I've been reading some of Stephen Hawking's work on the theory of the expansion (and ultimate contraction) of the universe and was curious if anyone has every hypothesized that the universe has possibly gone through this cycle before (or many many times before).
I know it would be impossible to determine because the idea of the universe contracting back to the size it was at the point of the Big Bang (or at the end of a Big Crunch) suggests that all of the laws of physics would break down but has anyone hypothesized and written work on this. I'd be curious to read more about the idea if so.