Once Before Time

In his introduction to a revolutionary theory of the cosmos Martin Bojowald shows how the big bang theory may give way to the big bounce theory which describes our universe as an eternal series of expansions and contractions with no beginning and no end.In 2000 Bojowald then a twenty-seven-year-old postdoctoral student at Pennsylvania State University used a relatively new theory called loop quantum gravitya cunning combination of Einsteins theory of gravity with quantum mechanicsto create a simple model of the universe. Loop quantum cosmology or LQC was born and with it a theory that managed to do something even Einsteins general theory of relativity had failed to doilluminate the very birth of the universe.