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Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / Science and Technology => Topic started by: X-ray on December 12, 2004, 10:02:31 PM
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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@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).
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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:-)
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@ 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.
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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 :-)?
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@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.
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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 :-)
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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.
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@ 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.
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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.
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@ 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
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Karlos wrote:
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?
I'm not really sure how to answer that question. Partially because the material goes way over my head, and partially because I'm not sure you are allowed to phrase the question like you did. The anthropic principle can just as easily be turned into a simian, a bacterial, or a stellar one, for example. That said: recent calculations in string theory have resulted in the problem that you can create universes out of nothing, but that you can easily have more than 10^100 to chose from. Which of course begs the question: 'Why this one?'. We simply do not know yet.
I will admit that I think the entire undertaking has something of the Baron von Münchhausen in it: we are trying to come up with an explanation why we are here---and despite many impressive advancements, there's a tiny little voice in my head which keeps on saying: 'Because we are, silly.' It is simply a very weird problem.
[/quote]2) What develops for different values for c?[/quote]
I don't know, but my guess would be that it is very hard to say something intelligent about this, as everything inside that universe scales with c. It is the existence of a maximum speed that is important, not that it has the numerical value of c. A consequence (albeit I'm not sure I fully understand why) is that we will never be able to detect a change in c: it will always remain at, IIRC, 299.435.728 km/s. I really ought to dig up the link where I read this, I'll try and do that in the next few days.
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Wow....thanks guys. I was already a bit wobbly and fuzzy in my head due to a cold. But after reading this I have a huge mutha of a headache. Stop playing with my mind!
:-D
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@X-ray:
Unfortunately, I cannot answer your question where it came from. Noone can, because that is what quantum foam means. We cannot hope to develop techniques to peer 'inside' the stuff, Nature won't allow it. Even Nature itself cannot peak inside it. This is completely against common sense, because you'd expect something 'in there'. Well, whatever there is, all we can say is that it obeys a few simple inequalities dealing with momentum, space, time, and energy, but that is truly all. Quantum foam is randomness in its more pure and ultimate form. Where does randomness come from? Noone knows.
Some people have objected very vocally against this sort of description, often to the point of creating a lot of physics which at its core is still nicely predictable, but outwardly resembles the unpredictability of quantum things to the letter. That is introducing needless complexity.
I am very much afraid that your quest stops here. I know, it ties your brain in knots. I try not to think about it very hard, simply because I know I lack the mathematical skills to properly describe things, and thus have to make do with simplistic views which are probably loaded with paradoxes, illogical arguments, and what-not. And now it's off to bed with me, my head is starting to hurt :-).
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Hum,
Here is a small summary of the evolution and beauty of the big bang theory. (As it has not really been properly outlined here).
As I understand it, when the Time = 10^-43 seconds, and the Temp = 10^32K (the Planck epoch), all four fundamental forces were unified and "particles" as we known them could not have existed. Beyond this point, the classical theory becomes meaningless, because our conventional physics breaks-down.
(Sry, no apologies, for my lack of friendly layperson speak – but I have highlighted keywords in bold to be googled)
At this time, it is thought that Gravity and the Strong Force are at the same scale. 1/R2 particles can beis extremely large (R is very, very small), and created from the gravitational field into a 10 dimensional point.
A couple of weird things can happen, for example, one particle can have all the energy of the Universe, and it could be same size as the Universe.
Therefore, even if we had the mathematical tools, I doubt we could really understandb that physics.
Basically, quantum physics tells us that it is meaningless to talk in quite such extreme terms, it is better that we should consider the expansion as having started from a region no bigger across than the so-called Planck length(10^-35m), when the density was not infinite but `only` 10^94 grams per cubic centimetre. (These are the absolute limits on size and density allowed by quantum physics)
At this time, the theory can explain the mechanism; quantum uncertainty.
The idea that the Universe may have appeared out of nothing at all, and contains zero energy overall, was developed by Edward Tryon, New York City University, who suggested in the 1970s, that it might have appeared out of nothing as a so-called vacuum fluctuation, allowed by quantum theory.
Quantum fluctuations would form temporary quantum bubbles, (for example pairs of particles - such as electron-positron pairs) out of `nothing`, provided that they disappear in a short time. The more mass created, the shorter the virtual bubble could exist, and just inside these bubbles, Higgs particles released their energy as they decayed. Supersymmetry was breaking, making the bubble grow.
When the symmetry is broken, forces are decoupled (a phase transition) in a specific manner so that the forces have now separate characteristic.
This defines the physics of our Universe.
It is thought that of the original ten dimensions, 6 compactified, leaving 3 macro-dimensions and one temporal dimension.
