Did the Universe Really Begin With the Big Bang?

From a very young age, we’ve been taught that the universe we occupy for our short lives began as a result of the Big Bang. This theory posits that everything in our universe came into existence at that one moment and roughly 13.7 billion years later, you’re sitting here reading this article.

This theory dates back to the 1920s and has been used to describe the origins of the universe since then. The theory explains that before the Big Bang, space and time did not exist.

There is strong evidence to suggest that there was an early period of rapid expansion in the universe. And, the universe is still expanding in every direction. Another big piece of the Big Bang theory is what’s called cosmic microwave background. This is heat that is believed to be left over from that original Big Bang. It has no origin point and it can be observed in every single direction.

But…there is no actual evidence of that original singularity known as the Big Bang.

Being able to prove or collect data about that first moment of expansion is not possible with current methods. And a Brazilian physicist believes that the Big Bang may have never happened.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Juliano Cesar Silva Neves says that the Big Bang is only a speculation and that there is no evidence that the expansion started with a singularity. Simply put, Silva Neves says, “I believe the Big Bang never happened.”

The model that Silva Neves developed includes a concept called bouncing cosmology, which argues that the universe is expanding but it doesn’t subscribe to the notion that the universe came into being when the expansion of the universe began. The bouncing cosmology concept states that the universe is always contracting and expanding in cycles.

Silva Neves has combined the bouncing cosmology concept with other theories about the physics of black holes. What’s called a “regular black hole” is a black hole without a singularity in the middle. The physicist said his model was built based on studies about “regular black holes” and it doesn’t have a need for a singularity in either black holes or the beginning of the expansion of the universe.

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In other words, his model doesn’t include a singular event, or a Big Bang.

While Silva Neves’ model is hypothetical at this point, he’s quick to point out that

“There is no empirical evidence for bouncing cosmologies today.

But there is no evidence for the initial singularity as well.”

Interesting stuff, for sure.