All Seeing Eye
Admiral
My Sci Tech posting days are over.
The Big Bang
- Thread starter All Seeing Eye
- Start date
- Status
I thought I'd take this opportunity to point out that threads like that ^ have only recently become somewhat common in Sci/Tech. There are a couple of posters who like to post very broad hypothetical questions and a few others who are apparently so offended by this that they aren't willing to either ignore them or play along and so instead turn every thread into a shit-fest of insults. There was recently a poster named noknowes who was almost certainly a troll, and was certainly the most ignorant and intellectually insulting person to post here in quite a while. He deserved most of what he got because he was playing games, but the spirit of "giving" seems to have gotten out of hand in this forum and is being spread to people who perhaps don't deserve it and the moderator's leash is quite slack at the moment.
This forum is quite often a very good place to get answers or have a scientific discussion. There are some very learned individuals with advanced degrees and deep knowledge in a variety of subjects.
On the OP, you are asking some pretty broad questions, many of which we don't have answers to. How did the universe expand if there was "nothing" to expand into? When we say "nothing", that "nothing" is actually everything but that whichexists in our space time continuum. There might be literally nothing, it might be an extra-dimensional membrane (like Jadzia alluded to), it might be a ball of alien cotton candy! The important thing is that it's completely detached from everything we can experience in our own universe at the moment. There wasn't "space-time" as we know it with a little point of light in the middle that exploded and created all of the matter we know. There was just the singularity, a ball of stuff infinitely compact, pretty much alien to our current understanding of physics. If it existed "in" something or as the result of something, we don't have enough information to tell us what that might have been. The singularity expanded, and inside that ball of stuff came about all the matter and energy and space and time that we can experience. There are some theories about what the universe might have expanded into or from where it might have originated, but it's all speculation. That's what high-energy particle experiments try to do, pull back the layers of time so we might see what actually happened at the moment it all started. There are people involved in string theory and m-theory and other branches of theoretical physics who postulate that there might be ways to infer what is "outside" of our universe (if there is anything) via the behaviour of physics in our own, but we might never truly be able to prove it one way or another outside of mathematics (a bit like strings themselves actually).
And on that note, "if strings exist, could there be something smaller?" Perhaps. But perhaps you should wait until we find out whether or not strings are actually real before speculating what might exist beyond them.
I know some people like to poo-poo on science popularists like Brian Greene because they sometimes makes errors you couldn't get away with on your Quantum Physics final exam in university, but books like that really are a great bridge between laymen like myself and physicists who spend their days working in labs and scribbling indecipherable maths all day. It's simply hard to explain and visualize complex math which is where a lot of the errors in translating things to the public come from. As it has been noted (as Greene himself notes), even career physicists have a hard time wrapping their heads around what some of this stuff means when related to practical, every-day reality.
Get this book and by the time you reach the end of it you should have most of the answers you're looking for, as much as anyone without the appropriate level of mathematical knowledge could hope to anyway, and given our current level of understanding (lack of understanding) in these areas. It's about the Big Bang, inflation, space-time and also has a chapter about string theory. It's a few years old now and I'm sure scientists have discovered a few more clues and perhaps ruled out some things, but I try to keep as up to date about this kind of thing as I can and I don't think our understanding of things has progressed that much since it was written.
Sorry for the long post.
Last edited:
The Universe always existed. Or, there was never a time when the Universe did not exist. It always existed!
I posted that once and got shot down. They made all good points and said good stuff, but I still couldn't believe it. I don't know why. I have had the same questions the OP has had for a long time and the only thing I can come up with is that it was always there because that is the answer that makes the most sense. Nature seems to do things that make sense. It is fundamentally complicated, however when all of the hard parts come together, everything makes sense.
So to me the only thing that made sense was that the Universe always existed. It gave me faith. Faith is believing in something you cannot prove. So scientifically speaking I have faith in this belief.
