Summations Only

Let's grant your view. What about a fraction of a second after the universe was Planck Sized? Would it be possible to say the universe was hot then? I think it must. It would also be comparatively dense to today's universe (whatever that means).Therefore it is true that the big bang proposes that Universe expanded from a hot dense state.We could also agree that at the Planck Scale the universe had a lot of energy. A simple definition would be 'having the capacity to do work', and I think anyone would agree that creating the structure and life of the universe took work.If you don't like 'hot', then replace it with 'high workable energy density' or something like that. Let's assume again that motion is required for temperature to exist. If we take any instant of the universe at a Planck Time, we'd observe no motion, surely we'd need to define a time period where things happen in order to determine motion and therefore temperature.But if we take the universe from Planck Time to say t=10^-25 seconds we'd have motion and thus temperature. I haven't done the maths but I've read that if we did this we'd get a temperature between 10³²K and 10¹³ K (erring vastly towards the hotter end of that range). I think that qualifies as 'hot', right?

How is it based on this assumption? Independent of what? There are entities capable of performing work in the early universe. They aren't 'people who are employed' of course. But I wasn't talking about that kind of work. I was talking about, for example, a force displacing something with mass. No. That's just not it at all. Indeed, you have the whole point completely backwards.Nobody is saying that any job could be done by the mere application of workable energy. What I am saying is that in order for work to be done (be it in the context of paid employment, or of exploding a star), there must be workable energy available. And that there was more workable energy available early in the universe than there is now. And there was less space. So it would be 'hotter'.

Do you have any evidence to support this? The big bang is not about compression, its about the opposite - expansion. And stuff that makes expansion (which is kind of similar to 'resisting compression' I suppose) is not removed from the scene, but very much a part of it! No 'conversion' required. Energy and mass are equivalent properties. Matter doesn't come into existence for some time after the initial conditions. This is not the theory that I was taught. Nor is it the theory as I've ever seen it written by anybody that was a physicist. What you are postulating is quite similar to Kent Hovind's 'big bang' theory - which as you point out, is quackery.Try picking on the real thing, and you'll find you can't dismiss it as quackery so easily.

I'm talking about heat, not the universe 'popping' out from pure nothing. Do you care to address what I actually said? There doesn't seem any point addressing 'universe from nothing' type theories until we agree what the early universe was like (ie hot and dense). If we disagree on that, it stands to reason we won't agree on whatever might have preceded it.Can you show me any reason to doubt that the early universe was much hotter and denser than it is now?

I don't propose heat pops into existence in non-existence. I'm not.My position is this. The universe has an edge 13.7 billion years ago. It is unclear if something preceded or caused it, but current thinking seems to be in that there might well be. I agree that there should be to be something that explains the high order of the early universe. I don't know what that explanation is. I think pretending that my preferred explanation is the real one is futile.Was it Branes? Was it a place where time stretches infinitely forwards and back that simply generates entropy, the inevitable conclusion of which is the generation of universes? Was it something else? I have no idea.

An objection I countered in Message 206 by pointing to an early time in the universe where there was motion and thus heat. And the temperature at that point could be construed as 'hot'.

They claim that particles existed in the time scale that I was talking about. So your objection is still countered.

Did you read Message 206? Because I'm pretty sure I talked about a time period greater than 1 Planck time 'instant'. Yeah, here it is:

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But if we take the universe from Planck Time to say t=10^-25 seconds we'd have motion and thus temperature. I haven't done the maths but I've read that if we did this we'd get a temperature between 10³²K and 10¹³ K (erring vastly towards the hotter end of that range). I think that qualifies as 'hot', right?

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The maths of General Relativity doesn't work, that's for sure. I believe some other maths works fine, but they have yet to be experimentally verified. Think thermodynamics.The universe has x disorder now and a complementary y amount of order.Tomorrow it will have x+1 disorder and y-1 order.Disorder increases as you go forward in time.Therefore, the universe was more ordered (had less entropy) yesterday than it does today.Therefore, the universe was maximally ordered in its earliest stages (and thus more disordered in its latest stages).Order can be thought of as a concentration of workable energy. The sun is highly ordered. But it's processes do increase entropy. In 10 trillion years the sun will be more diffuse than it is now (more disordered). So conceptually, the universe is much more diffuse than it was before. Thus it was more ordered in the past and will be less ordered in the future.I'm speaking imprecisely about mathematical ideas. To back me up, here is Sean Carroll's take on it

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The observed macroscopic irreversibility is not a consequence of the fundamental laws of physics, it's a consequence of the particular configuration in which the universe finds itself. In particular, the unusual low-entropy conditions in the very early universe, near the Big Bang. Understanding the arrow of time is a matter of understanding the origin of the universe.

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Low entropy conditions in very early universe. Low entropy = high order.Think of the universe being represented by a deck of cards. It starts off very ordered (by suit and in value order). Then you begin the slowest shuffle imaginable. Moving one card at a time. It gradually loses its 'order'. Again, imprecise words to give you a sense of what I'm saying. When all the energy of all the stars and planets and so on are in one place - its going to be a bit warm. I believe it is to do with negative-pressure vacuum energy. But I'll not even attempt to explain in as it will undoubtedly come out garbled due to my layman's grasp and memory faults, and I would not want to do you a disservice of giving you misconceptions. That's what we see when we examine the evidence left behind by these events. You can go look at the evidence for yourself, I suppose. Though I don't think I understand half of it, so I'm not sure you'd benefit from that. You must at least accept that the evidence strongly suggests it, because those that have spent their lives studying the universe formally all seem to agree on these things. They might all be mistaken, but I think it more likely that anyone who thinks otherwise is going to be the mistaken one. What I have no idea on, is which one, if any, is true. Actually, that's not far off Sean Carroll's 'pet' speculation (I recommend watching it, it's 9 minutes long)If you don't want to, or can't. Here is my brief summary.A universe of just space with random fluctuations. Could those fluctuations result in the formation of a 'baby universe'? If so, this configuration (the new baby universe) will start in a low entropy state.
The entropy of reality (or the multiverse or whatever we want to call that includes the original and the baby universe) has gone up.
The baby universe can expand and cool etc., much like what we see with the big bang.
This can happen both directions in time.

