Most cosmologists trace the birth of the universe to the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. But a new analysis of the relic radiation generated by that explosive event suggests the universe got its start eons earlier and has cycled through myriad episodes of birth and death, with the Big Bang merely the most recent in a series of starting guns.

That startling notion, proposed by theoretical physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford in England and Vahe Gurzadyan of the Yerevan Physics Institute and Yerevan State University in Armenia, goes against the standard theory of cosmology known as inflation.

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"This pop-article exaggerates and should be taken with caution. Indeed, Roger Penrose himself does not go that far and admits that the "circles" may be interpreted differently. So far the idea of cyclic universes is even more speculative than my idea of the back-from-the-future hologram universe." -- Jack Sarfatti