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Talk1 min

"Beyond the Big Bang: a new view of cosmology"

Neil Turok · CERN

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About

The inflationary universe scenario has dominated the field of cosmology for three decades. However, it has major limitations. What preceded inflation? Can one avoid fine tuning of initial conditions and parameters? Can one conceive of a completion of the scenario which resolves the big bang singularity and explains the dark energy now coming to dominate? Are we forced to resort to anthropic explanations?

In this talk, I will develop an alternate picture, in which the big bang singularity is resolved and in which the value of the dark energy might be fixed by physical processes. The key is a resolution of the singularity. Using a combination of arguments,involving M theory and holography as well as analytic continuation in time within the low energy effective theory, I argue that there is a unique way to match cosmic evolution across the big bang singularity. The latter is no longer the beginning of time but is instead the gateway to an eternal, cyclical universe. If time permits, I shall describe new work connecting this picture to LHC's recent discoveries concerning the electroweak Higgs..

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The talk

  1. "Beyond the Big Bang: a new view of cosmology" 2012-07-19 · 1 min · CERN's player

Credits and licence

Institution
CERN
Department
CERN Colloquium
Speaker
Neil Turok
Year
2012
Language
English
Subjects
Astronomy and space
Source
CERN
Licence
CERN, as CERN states it. CERN's terms
Attribution
© CERN. CERN provides its audiovisual media free of charge for educational and informational use, credited to CERN; this lecture is shown in CERN's own player.
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