We just don't know enough about the Universe to make sense of it just yet. I believe that current concepts are incorrect and we will need more time to understand how everything works. The big bang cannot be observed so that will be tough to prove. The cosmic background radiation as we know it today, might turn out to be something else. I believe the "Universe is expanding" might be a misconception of how Space itself operates. I mean we don't fully know what the fabric of space is made of nor to know how Time factors in, if it even does at all! So we cannot assume that what we think we know now is actually correct.
It is confusing. It is tough to comprehend. Human minds have difficulty understand such broad concepts as space and time. Our perception of reality is based on an existence of 70 years or so (an average Human life span). But the life span of a Star like the Sun, is 5 Billion years! How can a Human comprehend that amount of time?
So I'm just saying, and please don't hate on me for these opinions, but just try to understand that we don't fully understand the Universe yet so anything is possible. Just try to figure out what makes sense to you, and see if you can find evidence for such a theory. If it works for you, then stick with it, just know that someone might disagree with you.
I posted that once and got shot down. They made all good points and said good stuff, but I still couldn't believe it. I don't know why. I have had the same questions the OP has had for a long time and the only thing I can come up with is that it was always there because that is the answer that makes the most sense. Nature seems to do things that make sense. It is fundamentally complicated, however when all of the hard parts come together, everything makes sense.
So to me the only thing that made sense was that the Universe always existed. It gave me faith. Faith is believing in something you cannot prove. So scientifically speaking I have faith in this belief.
We just don't know enough about the Universe to make sense of it just yet. I believe that current concepts are incorrect and we will need more time to understand how everything works. The big bang cannot be observed so that will be tough to prove. The cosmic background radiation as we know it today, might turn out to be something else. I believe the "Universe is expanding" might be a misconception of how Space itself operates. I mean we don't fully know what the fabric of space is made of nor to know how Time factors in, if it even does at all! So we cannot assume that what we think we know now is actually correct.
It is confusing. It is tough to comprehend. Human minds have difficulty understand such broad concepts as space and time. Our perception of reality is based on an existence of 70 years or so (an average Human life span). But the life span of a Star like the Sun, is 5 Billion years! How can a Human comprehend that amount of time?
So I'm just saying, and please don't hate on me for these opinions, but just try to understand that we don't fully understand the Universe yet so anything is possible. Just try to figure out what makes sense to you, and see if you can find evidence for such a theory. If it works for you, then stick with it, just know that someone might disagree with you.
I'm not sure if the questions are serious or not, or if my answers are required at this point. But I'll give a try. I'll be very short. It could be expanded if needed (and I have the time). You will notice a lot "quotes", because this are not well explained by common words. You really need to dig up the math to make sense of it.
I don't think I can explain all of this well enough for anyone to understand. Hell, I studied it for years and I'm still very fuzzy on a lot of issues, and I had great teachers and professors. I suggest you to pick up some books and start reading. Here is not the best way to understand cosmogony physics. But maybe it's a start.
They weren't. They "condensed" from energy a short time after the BB.
The same as matter.
No time = no how long. In other words, your question is meaningless in the BB theory mindframe.
Time is just another dimension. A geometrical point need no time-dimension to exist. Actually, it need no dimension at all. But it exists, even if just in our minds.
Explosion is a misnomer.
They weren't. Matter and antimatter were created in the fist phases of the universe. They were not "pre-existent".
Sorry pal, this is philosophy, not science.
It stops at the fundamental level, I suppose. That's why finding the "building blocks" is so interesting.
As I understand it (but superstrings physics is not my fiend), strings are not "made" they just "do". You can see them as mathematical constructs, whose actions (oscillations) give rise to matter. At this level of theorization, the separation between "matter" and "action" becomes fuzzy.
Probably, no more that quantum level. Under Plank's length, "space" makes no more sense.
Nothing. The Universe itself is expanding. There is no "external" point of view. Everything is happening "on the inside".
We call it the singularity, because it's singular, i.e. outside the capability of our theory to explain it. We can explain things very early, but not at "instant 0".
Meaningless, as there was no space.
