A new theory in cosmology sounds much like the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist concepts of cyclical creation and mind-boggling timescales. I don’t mean to sound like Religious Uncle, rather to evoke a neat coincidence (via Slashdot):
The universe is at least 986 billion years older than physicists thoughtThe universe may be 986 billion years older than previously thought, and creation may be cyclical and is probably much older still, according to a radical new theory. The revolutionary study suggests that time did not begin with the big bang 14 billion years ago…The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs and big crunches – where every particle of matter collapses together…
“I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though,” said Prof Turok. “There doesn’t have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large…” [Link]
… According to Steinhardt and Turok, today’s universe is part of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches, with each cycle lasting about a trillion years. At every big bang, the amount of matter and radiation in the universe is reset, but the cosmological constant is not. Instead, the cosmological constant gradually diminishes over many cycles to the small value observed today… the cosmological constant decreases in steps, through a series of quantum transitions. [Link]
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p>As I’ve noted before, the Hindu concept of time is so over-the-top that it beats even the Chinese long view quoted sanctimoniously by bestsellers on the business shelves:
… the life cycle of Brahma is… 311 trillion years. We are currently in the 51st year of the present Brahma and so about 155 trillion years have elapsed… [Link]
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p>As Carl Sagan wrote in his book Cosmos (via Slashdot commenter):
The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still…
The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed. [Link]
Everything is from india, bete. How many times do I have to tell you?
Awesome. The only religious treatment of time that ever made sense to me (as in I wouldn’t mind blindly believing if that nagging voice in my head would just stop asking for proof) is this cyclical bit. Probably because there are so many cycles in nature, it just feels a litte obvious that the universe would function accordingly as well. Thanks, Manish, now I shall send this titbit to my old relgious studies professors and they will rejoice.
I have spent loads of time personally researching the link between science and religion and have found that hinduism beats all other religions as far as factoring science into the practice of religion. there is a well thought out scientific reason behind almost every fundamental in hinduism. hinduism is definitely not perfect but it does come pretty darn close. if one can get beyond the silly traditions established by man and go to the core of the vedas, upanishads many of the answers lie within. and the answers are on a very high level (intelligence scale) – top 2% only. 🙂
Interesting. The “new theory” seems to borrow at least one aspect of an older discredited theory which advocates multiple big bangs. In the begining there were three physical models to explain the evolution of the Universe. The one in the article above seems to be a fourth. The three models were as follows: 1) Expands forever after the big bang 2) The “Oscillating Universe” theory. In this scenario gravitational attraction would make all objects (such as galaxys) slow down until they were inevitably pulled together again. This would cause another big bang and a new universe with a copletely different set of laws of physics. 3) Expands until at a certain time it will slow down and stop.
Models 2 and 3 have been discarded in light of multiple lines of solid empirical evidence that show scenario 1 to be the most likely. From a romantic view number two would be preferable. It would reinforce the cyclical nature of things. The facts however don’t support it. NASA’s WMAP mission collected some of the data to validate model 1. And here is the really cool part. Not only is the Universe expanding, it’s actually accelerating in its expansion.
What Turok seems to be suggesting is that there are localized Big Bangs possible within an existing Universe that’s already expanded out to ginormous distances. When then “outer wave” moves far enough from the “center”, another bang occurs somewhere. Even he admits this is difficult to prove because the laws of physics might not be constant in different regions of the Universe in this model. The bigger question is “where is the material for multiple big bangs coming from?” That is where my mind shuts down.
very communal post 🙂
Reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke short story “The Nine Billion Names Of God” .
If this is true can someone tell me the Hindi word for “Space” or “Universe.” I wanted to get a tatoo a while back and nobody I asked knew the Hindi word for Space.
antriksha, brahmand
It didn’t take long for Shiv Sena to get to Manish!!
M. Nam
Mera bharat mahan
universe=ANTARIKSH..i think not sure though
I think antariksh is space as in outer space hence antra. Brahmand is universe.
another word for universe: vishvam.
