{"id":26571,"date":"2025-07-21T17:13:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/26571\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T17:13:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:13:03","slug":"radical-new-theory-rewrites-the-story-of-the-earliest-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/26571\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical New Theory Rewrites the Story of the Earliest Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the Big Bang, our universe expanded at an exponential rate<\/a>. According to this theory, known as cosmic inflation, the explosive growth produced tiny quantum fluctuations that later evolved into galaxies. Cosmic inflation neatly explains how our universe got so large and mostly homogenous, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s remained a strong theory in cosmology for decades.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s far from perfect. Cosmic inflation depends on certain theoretical assumptions that can get rather arbitrary\u2014not ideal for a theory that\u2019s supposed to explain why our universe appears the way it does. It\u2019s this shortcoming that motivated theoretical physicist Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez<\/a> from the University of Barcelona in Spain to devise an alternative approach to decoding the dynamics of the very early universe. The resulting proposal, published earlier this month in Physical Review Research<\/a>, seeks to eliminate the excessive, circumstantial parameters in traditional models that have made it difficult for physicists to agree on a single theory.<\/p>\n

The proposal, developed by Jim\u00e9nez and colleagues, is a relatively simple paradigm founded mostly on well-understood principles of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It starts with the assumption that the very early universe existed in what\u2019s called a De Sitter space<\/a>, which sees the universe as a flat-shaped vacuum governed by general relativity. According to quantum mechanics, applying some energy to this\u2014namely the Big Bang\u2014generates quantum fluctuations that give rise to tensor modes, or gravitational waves. These waves organically seeded small bits of density throughout the universe, and those little bits eventually evolved into galaxies, stars, and planets, according to the theory.<\/p>\n

Critics of traditional inflationary theory argue that it has too many adjustable parameters. One such parameter is the inflaton\u2014hypothetical scalar fields that physicists believe drove rapid expansion in the early universe. But the new theory removes the inflaton from the picture, substituting it with a de Sitter space rocked by gravitational waves.<\/p>\n

\"CosmicA representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. Credit: NASA\/WMAP Science Team <\/p>\n

That the new theory removes many adjustable parameters is a big bonus.\u00a0\u201cThere is no general principle that determines these things, so basically you need to put them in by hand,\u201d explained Arthur Kosowsky<\/a>, a cosmologist at the University of Pittsburgh not involved in the new work, in an email to Gizmodo. \u201cPhysicists always strive to make models and theories which are in some sense as simple as possible, meaning that the number of arbitrary things you need to put in by hand is as small as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, a solid theory or model shouldn\u2019t require so many adjustable variables. A similar problem exists with the all-encompassing Standard Model, which features a whopping 18 free parameters that need to be sorted out every single time. Physicists \u201cexpend lots of blood, sweat, and tears (and money) because most people are convinced that there must be a better, more powerful model which has two or three parameters instead of 18,\u201d Kosowsky said.<\/p>\n

And indeed, finding a simple, compelling explanation for early cosmic inflation is what motivated the new work, Jim\u00e9nez told Gizmodo during a video call. The strength of this theory is that it is \u201cfully falsifiable\u201d in the sense that it either can or cannot explain observational data, he said. However, this is also the theory\u2019s weakness, which Jim\u00e9nez acknowledged: \u201cMaybe nature didn\u2019t choose this theory as the way things work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the most valuable thing about falsifiable theories is that they tell us what doesn\u2019t work, he added. (While this might seem sketchy, physicists often employ something akin to a process of elimination for unknown phenomena, such as dark matter.) As for Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s newly proposed theory, it\u2019s fair to ask whether it will hold up to observational data and survive further mathematical scrutiny.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the overall philosophy driving this paper, [which is] \u2018let\u2019s see if we can come up with a situation where inflation arises naturally out of some basic physics,\u2019\u201d Kosowsky said. \u201cIf we can, this is both more elegant than adding some speculative and, in some sense, arbitrary physical elements and also is likely to make more specific predictions, which can then hopefully be compared with observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it\u2019s an interesting and novel proposal\u2014it\u2019s something that\u2019s well worth a closer look,\u201d commented Andrew Liddle<\/a>, a theoretical cosmologist at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, during a video call with Gizmodo. At the same time, its simplicity could also be its biggest flaw, but only time will tell if more mathematically minded cosmologists take a liking to it, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have always been cosmologists who are uncomfortable with inflation [theory]. I\u2019m one of them\u2014and I work on it,\u201d said Marina Cort\u00eas<\/a>, also with the IA, in the same call. \u201cOne of the most uncomfortable things about inflation is that physicists understand everything from the Big Bang onwards, but not the Big Bang and the earliest stages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liddle and Cort\u00eas, both uninvolved in the new work, said that while cosmologists (including themselves) often disagree on how to best interpret cosmic inflation, the evidence seems to support the notion that inflation did in fact take place. Many physicists have devised alternative explanations, but practically everything has ended up in a \u201cdustbin\u201d of discarded ideas, Liddle explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s no limit to people\u2019s imagination,\u201d Liddle said. And the next few decades should see no shortage of new ideas and models\u2014just like this one, according to the two cosmologists.<\/p>\n

\u201cCosmology right now is mostly about these things called tensions, or hints that things are not quite well aligned with the standard cosmological model,\u201d Liddle said. Several questions threatening to usurp what we know about the physical universe\u2014dark energy, the Hubble tension\u2014appear to be coming together in one paradoxical package for scientists, and inflation could be a part of that, Cort\u00eas added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No matter what happens, it goes without saying that we\u2019re witnessing a time of excitement, chaos, and discovery for cosmology\u2014a sentiment that all the scientists agreed on.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is the data growing at exponential amounts, but the quality of the analysis is also growing at an exponential quality,\u201d Jim\u00e9nez said. \u201cI think that we are living a golden age of cosmology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are thinking about inflation, we are trying to take the next step and answer the question of why the universe looks the way it does, and not just describe how it looks,\u201d Kosowsky said. \u201cIs this due to some deep physics principle yet undiscovered? It could be, and this is what keeps us working hard to push back the boundaries of our understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the Big Bang, our universe expanded at an exponential rate. According to this theory, known as cosmic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[13640,23207,8151,199,1358,79,16525],"class_list":{"0":"post-26571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-big-bang","9":"tag-cosmic-microwave-background","10":"tag-cosmology","11":"tag-physics","12":"tag-quantum-physics","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-theoretical-physics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}