THEORIES THAT STAGGER

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As much as we might like to think that our collective knowledge has unlocked most of the mysteries of the universe, we’ve really only got a hold on a tiny fraction of the knowledge required to fully understand it all—and it’s a weak hold at best. But every once in a while a new theory comes along that completely upends everything we thought we knew and sends us down a new path that just might hold the key to all our unanswered questions. These theories often express ideas that are just too abstract or staggering to be accepted by the larger scientific community at the time, but, over the years, as more discoveries are made and certain pieces fall into place, sometimes even the wildest theories have been proven to be right all along.

While none of the hypothesis we present to you here have ever been conclusively verified, they haven’t been totally dismissed yet either. So why not decide for yourself which of these mind-blowing scientific theories you think has the most potential to pan out.

CLASHING BRANES

Could our universe be a membrane floating in higher dimensional space, repeatedly smashing into a neighbouring universe? According to an offshoot of string theory called braneworld, there are large extra dimensions of space, and while gravity can reach out into them, we are confined to our own “brane” universe with only three dimensions. Neil Turok of Cambridge University in the UK and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University in New Jersey, US, have worked out how the big bang could have been sparked when our universe clashed violently with another. These clashes repeat, producing a new big bang every now and then – so if the cyclic universe model is right, the cosmos could be immortal.

 EVOLVING UNIVERSES

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When matter is compressed to extreme densities at the centre of a black hole, it might bounce back and create a new baby universe. The laws of physics in the offspring might differ slightly, and at random, from the parent – so universes might evolve, suggests Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada. Universes that make a lot of black holes have a lot of children, so eventually they come to dominate the population of the multiverse. If we live in a typical universe, then it ought to have physical laws and constants that optimise the production of black holes. It is not yet known whether our universe fits the bill.

SUPERFLUID SPACE-TIME

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One of the most outlandish new theories of cosmology is that space-time is actually a superfluid substance, flowing with zero friction. Then if the universe is rotating, superfluid spacetime would be scattered with vortices, according to physicists Pawel Mazur of the University of South Carolina and George Chapline at Lawrence Livermore lab in California – and those vortices might have seeded structures such as galaxies. Mazur suggests that our universe might have been born in a collapsing star, where the combination of stellar matter and superfluid space could spawn dark energy, the repulsive force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.

GOLDILOCKS UNIVERSE

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Why does the universe have properties that are “just right” to permit the emergence of life? Tinker with a few physical constants and we would end up with no stars, or no matter, or a universe that lasts only for the blink of an eye. One answer is the anthropic principle: the universe we see has to be hospitable, or we would not be here to observe it. Recently the idea has gained some strength, because the theory of inflation suggests that there may be an infinity of universes out there, and string theory hints that they might have an almost infinite range of different properties and physical laws. But many cosmologists dismiss the anthropic principle as being non-science, because it makes no testable predictions.

GRAVITY REACHES OUT

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Dark matter might not really be “stuff” – it could just be a misleading name for the odd behaviour of gravity. The theory called MOND (modified Newtonian dynamics), suggests that gravity does not fade away as quickly as current theories predict. This stronger gravity can fill the role of dark matter, holding together galaxies and clusters that would otherwise fly apart. A new formulation of MOND, consistent with relativity, has rekindled interest in the idea, although it may not fit the pattern of spots in the cosmic microwave background.

 COSMIC GHOST

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Three mysteries of modern cosmology could be wrapped up in one ghostly presence. After making an adjustment to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, a team of physicists found a strange substance popping out of their new theory, the “ghost condensate“. It can produce repulsive gravity to drive cosmic inflation in the big bang, while later on it could generate the more sedate acceleration that is ascribed to dark energy. Moreover, if this slippery substance clumps together, it could form dark matter.