Why it should be?
Sorry, I don't think we can get at the bottom of this here, but maybe give some answers as modern cosmology understands them.
Er, no. The Big Bang created the universe as we know it, including time and space. There was no universe "before" or "outside". Maybe something different, but not the space-time as we understand it.
It's creating space. So it can expand "inside itself".
Actually, an atom is made almost of nothing.
They are mathematical construct. I suppose you can say they are made of "action", without underling "matter", as they create matter with their oscillation.
As we understand it, Plank's length.
Not really. In quantum physics, you arrive at a point where "being" and "acting" are the same thing.
Real enough to pay for my post-doc fellowship, I hope!
It doesn't stop, but it lose meaning as we understand it. The boundary is, wait for it, Plank's time. Under that, time is no more.
Meaningless.
No. Under Plank's length, we don't have time anymore as we understand it.
If by "everything" you mean the universe as we know it, yes it was: the BB. If you mean something else, it's outside the boundary of scientific inquiry, which is a nice way to say I don't know.
"Why?" is not a good question with physics. Try "How?".
Philosophy, not science.
I don't think I can explain all of this well enough for anyone to understand. Hell, I studied it for years and I'm still very fuzzy on a lot of issues, and I had great teachers and professors. I suggest you to pick up some books and start reading. Here is not the best way to understand cosmogony physics. But maybe it's a start.
Last edited:
For the record... I predicted this type of response.
And for the record, I know this is a total waste of time... but lets give it a shot anyways (I've got a couple minutes to spare).
The problem with the balloon analogy is that people can't let go of everything else but the balloon. The balloon is a 3D figure expanding into a 3-space, and people get hung up on that. The fact is, until you (the average person) can live without the flat 3-space construct, no analogy of this type will work.
So lets do some exercises.
When I bring up a torus, most people usually think of a donut shaped object. But that is a flawed vision of what a torus actually is because that is a distorted torus that has been mapped into a 3-space. A torus is a flat 2-space with finite area and no boundaries. If you were a 2-dimensional figure living in this 2-space, moving around would be sort of like this (with the letter "F" representing our figure)...
This is what torus space is like. But if we wanted to map this into Euclidean 3-space, what we end up with is something like this...
Which is flawed when you are trying to understand the intrinsic aspects of the torus space.
Lets look at my favorite 2-space... the Real Projective Plane (RP2).
In RP2 things are a little strange in that as you head off in any direction when you come back around you end up reversed. Go around again and you are back the way you were.
This is a 2-space which is non-orientable. So what would this space look like if mapped into Euclidean 3-space? I've done tons of drawings that are sliced up versions of this type of mapping, but here is a computer generated one.
Which is (again) flawed when you are trying to understand the intrinsic aspects of this space. It is flawed in the same way the balloon analogy is flawed.
So if a torus is a 2-space that is not a subspace of some other space, what would it be like in a 3-torus (a 3-space with the same properties of a 2-torus). It would look something like this (there is only one Earth in that image)...
I don't really expect anyone to understand any of that, it takes effort and an open mind... the two things I've seen very little of around here. People want to argue against what they don't understand rather than make an attempt at learning it... fine, but just admit that you are just asking the question to argue against what you already know is the answer.
As I said before, none of this is free... you want free (simple) answers, ask simple questions. But asking the hard questions requires the asker to work to understand the hard answers.
People around here want everything simple, everything easy, everything safe. The answers are (apparently) uncomfortable for some people, and so the retreat to the safe ideas (saying that no body can understand that stuff). And given that, answering these questions around here is always a waste of time... but I had some time to waste today.
And for the record, I know this is a total waste of time... but lets give it a shot anyways (I've got a couple minutes to spare).
The problem with the balloon analogy is that people can't let go of everything else but the balloon. The balloon is a 3D figure expanding into a 3-space, and people get hung up on that. The fact is, until you (the average person) can live without the flat 3-space construct, no analogy of this type will work.
So lets do some exercises.
