The Mother Universe

Perhaps the closest modern parallel to the "Barbelo" may be found in the inflationary model, or the idea that our universe - and the big bang which produced it - emerged as the result of a "quantum fluctuation" in some sort of primieval cosmic vaccum.

In quantum physical terms, a vacuum is neither empty nor unchanging, but "a miniature universe quietly bubbling with its own inherently unstable energy" [1] - an eternally replenished source of "virtual particles" which pop in and out of existence like the effervescence dancing on the surface of a carbonated beverage.

If inflationary cosmologists are correct, it may be that our own universe began when one of these "bubbles" took on a life of its own and somehow became real, peeling off from the vacuum to expand into an entire universe:

"…in the bizarre realm of quantum cosmology, no energy is stolen from the primordial vacuum; it is simply in a different form than it was before. All the matter in our universe consists of positive energy, which is apparently balanced by the negative energy of gravity. The total energy of the universe, therefore, could be exactly zero. As quantum cosmologist Alan Guth, one of the developers of this concept, once remarked: "Our universe seems to be the ultimate free lunch." [2]

DID THE UNIVERSE CREATE ITSELF?

Recent versions of inflationary theory hold that a "mother universe" (rather than a vacuum) produced the bubble which became the big bang, and that this mother universe has continued to produce baby universes, which in turn produce even more baby universes, and so on. So where did this mother universe come from in the first place?

Richard Gott and Li-Xin Li of Princeton University suggest that the "mother universe" somehow gave birth to itself when one if the universes it created looped back in time to produce it:

"Linde has shown that inflating universes can give rise to baby universes with the baby universes budding off like branches from a tree. But one might ask: "Where does the trunk come from?" Li and I propose that one of the branches simply loops around to become the trunk… In this model - an alternative to the tunneling from nothing idea - the universe is its own mother…." [3]

In this scenario, the mother universe exists as a "closed timelike curve," an "eternal cluster of galaxies" where time repeats itself in a great, cosmic case of deja-vu; "This first universe created itself and was its own mother, making the first matter in some way we will never be able to know," Gott suggests. [4]

FOOTNOTES

1. Terence Dickinson, From the Big Bang to Planet X, p.25, pub. A.D. 1993

2. Ibid., p. 26

3. Abstract for Richard Gott's Seminar, "Can the Universe Create Itself? ," http://www-astro-theory.fnal.gov/Seminars/spring99/Gott.html

4. July 20, 1998 - U.S. News & World Report, Is Ours the Only Universe? Scientist's Surprising Theories