I think that may be going a bit too far. Trying to find links between science and religion in ANY religion isn’t too difficult. Religion is a creation of man. Man ultimately has to reconcile his beliefs with what he sees, the reality of nature in front of him. Any religion that does not evolve to reconcile itself with the science of the day will wither away and die or be persecuted and scorned. It would have fewer and fewer followers. Science is the horse and religion is the cart. Sometimes the cart gets pissed at the horse and whips it real good and the whole journey comes close to being over. When the horse recovers however it ultimately decides where they are going together.
R u sure…vishwa is earth in common usage, etymologicaly you may be correct…do post the root if u have it. we dont want wrong tattos on abhis nintamb.
Abhi,
GGK is correct in Hindi/ Hundustani words for space and universe.
I think Buddhism has similar ideas of universe – a commonality between dharmic religions.
You guys are helping me demonstrate my point. I asked a lot of people (parents, uncles, etc.) and most people had to argue over what word would be closest to the English word for “space.” I wonder why Hindi doesn’t at least appear to have an unequivocal word for it. I thought that was kind of interesting. 🙂
cause the point was lost on you again… Though my knowlege of hindi is as good as any ones its roots which delve into prakrit and sanskrit i am weaker on. and words do exist, is your usage wargbased on dealing with antric matter? either way getting some wax ready may be a good idea
on this site they give several options for universe, including vishvam. on another, it just had vishvam. so not sure. But they are in Sanskrit. sorry, i just realized abhi wanted the hindi word for space (what GGK), which is the same in sanskrit, but the word for universe is different to that for space or sky in sanskrit.
I was going to say what Abhi said (although with less pathos and generally less fact) – that this has many elements that we’ve heard before. You know I was sure when I was about 13 I read that Japanese scientists had found that missing dark matter to collapse the universe back in on itself and for years I told everyone that is what’s going to happen. Well, at least they won’t be around to see my proven wrong.
Chai I’ve also got a great fascination with the links between Hinduism and cosmology, from the Big Bang to the sheer timescale. It is a fascinating subject, especially to me as I don’t believe in God. I hope that makes sense. But I best not get into it now as I’ll ramble on, it’ll be boring and I have to work 🙂
I think they were IDEAS not a singular idea thats cannonized.
sorry that was in sanskrit. the word for space (what GGK said and what abhi wanted) in hindi seems to be the same in sanskrit, but sanskrit has other words for universe, including vishvam.
http://sanskrit.gde.to/dict/dictall.html
sorry for double posting, thought the first one didn’t go through.
Damn you and your large brain! On second thought, is Philosophical Abhi free for the next little while by any chance? Because we need to start a religion. P. Abhi will carry a whip and perform an interpretive dance depicting the horse and the cart and how the horse becomes free of the cart. And the people, they will cheer.
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I know him pretty well and I can tell you that Philosophical Abhi likes both whips and interpretive dancing. 🙂
try kshoonya for space – hindi is fairly rich – antariksh is right for cosmos – other words of interest to you might be dhoomketu for comet, brahmaand for universe etc.
I know him pretty well and I can tell you that Philosophical Abhi likes both whips and interpretive dancing. 🙂
too much information.
not true, a improper usage is point but wonder why delhi pin code is chaar nau do shoonya shoonya something
shoonya = cipher, zero, emptiness.
GGK, people do use shoonya for space in loose terms
शून्य : पु : blankness, void; sky, space, atmosphere; desolate or deserted place, seclusion; cipher, zero; dot, non-entity; absolute, nonexistence.
डायमन्ड हिन्दी-अन्ग्रेजी कोश: अग्र्वाल, सिंह
wiktionary gives various non-english words for universe and says the telegu word for it is vishvam. no hindi or sanskrit or any other indian language versions given,.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Universe
please give an example.
Ha, I’ve already started two. Well no, one is a religion that I started but pretty much abandoned. Version 2.0 was co-founded with others and currently has six followers. Perhaps ‘cult’ is more appropriate. Even that makes me happy. Ever since I saw the CIA playing Nancy Sinatra to David Coresh as a kid, I wanted to lead a cult.
