One physicist has a pretty wild theory that a 'mirror' universe existed prior to the Big Bang, and it's moving back in time symmetrically with us.
Space is often confusing, and there is much that even the most well-informed scientists simply can't explain.
For example, the universe is expanding at an unexpected rate, yet the most that researchers can point to is the existence of 'dark' materials that don't technically exist.
That is far from the strangest theories about our universe though, as some physicists have produced some rather wild hypotheses that technically make scientific and logical sense - and would change everything if somehow proved to be true.
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Theories of a 'mirror' universe have been proposed by Neil Turok in The Conversation, who is the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh.
Contrary to popular ideas of a 'multiverse' in which we exist alongside an unpredictable number of alternate universes each with their own physical properties and laws, Turok suggests that "the universe is very simple and predictable on both the largest and smallest scales," doing away with inflation and string theory that typically dominate these conversations.
He explains the notion of 'conformal symmetry' in which "neither light nor massless particles actually experience the shrinking away of space at the big bang."
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As a result of this, Turok outlines that he "could describe the initial singularity as a 'mirror': a reflecting boundary in time (with time moving forward on one side, and backward on the other)."
Of course, we have found ourselves on the side that has time moving 'forward', but this new hypothesis suggests the notion of a mirrored universe where time moves equally in reverse - meeting at the point of the big bang.
This is somewhat backed up by oddities within space, as "one of the most basic puzzles about the universe is that it appears to [violate CPT symmetry] because time always runs forward and there are more particles than anti-particles."
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This very much conflicts with our innate understanding of physics - especially within CPT symmetry which explains the notion of identical 'mirror' processes occurring at the same rate as their original - and thus suggests an alternate existence that we're simply not aware of as yet.
Furthermore, much like the dark matter that is seemingly causing the universe to expand, these particles would serve as the perfect explanation for currently existing 'neutrinos' that don't yet have a mirror themselves.
"Stable, right-handed neutrinos would be the perfect candidate for dark matter because they don't couple to any of the known forces except gravity... Our mirror hypothesis allowed us to calculate exactly how many would form, and to show they could explain the cosmic dark matter."
It's certainly an intriguing hypothesis, especially as it's more than backed up by logic that would otherwise seem absurd, so perhaps there's a mirrored image of all of us in another universe that we simply don't know exists yet.