Latest news with #RichardLieu
Daily Mail
26-04-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientist says Big Bang theory is wrong... as they reveal how universe REALLY began
A controversial new theory about how the universe began rejects the widely-held belief that it started with a giant cosmic eruption known as the Big Bang. One scientist suggests that the cosmos grew through numerous rapid-fire bursts rather than a single, massive explosion. This alternative explanation, published by professor Richard Lieu of The University of Alabama in Huntsville, challenges one of the most foundational, long-standing theories in all of cosmology. Lieu argues that each of these bursts, known as 'temporal singularities,' blasted new matter and energy out into space, which become planets, stars, galaxies, and everything in-between. The Big Bang theory, by comparison, proposes that the universe began as an infinitely small, hot point of densely packed matter and energy. That point then exploded into a flood of matter and energy that rapidly expanding, and is still expanding today, though the cause of the initial explosion remains unknown. This has been the prevailing explanation for the origin of the universe since the 1960s. But despite its prominence, this theory is challenged by new investigations into concepts like dark matter and dark energy, which invisible particles scientists believe fill the universe. The Big Bang model cannot work without the presence of these elusive particles. But so far, scientists have not been able to prove that they exist. Lieu believes his theory overcomes this limitation, offering a new framework for the birth of the universe that does not require dark matter or dark energy. The temporal singularities proposed in his new paper, published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, aren't confined to a single explosive beginning (like the Big Bang). Rather, they have continued sending bursts of energy and matter out into the cosmos throughout history. Their collective impact has pushed the universe to expand and flooded it with the materials that make up all the cosmic structures we see today. These random bursts happen rarely and quickly, dissipating before they can be detected by current technologies like telescopes, according to Lieu. This theory could explain the structure of the universe we see today, and why it's expanding rapidly, without the need for dark matter or dark energy. According to the Big Bang theory, dark matter is the invisible scaffolding that holds all the structures of the cosmos in place, while dark energy is the undetectable force that is pushing the universe to expand faster and faster. Unless we assume that these mysterious substances exist, this theory begins to fall apart. Without dark matter, the early universe wouldn't have had enough gravitational pull for galaxies and galaxy clusters to form so soon after the Big Bang, as modern observations suggest they did. Dark energy is needed to explain why observations show the universe's expansion rate is increasing, with scientists theorizing that it acts as a repulsive force pushing the cosmos to stretch out faster and faster. To sum up, assuming these pulling and pushing forces exist is essential to making the Big Bang theory match what we actually see in the universe. Lieu has attempted to rework the model of the universe so that it aligns with the known laws of physics and the observable universe without relying on forces we have not been able to directly prove. But while his temporal singularities offer an intriguing alternative, this theory comes with its own limitations. For one, these fleeting bursts are, by definition, unobservable. Much like dark matter and dark energy, there's no direct evidence to support their existence. What's more, there is far more indirect evidence to support dark matter and dark energy than temporal singularities. Lieu's theory also fails to explain what causes temporal singularities, and it still needs to be validated with experimental evidence. To accomplish the latter, he plans to use ground-based telescopes to look for 'jumps' in redshift, a phenomenon where light from a distant object shifts toward the red end of the visible light spectrum as it moves further away. Astronomers use redshift to calculate the expansion rate of the universe, and 'jumps' in redshift could support Lieu's claim that brief bursts of energy are driving the universe's expansion.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
New study rejects Big Bang theory, says universe grew via cosmic energy bursts
Forget one Big Bang — try many. A bold new theory pokes holes in the popular origin story, suggesting the universe evolves through a series of lightning-fast bursts, rewriting what we know about cosmic expansion. Rather than a one-time, universe-making explosion, this model envisions the cosmos growing through countless rapid-fire events called temporal singularities. Each of these brief, invisible bursts injects fresh energy and matter into space, gradually shaping the galaxies, stars, and structures we see today — no dark matter or dark energy required. This alternative framework, published by Dr. Richard Lieu, a physics professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, challenges long-held assumptions in cosmology. In his new paper, Lieu argues that these singularities, though unobservable, could be the true engines of cosmic evolution, offering a radically different explanation for how the universe expands and organizes itself. The paper builds on Lieu's 2024 model, which controversially proposed that gravity might exist without mass — a theory that sparked intense debate and drew over 41,000 reads. The latest version refines that idea, introducing temporal singularities as a more complete alternative to the Big Bang, and dropping the need for invisible cosmic ingredients that have long puzzled scientists. 