The Big Bang Theory

[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.

[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).

[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 :-)

[Karlos]

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 :-)

 

[Karlos]

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 :-)