What utter bollox.
The universe would begin to contract and eventually compact into a small hard ball - a similar state to the pre-Big Bang.
If anything shows a wholesale misunderstanding then it's that gem.
* You can't have the universe as "a small hard ball", as if you did, then what would be outside this "small hard ball"?
* We have no real clue what "was" pre-Big Bang - but I'd be pretty sure it wasn't some steady state "small hard ball". And there is absolutely no theory I've ever heard of that such a pre-Big Bang state ever existed.
* They seem to be talking about something happening to matter. But what about dark matter and dark energy, that make up over 90% of the universe? Nobody has any real clue as to what those even are; how can you predict that they would go into a "small hard ball"?
Mind you the research is great for one "first" - they've got caveats on their caveats!
