Whether there was a beginning or not, something can’t come from nothing, so there must always have been SOMETHING
TL;DR
Sir Roger Penrose, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, suggests that our universe has experienced multiple Big Bangs in his “conformal cyclic cosmology” (CCC) theory. He believes the universe will expand until all matter decays, triggering a new Big Bang. Penrose points to “Hawking Points” in the cosmic microwave background as evidence of black holes from a previous universe. This theory challenges traditional models of the universe and links to Stephen Hawking’s black hole radiation theories.
After reading the article, a Reddit user named Lily gained more than 19 upvotes with this comment:
“I go with the idea that everything in nature recycles, given enough time. So why wouldn’t the universe perpetuate itself? Beyond that idea, who’s to say there is only one universe, it’s the only one we know. There could be many others beyond our boundaries of perception. It may be we’re part of a bigger multiverse.” Don’t forget to discuss your thoughts on Penrose’s theory in the comment section below!
Sir Roger Penrose, a renowned mathematician and physicist from the University of Oxford, who co-won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, suggests that our universe has experienced multiple Big Bangs, and another one awaits us in the future.
Penrose earned the Nobel for developing mathematical techniques that confirmed and extended Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, as well as for his breakthroughs regarding black holes, demonstrating how overly dense objects undergo gravitational collapse, forming singularities—regions of infinite mass.
During his Nobel acceptance, Penrose reiterated his belief in what he described as “a crazy theory of mine,” proposing that the universe will continue expanding until all matter decays, after which a new Big Bang will create another universe.
“The Big Bang was not the beginning,” Penrose said in an interview with The Telegraph. “Something existed before the Big Bang, and that same something is what we will see in our future.”
What evidence supports Penrose’s “conformal cyclic cosmology” (CCC), a theory that contradicts the traditional Big Bang model? He claims to have identified six “warm” points in the sky (called “Hawking Points”) that are about eight times the size of the Moon’s diameter. The late Professor Stephen Hawking, for whom these points are named, hypothesized that black holes emit radiation and would eventually evaporate. As this process would take longer than the current universe’s age of 13.77 billion years, observing such black holes is improbable.
Penrose, now 89 and a former collaborator with Hawking, believes we can detect “dead” black holes left behind by previous universes, or “aeons.” If verified, this would lend credibility to Hawking’s theories as well.
In his 2020 paper, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Penrose presented evidence of “anomalous circular spots” in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with elevated temperatures. This data came from the Planck 70 GHz satellite and was validated through up to 10,000 simulations.
In a 2018 paper, Penrose identified radiation hotspots in the CMB that he speculated could be from evaporating black holes. Similarly, in 2010, Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan from the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia supported the idea of cyclic cosmology, noting uniform temperature rings in the CMB, which they attributed to gravitational waves produced by colliding black holes in a universe that existed before ours.
These concepts are debated within the cosmology field, with some arguing the challenge of aligning an infinitely large universe in one aeon with a tiny one in the next. This would require particles to lose mass as the universe ages.
You can explore Penrose’s latest paper, titled “Apparent evidence for Hawking points in the CMB Sky,” here.
For another intriguing theory from Penrose, check out his ideas on the quantum origins of consciousness.
