Extensive Big Bang speculation

[Atlas14]

None of us can grasp it, because of the way we perceive time differently than the other dimensions.

Ok good. I thought I was having a "slow" moment if you know what I mean.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

"I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics."-Richard Feynman.

The same concept applies here.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But it isn't a point in time. If all matter comes into existance as time does, then all matter has always existed even if there was a conceptual "period" when both time and matter did not exist.

Nicely said.

 

[bed_head7]

You might like reading a bit about inflationary theory, as it might be able to provide a way to avoid these questions. I cannot explain it all that well, but the basic idea is that our universe could have been an area of false vaccuum in some other universe and expanded from that. If you take that idea further, you can avoid all of that messy finite space/time stuff and just say that the multiverse or whatever it is is infinite, with our universe being one of many and having an age because it did have a beginning.

I realize the above isn't terribly clear, but that is just my recollection of the last chapter of The Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth, the father of inflation theory, who speculated on ways to take the basic ideas of inflation further.

Edit: Oops, I see someone mentioned this already. I don't think Cuivienen's reply to that is entirely correct though, as a multiverse could potentially be infinite, though there is no evidence that we will ever be able to see to figure that out one way or the other. But it is a lot easier to grasp a space that has always existed and always will then having to deal with a clear beginning of time and clear bounds on space.

 

[Birdjaguar]

...a multiverse could potentially be infinite, though there is no evidence that we will ever be able to see to figure that out one way or the other. But it is a lot easier to grasp a space that has always existed and always will then having to deal with a clear beginning of time and clear bounds on space.

I think that multiverse and brane theory has peaked and will be on the wane in coming years. It cannot be tested and is just mathematics. As physics gets back to "reality" they will spend time on stuff they can test.

 

[bed_head7]

I think that multiverse and brane theory has peaked and will be on the wane in coming years. It cannot be tested and is just mathematics. As physics gets back to "reality" they will spend time on stuff they can test.

Probably so, but there will always be those looking towards the beginning to seek our origins. The multiverse idea will probably remain somewhat popular just because it allows us to speculate about how we began in ways we can understand, and also draws a line beyond which we can never really find answers. It also us to be more comfortable with some limited application of the anthropic principle as a reason for why certain things might be the way they are, as having an infinite number of universes would just suggest that the special things about ours are part of why we are even able to be.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Probably so, but there will always be those looking towards the beginning to seek our origins. The multiverse idea will probably remain somewhat popular just because it allows us to speculate about how we began in ways we can understand, and also draws a line beyond which we can never really find answers.

That is what religion is for.

 

[ChrTh]

Brane theory could survive, once we learn to communicate with the other branes via graviton particles. ... of course, even the Brane theory falls into the trap of how did the first brane get created, and if the universe is created by the contact between two branes, how did two branes get created?

On a side note, there's only one parallel universe, and they all wear cowboy hats.

 

[Souron]

If you accept the Big Bang theory, as most people do, surely you will be lead to a connundrum. In the beginning, all of the matter in the universe, anything and everything, was compressed into a singularity. Something happened to cause this point/sphere to expand outward into the universe we all know and love today.

A singularity isn't really a point in the conventional sense. A particle is a point. A singularity is an infinatly small area. There's a difference.

Second, in all likelyhood, the univerce was never a sphere. Assuming that the earth is in an ordinary part of the univerce, and the rate of the universal expantion is what we have measured it to be, the univese was and always will be an infinate Pringles shape. So if you can immagine, even in the begining, the univerce was infinate.

Now this brings up two speculations of mine.

First of all, the theory would suggest that NOTHING exists outside of this sphere. If that holds, then what is the universe expanding INTO? Surely one could speculate vacuum, orempty space, but even that would be something. Space has three dimensions in which an object may freely move.

I would think that an object is "something" if it has definable characteristics and properties; size, weight, color, etc. Even if it has only one definable property it is not "nothing." Empty space, or vacuum if you want to name it, still can be divided into areas that comprise three-dimensional space, therefore it is a "something." Even a one-dimensional line is something because it can be defined by any point within its composition.

A "nothing" object could perhaps occupy a zero-dimensional point. But how can a point exist if it has width, height, and length of zero? In actuality it is not there, but a definable location in a higher-dimensional region of space. We draw points to make them visible, but they are not physically there. So that cannot exist.

