New research suggests the universe experienced a "Big Bounce" rather than a "Big Bang" to come into existence.

(Getty Images/Gary S. Chapman)

At a Glance

Researchers suggest that the universe has alternated between periods of expansion and contraction.Scientists offered an explanation for how the "Big Bounce" theory might be plausible.

New research suggests we may be living in a second-generation universe –or even a third or fourth.

Some scientists say the expanding universe may not have been born of a virgin explosion. Instead, they theorize that it could be the rebound from a former, collapsed universe, , according to UPI.

For years, some researchers have suggested that the universe has alternated between periods of expansion and contraction, and the current expansion is just one phase of this.

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The Big Bounce theory isn't a new one and was first proposed in 1922, but researchers have had difficulties reconciling with the notion that anything other that complete destruction would be the result of a collapsed universe, known as the "Big Crunch."

Researchers at Imperial College London have created , along with an answer to the question of how a rebounding universe would be possible, according to.

Their answer: Quantum mechanics saved the collapsed universe from complete destruction.

Quantum Mechanics

The researchers suggest that physical laws of the universe were the same on all scales when the cosmos was young and tiny.

In today's universe, quantum mechanics have different laws that govern subatomic particles, which explains why electrons don't lose momentum and crash into the nucleus, destroying the atom, said the researchers.

These new physical laws governing larger bodies that came into being as the universe expanded probably didn't exist in the younger version of the universe. The research suggests that as the universe collapsed, quantum mechanicstook over and helped turn the collapse of the last universe into the bounce or rebound that created today'scosmos.

"Quantum mechanics saves us when things break down," said Steffen Gielen, a cosmologist at ICL. "It saves electrons from falling in and destroying atoms, so maybe it could also save the early universe from such violent beginnings and endings as the Big Bang and Big Crunch."

Big Bounce

The new model suggests the earliest universe rebounded from a collapsed universe filled with radiation and devoid of matter, which allowed quantum mechanics to maintain order and encourage re-expansion.

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"The big surprise in our work is that we could describe the earliest moments of the hot Big Bang quantum mechanically, under very reasonable and minimal assumptions about the matter present in the universe," added Neil Turok, director of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. "Under these assumptions, the Big Bang was a 'bounce,' in which contraction reversed to expansion."

The researchers are now turning their attention to understanding how their model might explain disturbances in the structure of the early universe, like those that yielded the first galaxies.

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