(The energy in a space-time gravitational field is negative, while the energy locked up in matter is positive. If the Universe is exactly flat, then the two numbers cancel out, and the overall energy of the Universe is precisely zero. It is also expected that the rotation, and charge, of the Universe is also zero. )
One problem, thought, was as the bubble was gradually filled with energy, and the bubbles of the "true vacuum" (with a nonzero Higgs field) percolate and grew, baryogenesis occuring at or near the bubble walls, the gravity would stop it expanding...
It was a problem encountered with an early version of the theory: that if a quantum bubble (about as big as the Planck length) containing all the mass-energy of the Universe did appear out of nothing at all, its intense gravitational field would immediately crush it into a singularity.
Luckily, development of inflation theory showed how to remove this difficulty and allow such a quantum fluctuation to expand exponentially up to macroscopic size before gravity could crush it out of existence.
Supersymmetry breaking provided the energy for inflation, of course.
For example, at the Planck time, 10^-43of a second, gravity would be created/broken, and by about 10-35 of a second the strong nuclear force.
Within about 10^-32 of a second, the scalar fields would have doubled the size of the Universe at least once every 10-34 of a second (some versions of inflation suggest even more rapid expansion than this).
It would mean that in 10^-32 of a second there were 100 doublings. This rapid expansion is enough to take a quantum fluctuation 10^20 times smaller than a proton and inflate it to a sphere about 10 cm across in about 15 x 10^33 seconds. At that point, the scalar field had crystallized leaving the Universe rapidly expanding so that the influence of gravity would not pull everything back into a Big Crunch.
This give the Universe an outward push (acting like antigravity) while it was a Planck length in size. Such a small region of space would be too small to contain irregularities, so it would start off isotropic and homogeneous. There would have been enough time for signals (travelling at the speed of light ) to have crossed the tiny volume, so there is no horizon problem. In addition, the expansion flattens space-time itself, in much the same way that a balloon becomes smooth, as it is blown-up. If we blow-up the balloon big enough, say the size of the earth, the surface will appear flat.
At this time Supersymmetry breaking is also predicted to have created a few other oddities; cosmic strings are thought to be supermassive relics of this process, forming at phase transitions. Other relic objects from topological defects are also predicted, such as monopoles, textures and domain walls.
In the case of monopoles there should be 10^80 of them out there...
(but we don`t see any - inflation got rid of them)
When the Time = 10^-11 seconds, and the Temp = 3x10^15 k (The GUT epoch) the other three forces remained unified. The small excess of matter that makes up the universe today must have been created during this epoch,
Shortly after the Strong force separates, then the Weak force and the Electrostatic force (which had the same magnitude.)
omega=1
If the Universe starts out with the parameter less than one, omega gets smaller as the Universe ages, while if it starts out bigger than one; omega gets bigger as the Universe ages. The fact that omega is between 0.1 and 1 today means that in the first second of the Big Bang it was precisely within 1 part in 10^60. This makes the value of the density parameter in the beginning one of the most precisely determined numbers in all of science, and the instinctive deduction is that the value is exactly 1.
One important feature of this is that there is a large amount of dark matter or energy in the Universe. Another is that the Universe was made flat by inflation.
[ A common confusion is that inflation seems to violate the faster-than-light rule. Even light takes 30 billionths of a second (3 x 10^-10 sec) to cross a single centimetre, and yet inflation expands the Universe from a size much smaller than a proton to 10 cm across in only 15 x 10^-33 sec. This is possible because it is space-time itself that is expanding, carrying matter along for the ride; nothing is moving through space-time faster than light. Indeed, it is just because the expansion takes place so quickly that matter has no time to move, and the process captured the original uniformity of the primordial quantum bubble. As into what the universe is expanding into is also a bit confusing to the layperson; space-time expands (perhaps I should say `enhances into`) a region that contains no space-time, a region that contains absolute nothing, the Void. ]
The inflationary scenario has already gone through several stages of development during its short history. The first `classical` inflationary model was developed by Alexei Starobinsky, at the L. D. Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics in Moscow, at the end of the 1970s. It was a model based on a quantum theory of gravity, it became known as the "Starobinsky model" of the Universe.
In 1981, Alan Guth, then at MIT, published a different version of the inflationary scenario. Guth came up with the name "inflation" for the process he was describing. There were obvious flaws with the specific details of Guth's original model. In particular, Guth's model left the Universe after inflation filled with a mess of bubbles, all expanding in their own way and colliding with one another. We see no evidence for these bubbles in the real Universe, so obviously the simplest model of inflation couldn't be right.
In October 1981, the Russian cosmologist Andrei Linde presented an improved version, called "new inflation", which got around the difficulties with Guth's model.
The next step forward came with the realization that there need not be anything special about the Planck- sized region of space-time that expanded to become our Universe. If that was part of some larger region of space-time in which all kinds of scalar fields were at work, then only the regions in which those fields produced inflation could lead to the emergence of a large universe like our own. This "chaotic inflation", because the scalar fields can have any value at different places in the early super-universe; it is the standard version of inflation today, and can be regarded as an example of the kind of reasoning associated with the anthropic principle (nothing to do with "chaos theory").