'The new model can account for both structure formation and stability, and the key observational properties of the expansion of the universe at large, by enlisting density singularities in time that uniformly affect all space to replace conventional dark matter and dark energy,' Lieu said. According to Lieu, this series of step-like bursts happens so rapidly that they are difficult to observe as these singularities wink in and out of existence. Lieu also references Sir Fred Hoyle's opposition to the Big Bang, noting that Hoyle's steady-state model proposed constant creation of matter and energy, which conflicted with mass-energy conservation laws. 'But that hypothesis violates the law of mass-energy conservation. In the current theory, the conjecture is for matter and energy to appear and disappear in sudden bursts and, interestingly enough, there is no violation of conservation laws,' he said. 'These singularities are unobservable because they occur rarely in time and are unresolvedly fast, and that could be the reason why dark matter and dark energy have not been found. The origin of these temporal singularities is unknown – safe to say that the same is true of the moment of the Big Bang itself.' These space-wide singularities, acting as stand-ins for dark matter, also produce what's known as negative pressure — a form of energy density similar to dark energy. This repulsive force pushes against gravity, driving the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. 'Einstein also postulated negative pressure in his 1917 paper on the Cosmological Constant. When positive mass-energy density is combined with negative pressure, there are some restrictions which ensure the mass-energy density remains positive with respect to any uniformly moving observer, so the negative density assumption is avoided in the new model,' Lieu said. The new theory argues that dark matter and dark energy are not omnipresent, but appear only during brief instances when matter and energy fill the universe uniformly, aside from small spatial fluctuations that eventually grow into galaxies and other structures. Outside of these fleeting moments, the forces are entirely absent. A key difference between this model and the standard one is its treatment of temporal singularities. While the standard cosmological model assumes a single event — the Big Bang — this framework proposes that such bursts occur multiple times across the universe's history. Future efforts to validate the theory could rely on data from Earth-bound instruments, rather than space telescopes like the James Webb. The paper has been published in Classical and Quantum Gravity.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
UAH professor publishes paper reconceptualizing the creation of the universe
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — When we think about the scientific theory of the creation of the universe, we often picture a massive explosion in association with the Big Bang theory, but that is not where things stopped. The universe is constantly expanding, and researchers want to understand how that process is happening. They know that the universe remains in constant motion and is ever-growing, but the forces that drive the expansion of our cosmos remain a little mysterious. What happens when you accidentally call 911? Much of our known universe is theorized to be made up of dark matter, which is essentially just matter that can not be measured. Likewise, the unmeasured force that accelerates our expansion is called dark energy. While we believe they are present, researchers have spent decades looking for evidence. 'The biggest stumbling block is that we're not finding these particles,' said UAH professor and researcher Richard Lieu. Lieu said about 20 years ago he began asking himself if researchers were on the right track.'The current paradigm, the situation is, that the more we don't find it, the more we throw money at it,' Lieu said. 'We want answers and justice': Family of 13 year old Ryland Calvert speaking out two weeks after deadly shooting Researchers are looking into space and digging into the earth's crust to detect dark matter, but so far, little evidence has been found.'We seem to be insisting that 98% of the universe is comprising unknowns,' Lieu said. 'Using unknowns to explain unknowns is not enlightenment science.'In his paper published this year, Lieu offers an explanation for why we are not finding particle evidence. He said the universe is expanding by singularities, which happen very rarely and end very quickly. 'You can actually propel the universe, even into an accelerated state for example, by repeatedly having these episodes of temporal singularities, namely, short bursts which fill the whole of space simultaneously, and then, suddenly those particles disappear again,' Lieu sounds a bit like magic, a force appearing then disappearing and leaving no evidence behind, but Lieu has done the math, and he said his theory obeys conservation laws. Moreover, it would explain why we do not observe dark matter and dark energy.'When all the obvious explanations are ruled out, then the more exotic options will have to be considered,' Lieu said. Lieu published his research entitled 'Are dark matter and dark energy omnipresent?' in March in the journal of Classical and Quantum 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
