Stephen Hawking has just signed a letter to protect the doctrine of the origin of the universe

Last February, three scientists announced an article to counteract the theory that "The Universe is expanding", the theory of the origin of the universe. This has caused the tumultuous scientific community and the world's top 33 physicists to decide to "leave it alone".

People have always wondered about the origin of the universe for centuries. Recently an event in the scientific world has happened that people have to talk about, when the 33 most famous physicists in the world have published a rather harsh letter, in order to protect the main thesis of the hypothesis of origin. Space.

The letter is a rebuttal to a study in Scientific American in early February. This article has the topic of reflecting on the theory of Expansion Universe (Inflation Theory) written by three other scientists. The idea of ​​Cosmic expansion is a description of how the universe expanded after the Big Bang like a balloon. But the article by the three scientists said that this model "could not be judged correctly by scientific methods". This is no different from saying that the Expansion Universe hypothesis is without a scientific basis.

The letter is a rebuttal to a study in Scientific American in early February.

In response, the world's top 33 physicists, including Stephen Hawking, Lisa Randall and Leonard Susskind, countered by giving their own essay to post on Scientific American, and it seems they really very angry.

Universe Theory first expanded to the public by cosmologist Alan Guth in 1980, he is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT. Concept-based theory: After the Big Bang exploded, the universe rapidly expanded and dominated all galaxies according to quantum vibrations.

"When this process slows down, the quantum world is stretched very thin and smooth, creating solid particles that later become galaxies, stars and planets," Josuah Sokol wrote in The Alantic. .

Years later, Gruth's idea was widely accepted and applied by Stanford physicists, including Andrei Lind. From there, they devote their entire career to the definition of perfecting the theory of Expansion Universe - a pioneering model that answers the question "How is the universe created?".

After the dissertation article was published, Guth, Lind, David Kaiser, Yasunori Nomura and 29 other cosmologists gathered together.

Interestingly, one of the former colleagues of Guth and Linde, the physicist Paul Steinhardt, was one of three people who rejected the theory of expanding universe. Guth, Linde, and Steinhardt together received the prestigious Dirac award for "Efforts and dedication to the concept of expansion in the universe" in 2002.

However, in the following years, Steinhardt turned his back and criticized the theory of very strong expansion. He is one of the three authors of the article entitled "Pop goes the Universe" on Scientific American's Spotlight in February. The article is a collaboration between Princeton physicist Anna Ijjas and astronomer Abraham Loeb from Harvard.

The article is titled "Pop goes the Universe" on Scientific American's Focus section last February.

This article emphasizes recent research on cosmic microwave background radiation - and these studies go against the predictions of expansion theory. At the same time, the article argued that: When the Universe expanded, it would have to create primitive gravitational waves, which no research has yet found.

The data in the article suggest that cosmologists need to review the model and rethink other ideas about the origin of the universe.

These debates are not great, and are common in the scientific community. But what makes Gruth, Lind and 31 other scientists really angry is that the above article suggests that the theory of expansion was inadmissible at the beginning, so it deduced the theory without science.

"They declare eloquently that the theory of Expansion Universe" cannot be judged by the current scientific methods "and attacked those who believe in the theory of expansion universe. The article concludes that those who believe in the theory of Vu The expansion pillar ignores an extremely important concept in science: "Practical examination" and from that "tolerating a kind of science can only be proved by experience and observation, cannot prove by any scientific method " , 33 scientists said in their letter.

"We do not know what these scientists are implying. We disagree with some conclusions in their writings, but in this letter, we will focus on refuting the results. discussing the correctness and correctness of expansion theory ".

They explain that expansion theory relies on too many models and it is impossible that all models are correct. For the past 37 years, several proven models have been accurate, with testable predictions - such as the average density of the universe or its flat shape; But there are still many models that have not been fully explained.

But anyway, all models are capable of being tested in the future, which means they have a scientific basis. Whether true or false, we will prove it depending on the evidence found in the coming years.

A few cosmologists have publicly rejected the theory of expansion.In the meantime, some people are extremely resentful against those ideas.

Ryan F. Mandelbaum also rebutted three physicists in a spectacular original article on Gizmodo:

"We value a theory by verifiable assumptions, not by assumptions that cannot be tested. Of course, there are important things that the expansion model cannot explain. But The appropriate response here should be to try to continue researching to solve those mysteries, or to skip over to study other things (although these are choices depending on the individual scientist). Do not rush to assert that the theory is unfounded, and argue that it has no scientific basis. "

The author of the original article released a FAQ (frequently asked questions) later. Their views remain unchanged - The theory of expansion has been able to verify this theory "when published in the 80s with the aim of making accurate judgments, has become an impossible theory. floating any precise prediction ".

This brings us back to the starting point. A few cosmologists have publicly rejected the theory of expansion. In the meantime, some people are extremely resentful against those ideas.

Unfortunately, we have no way to solve this problem clearly when our positions are quite certain. Both sides agree that expansion theory is not exactly accurate and perhaps we should have a more open view of the origin of the universe when new data appears.

According to the father of the expanding Universe theory, Alan Guth spoke about the outcome of this controversy, "I think we should go back to the research and see." Our understanding is still too narrow before this immense Universe, one day, perhaps we will have to rewrite the whole physics, change everything we know about the world and this Universe. . But now, be happy with what we have.