The idea of chaotic inflation led to the next development of the inflationary scenario. A tackling of the singularity and, "before" the singularity. (remember, time itself began at the singularity – so the `before` is not in a temporal sense). Chaotic inflation suggests that our Universe grew out of a quantum fluctuation in some pre-existing region of space-time, and that exactly equivalent processes can create regions of inflation within our own Universe. New universes could bud off from our Universe, and our Universe may itself have budded off from another universe, in a process, which had no beginning and will have no end. A twist on this theory suggests that the process takes place through black holes, and that every time a singularity is formed it expands out into another set of space-time dimensions, creating a new inflationary universe - this is called the baby universe scenario.
Even Darwinian principals can be applied to this process. As new Universes are formed, they (probability) take on the physics of the parent Universe. If the initial conditions are exactly right then the baby Universe will collapse back. This may explains why our Universe is so finely tuned.
There are similarities between the idea of eternal inflation and a self-reproducing universe and the version of the Steady State hypothesis developed by Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar, with their C-field playing the part of the scalar field that drives inflation.
One of the first worries about the idea of inflation (long ago in 1981) was that the process was so efficient at smoothing out the Universe, how could irregularities as large as galaxies, clusters of galaxies and so on ever have arisen? Quantum fluctuations could produce tiny ripples in the structure of the Universe even when our Universe was only 10^-25 of a centimetre across -- a hundred million times bigger than the Planck length.
Observations of the background radiation by a satellite called COBE showed exactly the pattern of tiny irregularities that the inflationary scenario predicts.
The theory said that inflation should have left behind an expanded version of these fluctuations, in the form of irregularities in the distribution of matter and energy in the Universe. These density perturbations would have left an imprint on the background radiation at the time matter and radiation decoupled (about 300,000 years after the Big Bang), producing exactly the kind of nonuniformity in the background radiation that has now been seen, initially by COBE and later by other instruments.
After decoupling, the density fluctuations grew to become the large-scale structure of the Universe revealed today by the distribution of galaxies. This means that the COBE observations are actually giving us information about what was happening in the Universe when it was less than 10-20 of a second old.
No other theory can explain both why the Universe is so uniform overall, and yet contains exactly the kind of "ripples" represented by the distribution of galaxies. This of course does not prove that the theory is correct.
The theory also makes another prediction, that the primordial perturbations may have left a trace in the form of gravitational radiation with particular characteristics, and it is hoped that detectors sensitive enough to identify this characteristic radiation may be developed within the next ten or twenty years.
Another big snag with the simplest inflation models, is that after inflation even the observable Universe is left like a mass of bubbles, each expanding in its own way. We see no sign of this structure, which has led to all the refinements of the basic model. Now, however, this difficulty has been turned to an advantage.
It is suggest that after the Universe had been homogenised by the original bout of inflation, a second burst of inflation could have occurred within one of the bubbles. As inflation begins (essentially at a point), the density is effectively "renormalized" to zero, and rises towards the critical density as inflation proceeds and energy from the inflation process is turned into mass. Nevertheless, because the Universe has already been homogenised, there is no need to require this bout of inflation to last until the density reaches the critical value. It can stop a little sooner, leaving an open bubble (what we see as our entire visible Universe) to carry on expanding at a more sedate rate, into something looking very much like the Universe we live that can arise naturally, with no "fine-tuning" of the inflationary parameters.
All done using the very simplest possible version of inflation, going back to Alan Guth's work, but applying it twice.
In addition, you don't have to stop there. Once any portion of expanding space-time has been smoothed out by inflation, new inflationary bubbles arising inside that volume of space-time will all be pre-smoothed and can end up with any amount of matter from zero to the critical density (but no more)….
Whoops got carried away there…and I haven’t even got to the Ekpyrotic version…
That describes not an infinite point (and gets around the mathematical problems dealing with infinities) but a tiny finite string/membrane (aka 5 dimensional membranes that collided to form the bb)
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So you see, thinking about it turns your brain into knots. That is not meant as a slight at Blobzie's long and informative (and at points somewhat cryptic) post, by the way, it simply is a very difficult subject.
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According to Membrane Theory the big bang possibly happened when two universes collided in the multiverse. The multiverse, being infinite in every way, sort of postpones the question "how did it start". Postpones it indefinitely, in fact.
That's why some people just don't like Membrane Theory. Religious people tend to go running to god when they can't explain something. Theorists go running for infinity (they even have their own dogma: sub-quantum theory. The answer's in the strings and the foam, but we can never reach it!). The difference is rather hard to tell apart in praxis. Science ends when there is no longer any way to prove theory by analysis.
