"Before the Big Bang?" (2005), the original lecture by Roger Penrose (part 3 of 9)

"Before the Big Bang? A new perspective on the Weyl curvature hypothesis"

This is the original lecture by Roger Penrose on his fascinating new model of the universe, its origin and future, and of the "Big Bang"; held at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (November 7th 2005).

Originally published at http://www.newton.ac.uk/webseminars/pg+ws/2005/gmr/gmrw04/1107/penrose/index....

See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghbDGBOYp1g and http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&a... for other lectures by Penrose on this theory.

See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEIj9zcLzp0 for an interview with Roger Penrose on his new model.

See also http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/e06/PAPERS/THESPA01.PDF for Penrose's academic article about his theory.

See also http://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.3879v2 for an article about Penrose's "Before the Big Bang" idea, verifying that some of Penrose's basic predictions are mathematically correct.

NOTE TO THOSE POSTING COMMENTS ON THESE VIDEOS: Please stay focused on the topic. All irrelevant comments will be removed without warning.

SUMMARY:

There is now a great deal of evidence confirming the existence of a very hot and dense early stage of the universe. Much of this data comes from a detailed study of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—radiation from the early universe that was most recently measured by NASA's WMAP satellite. But the information presents new puzzles for scientists. One of the most blatant examples is an apparent paradox related to the second law of thermodynamics. Although some have argued that the hypothesis of inflationary cosmology solves some of the puzzles, profound issues remain. In this talk, Professor Penrose will describe a very different proposal, one that suggests a succession of universes prior to our own.

Sir Roger Penrose is a highly distinguished mathematician and theoretical physicist. He is currently emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. His research interests span many aspects of geometry, having made contributions to the theory of non-periodic tilings (Penrose tilings), to general relativity theory and quantum foundations. He has also had remarkable insights in the science of consciousness. His main research programme is to develop the theory of twistors, which he originated over 30 years ago as an attempt to unite Einstein's theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics.

In 1994 Professor Penrose was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his service to science. He has received numerous prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their understanding of the universe, the Dannie Heinemann Prize, the Royal Society Royal Medal, the Dirac Medal and the Albert Einstein prize to name a few.

Penrose is a prominent lecturer and author. His 1989 book The Emperor's New Mind became a best seller and won the 1990 (now Rhone-Poulenc) Science Book Prize. His latest books are Shadows of the Mind (1994), The Nature of Space and Time (1996) with Stephen Hawking, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind (1997) and Road to Reality (2004).

Additional tags: "Big Bang" "Roger Penrose" "Oxford University" "Newton Institute" physics cosmology astrophysics "quantum mechanics" "quantum cosmology" mathematics "cyclical model" "maximum entropy" entropy theory universe origin past future "big crunch" cosmos "space-time geometry" "phase-space" inflation thermodynamics "second law of thermodynamics" "thermal equilibrium" "black body spectrum" "cosmic background spectrum" "cosmic microwave background temperature" "dark energy" "positive cosmological constant" "dark matter" "black hole" singularity "time asymmetry" "quantum gravity" "principle of equivalence" "space-time curvature" "Weyl curvature" "Ricci curvature" Riemann astigmatism thermalization "pre-Big-Bang" "horizon problem" "inflationary cosmology" "standard cosmology" "spherical symmetry" "Minkowski space" "Hawking radiation" "Hawking Black-Hole evaporation" "conformal geometry" "conformal rescaling" "Weyl conformal tensor" "conformal invariance" "Einstein cylinder" "gravitational free field"

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• physics
• cosmology
• astrophysics
• quantum mechanics
• quantum cosmology
• mathematics
• maximum entropy
• space-time geometry
• phase-space
• inflation
• thermodynamics
• thermal equilibrium
• dark energy
• black hole
• singularity
• time asymmetry
• quantum gravity
• equivalence
• space-time curvature
• astigmatism
• thermalization
• spherical symmetry
• Minkowski space
• conformal geometry
• gravitational free field

[huntmatuk]

Penrose was my twistor theory lecturer at Oxford. We all read his book, it was easier to understand. Spinors still give me the shakes...

[ImperatorAquila]

@huntmatuk "Spinors & Spacetime"? I've got both volumes at home, but for an amateur like me, that's pretty heavy stuff.

[Tolstoievsky]

amazing how these people think

[ImperatorAquila]

Yeah. :) I don't think I had many childhood heroes, none that lasted anyway, but Penrose was one of the few.

[givemeblowjob69]

Penrose is an inspirational human.

[albedoshader]

@ImperatorAquila: "The Road to Reality" gives more explanations and better insights than any of Hawking's books, even if one doesn't understand the mathematics.

[manucalrad]

hmm true.

[albedoshader]

@ImperatorAquila: I like his "Road to Reality" very much. It's very nice to see all of his diagrams drawn with a felt pen :)

[huntmatuk]

@commodoreherring I did the MSc in Gemetry, Mathematical physics and Analysis in 96, I had done nothing like this up to that point only to be confronted with Penrose's style of lecturing. If you have a good book or a good teacher then nothing is scarey, but sadly during those times we had neither.

[commodoreherring]

@commodoreherring apologies, i meant to say the stellar "ignition" process, not "gnition". for clarification, you may have read that the classical energy required is huge: the answer for seriously interested people (rather than dogmatists) lies in tunneling due to overlapping wavefunctions. sorry for filling up this page, i just don't like obscurantists injecting falsehoods in order to justify their own dogmas (see craighill's page). enjoy the lecture!

[commodoreherring]

@Craighill9 you make two foundless statements: 1) experiments have been done on matter exploding out from a singularity; and 2) the energy needed to ignite a star exceeds that of a galaxy. Answers: 1) no such experiments have been or can be performed; 2) the stellar gnition process in the presence of gravity is exothermic not endothermic, i.e. it gives out energy and does not require it to be fed in. i'd add that the truth is much more profound and beautiful than your theological dogmatism.

[commodoreherring]

@huntmatuk i wormed and wriggled a lot about twistors (spinors aren't scary though methinks you exaggerate..). i also attended penrose's lectures. i'm interested in what you think about his cosmology (he's written a book due for september). is it really a true statement that conformal symmetry held in the early universe? and would the same hold true after all black hole evaporation? this is the crux. i do not have a firm conviction, simply would like to hear intelligent people's opinions...

[huntmatuk]

@ImperatorAquila I have both volumes of the book, signed as well by Penrose. It was those books we looked to when we couldn't understand his lecture course.