Problem: Why is the distant universe so homogeneous when the Big Bang theory seems to predict larger measurable anisotropies of the night sky than those observed?
In the section in Chapter 4 entitled Cosmic Expansion (Dark Energy), I argued that this is a very simple problem, though only when armed with the theory described here. The reason this question is interesting to cosmologists is that quantum theory predicts energy fluctuations at the time of the Big Bang that should have manifested themselves on the macroscopic scale in a far less uniform (more anisotropic) distribution of matter and energy in the universe. One way to explain the unexpected isotropy that we observe is to propose that the universe expanded so rapidly during its first few moments that any fluctuations in energy density were, in effect, stretched uniformly across the entire cosmos, smoothing out the lumps as it were. It is further supposed that the pictures provided by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) of the microwave background radiation are snapshots, writ large, of early quantum fluctuations that are now greatly expanded and projected across the entire cosmos. If, the argument goes, the Big Bang had unfolded at a subluminal velocity (rather than at a hugely superluminal, inflationary velocity), the cosmos would be far lumpier, less isotropic, than it actually is.
It is true that the large-scale isotropy and small-scale anisotropy of the cosmos are interesting problems that need explanations. It is also true that the cosmos did indeed undergo inflationary (superluminal) expansion immediately following the Big Bang. However, quantum theory is not part of the equation and any apparent consequences of quantum energy fluctuations must be explained in other ways.
My theory predicts that the Big Bang was perfectly uniform, the result of an extraordinarily dense sphere of undifferentiated spacetime that had collapsed out of infinite nothingness over the course of eternity. At the end of its collapse, this massive sphere reached a maximum pressure, the point in cosmic evolution at which the universe was closest to its extreme infinite pole.1 Spacetime was able to exhibit this extreme behavior only because it dramatically ripped away from the rest of the void and was catapulted down into a tiny volume, well above its equilibrium pressure. The kinetic energy of its collapse overcame its inherent resistance to compression—the resistance provided by its finite pole.
1 Though the Big Bang may appear to be the point at which the cosmos is closest to its finite pole (because it is compressed into a discrete mass of definite size), it is actually the infinitepole that forces space to collapse. Hence, the greatest extent of the collapse corresponds to the dominance of the infinite pole. This is so because any two points, considered from an infinite distance, become the same point (converge), as described in Chapter 1.
Two interesting questions that I cannot answer are: 1) How dense was the cosmos just before the Big Bang? and 2) How big was the spacetime sphere? If we could find answers to both of these questions, they would tell us how much matter is in the universe and, by extension, how big the visible universe is by comparison to the entire universe: One percent? Five percent? Eighty percent? Since we cannot see beyond the edge of the visible universe, these answers will depend on extrapolating the behavior of spacetime from the first principle itself, specifically, discovering the precise dynamics that govern the collapse of the void. The target of this investigation will be the tipping point at which the pull of the collapse exceeds the resistance of the void to stretching—the ripping point—thereby defining the total quantity of spacetime that constitutes a universe. If it turns out that this tipping point is a variable rather than a constant, then the two questions may not be answerable, but even that conclusion would be enormously interesting.
Because this theory naturally results in a perfectly uniform spacetime mass preceding the Big Bang, it is not the isotropy but the anisotropy of the cosmos that is at issue. That is, at first blush, it appears that the Big Bang was entirely symmetrical at all scales and should have simply expanded rapidly back into the void, leaving behind the same nothingness whence it came. However, as explained in Chapter 2, there are two interesting components of the expansion that enabled the Big Bang to create the matter upon which our physical universe is based.
First, because the Big Bang expanded into the void, rather than normal space (i.e., spacetime at the vacuum pressure), its expansive acceleration was derived entirely from its internal resistance to compression (its finite pole) and not retarded at all by any countervailing resistance to expansion from space[time] outside of the sphere. Consequently, the expansion was hugely superluminal (inflationary), unconstrained by the customary cosmic speed limit of c, which only applies within spacetime, not within the void.
Second, this preposterously high inflationary velocity resulted in a very rapid decrease in the internal pressure of the sphere, thereby relieving the resistance to compression exerted by spacetime’s finite pole. Nevertheless, the expansive acceleration, though it decreased as the pressure decreased, remained positive because the void beyond the sphere’s surface continued to provide zero resistance. As a result, the inflationary velocity of the entire cosmos—from almost immediately after the Bang—dramatically exceeded the requirement of the finite pole to reduce its extreme pressure. In effect, the finite pole quickly relaxed as the sphere expanded, but the inflationary velocity did not decrease in response. Indeed, it continued to increase, though at a decreasing rate. This huge disparity between accelerating inflation on the cosmic scale and spacetime relaxation (decompression) on the local scale resulted in the formation of spacetime granules, the building blocks of protons and neutrons.
These granules of spacetime (what I have called partons) introduced two important asymmetries that are germane to this discussion of cosmic anisotropy. First, partons are themselves internally asymmetrical. They are spacetime gradients, defined by the inverse square law, dense in the center and less dense on their surfaces. The second asymmetry has two causes: the rapidly dropping pressure along the partons’ surfaces, which are in direct physical contact; and the rapidly inflating cosmic sphere that is attempting to pull the partons away from one another. At a critical point after the Big Bang, the pressure on the surfaces of the partons dropped all the way to, and then well below, the equilibrium pressure of spacetime (SEP or cosmological constant). Then, immediately after that threshold was exceeded, when the infinite pole began to exert itself along the surfaces of the partons, the cosmic sphere of spacetime came to a dead stop. It fractured into a very complex network of filaments that foreshadowed the current filamentous architecture of the cosmos, as well as the broad outlines of the microwave radiation detected by the WMAP telescope. This network of partonic filaments is the second important asymmetry caused by the Big Bang.
The homogeneity of the universe is only indirectly related to the Big Bang and has much more to do with the cosmological constant than anything else. Even if the Big Bang had been far lumpier (due to something akin to quantum energy fluctuations) than it was, the equilibrium pressure of spacetime would have long since overwhelmed those anisotropies. The cosmological constant, as its name suggests, exerts its influence everywhere in the same way, never changes, and creates the illusion that the cosmogenic event (e.g., the Big Bang) was curiously symmetrical. The cosmos is flat and uniform not because of a symmetrical event or any communication between disparate locations, but because of its eternal ontological nature.
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