There is no need for such a something. The universe can be modled to be expanding into another demention, but this is just a model. It's the mathmatics behind the expantion that's important and mathmatics allow things to grow without taking space away from something else.

If the universe started as a singularity, which has zero dimensions, how could it have existed in the first place?

A singularity does not have zero dementions. A singularity is not a very well understood phenomina, that arises from irredusable infinites in physics calculations.

What is at the center of a black hole? Nothing, because there is infinate distance between any point and a black hole's center. Since that's not really an answer, scientists have come up with the term "sinularity" to describe the effect.

This then this leads me to ponder something else. Even if we accept that there is nothing outside of the marble-sized universe, what started the reaction in the first place? If all of the matter was compacted into the sphere, how long could it sit there before somethign happened? I lend myself to beleive that it was a homogenous object, that is to say, no one part of the sphere was different from any other part.

According to the theory, atoms were created after the big bang had already taken place, so they could not have caused a reaction internally. So what could have caused the big bang? I beleive that some external reaction would have been necessary to begin the reaction. Consider that the theory has been mapped out to the second just after the big bang occurred, so we "know" how old the universe is.

But what happened before that? And how long was this singularity sitting around before something made it explode? Even though time could not be calculated, can time inselt really have a definitive starting point?

According to standard theory, there is no such thing as before the Big Bang. The Big Bang was when the word popped into existance and started expanding. Without a univerce there is no time.

The same applies to the expanding matter, and the notion that there is nothing outside the sphere. If nothign existed out of the sphere then how could the sphere be expanding? It must be filling some 3-dimensional void, but then the void would not be pure nothingness.

I find the concept of a finite universe much more difficult to comprehend than an infinite one.

Expanding univerce simply means that the distance between two uninteracting points increases as time increases. Normally when no force acts upon an object it's relitive position does not change. Expansion means that it does. We know there is no repulsive force going on because there is no change in inertia.

 

[Souron]

Well it could just be an initial point. Maybe time is like temperature, it just doesn't go below absolute zero.

The problem with this example is that tempature is a measure of average kenetic energy. Kenetic is energy resuling from motion. motion is a measure of change in distance over a period of time. The smallest a change of anything is not-a-change. So you're effectively compairing time to change. But time is a quantity, whereas change is a mental construct (or something like that). Point is the two are uncompairable.

 

[croxis]

Most recent measurments indicate that the universe is indeed infinite. Inflation or expantion theory (the proper name for big bang theory, more or less) simply measn that the distance between two points is increasing as souron mentioned.

 

[Souron]

Most recent measurments indicate that the universe is indeed infinite. Inflation or expantion theory (the proper name for big bang theory, more or less) simply measn that the distance between two points is increasing as souron mentioned.

Inflation is actually something different, refering to a period of rapid expantion of the early univerce

 

[bed_head7]

Most recent measurments indicate that the universe is indeed infinite. Inflation or expantion theory (the proper name for big bang theory, more or less) simply measn that the distance between two points is increasing as souron mentioned.

Not quite. Inflationary theory is more specific, referring to a period of inflation that was much faster than the current expansion of the universe, and lasted for a tiny fraction of a second very early in the history of our universe. The beginning of acceptance of big bang theory was due to the observation you mention of the distance between two points in the universe increasing.

 

[Perfection]

I think that multiverse and brane theory has peaked and will be on the wane in coming years. It cannot be tested and is just mathematics. As physics gets back to "reality" they will spend time on stuff they can test.

Physics is already quite square with reality. Multiverse ideas are just a tiny and controversial portion of it. Also, I don't particualry think that this fancy with multiverses will ever really dminish. There's no reason to think that certain folk wion't carry on the torch in hte generations to come.

 

[Perfection]

The problem with this example is that tempature is a measure of average kenetic energy. Kenetic is energy resuling from motion. motion is a measure of change in distance over a period of time. The smallest a change of anything is not-a-change. So you're effectively compairing time to change. But time is a quantity, whereas change is a mental construct (or something like that). Point is the two are uncompairable.

Ummm, I don't see how this damages my analogy. All I'm saying that time may be another physical quantity that has a lower bound where values below don't have physical meaning. I fail to see how your criticism applies.

