Bubble universes give new perspective to time’s origin and its arrow
Fans of T.S. Eliot are all aware that the world will end with a whimper. Fans of modern cosmology know that the world began with a bang, a big one. But the flow of time that transports the world from bang to whimper, from past to future, may itself neither begin nor end.
In any event, time’s possible birth and death remain open questions, debated among physicists groping to understand the cosmos. It seems that the spacetime bubble that humankind has grandly designated “the universe” did have a violent beginning 13.7 billion years ago, but that doesn’t mean the clock of ages began ticking only then. Many experts believe today’s universe is the offspring of a preexisting space. Like one of many baby soap bubbles sprouting from a bigger parent bubble, the “universe” is perhaps just one of countless siblings in a gigantic cosmic family. As each baby grows (universes expand, you know), it might become a parent as well, spawning new bubble universes that then spawn others, ad infinitum. Really, infinitely into the future. Forever.