What came first?

Hello, all. I know that this topic has been discussed at length in varied ways and in many threads but I would like to ask some questions on a simple level and have answers on a simple level since I am somewhat simple. Here are my questions:
1) When we look in a telescope, we look back in time, in effect. If we could look back as far as we theorize the age of the Universe to be, what would we see?
2) Where did the singularity or the earliest known form of the Universe come from? (Theories)3) Will space travel similar to the sci fi Star Trek ever be even remotely possible?( or cost effective)

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Something like this.Or this.Or maybe this.No real idea. There are several floating around but I would suggest holding off for a while unless you are willing to get into Branes. Ever is a long time and history records many examples of folk predicting something will NEVER happen. Ussually they are proved wrong within a decade.For that reason I have been predicting travel at faster than the speed of light will NEVER become possible for about four decades now.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

We can. Here is what we see: This image is linked from Ned Wright's pages. Ned Wright is a researcher involved with the COBE satellite that gave the data from which this image is generated. He also has an excellent cosmology tutorial, which gives more background.Now actually, I'm telling fibs here, in several ways.First, this image is of the cosmic background radiation, using artificial colors to represent tiny differences in "color" or frequency of the radiation. It has been preprocessed to remove the distortions due to Doppler effects of our own local motion in space, and also to remove "light" from the local galaxy. What it left is our view of the Big Bang. Thus it is not quite what we can see through the telescope; it has been processed to remove various local distortions.Second, it is not an ordinary optical telescope we are looking through. The light involved is cool microwave radiation, to which our eyes do not respond. So the image is computer generated from the data collected by the COBE satellite.Third, this is not a view from the very beginning of the universe. It is a view of the universe from when it was 380,000 years old. This marks the time when the universe first became transparent to light. Prior to that, light was not able to travel freely through the universe because the universe was filled with hot ionized matter, which is opaque. When the universe had cooled to about 3000 degrees K, protons and electrons were able to combine and hold together as hydrogen, which is transparent, and light was able to start travelling freely. This light is what we see now as the cosmic background radiation, which has been travelling for 13.3 billion years. As space expands, light stretches and cools, so the photons are now at a temperature of 2.7 degrees K.What we are seeing is in effect a dense cloud of hot matter (mostly hydrogen, and some larger atoms like helium). As you look at a cloud, you can really only see its edge. In much the same way, we only see the edge of the Big Bang; we can't see further back because we are trying to look in past the edge of an opaque cloud of dense ionized gas. We don't know where the singularity came from; and no, I personally do not think Star Trek style travel will ever be possible.Cheers -- SylasPS. The missing post #4 is due to me. I accidentally deleted my first attempt at making this post. This is the curse of having an admin alta ego.This message has been edited by Sylas, 12-15-2004 08:26 PM

So where did all of this matter come from? Current theories?

It was, at first, all energy.I don't understand the details well enough to say what the consensus on where that come from is.A quantum fluctuation has been put forward since we know that this happens on a small scale all the time. I don't know how well accepted that is.The new M-theory suggests that a form of "universe" may have always existed. The energy for the big bang comes from two components of this eternal "universe" thing colliding.I'm not aware of other ideas.I don't think that there is any experimental evidence (or even good theoretical evidence) for any of these speculations. But that may just be my ignorance. We need Eta back for a bit.

NosyNed said that , at first it was all energy.
I don't think that it was a begining . Everything is and it never existed a time when it wasn't. Because time is an ilusion . Time exist only because we move . When we die we will stop and we will see that time has no effect on us . We can go in 1680 and then in 2390 . And if we can do this , and we exist , in a form , isn't it strange that the energy which created us , can't?
This is just a theory.For me , a theory means that is no way to be true .This message has been edited by RCST, 12-17-2004 09:41 AM

So RCST, (welcome to EvC by the way) are you saying that the energy always existed? Ned says so. As a Theist, I always wonder why people always ask what came BEFORE God, yet it is so much easier for us to accept the fact of eternal energy. The Universe is an amazing place, that much is certain!This message has been edited by Phatboy, 12-17-2004 07:14 PM

Great idea for another thread but doesn't belong here.

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I know that mass is increased with speed and energy. What would happen if this energy speeded up? Can you add to zero mass?If antimatter destroys mass - what makes it? Can energy speeding past the speed of light create mass?This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 12-17-2004 06:45 PM

OK, new thread proposed! I guess that 5 threads on topic are better than a long one out of focus.