Prior to the Big Bang: New Theory

Many have wondered what happened before the Big Bang. Now, it's not just a simple religious answer. A new theory has sprung up, called the Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG). This theory suggests the possibility of our universe having formed following the collapse of another Universe;a "quantum bounce".

Alejandro Corichi from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Parampreet Singh from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario have developed a simplified LQG model that shows what could have existed before the big bang.
Earlier research has been done but there are some major differences.
Before now, a simplified LQG was used where it was thought that nothing was preserved after the quantum bounce, therefore we could find out nothing about the earlier universe from studying our own.

However, Singh and Corichi modified the simplified form of LQG by adding a key equation called the quantum constraint, which showed that some things like the laws of physics would be retained.
Thus, they believe that if looked at from far away, it would look almost exactly like our own universe. However, just like identical twins could have slight DNA discrepancies or different fingerprints, the universes would also have slight differences.

There are still many questions, such as whether or not the previous galaxies have left imprints on the way the new galaxies have formed. Perhaps they formed in a different way in the previous universe.
Corichi and Singh's model could possibly tell us what the next universe will look like. It may even follow, that this model will predict a collapse of our own universe.