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A physicist has put the Big Bang theory under scrutiny after he theorised that the universe we live in is in a constant state of expanding and collapsing in on itself, where it is once again reborn for all of eternity.
Juliano César Silva Neves from the University of Campinas in Brazil gives the example of black holes.
One thing that the Big Bang theory and black holes have in common is a singularity – an infinite amount of energy that is so dense that it cannot be explained through current scientific understanding.
At the centre of black holes is the singularity, where the gravitational pull is infinitely strong that not even light can escape.
Under the Big Bang theory, all information was compacted into an infinitesimal point where it could not longer contain itself and then exploded into life.
Mr Neves said: “There are two kinds of singularity in the Universe.
“One is the alleged cosmological singularity, or Big Bang. The other hides behind the event horizon of a black hole.”
However, some scientists argue that there is no such thing as a singularity as it goes against the rules of physics.
Mr Neves said: “There are no singularities in so-called regular black holes.”
Instead, he imagines a ‘Big Bounce’ scenario in which the universe has constantly been expanding since it began.
But some believe this expansion will one day come to a halt and it will eventually recede to an infinitely dense point – a singularity.
Once the universe is at its most compact point, particles could smash into each other, once again causing the Big Bang, making everything expand once more and thus the universe repeats, according to the theory.
Mr Neves said that this could have been going on, and will continue, for eternity.
He said of his work published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation: “Eliminating the singularity or Big Bang brings back the bouncing universe on to the theoretical stage of cosmology.
“This image of an eternal succession of universes with alternating expansion and contraction phases was called the cyclical Universe, which derives from bouncing cosmologies.”