18 Chait, Kathmandu. Physicists have put forward a new and revolutionary theory about how the universe began, which has the potential to change our view of the initial moments after the ‘Big Bang’.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics have discovered how the rapid expansion of the universe occurred naturally through ‘quantum gravity’.

According to research published in ‘Physical Review Letters’, Professor Niayesh Afshordi and his team have used ‘quadratic quantum gravity’, challenging the limits of Albert Einstein’s ‘General Relativity’.

Although Einstein’s theory did not work in the very high-energy early universe, this new theory explains how gravity is balanced even in those extreme conditions.

Previous models had to add separate external elements to explain the expansion of the universe, but this new theory claims that the expansion is a natural consequence of gravity.

The most interesting aspect of this theory is the clear prediction it makes about ‘primordial gravitational waves’, the tiny waves produced at the birth of the universe.

If the new instruments can detect these waves, for the first time in human history, experimental evidence of the quantum form of gravity and the true origin of the universe will be found.