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X-ray wrote:
Even if all this came from a single atom, it is that atom's origin that I want to know about.
1) Atoms didn't exist until quite some time after the big bang (sorry I'm just being cheeky here :-)).
2) In order to have an origin you need to have Time.
3) Time is property of our universe, which cannot exist outside of it.
4) Isn't "Time" just our perception of the rate of change anyway... so we shouldn't look at time at all, but a more abstract property called "Change"?
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@ Blobzie
You almost killed me with that post, I don't understand it. Is there something there that can explain how something can come from nothing? I'm sorry if it is already there, but I can't fathom it. I'm a genuine simple lad in many respects.
@ Bloodline
Yes, I agree that the existence of the universe requires time. It is for this reason that I can't accept that the constituents of our universe appeared out of nothing, together with time. That is like 0=1 to me.
Oh well, I'll just get a cup of coffee (because I can understand that fully, at least)
Edit: @ Blobzie, I am not trying to be a wise-arse, I respect your superior knowledge of these matters, but you lost me there and it's probably my fault.
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@X-ray
Yeah, it’s a common misunderstanding on what nothing is…
Nothing, lets say, is zero …
However, remember, 0 = plus one + minus one = zero….
-1 + +1 = 0
All the mass and energy in the universe is balanced exactly by a negative amount (space-time gravity).
So at the end of the day there is still nothing;
what you see when you look at a table or cup is a `bump` in the landscape of the universe, somewhere else, there is a `dip` to balance it all out to flatness-------------
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I think I just fell in love with blobsie... :-o
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@ seer:
"...I think I just fell in love with blobsie..."
Hey, get in line :-P
@ Blobzie
Aah, but that is where I take issue with your explanation, ma'am:
" (1) + (-1) = 0 "
The problem is, that your result of zero here is linear. It is a consequence of having something to begin with, and then taking it away. It does not explain how I can have nothing to begin with and then have 1.
Unless you are saying that the zero arrived at by adding a minus 1 to a plus 1 is not equivalent to nothingness, in which case that equation is not valid in my quest to explain how 1 can come from 0.
What I mean is, I think you are talking about a mathematical result of zero, whereas I am talking about an actual result of 0. (Nada. Zip. Zilch. Butkis. Nothing to be found. Not one negative, not one positive, no liquorice sticks, gods, foam, chavs, nothing anywhere at all)
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Hum,
You seek -1,
The `one` you see is the table....
The `minus one` that you don’t see is the table’s gravity...
(That a very simple explanation)
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Everything, is an illusion.
you can only have mountains if you have valleys.
Ultimately the, er, Earth is flat...
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@ Blobzie
But...does the table exist?
Edit: what I mean is, it seems that I am being told a kind of balance theory. Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but this scenario seems to be analogous to the one you have put forward:
A balance scale with no items on the platters sits at equillibrium. The platters are at the same level, there is nothing on them, and so we have a balanced resultant of zero. To me that is a genuine nothing. There is nothing on the platters, not on the +1 side, or the -1 side.
Next: we use (what I think) your theory must be analogous to:
I put lkg on one platter, and then another kg on the other platter. The 1 kg cancels the other one out, and the resultant is balanced platters. So the platters are in the same place as when they were empty, and the resultant is zero.
My problem is that someone looking at platter 1 sees a kg block there (even if it is on the +1 side, and if they look at the other platter they will see another kg block there, even if it is on the -1 side)
Do you see where my poor mind struggles with this?
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Hum,
The table exists, as the crest of a wave on the ocean, exists.
However, once the sea was calm; you’ve just caught it when its choppy out there.
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Aw, you replied faster than I could edit: please read my edit, Blobzie.
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Hum,
Yeah that a good analogy for matter /anti-matter that was create at the start.
By all accounts they were produced in equal amounts and they both cancelled out - but not quite...there was a small imbalance (see my big post) and we ended up with matter.
The imbalance of course is due to the creation of space-time gravity (which is the real minus one)
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blobrana wrote:
Hum,
Here is a small summary of the evolution and beauty of the big bang theory. (As it has not really been properly outlined here).
As I understand it, when the Time = 10^-43 seconds, and the Temp = 10^32K (the Planck epoch), all four fundamental forces were unified and "particles" as we known them could not have existed. Beyond this point, the classical theory becomes meaningless, because our conventional physics breaks-down.....
....That describes not an infinite point (and gets around the mathematical problems dealing with infinities) but a tiny finite string/membrane (aka 5 dimensional membranes that collided to form the bb)
Who are you? I though Einstein was dead! :-D
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If you guys can stand to hear a layman at it again, I heard somewhere that physical nonexistence (perfect vacuum?) has a higher inherent energy state and a lower entropy state then physical existence - making existence sort of inevitable. Or did you say that already in words I couldn't understand? :-D
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@ Blobzie
"..By all accounts they were produced in equal amounts and they both cancelled out - but not quite..."
