"Before the Big Bang?" (2005), the original lecture by Roger Penrose (part 5 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

[ProsperosCloset]

Thanks for a great video lecture - how on earth did you get Penrose's slides?

[ImperatorAquila]

They're from the Newton Institute. The original lecture is online there (see info box). Penrose has updated his lecture since then, but only slightly. There is one video of the 2009 lecture floating around on the web, on the website of a US institute. But I forgot the link. :\

[GBGinmyheart]

PRINGLE!!!!!

[xcualquiera]

@TirianB I guess it would be then another undesired fine tunning problem.

[albedoshader]

Penrose is a real genius of bringing the ideas to life by excellent drawings.

[BrianTheMusicMan]

@electivire1001 Still cool that you're trying! Keep seeking =]

[electivire1001]

really dont know why im watching this

im a 17 year old secondary school student and studying physics

so i dont really understand parts of what hes explaning

still very intresting though

[TirianB]

How do you suggest that waves traveling 64 times the speed of light are going to make things have the same temperature? Stuff get the same temperature from molecules bumping into each other, and that doesn't happen at 64 times the speed of light. Even if matter traveled in oposite directions with a speed much less that the speed of light, they would still not have the molecular interactions that would ensure the same temperature.

[Subspace4d]

Yes but according to chaos theory their should have arrived a temperature fractal when the space symetry broke. Since we do not have everywhere galaxies. Look when you let the temperature go down and the thermal equilibrium is not contained then their arrive a cristalline shape with temperature lower at some places than others. Just look the works of Landau symetrie breaks. Thank you. Further we have found in our labs that waves can travel at 64 times the speed of light. Scalar waves.

[TirianB]

How can anything be too exact? If you have the same starting conditions, and the same progress of things, you will get the same end result.

What is it that determines the temperature of the Big Bang after a certain amount of time? Whatever it is, if another Big Bang formed out of nowhere, why shouldn't it have the exact same temperature after the same amount of time as our Big Bang? I would be more puzzled if the temerature weren't the same everywhere.

[Subspace4d]

But the temprature is to exact to be determined of some random or via law of physics. The problem is that this temperature is not some special temperature. Helim gets super fluid at circa 2 Kelvin but its a little above that 2 Kelvin. Helim boils at 4Kelvin. Hydrogen boils a lot above this. So what sort of law should be implying here.

[TirianB]

Why does there have to be a connection for the temperatures to be the same? If everything started in the same way, wouldn't the end results be the same? If you light two candles which are a mile apart, they will burn with the same temperature. They don't need to have ever been close together in order to balance things out. It is the nature of the candle and the laws of physics that determines the temperature.