The Big Bang Theory

[X-ray]

No, I'm not talking about my ex girlfriend here...

The basic premise of the BBT (as I understand it) is that in the beginning all the matter and energy that makes up the universe today was concentrated into a very small space. Some people call this a 'singularity'. There was an explosion eminating from this singularity and all the constituents expanded outwards in all directions from that point, and over a period of time (and with the influence of mechanisms I do not want to debate here) the universe as we know it evolved from those constituents.

Anyway, without getting into any mathematics and formulae, and just applying basic reasoning (because I myself am a basic individual  :-D ) I would like to know where the original singularity came from.

Because to me, specifying that all the constituents of our universe were happily packaged in a little 'handgrenade' is just as difficult to explain as a massive factory made out of liquorice sticks, churning out stars and planets at will. My question is unchanged if someone asserts that an almighty being created the universe, in that I want to know where that being came from.
I have a theory, but first I want to hear what you think about the BBT as it stands.

[Abou27]

Well, it is beyond our scope; like trying to imagine nothing.

Maybe humans keep detroying the universe and the constituents spontaneously form a new one:-)  As to the original, I refer you to my first response.

[Doobrey]

 What`s that law that says something like "Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just transferred to another form" ??
 
 So where did the energy come from that was given off in the big bang? ..doesn`t it all just lead to a chicken and egg situation that just freaks everyone out because it reminds us of how insignificant we are in the scheme of things..

I dare say Blobsie will be along to tell me I should have paid attention in physics classes.
 

[Karlos]

Part of the problem is, once you reach your singularity point, all existing physics breaks down because, amongst other things, you get infinity (which will wreck any mathematical operation) cropping up in your calculations. Without elemental mathematics, it becomes impossible to model the problem.

We simply don't have the analytical tools to describe it concisely.

[X-ray]

But why do we have to model the problem with mathematics? The way I see it, there are only two ways in which the BBT can even be considered:

1) The grenade appeared out of nothing.
2) The grenade was always there and will always be there, only the distribution and configuration of its constituents changes.

I reject (1) because I can't accept something coming out of nothing.

I like (2), but only if it is a cycle. And then I have to conclude that the cycle can't be regarded as a single item in itself, otherwise we have infinite iterations and we don't get to the root of the problem. What I mean is, explaining where the cycle came from is going to be as difficult and analogous to explaining where the grenade came from, so an explanation of how the constituents were created within the cycle should satisfy us for the purpose of this question.

[Karlos]

@X-Ray

In a respect, the BBT implies (2) - although not necessarily cyclically. This is because time, a property of this universe we find ourselves in, effectively began at the BB point also. That is, there was no "before" the BB as time itself began then. Therefore the 'grenade' was always there.

As for (1), well particles pop into existance and wink out of it all the time at the smallest scale of the universe (IIRC, that is). However, these particles appear in matched pairs, the net energy of which is zero.

This is one of the mechanisms by which black holes may lose energy. I don't recall the exact premise, but at the boundary of an event horizon, som of these particles are swallowed into the black hole and their mirrors ejected. The net effect is that the black hole loses energy (and hence mass).

[Abou27]

Surely, if you you reject (1), you muat always reject (2).  We can all put forward theories but we must accept that these are problems that we cannot solve.  You cannot explain how the constituents of the cycle were created without considering the origins of the cycle; which we can't do.  These are questions that we can speculate upon to pass a few years:-)

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

"... That is, there was no "before" the BB as time itself began then. Therefore the 'grenade' was always there..."


But does this mean that there was a finite starting point for this? Because if there was, then I have the same problem of getting something out of nothing. However, if there was not a finite starting point for this, then what was there at T minus 1 hour? In other words, unless we got the grenade from nothing, what was the state of play before the BB? How long had the grenade been sitting there? And if time was zero (in the case of the grenade not appearing out of nothing), then what was the precursor to starting the grenade's fuse?
I can't accept (understand) a linear progression of the universe, I can only understand a cyclic one.

[Cymric]

My view is basically that it came down to a quantum fluctuation. As far as we know, genuine mathematical singularities do not exist in this universe, when things become short, small or weak enough, Heisenberg (or his amendments incorporating gravity) steps in. There are still tons of problems---most of them mathematical as they cannot be empirically tested and thus fall outside the realm of science (!)---to solve before this view yields a consistent hypothesis. There are even some voices who speculated that we cannot describe Nature at these extremes because the mathematics at our disposal, in the shape of the very fundamental ZFC axions, is inadequate. The ZFC axioms make certain assumptions about the system we want to study, and there are some good, if somewhat heuristical arguments around to explain that these do no necessarily apply to the universe as a whole.