That's what I want to know: where did the +1 and -1 originally come from? From what were they 'produced' according to your understanding?
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Hum,
I think Kenny covered that with his quantum fluctuations.
;)
Yeah that correct, it started low, as the universe gets older (evolves) the entropy gets higher and higher.
Most ppl confuse entropy with the arrow of time, however a ultra new theory predict that a universe at the `end` is basically very very big with very few bits of matter in it (the observable universe is smaller than the expansion of space) but it still has a high entropy.
It proposes that quantum fluctuations can occur in that `empty` space and create another universe (like a bud), except in that universe the `time` seems to runs backwards – high entropy to low entropy… and so on….into philosophy…
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I believe they're now beginning to think that Fred Hoyle, Bondi(?), etc. may well have been correct in their Steady State Theory. Can't find the reference ATM.
JaX
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In the Jewish Torah the first five verses of Bereishit have more or less word for word the same explanation for the first day of creation as the big bang theory.
pdf (http://www.ou.org/publications/ja/5765/5765fall/KABBALAH.PDF)
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Hum,
The original Steady-State Theory states that the laws of physics were the same in the past as today.
How could we be sure – we look at the spectra of stars
The laws of physics have to be the same in all parts of the universe, and at all times as well. The Universe would also be the same, always static, always contracting or always expanding.
Unfortunately,
Olbers Paradox (http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/olbers_paradox.htm) ruled out the first two by the simple Observation that the sky is dark at night.
Hoyle proposed that the decrease in the density of the universe caused by its expansion is exactly balanced by the continuous creation of matter uniformly condensing into galaxies that take the place of the galaxies that have receded AWAY from the Milky Way, thereby maintaining forever the present appearance of the universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory
Therefore, we still see an unchanging view of the universe…
To produce the matter, `negative energy` would balance out the expansion and condense out into new matter. Very similar to the virtual particles and false vacuums.
So what do we see today?
Unfortunatly, the distribution of deep space radio sources is not uniform.
A graph of the log of the number of sources at a particular brightness, to the log of the number of sources brighter than that brightness, should have a gradient of 1.5 (=3/2).
For radio sources we see the ratio is 1.8 showing that there are more bright radio sources at greater distance, and hence earlier times than would be expected for a steady state universe.
The conclusion is that the universe is evolving or at least changing.
The discovery of quasars in 1966, also provided evidence the constitution of the universe a few billion years ago was very different than it is today, and of course, the microwave background radiation (CBR), contradicts the steady-state theory.
We have an elegant theory that does not match up to observation.
in the future the theory may be `tweaked` to fit, but just now it doesn`t.
If it’s wrong it’s wrong.
However you may be referring to the tweaked SS theory, quasi-steady state theory (http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/8098/Hoyle.htm)...
Which still doesn’t answer as many problems as the BB theory,(the new theory just answers the CBR problem);
Though it may be ultimately correct, (they all are theories) it is discounted by most astronomers because it is not as elegant as the BB theory.
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As I have seen often in both Nature and in mans own inventions, Elegance does not equate to functionality, indeed in mans inventions, elegance often comes at the cost of functionality.
damn but I'm feeling deep tonight
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Hum,
If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched c-beams ...
glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate.
All those ...
moments will be lost ...
in time, like tears
... in rain.
Time ...
to have a deep fried mars bar
-
Isn't she lovely?
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Now Blobzie, I have been thinking about the scales analogy.
My original problem was that I couldn't see how 1 could come from 0, and you have given me a balance theory that says that the 0 is actually a resultant of a mix of lots of -1s and lots of 1s. You hinted also that originally the number of minuses and pluses was equal, thus giving us a balanced zero, but that subsequently, one outweighed the other and the result was greater than zero (or less than, it's the same to me).
Now: consider, if you will, the previous example I gave you with the two scales. The scale that I understand as having 'nothing' is the one that is balanced and has no items on either platter. The other scale that is also balanced has items on each platter, of equal mass.
Now: if the item on the one platter manages to exceed in weight or quantity the item on the other platter, we have an imbalance and the scale tips in that direction (again, I don't mind if it tips negative or positive). Let's say it tips to the value of 2.
To all intents and purposes, an equally distributed weight that subsequently becomes 'heavier' on one side, is exactly the same as level empty platters, where a weight is added to only one side.
What I mean is, by my definition of 'nothing', the 0=1 problem still exists.
But by your explanation we still have a problem (I hate to use mathematics here, because I think a mathematical zero doesn't equal what 'nothing' is, but it is an equation that best describes my logic to you):
[(1) + (-1)] + x = x
(where x cannot equal zero)
In other words, Blobzie, I'm still seeing a linear progresion of variables here. We start with nothing [(1) + (-1)], then we add x (which is the resultant constituents of the universe as we know it), and we are left with x, which is fine.
