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Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by throwaway1312 on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @06:48PM (#24713711)
There's a theorem "Poincaré recurrence theorem" which says if a system is finite, given infinite time, it will return to a state arbitrarily close to its initial state.

While the theorem itself is well proven, I can't find a physicist who can say one way or another whether this applies to our universe.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/200722/poincaré-...

Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by escape_goat on Thursday October 08, 2020 @12:51AM (#24715950)
My apologies, but I believe that this theorem applies to a subset of possible systems with certain properties which are called "conservative systems," not any arbitrary system.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by fsflover on Thursday October 08, 2020 @12:10PM (#24720494)
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by orbifold on Thursday October 08, 2020 @03:56AM (#24716925)
It doesn’t apply to the universe because of GR at least that is the conventional view I think.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by OJFord on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @07:18PM (#24713974)
The objection hasn't been made in your SE question, so I assume I am missing something, but why does 'if a system is finite' apply to the universe? The 'given infinite time' would need to be a 'faster' infinite than universal expansion?

(Obviously IANAPhysicist.)

Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by minitoar on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @09:44PM (#24714804)
Not sure if I'm missing your point, but an expanding universe can still be finite.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by OJFord on Thursday October 08, 2020 @03:49AM (#24716885)
The food on your plate is finite, but if you're served more faster (no slower) than you eat it, then you won't empty the plate even given infinite time.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by minitoar on Thursday October 08, 2020 @11:17AM (#24719875)
That doesn’t sound like a closed system anymore.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by enkid on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @09:57PM (#24714863)
The visible universe is finite and the visible universe is the only thing that can affect us. I believe that would make it apply.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by n3k5 on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @11:03PM (#24715242)
The observable universe would have to be a conservative system for Poincaré recurrence to apply to it. I don't think that's possible; isn't it leaking matter that looks like it won't come back?

I don't understand all the properties a system must have so the Poincaré recurrence theorem applies, but as long as we don't know whether the (entire) universe is finite, that's sufficient to show that Poincaré recurrence may be impossible. In that situation, we can either find information that makes it impossible for sure, or otherwise we know that we don't know.

‘Nothing else can affect us‘ doesn't contradict that, because ‘us‘ would cease to exist at the Poincaré recurrence time (if not earlier).

N.B. I'm just pointing out some basic things, while having no clue how much merit the idea has in the first place, even if the universe has finite state space and infinite time. (I mean just the idea of trying to apply the Poincaré recurrence theorem to the whole universe, not Penrose's work.) AFAICT the proof only says that almost every state recurs infinitely often. So if you picked some state at random as your starting state, it's essentially guaranteed that it will recur, but when it comes to applying this to the universe, isn't it presumptuous to regard the big bang as such a state?

Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by yk on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @11:20PM (#24715347)
Assume that the volume of the visible universe grows, and then consider a ball that just circles on larger and larger circles. Clearly, the ball does not need to get back arbitrarily close to where it started.
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by GreenHeuristics on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @10:35PM (#24715058)
Re:An earlier universe can still be observed today, says Rog... by tripzilch on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:51AM (#24717536)
There's a cool Numberphile video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GCf29FPM4k