Forget the Big Bang - 'Rainbow Gravity' theory suggests our universe has NO beginning and stretches out infinitely



Claims that gravity's effect is felt differently by various wavelengths of light

Current belief is light will follow the same set path regardless of frequency



If theory is correct, it means that our universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started

To think that our universe is 13.8 billion years old is incredible enough.

But now researchers are proposing that the universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started.

The idea is one possible result of something known as ‘rainbow gravity’- a theory that is not widely accepted among physicists, though many say the idea is interesting.

The rainbow gravity theory suggests that gravity's effect on the cosmos is felt differently by different wavelengths of light

THE THEORY OF RAINBOW GRAVITY

The Rainbow Gravity theory suggests that gravity's effect on the cosmos causes different wavelengths of light to behave differently. This means that particles with different energies will move in space-times and gravitational fields differently.

The theory was proposed 10 years ago in an attempt to reconcile difference between the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics. One consequence of rainbow gravity is that our universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started.

The theory’s name comes from a suggestion that gravity's effect on the cosmos is felt differently by varying wavelengths of light, which can be found in the colours of the rainbow.

The theory was proposed 10 years ago in an attempt to reconcile difference between the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Researchers claim it highlights flaws in the Big Bang theory, which suggests the universe was born about 13.8 billion years ago when an infinitely dense point - known as a 'singularity' - exploded.

According to Einstein's general relativity, huge objects warp space-time so that anything travelling through it, such as light (regardless of its frequency), takes a curving path.

The Big Bang theory was formulated in 1922 by Alexander Friedmann.



Friedmann began with Einstein's equations of general relativity and found a solution to those equations in which the universe began in a state of high density and temperature.



Researchers claim it highlights flaws in the Big Bang theory, which suggests the universe was born about 13.8 billion years ago when an infinitely dense point - known as a singularity - exploded

In the rainbow theory however, 'particles with different energies will actually see different space-times, different gravitational fields,’ Adel Awad of the Centre for Theoretical Physics at Zewail City of Science and Technology in Egypt told Scientific American.

Writing in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, researchers found two possible beginnings to the universe based on slightly different interpretations of the consequences of rainbow gravity.

One result would be that if you retrace time backward, the universe gets denser, approaching an infinite density but never quite reaching it.



In the other scenario the universe reaches an extremely high density that's finite and then plateaus.

Professor Awad claims that in both scenarios, tracing the path of matter and light in the universe will not cause us to arrive at an infinitely small point of origin, known as the Big Bang