------------------original universe---------------------------------
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O <-                                                   o ->    --baby universes
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The arrows represent the arrow of time, going backwards and forwards from the original condition.This baby universe production is a process by which the 'original universe' increases its entropy.Is it true? Carroll doesn't know. The reason he likes it is there is no 'cheating' by which he means there is no fine tuned addition of low entropy states. You start with a high entropy state, and it just gets higher and higher in both directions of time. He does concede however, that it is speculative.

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We know that we don't know why. We know that we don't have, currently, any theory of what happened at the big bang that's absolutely reliable - that you'd ever place a fair bet saying its probably true...We're working to understand that.

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So it could be, initial conditions, put in by hand. It could be something before the big bang, it could be that we're part of a bigger multiverse. This is the excitement of doing science: We're not sure yet. Stay tuned and probably in a year or two we'll have it all figured out Thank you.

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He's done more to earn my respect in this topic than you have, that much could be said of him. The entire point of the discussion was to explain why there is apparent direction in a universe of directionless physics. Since you've assessed Carroll's argument thoroughly, you know that already. It seems strange to compare the entropy of the whole system to a subset of it. I'm not sure how to go about doing that, or even what use it would do.Are you telling me that you think the universe was less ordered in the past (say before humans came along)?Because that would involve contravening the laws of thermodynamics.And that's what quack's like to do.I can say that the universe is less ordered (ie more diffuse, less workable energy, less probable) today than it was yesterday. And that reasoning applies all the way back to the beginning.

I hold no beliefs at all on the matter. I don't know, I don't pretend to know. The universe may have no past and may simply exist. It may have a past. I really don't know. As best as I can understand your meaning, no.

I'm reasonably sure I was the one making the point, but OK. Any reason you are calling them 'inane fantasies' when in fact they are merely 'consistent with what we know speculations'? That's just standard relativity, albeit filtered through your mind, isn't it?Carroll and I were talking about ideas beyond relativity, since relativity clearly isn't quite right. You can argue with the physicists about the meaning of 'the universe began 13.7 billion years ago' in terms of relativity. I've seen it explained, but I don't have the capacity to do so myself. In the sense that it had a higher density of workable energy or a lesser density of entropy. As I've explained several times, contrary to your claims I've evaded the question.I've never actually claimed that I as a human happen to be more or less ordered than the big bang. What I have claimed is that the universe now, is less ordered than it was in its earliest stages.

Not necessarily. Carroll's notion has time stretching infinitely forwards and backwards.
No matter how far you go 'back' (which is an arbitrary direction along the time line according this notion) there will still be universe. If you want to submit that as evidence - I submit to you that you must accept other physics papers as evidence too, right? This would mean you accept that the universe was hotter and denser earlier.As for the paper, I don't think either of us are qualified to understand what's going on there. But maybe they've indeed ruled out certain universe configurations. I've no idea if that includes Carroll's or not. No it wouldn't. It would just mean they would begin to exist. There would be no prior time when there was non-existence, from which it came. There could be no time, as time wouldn't exist. I'm going with the first one. Carroll's notion as far as I can tell, does not have a beginning but I'm not sure it has an infinite 'past' necessarily either.In any event, always existed does not have to mean 'infinite time'. A fence can always be next to a certain road in space, but not have 'infinite length'. The universe could always have existed, but there could be a finite amount of time within it. There wasn't a thing that preceded it. There was neither time nor space in which something could exist, and if there was an alternate region of existence outside our universe/multiverse, there is no reason to say that it exists 'before' the universe, let alone that it might have causal influence upon it. In what time and space could it have caused anything?So yeah - the universe always existed, for however long always is.

In our universe, the thing that 'began' 13.7 billion years ago. But in the notion I was talking about time can move in both directions in the multiverse, while appearing to move in one in any given universe. I gave you a link to Carroll discussing this notion. Yes, I'm on board with that. Well not quite, it wasn't that time did not exist 'until' the universe began to exist. It's that time exists only in conditions where there is existence, and never when there is notWhat is it about the answer 'it's a dimension', does not describe what kind of 'entity' it is?Why don't you try explaining to me what entity is length, and I might have an understanding of where I might go in my description. OK. I think eternal can have a beginning, too, for the record. It's eternal because it 'goes on forever'. Not because it has an infinite past. It might do, but its not necessary for it to be considered 'eternal', in my view.

Carroll. But I gave two links to Carroll. One where he is discussing the universe that 'began' 13.7 billion years ago. And another where he speculates on something that might have come before the big bang. I was talking about the latter, you were quoting him discussing the former. In the latter - his speculation is intended to resolve the time neutral laws of physics with the directionality of time as we perceive it. You can tell because Carroll said 'observable universe' and I was talking about him discussing a concept before the big bang - which is not presently observable. And I replied that I was happy with it, why the need to quote it again? And for something to have a duration - it must first exist. So that doesn't contradict what I said at all, does it? Are you denying the existence of dimensions? Is height a figment of your imagination? Of course it is. And since it exists, it is an entity that exists. And every entity has duration. What does length feel and look like? Do you mean we can experience length? Because we experience time too. That's one definition. Another is

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lasting or existing forever; without end:

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