When I bring up a torus, most people usually think of a donut shaped object. But that is a flawed vision of what a torus actually is because that is a distorted torus that has been mapped into a 3-space. A torus is a flat 2-space with finite area and no boundaries. If you were a 2-dimensional figure living in this 2-space, moving around would be sort of like this (with the letter "F" representing our figure)...
This is what torus space is like. But if we wanted to map this into Euclidean 3-space, what we end up with is something like this...
Which is flawed when you are trying to understand the intrinsic aspects of the torus space.
Lets look at my favorite 2-space... the Real Projective Plane (RP2).
In RP2 things are a little strange in that as you head off in any direction when you come back around you end up reversed. Go around again and you are back the way you were.
This is a 2-space which is non-orientable. So what would this space look like if mapped into Euclidean 3-space? I've done tons of drawings that are sliced up versions of this type of mapping, but here is a computer generated one.
Which is (again) flawed when you are trying to understand the intrinsic aspects of this space. It is flawed in the same way the balloon analogy is flawed.
So if a torus is a 2-space that is not a subspace of some other space, what would it be like in a 3-torus (a 3-space with the same properties of a 2-torus). It would look something like this (there is only one Earth in that image)...
I don't really expect anyone to understand any of that, it takes effort and an open mind... the two things I've seen very little of around here. People want to argue against what they don't understand rather than make an attempt at learning it... fine, but just admit that you are just asking the question to argue against what you already know is the answer.
As I said before, none of this is free... you want free (simple) answers, ask simple questions. But asking the hard questions requires the asker to work to understand the hard answers.
People around here want everything simple, everything easy, everything safe. The answers are (apparently) uncomfortable for some people, and so the retreat to the safe ideas (saying that no body can understand that stuff). And given that, answering these questions around here is always a waste of time... but I had some time to waste today.
People around here want everything simple, everything easy, everything safe. The answers are (apparently) uncomfortable for some people, and so the retreat to the safe ideas (saying that no body can understand that stuff). And given that, answering these questions around here is always a waste of time... but I had some time to waste today.
I think the problem is, that the answers sound counter-intuitive to our everyday life. We live our day to day lives in a very newtonian world. Everything we experience can be explained by newtonian physics. Now I consider myself fairly intelligent, but I am not a physicist or a scientist of any kind, I've studied Einsteins Theory of relativity and even that is hard to visualize. I mean how can time and length change from one reference point to another, how can events that one observer thinks are simultaneous happen at different times for a different observer. These are all hard to grasp in our normal world. And then you add Quantum and string theory and they make relativity seem like childs play.
Some things just don't seem to make sense to us non physicists, but the math, observation and experimentation has so far backed them up.
Very interesting post, Shaw. You are totally right about the torus. To me it's quite natural to thing about geometry in a certain way, but then again, probably most people aren't.
But really has been the S&T forum as bad recently? I come here now and then, and I'm not up to date with everything happening here...
But really has been the S&T forum as bad recently? I come here now and then, and I'm not up to date with everything happening here...
Nothing; not even emptyness... as mind-bending as that sounds.
And don't try to visualize it; it cannot be done. The human mind is constrained by our evolution (or gods creation) which is intrinsically tied to the laws of _this_ universe. Outside the universe the laws (if there are any) can be vastly different.
Depends on what you mean by "bad." I've seen some topics degrade into the typical flame-sessions. So far this topic seems to be steering clear of such nonsense and I hope it continues.
Cudos to everyone whose posted so far in keeping this a calm and level-headed exchange of ideas.
I'm not saying that everyone is like this, but when people ask hard questions expecting easy answers... and then dismiss the actual answers because they seem counter-intuitive without working (even a little) to learn how to understand them, it gets frustrating.
And lets face it, the medium of this discussion adds to the problems. I could sit someone down in person with paper and pencil or a whiteboard and work them through most of this. But in a post it is very hard to get those same points across... specially when people are often working against understanding.