GGK,
One example:
Another example related to astronomy
Finally, from wiki
.
Well this is the thing empty space and outer space have different sets representing them… shoonya’s is shooting towards emptiness
A resident of lands west to my ancestoral land Mushie did start the worlds 1st and only religion. Mushie ate some mushrooms, climbed up a hill declared it to be a Mountain, had some more on top and later when others enquired where he was He said it was up there listening to god And god told him that no other viewpoint on it can be entertained and this Idea is so good that its to be the only idea. The whole shoonyata has to be my follower for all previous ideas were useless following false idols and are paganistic. As my followers you are to :- tell others to give up preexisting ideas :- not develop new idea. :- do consider mushie to be a spiritual head. :- do remember that norms dont lead to laws, its god which leads to good and laws. But curiously the tribe did sort of buy Mushies arguments But decided that wasnÂ’t enough and other mushroom eaters do deserve to relay gods orders hence they said future mushroom eaters will tell us some futher orders.
One thing which hasn’t been proven yet is when “The Vedas” were exactly written/rewritten. In more modern words: When did the first edition come? Which edition are we reading? When was it last edited?
There are many theories. One which is very convincing is: the present Hinduism, which is predominantly the Advaita school of thought was started by Adi Sankara or known as Shankaracharya. He “recompiled” the Upanishads and some parts of Vedas around 700AD.
If that is the case then it is fairly modern(comparatively). Advaita was criticized by it’s contemporaries of being some sort of Neo Buddhism, since it copied many aspects of Buddhism. Meanwhile the three middle-eastern religions were pretty much born from similar schools of thought(Yes Christ is more closely related to Arafat than the Pope) Hence there isn’t much difference in their theories and the unfortunate domination of these three religions in the present world basically removed all the other theories of evolution(other the real one).
There should really be a threaded comment system here. Everyone gets so into the discussion, it veers off topic and there is no recourse in the single thread of comments.
todayÂ’s universe is part of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches, with each cycle lasting about a trillion years.
Quick– someone tell me where the hell we are located in the grand scheme of things: are we nearing the trillion year mark? Is a big crunch coming soon?!
Jesus Christ.
Oh, oops, sorry, wrong god :0
the life cycle of Brahma isÂ… 311 trillion years. We are currently in the 51st year of the present Brahma and so about 155 trillion years have elapsedÂ…
Oops, I glossed over this bit in the blog. My bad.
Oh hell, we’ve got a ways to go. Loads of time to enjoy the bliss of planet Earth. Good thing I won’t be around to experience the “big crunch”.
What if another disaster happens and hence destroys the Earth prematurely? A big meteorite hits the Earth, like in the movie Armaggedon? Or Deep Sea?
delhi pincode (gpo = general post office) is “ek ek shoonya shoonya shoonya ek” 110001 bombay is ‘char shoonya shoonya shoonya – -“
GGK (#35).
Are you talking about Islam or Christianity? Also, are you making snarky satirical remarks about it?
Interesting post, Manish. I recently finished reading “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra. In his book he explores the similarities between Eastern religious/philosophical ideas (Hindu and Buddhist mainly) and quantum physics. There are quite a lot of striking similarities between the conclusions arrived at by modern physics and ancient Indian philosophy. Although I haven’t read any of the ancient Indian books (being Sanskrit illiterate), the book was, nonetheless, very interesting.
The more I look at eastern (specifically Indian) culture, the more it seems to me that Indians have always been very good at abstract concepts. The concept of zero, when you really think about it, is quite abstract but of great practical significance. The same is with the “no beginning and no end of time” concept of Hinduism. We see this in almost every facet of Indian society – painting, music, science. Indian classical music (both Hindustani and Carnatic) are more complex and more difficult to understand.
With the exponential increase in technological advances over the past hundred and fifty years, and a bunch of national disasters, one after another, it feels like the end is near sometimes…
Rubbish.