My question is not about the mathematical result of this equation, it is about where we got the x from to add to nothing, to be left with x.
I'm not arguing about what the value of x is, or whether it is positive or negative. My simple brain still sees 0=x or 0=1 and that is what I have trouble comprehending.
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Time ...
to have a deep fried mars bar
I think this sums up the thread rather well. Where the universe came from is as unexplainable as why a deep fried mars bar tastes good. I gave up thinking about how the universe came from and whats beyond it and infinity etc its a sure fire way to cause insanity :P
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X-ray wrote:
[(1) + (-1)] + x = x
(where x cannot equal zero)
Even if x does equal zero, the above is satisfied. I'm probably missing your point, however :-)
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@X-ray
I think your problem is not with what is on the scales, but the scales themselves...
I like to think of the universe as an equation, it doesn't matter what that equation is, all that matters is that it is more or less ballanced.
Now the question you ask is: Why is there an equation?
The Weak anthroplogical theory satifies that question for me.
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@ Karlos
Good point, I should have said "where x mustn't equal zero" (I know, I prefer English and layman's logic, and I use that equation only to describe a verbal argument more concisely, not trying to find x).
I think you nailed down the problem in the tall building thread where you said I don't know anything about your C++ and you don't know about my raytracing. I'm sure the two of them can be used to produce the same image, but it is not possible for both of us to understand how. This communication gap is compounded by the fact that even those who are proficient in either field cannot produce the desired 'image' with 100% satisfaction.
It's a mini Tower of Babel
(actually, that works on a few levels too :-) )
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bloodline wrote:
@X-ray
I think your problem is not with what is on the scales, but the scales themselves...
I like to think of the universe as an equation, it doesn't matter what that equation is, all that matters is that it is more or less ballanced.
Now the question you ask is: Why is there an equation?
The Weak anthroplogical theory satifies that question for me.
I say to you all, Creationists and scientific types:-
DOES IT REALLY MATTER HOW AND WHY, WE AND THE UNIVERSE CAME TO EXISTS?
It's good to debate these things but at the end of the day it comes down to this:- WE WILL NEVER KNOW WHO IS CORRECT.
At least until we die, and then it's too bloody late anyhow, ;-)
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Hum,
Perhaps I didn’t explain it properly,
You have a table.
The table seems real, and equivalent to your `X `.
However, you can’t see where the negative `X` is…
You just think there is only a table.
But look closer – you see the gravity field that it sits in?
That is the negative-table.
[ negative table + table = zero ]
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@ Blobzie
Yup, I have no problem accepting negatives and positives, but that is just splitting up a question. Because I am still left asking where the table came from and where the gravity came from, and why one should overtake the other in magnitude.
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mdma wrote:
I say to you all, Creationists and scientific types:-
DOES IT REALLY MATTER HOW AND WHY, WE AND THE UNIVERSE CAME TO EXISTS?
It's good to debate these things but at the end of the day it comes down to this:- WE WILL NEVER KNOW WHO IS CORRECT.
At least until we die, and then it's too bloody late anyhow, ;-)
Precisely. It's a matter of life after death ;-).
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Cymric wrote:
mdma wrote:
I say to you all, Creationists and scientific types:-
DOES IT REALLY MATTER HOW AND WHY, WE AND THE UNIVERSE CAME TO EXISTS?
It's good to debate these things but at the end of the day it comes down to this:- WE WILL NEVER KNOW WHO IS CORRECT.
At least until we die, and then it's too bloody late anyhow, ;-)
Precisely. It's a matter of life after death ;-).
Thats the thing with religous types, they think there MUST be a reason we are here, whereas non-believers think "Why MUST there be a reason we are here?".
Scientific know-it-all's are just as bad as bible thumpers. They harp on about Big Bangs and String Theories and whatever else to explain HOW we came to be here, but when it comes down to it, it's just the same as any religious doctrine. THEORY, nothing else. It can NEVER be proved or disproved and neither can any religion.
It is just as arrogant to say all religious doctrine is rubbish and scientific theory is truth, as it is to say scientific theory is rubbish and a particular religious doctrine is the truth.
Just my tuppence worth.
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@X-Ray:
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 knew we'd have something in common, other than the radiography thang. :-D
I couldn't agree more. I watched a programme, 'The things we don't know,' that I stupidly thought was going to address this question.
Did it fu.......
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blobrana wrote:
Hum,
If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched c-beams ...
glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate.
All those ...
moments will be lost ...
in time, like tears
... in rain.
Time ...
to have a deep fried mars bar
:lol:
Our national delicacy.
Old Rutger ad-libbed that whole sequence.
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Wilse wrote:
blobrana wrote:
Hum,
If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched c-beams ...
glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate.
All those ...
moments will be lost ...
in time, like tears
... in rain.
