intense heat will create a “little big bang” (Super Nova), which will result in the creation of a nebula.

Based on the above fact, if the law of physics precludes the concentration of matter to exceed from a certain amount, then how could all the matter in the universe—which consists of more than trillion gigantic stars—to be concentrated in a place the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen before exploding?

Most scientists have accepted the theory of big bang but no one has, so far, explained how a nearly infinite amount of matter and energy could be concentrated in such a small space.

That is when the term “Singularity” was coined.

Definition of Singularity: Singularities are where the law of physics, as we know it, breaks down.

In other words, the scientists that came out with the Big Bang theory say: “We do not know the answer to this important question”.

In conclusion, based on the above argument, in my opinion, Big Bang theory, in its present form, is incomplete until the term “singularity” is explained away.

In recent decades, the idea of “Multiversity” has been introduced.

Up to the early 20^th century, we used to think that the Milky Way galaxy was the whole universe; but now we know that the Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies in our universe, and these galaxies sometimes collide with each other and merge.

Consequently, there could be a number of universes out there, and the Big Bang could be the result of the collision of two (or more) universes.

In my opinion, this hypothesis is more plausible than the “ballpoint pen size universe” right before the Big Bang.

Maziar Aptin

PS:

December 03, 2024

The assumption of the law of physics does not allow the present day material-universe to fit in a very small space, it just occurred to me that our universe started in the form of a seed. If the seed of, for example a maple tree which is as small as a grain of rice can grow to become a gigantic tree, then our universe could have started in that fashion as well. 

It was the seed that  produced atoms which possess energy.

Something to think about.