 

[El_Machinae]

Perf: I thought it was a good analogy; of course it's not perfect, but the idea of analogies is to use them in the ways they are similar. Of course, I suck at analogies, I'm told.

The OP is making a small mistake, thinking that a small dot expanded into something.

This would be an entirely 3D event, like me blowing up a balloon in a room. The room is 3D and the 3D balloon is expanding into the 3D room.
This is not what occurred at the beginning. Or even now.

In addition, you think of the early universe as being marble-sized in the beginning. This is also not true. What is more true is that our visible universe was contained in the size of a marble. However, if you go over to the Sombrero galaxy, they also have a visible universe (their universe contains us, but contains light (presumably) outside our sphere as well) and THAT was also the size of a marble. Same if you go over to the two Mice galaxies, or M86 galaxy, or whatever.

It's a bit to wrap your head around, but the Big Bang was not merely a 3D event, but a 4D (and maybe 5D) event. The reason why the 3D is getting bigger is because the universe is being exposed along another dimension.

By analogy; if you pulled a balloon through a plane of paper, you'd only see it in two dimensions. At first, the tip of the balloon would be just a dot in your paper realm, but as it was pulled through, it would become a larger and larger circle and then taper off into a smaller circle and then a dot. If you can only perceive in two dimensions, but have a memory of a third, that's what you'd see.

Calculus really helps with this, and presumably upper-level university physics and astronomoy courses. However, I recommend buying Scientific Americans when you see them at the store (buy them instead of something else, and you won't miss the money), and read the articles in there on this topic. Over time, you'll get a decent picture of what we mean.

 

[Lotus49]

I'm a total uneducated novice, but what about this:

The future according to the Big Bang theory

Main article: ultimate fate of the universe

Before observations of dark energy, cosmologists considered two scenarios for the future of the universe. If the mass density of the universe is above the critical density, then the universe would reach a maximum size and then begin to collapse. It would become denser and hotter again, ending with a state that was similar to that in which it started—a Big Crunch. Alternatively, if the density in the universe is equal to or below the critical density, the expansion would slow down, but never stop. Star formation would cease as the universe grows less dense. The average temperature of the universe would asymptotically approach absolute zero—a Big Freeze. Black holes would evaporate. The entropy of the universe would increase to the point where no organized form of energy could be extracted from it, a scenario known as heat death. Moreover, if proton decay exists, then hydrogen, the predominant form of baryonic matter in the universe today, would disappear, leaving only radiation.

Modern observations of accelerated expansion imply that more and more of the currently visible universe will pass beyond our event horizon and out of contact with us. The eventual result is not known. The ΛCDM model of the universe contains dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant. This theory suggests that only gravitationally bound systems, such as galaxies, would remain together, and they too would be subject to heat death, as the universe cools and expands. Other explanations of dark energy — so-called phantom energy theories — suggest that ultimately galaxy clusters and eventually galaxies themselves will be torn apart by the ever-increasing expansion in a so-called Big Rip.

Here's a basic idea, which suits my hypothesis that the universe is 'breathing' in a sense - like a gigantic lung; expanding and contracting. Now, the above article (which you should read) doesn't explore the possibility / indicate as much, but one thing we do know, is that heat expands, and cold retracts.

So, after this (as described above) happens, to an extreme - perhaps that extreme cold (dead universe) triggers the retraction. As for the momentum rate - I don't know (interesting above, what it says about the event horizion btw, limiting what we can observe of momentum), but anyhow - eventually all matter is compressed once again, causing another massive heat & density occurance, and thus another 'Big Bang'.

Just a 'speculative' thought to kick around.

 

[Chieftess]

1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. 2 And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. 3 And God said: Be light made. And light was made. 4 And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. 5 And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.

There you go! (notice how there was night and day before the Earth was even formed, but that's another debate)

 

[El_Machinae]

There was certainly darkness and light before the Earth was formed. I cannot think that there was night and day, because those terms are entirely dependant upon the Earth and the observers on them.

 

[Chieftess]

Thus my point to those who don't believe it. It's more of a metaphore (sp). (same with 'waters' - how do you explain the vacuum of space to ancient people?)