"Negative Infinity"

[Truronian]

Whether or not you believe in Creation, Evolution, the Big Bang Theory, or any other explanation for why we are here, you must admit this: It all started somewhere.

I don't think anyone actually believes that. Physicists say the first recordable time is was just after the big bang, but don't hypothesise if and what was before that. Creationalists on the other hand believe God has always been, and as such God did not have a creation. There was no beginning.

 

[Uiler]

Things go wrong at a singularity by definition. What might be achieved is a theory that's well-behaved at the points which have singularities in GR.

Err...yeah. I guess I worded it badly. The idea is to find a more "complete" theory of general relativity where the former singularities are no longer singularities. I worded it better in my last post.

 

[warpus]

I'm afraid I don't understand. Are you saying that the matter that exploded in the Big Bang; along with all of space-time, just appeared right before the Big Bang? There was nothing before it happened? Not "We can't know what happened before", but "Absolutely nothing existed"? If not, then where did everything come from, to just pop into existence in time to explode and create the universe?

You are confused because you're using time as a measure of the passage of events... which all of us do, which is why it's confusing.

If you're going to ask "What happened before the Universe came into being?", you're going to have to use a measure of the passage of events which is independent of our time.

Picture the entire Universe as a giant 4-dimensional bubble. There are 3 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time. Any point in space-time can be pointed out in this bubble. ie. January 4, 1994 in downtown New York exists as a specific point in this bubble... as well as July 7th, 2029 in uptown London, Ontario.

If the bubble is inifinite in all directions, then asking "What lies outside of space?" or "What happened before time?" would be meaningless, since no such point exists.

If the bubble is finite in all directions, you could ask "what lies outside of space?".. But nothing does.. and neither would anything like outside of/before time.

It's not that space-time magically popped into existence - it's that it's always existed - even if time is finite. You are just going to have to measure the passage of events using a ruler that's independent of our universe - and that's hard to do because we're so used to using time for that purpose.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I don't think anyone actually believes that. Physicists say the first recordable time is was just after the big bang, but don't hypothesise if and what was before that.

According to standard theory, there was no before the big bang. MrCynical's quote is spot on; asking what went on before the big bang is like asking what's north of the North Pole.

 

[The Last Conformist]

If the bubble is inifinite in all directions, then asking "What lies outside of space?" or "What happened before time?" would be meaningless, since no such point exists.

That's not strictly true; there might be outside points if the "bubble" is embedded in a higher-dimensional space.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

what's north of the North Pole.

The South Pole.

 

[warpus]

That's not strictly true; there might be outside points if the "bubble" is embedded in a higher-dimensional space.

I was not talking about the observable universe though, but.. everything that exists... even if we haven't observed it yet.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I was not talking about the observable universe though, but.. everything that exists... even if we haven't observed it yet.

So? That changes nothing at all.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The South Pole.

Do me a favour and don't work in navigation.

 

[warpus]

So? That changes nothing at all.

If you take all of existence and visualize it as a bubble - nothing can exist outside of it, by definition.

 

[The Last Conformist]

If you take all of existence and visualize it as a bubble - nothing can exist outside of it, by definition.

You weren't speaking about "all of existence", but of "the entire Universe" (post 23, 3rd paragraph).

 

[Uiler]

That's not strictly true; there might be outside points if the "bubble" is embedded in a higher-dimensional space.

*Sniff* Going into higher dimensions. Cheater.

3 dimensions in space and 1 dimension in time not good enough for you, eh? Always aspiring to "move up" in the world eh? Hanging out with those poncy 7 dimensional folk with their "ooh, we've got 3 more dimensions than you. Haha, too bad you can only see our 4D projection. Don't worry, we're not *really* giving you the 7D finger." attitude You're a traitor to your err, I can't think of a good name here...

 

[Truronian]

According to standard theory, there was no before the big bang. MrCynical's quote is spot on; asking what went on before the big bang is like asking what's north of the North Pole.

I don't really view this as scientific. Science can't probe into the before (or the void where before should be), so how can it rule out its existance?

 

[Uiler]

I don't really view this as scientific. Science can't probe into the before (or the void where before should be), so how can it rule out its existance?

It's not ruling out its existence. It's saying it doesn't matter if it exists or not or what is in it if it exists.