The struggle is going on right now about how the Vedas were actually written in so-called pre-Vedic times,isn’t it, by the light of the silvery moon on the sylvan or possibly the ploughed and sown banks of the Saraswati river, whose dried up beds still show up in the satellite pictures. It can hardly be otherwise! This is how, bete, we can show that not only everything but also Native Europeans actually all come from Desh, where they used to wash and have modern plumbing, and not from some conjectural and unidentifiable pony-infested spot in the Southern Urals — they just didn’t recognize their own relatives after being gone so long. Anyhow, that Caucasian nation-phasion was the product only of Max Mueller’s addled brain. Question is, what was the Jamba Juice he was drinking?
This is of course exactly the same as saying the universe must be elastic.
One thing which hasn’t been proven yet is when “The Vedas” were exactly written/rewritten. In more modern words: When did the first edition come? Which edition are we reading? When was it last edited?
The Vedas are what is called Shruti literature, or that which was heard/revealed, and as such have no date for when they were first compsed/heard. Most Indologists seem to agree that the Rig Veda had been written by 1000 BCE, and the Atharva Veda no later than 500 BCE. Most also accept that a long oral tradition existed before the Vedas were actually written down. It is worth keeping in mind that these dates are likely conservative, as they follow from the intellectual tradition which takes the AIT as an established fact.
As for which edition we are reading, well that would depend on whether you are reading the original sanskrit texts [v. hard to trace out] or the translations. Some of the translations, especially the earlier ones by Mueller and co, do deviate from the original [in the same as Burton’s translation of the Kama Sutra differs from Vatsayan’s treatise], but a long established tradition [from ~ 500 BCE] of Sanskrit literature does insist on no alterations to the text itself. Which is why you’d find the dissenting comments/thoughts as commentaries attached to the original, with their authors clearly attributed.
I haven’t come across any theory which holds Shamkaracharya as the founder of Hinduism. Could you direct me to the relevant articles/books please?
1) Hinduism doesn’t have prophets.
2) Hinduism was not established by Gods.
3) Term “Hindu” is foreign (Used by persians to describe those living beyond Sindhus *)
3 a) Just as India is derivation of river Indus (Used by greeks)
4) Hinduism has various schools. Further there is never a strictly limiting set of canons. (However there is a limiting set of most accepted and followed scriptures). These scriptures were written and schools established by different gurus (philosophers) at different times. Therefore there is no “standard” Hindnuism.
5) Therefore there is never a static “Hinduism” . It changes.**
6) Also a better comparision of Hinduism will be with Greeks or Chinese.
** This is not to say it is absolutely “anything goes”, but besides certain positions (About Brahman), it is pretty much it.
I would LOVE for one of the old Vedic principles to come out as a real physical principle. However, there is still some time before that can happen. Also, the “age of the universe” as deduced from the Vedas is more like 17 billion years, which is about 5 billion years off our current estimates, but it is right order of magnitude.
Also, they DID think of numbers upto 10^53, which is amazing at so many different levels.
Adi Sankara’s advaita philosophy is a pretty recent school of hindu philosophy. There are several schools of hindu philosophy which predate him by about 1500 years (he lived around 788-820 A.D). The advaita school belongs to the yogic tradition in hindu philosophy which itself is a derivative of Samkhya (from before Buddhist times ~500 B.C). Samkhya belongs to the six schools of hindu philosophy which acknowledge the centrality of the Vedas. The seventh is an atheistic school, known as the Charvakan school. It is incorrect to say that hinduism did not exist before Sankara (this is a canard often used against hinduism). Sankara himself was responsible for synthesizing many of the ideas of his predecessors (including Gaudapada, his teacher) into advaita.
The schools of Hindu thought were necessary for the evolution of both the Buddhist and Jaina schools of logic, which were formed through a conflict with existing Samkhya and other schools of thought. Wikipedia has a nice introduction to these issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_philosophy#Vaisheshika
Incidentally, Sankara’s advaita also places prominence on the Jnana yoga for the attainment of Moksha, as prescribed in the Bhagavad Gita, which itself predates Sankara by several hundreds of years.
Having some wax ready is always a good idea!