Time ...
to have a deep fried mars bar
:lol:
Our national delicacy.
And not bad too. Although one dreads to think what a regular intake of it would do to you.
Old Rutger ad-libbed that whole sequence.
Explains the appropriately befuddled look on Harrison's face then :-)
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@ Wilse
"Did it fu..."
:lol:
@ Karlos
I must again display my ignorance publicly: who is Old Rutger and who is Harrison (with regards to the Mars Bar?)
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They are quips from an in my opinion exceedingly bad cult movie called Blade Runner. (Look up the entry in the Internet Movie Data Base here (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/).) Of course that doesn't stop many critics from praising it to Heaven and back; perhaps I've had to many deep fried Mars bars to appreciate its absolute lack of a story line and difficult, complex character portraits. Perhaps that's why people think it is so great: they don't understand one iota of it, so it must be good.
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bloodline wrote:
@X-ray
I think your problem is not with what is on the scales, but the scales themselves...
Am being dense again today. My brain is stretched to the limit by a combination of payroll calculations x 350 odd people and my g/f having a neurotic moment par excellence.
Great point Bloodline, it's the scales themselves... As Blob has stated here before, the laws of the universe haven't remained constant during it's entire existence. Also, anything outside the universe (or indeed existing before/after by our perception) isn't bound by the laws we take for granted. One of which is time. Effectively there is no before, or is no after. Timescales become as meaningless as the notion of Santa Claus.
Anyway, an easier concept for me is understanding Blob's quote (and once again I'm damn glad to see you back on form Blob):
It was from Bladerunner, just as the character played by Rutgar Hauer dies and releases the dove. Legend has it that Hauer actually delivered those lines off the cuff as they weren't in the script, taking Harrison Ford by surprise.
However, I should point out that Blob took poetic license with the deep fried Mars bar bit.
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Karlos wrote:
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.
That last bit isn't quite correct - particles appear in matter and antimatter pairs, but antimatter still has positive mass, and positive energy. The total sum of the energy of the particles is in fact non-zero. This happens because of the uncertainty principle, where there can be an uncertainty in the amount of energy over small periods of time (or something like that). So yes, it's possible that the Universe itself is just a quantum fluctuation.
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X-ray wrote:
But by your explanation we still have a problem (I hate to use mathematics here, because I think a mathematical zero doesn't equal what 'nothing' is, but it is an equation that best describes my logic to you):
I think I see what you mean - it isn't so much a case of starting with the number zero, but with the empty set which is a different thing entirely.
It's one thing explaining how the energy for the Universe came about when initially there was zero energy, but this doesn't fully explain how the Universe came to be - why and how things like energy exist at all.
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Hum,
Well there a person, Rodger Penrose, who proposes that everything is topology (spinars etc).
He thinks that there is only multi dimensions; and how they wrap up together, dictates/creates the particles, forces, particle families and forces.
I suppose applied to string theory, the string or membrane is everything, you don’t need anything else.
The original 5 dimensional membrane, (that may have always `existed`), is sill here but it has been transformed into `energies` and `matter` and `space` and `time` (etc).
And may revert in the future to being pure dimensions again.
Perhaps we should be asking what a dimension is?
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X-ray wrote:
...
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. .
...
Doesn't "came from" desribe a place in space/time?
In a singularity there is neigther space nor time - they evolve immediately *AFTER* the BB - as well as the matter, energy and all the dimensions, that make our universe.
I assume our minds/brains are far to limited for us to predict what the *OUTSIDE* of the Universe "looks like".
Are there other universes? How many? How are they constructed? and so on...
A few postings up I read that before the BB there was no time.
I'm not sure on that - I could as well imagine, that there was *UNLIMITED* time - or eternity.
That with the BB a kind of limitation/cyclisation was introduced into time, a process, that allows things to "evolve" and to "die".
But that's just my thinking...
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@ Dandy
"...Doesn't "came from" desribe a place in space/time?..."
That's exactly my point. I cannot see how something 'comes from' complete nothingness. To me the only logical explanation is a loop. That satisfies the no beginning and no end concept, and preserves the constituents of the universe, either in the way of matter, or in the way of energy. But when I am presented with complex theories and conjecture about how things suddenly developed from a singularity or a liquorice stick (whose existence itself is not scrutinized) then it seems like a way of spliting up a question so that the focus is how the liquorice stick evolved/developed/changed into what we see today, rather than questioning how you can get something out of nothing.
More about the plus and minus and resultant of zero:
@ Blobzie
If we imagine for a moment that you are satisfied with a mathematical zero equating to 'nothing' I would like to know if there is any evidence that the entire universe and matter and energy from which it is composed is NOT curently in fact a resultant of zero. In other words, how do we know that all the negatives added to all the postives, do not equal a big fat zero right now?
Because if we consider that they do, then you and I do not really exist, because we are 'nothing' when all the sums are totalled.