 

[Truronian]

It's not ruling out its existence. It's saying it doesn't matter if it exists or not or what is in it if it exists.

So its also not saying that the Big Bang was the absolute beginning (which is what I had taken TLC's post to infer).

 

[Uiler]

So its also not saying that the Big Bang was the absolute beginning (which is what I had taken TLC's post to infer).

No it *is* the absolute beginning - for our universe. What scientists say is that nothing before the Big Bang can affect anything that happens after the Big Bang. Therefore for all intents and purposes time for our universe begins at the Big Bang. You could set t=0 to be 2 million years before the Big Bang. But nothing that happens in that 2 million years affects anything that happens after the Big Bang. Therefore for anything that actually affects this universe t=0 is set to the Big Bang. Actually because of this point, even talking about "before" is not so great terminology really considering if even something happened "before" the Big Bang "time" may be something completely different. Maybe it does loop-a-loops. Maybe "people" regularly went and killed their own grandfathers and it was perfectly normal physics in that universe. What does 2 million years of "time" as we understand it mean for a universe where "time" does loop a loops?

 

[The Last Conformist]

I don't really view this as scientific.

That's your problem, not science's.

Science can't probe into the before (or the void where before should be), so how can it rule out its existance?

It's non-existence follows with logical necessity from what words like "time" and "before" means in GR.

You're now gonna object that we don't know for certain that GR is right. That's true, of course, but the thing is, when GR falls, so does the big bang of standard cosmology. Maybe we'll call whatever model succeeds it "big bang" too, but it will not be the same thing.

 

[Truronian]

No it *is* the absolute beginning - for our universe.

Yes, but not nessecarily for the extrauniversal. This seems to be an argument of semantics, so I'll yield.

It's non-existence follows with logical necessity from what words like "time" and "before" means in GR.

I accept that to us (as humans), all that matters and ever will matter started at the Big Bang. All I'm saying is that our universe isn't nessecarily everything, and as such the Big Bang cannot be considered to be the absolute beginning (if one should exist).

To be honest I'm arguing for a load of crap.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It's not ruling out its existence. It's saying it doesn't matter if it exists or not or what is in it if it exists.

Isn't that like saying: prior to 1900 asking questions about particles smaller than protons, neutrons and electrons was a waste of time because even if such things existed, they couldn't matter?

 

[Sidhe]

Actually, singularities in black holes have absolutely nothing to do with Newton's laws of gravity. The singularity in question refers to a singularity in the general theory of relativity.

Also at small distances quantum physics becomes dominate not the theory of relativity let alone Newton's laws. And that point the distance between two masses becomes not that well defined anyway considering everything is a wave...And masses are so small. In fact gravity at this point can be modelled using the exchange of particles known as gravitons. In fact gravity as it is known is completely at odds with quantum physics anyway. The smoothness assumed in gravitational theory (which assumes the manifolds are mathematically smooth) is anithetical to the discreteness inherent in quantum physics. A big field of study is trying to work out how to combine the general theory of relativity and quantum physics especially close to a singularity which I will emphasise is a singularity in current knowledge of general relativity. 200 years in the future we Civfanatics (for Civilization v100) may have an entirely different discussion.

Ok so what your saying is essentially the laws of that particular singularity are totally different to the laws of an incredibly large mass condensed into a very small space, often labled as the heart of a blackhole? I'm confused here? So what's the subtle difference, sounds like we could apply the same theoretical principles here?

Anyway Saying a bubble is all there is and causality is avoided by the singularity is still speculation however you want to look at it, with no more foundation than M theory. That much is self evident. To be frank I'm not sure why we need to know or indeed if we ever will? But there you go some people tend to speculate when they see unanswerable questions, leaving unquestionable answers in the place of reason and logic. It's another it just does ok, get used to it. About as satisfying as spilt glass of lemonade on a hot day, at least to anyone who likes to invole himself in more than just established hypothesis.or to put it another way only with QM would hypothesis be accepted as fact. Although of course not everyone is so arbitrary in there thinking.

There is no reason why Newtons laws cannot be applied to particles though and in those laws we see the same infinities we see with Einsteins GR or QM. It just so happens that speculation on what would happen at very small particle distances came before QM.