However, sometimes people succeed in doing some very remarkable things. Recently, a group of theoretical physicsists was able to construct a Universe out of quantum foam: the stuff you end up with if you quantize space as well as energy. The amazing thing: those calculations wouldn't normally yield a three-dimensional universe (rather bizarre two- or four-dimensional ones), unless you introduced a maximum velocity (speed of light) and a measure of causality... And then the foam spontaneously formed an expanding three-dimensional universe! There have been other such 'amazing!' discoveries: I vaguely recall reading up on research which managed to derive both Heisenberg's and Schrödinger's equations from the mere fact that quanta exist.

In any case, once you start reading these things, there really is not shortage to the number of ideas. Multiple universes, endless pulsating ones, universes shaped like a horn or like a soccer ball, universes curved in on themselved so that you never reach the 'edge', ... And all currently have the same status: your guess is as good as mine.

So what's yours :-)?

[Abou27]

@Karlos

Can you explain how time effectively began at the 'BB' point? It is very easy to say time began at this point and so we can disregard certain points because they may have happened 'before' time.

Time is not necessarily a property of the universe we find ourselves in; rather, it is a property we choose to assign in order to persuade ourselves that we understand more of the universe than we do.

[Karlos]

Cymric wrote:

However, sometimes people succeed in doing some very remarkable things. Recently, a group of theoretical physicsists was able to construct a Universe out of quantum foam: the stuff you end up with if you quantize space as well as energy. The amazing thing: those calculations wouldn't normally yield a three-dimensional universe (rather bizarre two- or four-dimensional ones), unless you introduced a maximum velocity (speed of light) and a measure of causality... And then the foam spontaneously formed an expanding three-dimensional universe!

The interesting things for me here are,

1) Is there any way to derive the origin of c as a fundamental property that in turn gives rise to the 3D universe, or is it the weak anthropic principal that c exists because if it didnt, the universe we are in would be x-dimensional?

2) What develops for different values for c?

@X-Ray

The idea of time beginning with the big bang was that it would be a finite starting point, with no "beforehand" for there to be any discussion about what was before.

I don't know exactly what the current cosmological flavour of the month is - as Cymric says there are very many right now :-)

[Cymric]

Doobrey wrote:
What`s that law that says something like "Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just transferred to another form" ??

First Law of Thermodynamics. However, you should be careful with this formulation: better is to say: the sum energy of a system is constant, and might be zero. It's been too long to tell you whether 'system' implied a closed or even isolated one. What is important is the constancy bit.
 

So where did the energy come from that was given off in the big bang? ..doesn`t it all just lead to a chicken and egg situation that just freaks everyone out because it reminds us of how insignificant we are in the scheme of things..

As far as I know, current lore has it that the energy was supplied in the form of gravitational repulsion, which was immense, and negative, at t = 0. (Yesyes, gravity attracts, and does not repulse, that's why Mr. Guth's theory made such an impact.) The negative gravitational energy turned into positive matter energy, resulting in a constant-sum game, whose value just happens to be zero. However, trying to prove this scientifically is a can of worms: you need particle accelarators in Lunar orbit if not more to verify these ideas.

[X-ray]

@ All

But that is what I have issues with: the flavour of the month. If there is a finite start, then we have something out of nothing, and I'm left scratching my head.

@ Cymric

I still have a problem (look, my maths and physics isn't like yours, so I look at things in terms of what I can explain in plain English): the quantum foam is SOMETHING, and to me it is just another handgrenade. As I said before, I don't want to speculate on the shape or configuration of the "thing" from which all this was created, I want to know where it came from. Whether someone says it is 'quantum foam' or 'liquorice sticks' is all the same to me. Even if all this came from a single atom, it is that atom's origin that I want to know about.

[Abou27]

So, you want an answer to an unanswerable question? Don't we all?


You want to know where it comes from and where the atoms that form 'it' come from.  It ain't going to happen.  There will always be a 'before'. Apologies for simple rather than scientific way of looking at things.

[X-ray]

@ Abou

That's part of my point. There will always be a 'before', and the only way I can comprehend it is if it is a cycle.

Edit: this link describes my view a bit better:

http://www.rubak.com/article.cfm?ID=14