"THE ENDLESS UNIVERSE"
Cosmologists have converged on a highly successful
theory of the evolution of the Universe based on the big bang picture and
inflationary cosmology. According to the theory, the Universe began 15
billion years ago filled with matter and radiation of nearly infinite temperature.
However, in the last year, a radical alternative paradigm has emerged which
challenges nearly every aspect of the standard picture. In this ``Cyclic
Universe," space and time exist forever, inflation is avoided, and the
temperature and density of the universe never exceed a trillion trillion
degrees. This talk will introduce the Cyclic Universe picture, showing
how it re-obtains all of the successful predictions of the standard model
and explains features which the conventional picture does not.