Cosmology: The Timeline of Everything We Know - From Quarks to Quasars

Cosmology: The Timeline of Everything We Know - From Quarks to Quasars
 

Image: Gary S Chapman/Photographer (Source)

First would be that prior to the big bang it is possible there was no previous era. Matter, energy, space and time began abruptly. Another posits that of Quantum emergence – space and time develop out of a primeval state describe by a quantum theory of gravity. Then there is the landscape multiverse of string theory – due to differences of quantum tunneling and quantum fluctuations between different energy states, this theory reorganizes a multiverse of universes in a new type of field ordered from most energetic to least energetic. As this new type of postulated field (called inflation) decays it releases the remainder of its energy and “buds” off the eternal, infinite space and expands rapidly. And lastly the cyclic universe, were the big bang is just the latest in the continual expansion, collapse and renewed expansion of space and time. The beginning is not really the beginning at all, only the latest stage in a continuing cycle.