The balloon analogy earlier only works when the person it is told to is willing to make an effort. Was an effort made to understand it?
You know that to really understand this stuff takes a lot of work. To get a partial understanding (that is, not a full on education in the subject) still requires some work... and a willingness to look at things from outside a comfortable point of view. It just seems like the people asking the questions often don't really want the answers... they want something else.
It is frustrating.
Nope; The big bang is a theory of the origin of the whole universe. Space-Time was _created_ in the Big Bang; not just released matter.
Or as this link says:
http://www.big-bang-theory.com/
"Another misconception is that we tend to image the singularity as a little fireball appearing somewhere in space. According to the many experts however, space didn't exist prior to the Big Bang."
this is interesting for a theoretical time-line:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/univ-nf.html
I missed you in the Dark Matter thread. I was hoping you would post some comments, but alas, you did not.
I found Shaw's post on topology quite interesting. Efforts have been made to see if the universe does have a topology similar to the one he described using CMB observations, and it is quite an interesting idea that the universe may have a non-trivial topology. Such a revelation would certainly raise some very interesting questions about the physics of the first few seconds of the universe, and might even give us a positive direction to go in rather than some of the admittedly fanciful, but sometimes unverifiable ideas floating around at the moment.
I didn't see that one. When was it again? Last week I was in Prague for a well deserved holiday with the fiancée.
Oh, and your post made me all warm and fuzzy inside, in an very academical way, of course!
It is at the bottom of Page 3 in this forum.
You shot my ideas down about the Static State Universe, but I was able to recognize the intelligence in your post. Even though we differ in opinion, mine is based on belief, yours is based on science, I have come to look forward to reading your posts. You are the Italian Iguana in my mind, but one smart lizard when it comes to the Universe.
You shot my ideas down about the Static State Universe, but I was able to recognize the intelligence in your post. Even though we differ in opinion, mine is based on belief, yours is based on science, I have come to look forward to reading your posts. You are the Italian Iguana in my mind, but one smart lizard when it comes to the Universe.
Found it. In general terms, what was said was not really off the mark. I don't think it would be useful to answer it now since the thread has been virtually dead for some time, but if you would like, I can give it a try.
If you excuse me, I think this Iguana has something in his eyes...
Seriously, tho, I'm just doing my job. Happy to be of service.
Tacky (if you ever come back here), a number of the questions you ask in the OP are where science crosses into philosophy, especially the "are we really here? Is it all an illusion?" questions. As Shaw, said, a number of the answers are counter-intuitive, I know when I've looked at this stuff I've ended up scratching my head. The secret is to get source books and papers and read them carefully, following each step. When you understand one step, then move on to the next one, and not before.
With this stuff there are no easy answers, but there are answers if you're prepared to put in the hard yards.
With this stuff there are no easy answers, but there are answers if you're prepared to put in the hard yards.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Erm............no i'm not. I'm asking scientific questions.
Just because someone cannot answer some of the scientific questions does not make them philosophical questions, there is a line between the two.
A science question remains a science question even when it cannot be answered. It doesn't suddenly become philosophical because there's no answer.
It's possible to answer the science questions with philosophical answers but if you go read my original post again in this thread you'll notice I said and I quote:
So because you can't answer it you immediately call it philosophical.
That's not how it works, even if you can't answer it it's still a scientific question.
A question is only scientific or philosophical depending on what kinds of answers you are wanting, it's all down to the answers. I made it clear I wanted only scientific answers therefore the question is scientific and not philosophical.
Why do you think I even said "let's keep it about science."??
I wrote that because I knew the questions could be answered in two ways (Scientifically & Philosophically) and therefore I made it clear as day that I only wanted the answers to be Scientific.
Being unable to answer the question does not make it philosophical, it just means you can't answer the question.
Can I add finally that we're not here to argue over whether a question is scientific or philosophical, it has no baring on the discussion whatsoever. You are either able to answer the questions scientifically or you can't, it's not a case of let's argue over the questions.
- Status
Similar threads
