According to IEET readers, what were the most stimulating stories of 2013? This month we’re answering that question by posting a countdown of the top 20 articles published this year on our blog (out of more than 600), based on how many total hits each one received.
The following piece was first published here on March 03, 2013, and is the #16 most viewed of the year.
Scientists dispute ‘Big Bang’ theory
For several decades, scientists have bandied about explanations of how galaxies and stars first formed and why the expansion of the universe is accelerating. However, so far, nobody has come up with an explanation of what caused the big bang in the first place – at least an explanation that all scientists can agree with.
Now, theoretical physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok, in their fascinating book, “Endless Universe,” dispute the widely-accepted ‘Big Bang’ theory.
Instead, they believe that our cosmos was created by a collision of two universes caused by gravity, possibly in the form of ‘dark matter,’ leaking from one universe into the other; and that the collisions repeat in a never-ending cycle; each time replacing old matter with new galaxies, stars, and planets.
These forward-thinking researchers theorize that what we think of as the moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic collisions between our universe and a parallel world that lies just 10 to 32 meters away from ours.
However, because this parallel universe formed in different dimensions than we’re familiar with, it remains invisible to our sensing technologies.
This radical idea suggests that the Big Bang was not the beginning of time, but merely a bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution.
In a related issue, a growing number of scientists now theorize that dark matter might be the gravitational force that drives the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies towards each other.
Some future followers adopt an even more radical thought – the dark matter we sense, may not even be in our universe; it could be located in a parallel cosmos. What’s your opinion?