Cosmological Recycling

Given all the cycles we see in the universe, I've often wondered why the Big Bang wouldn't be part of a cycle as well.

Guardian Science covers a new theory that addresses such the idea of multiple Big Bangs:

"The universe is at least 986 billion years older than physicists thought and is probably much older still, according to a radical new theory.

The revolutionary study suggests that time did not begin with the big bang 14 billion years ago. This mammoth explosion which created all the matter we see around us, was just the most recent of many."

link

It leaves me thinking of Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence:

"For time is infinite, but the things in time, the concrete bodies are finite.... Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again.... And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me..." The Gay Science

And that leaves me thinking of Woody Allen:

"Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. God - I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." -- Woody Allen

Ultimately, perhaps we'll come to a cosmological theory in which the universe perpetually expands and contracts, in cycles lasting billions of years, with a Big Bang always ultimately returning to a concentrated point before exploding in an identical and perfectly deterministic way that results in every event and experience being forever repeated in the finest detail, our lives lived obliviously over and over for all time. Or maybe it just keeps expanding. :)