If we consider that the resultant is not zero, then where did the excess material/energy come from that gives us the universe as we see it? It may as well be considered on its own, without a fancy attempt to rationalise a certain number of pluses and minuses beforehand.
Of course, another thing that bothers me is the convenience of saying that there is an equal amount of pluses and minuses, and that the sum of these is nothing. It is convenient because it can't be proved. After all, it would be really inconvenient if it was proved, because that would kill the theory itself, as the proof would rely on identification of either the minus or the plus components that contribute to the resultant of zero. And these components would prove the 'lack of' nothing.
It's kind of like a jar, 'filled' with a vaccuum. I can assert that there are 12 blue goblins and 12 yellow pixies in the jar, but we can't see them (in fact they aren't there, because they cancel each other out). Only by some other (as yet unexplained force) can you suddenly have 13 goblins, which renders the contents of the jar 'something'.
Of course there is the nagging problem of why such a force, necessarily being external to the jar, was not counted as part of the universe in the first place. The link to Rubak's site that I provided earlier gives a very sound and logical argument why the universe can't be thought of as a compartmentalised entity such as an expanding balloon (or jar of goblins or what-have-you).
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Hum,
Well at least you grasped the idea proposed by the classic big bang theory…
Indeed, cosmologist George Gamow once in a conversation with Albert Einstein casually mentioned that one of his colleagues had pointed out to him that according to Einstein's equations a star could be created out of nothing at all, because its negative gravitational energy precisely cancels out its positive mass energy.
"Einstein stopped in his tracks, and, since we were crossing a street, several cars had to stop to avoid running us down".
There are a few experiments (i.e. COBE satellite) we can do to check that the universe also hasn’t a rotation, or that the universe is electrically neutral, and we can show that certain particle collisions [ as K-mesons, or kaons decay violated the so-called charge-parity CP symmetry ] have `chirality` (preferred direction) that show that the universe isn’t symmetrical at the quantum level, with respect to matter and antimatter.
There was a discrepancy in the decay between kaons and anti-kaons.
It’s worth tracking down a copy of the 1967 landmark paper by Andrei Sakharov; "Violation of CP Invariance, C Asymmetry, and Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe"
When the universe was creating matter and antimatter there was a slight imbalance (not a 100% annihilation process) that was due to the way that the original 10 dimensional symmetry broke down. The matter (the imbalance) that was left, was balanced by the creation of space-time.
One could postulate that a universe could produce matter and antimatter that cancelled out completely (i.e. no particles in it) but by doing so there is no creation of space/time/gravity…
Alternatively, that there was too much Baryonic matter created, and the universe quickly imploded, through gravity, before it could `inflate` (through inflation).
Or, slightly too little matter created, and the inflation energy is too powerful, and disperses everything so that stars and galaxies can’t form...
And indeed that is what quantum fluctuations may have done; there may have been an infinite amount of `failed` universes, that have occurred `before` our universe came about.
Quantum uncertainty allows the temporary creation of bubbles of energy, or pairs of particles (such as electron-positron pairs mentiond before) out of nothing, provided that they disappear in a short time.
(No need for a "force, necessarily being external to the jar")
The more mass created, the shorter the virtual particle can exist.
The energy in a (space-time) gravitational field is negative, while the energy locked up in matter is positive.
If the Universe is exactly flat, then the two numbers cancel out, and the overall energy of the Universe is precisely zero.
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...but that still leaves us with at least one blue goblin today, knocking silently on the inside of the glass jar, hoping someone will recognise his existence...
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blobrana wrote:
Hum,
Well at least you grasped the idea proposed by the classic big bang theory…
...
If the Universe is exactly flat, then the two numbers cancel out, and the overall energy of the Universe is precisely zero.
Uhh, did she just prove the universe does not exist? :-D
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X-ray wrote:
If we imagine for a moment that you are satisfied with a mathematical zero equating to 'nothing' I would like to know if there is any evidence that the entire universe and matter and energy from which it is composed is NOT curently in fact a resultant of zero. In other words, how do we know that all the negatives added to all the postives, do not equal a big fat zero right now?
Because if we consider that they do, then you and I do not really exist, because we are 'nothing' when all the sums are totalled.
I don't think it makes sense to say that. All it means is that the total energy is zero, that doesn't mean that we don't exist. I don't stop existing if I have zero momentum, for example.
Or to put it another way, if a rocket moves by firing out gas in the other direction, the total sum of momentum is still zero (conservation of linear momentum), but it would be incorrect to take the rocket and say that it had zero momentum. Similarly, we still have positive energy, even if that is counteracted by negative energy elsewhere.
If we consider that the resultant is not zero, then where did the excess material/energy come from that gives us the universe as we see it?
Who knows. But if it always existed, I don't think that would be a contradiction of conservation of energy.