Big Bang...How Did it Happen?

It is an intersting question though. There well be another "dimension" around which space curves. As an example, a 2 dimensional surface can be curved to make a globe. At a small enough resolution, you would only see 2 d space, but you would know, due to certain measurements, that it wasn't "flat". We see a similar effect in our 3-d space. It does raise the question of which dimension is space curving around and why.

Hi Navy person. You pose a good question. Back in the 80's I pulled an artical from the National Geographic where Rich Gore, senior editor answered this question on behalf of National Geographic. He stated that about 20 billion years ago a submicroscopic partical of space billions of times smaller than the proton of an atom exploded/expanded to eventually produce everything existing. I'm not quoting him, of course, but in a nutshell, that's what he said. i saved the article and will try to find it.I believe the name of the article was something like "The Once And Forever Universe."So define space and go figure if this makes sense atol.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 03-13-2004]

Ok, so what I'm to take from this is that space (that is: physical area devoid of matter and energy) isn't devoid of the laws of nature/physics/etc...therefore you don't consider it empty?
And it's as these laws are expanding with the universe, it is "conquering" space with no laws, and making it space with laws?[This message has been edited by Navy10E, 03-13-2004]

More like empty space is not the same as what most people call a void. Empty space has certain characteristics in it's geometry. It's the same way with an empty paper. While there isn't anything on it, it's not the same as no paper at all, and the paper itself has certain qualities.The universe technically doesn't need anything to expand into because it has no edges or outsides. Hence, for those of us who are inside it, it can expand forever without ever actually needing anything to expand into.And Darwin, in a true 2D sphere surface, there would be no curvature at all for any 2D observer. Since the 'space' curves, you could go in a totally straight line and still come back to the start.It's like a game of Pac Man or Asteroids. You can go out one of the edges and come back from the other side. You can go in one direction forever, and never encounter any boundaries. But it's still a totally 2D surface with a limited amount of 'stuff' in it.[This message has been edited by Melchior, 03-13-2004]

However wouldn't that mean the Big Bang had to begin in a 2D enviroment?[This message has been edited by Navy10E, 03-13-2004]

The Big Bang Theory does not suggest that an initial universal expansion began at a 'point in space' or 'the existential factor that existed before the Big Bang. Melchoir, I think misinterpreted it slightly. Space itself was created with the Big Bang so it actually occurred everywhere at once, not at a specific point. Along with all the matter and energy in today's Universe, space itself began with that event and has been expanding ever since.And with your atoms query. Atoms did not actually leave the 'spot' of the big bang. They were instead made in fusion reactions in stars much later. It is believed that supernova explosions of stars send the higher elements out into space, where they later combine to form planets, etc.The light from the big bang is in fact all around us, and is essentially uniform. This is referred to as the 'microwave background'. This light is now in the microwave frequency because the universe is cooling as it is expanding.It is not correct to think of the big bang as having happened at a 'spot' or at some location. It was not that everything, such as your atoms, were squeezed into a little part of the universe that is the present day universe. Instead, the entire universe, occupied a very small volume. Since the big bang it has been in continual expansion. But it is actually space itself that is expanding, not objects moving through space away from some spot. A typical example of this is given by a balloon. Draw spots on an uninflated ballon, which would be like galaxies at an earlier point in the universe. Then blow up the ballon. The spots move farther apart from each other because of the streching of the material of the ballon, not because the spots are actually moving somewhere. The streching of the balloon is analagous to the expansion of space itself, and our galaxy is like a spot on the ballon.At the beginning, the 'spot' of the Big Bang embraced the entire universe. Consequently, every point in the current universe was once at, and therefore participated in, the Big Bang.Depending upon the phase of the expansion, the size of the universe [meaning its radius and the average distance between objects (such as galaxies)] is proportional to the 1/2 or 2/3 power of the time, while the furthest distance from which light emitted during the Big Bang can reach us [the event horizon] is proportional to the time [ct]. Therefore, as time advances, the event horizon encloses a larger and larger fraction [as well as absolute volume] of the universe. That is, the distance to the event horizon grows proportionally faster than the universe itself.This means that, as time goes on, the event horizon continually expands to encompass new points in the universe that had, up to that time, been beyond the event horizon. Therefore, there continues to be a supply of new points whose light generated in the Big Bang is now just able to reach us.Of course, you are correct that light already received at an earlier time from points lying closer in than the current event horizon has already passed by, never to be seen again on earth [Until, perhaps, the event horizon has grown so large that it encompasses the given point a second time. In other words, until the light emitted toward earth has travelled past the earth and made a full circuit of the universe and returned to the earth. Recall that the universe is modelled as a sphere.]For a more detailed discussion, and a useful diagram, see:'The First Three Minutes,' by Steven Weinberg, Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-14131-7, pp. 36-38 (1977).[This message has been edited by JIM, 03-13-2004][This message has been edited by JIM, 03-13-2004]

"Melchoir, I think misinterpreted it slightly."Eh, I thought that would be a direct implication of the 'no edges' thing... I certainly didn't mean to express the idea of a center of the universe, since it goes totally countrary to my examples.Care to point out this bit, since I obviously made an error somewhere if you had that impression.The baloon analogy also shows that as a 'side effect'... An observer on ANY point on the baloon surface would see every other point moving away, at a rate depending only on the distance between them.

Ok guys,
So before the Big Bang, there was...what?Hypothetically speaking, if I were to build a purple spaceship, and time travel all the way to the time of the Big Bang, what would I see?And as far as I know, empty space is empty space. Arn't you making this really convoluted? In the rest of science, (take math for example) 2+2=4...things make sense. And it was called the Big Bang not the Big Balloon, it was a violent explosion, not a gentle expansion. In all explosions, there is a ground zero...where is that?Edit- No one has yet answered my questions regarding the laws of nature/physics and their orgin.[This message has been edited by Navy10E, 03-14-2004]

The Big Bang is the origin of time, remember? And there's no "before" before time, remember? Didn't we cover this? Since you can't leave the universe, you'd first see all the galaxies in the universe rushing towards you. It doesn't matter where you travel to, it looks the same - all the galaxies are rushing towards you because space itself is contracting.Eventually it starts to get pretty hot, because the entire energy of the universe is being spread out over a decreasingly small area. It gets hotter and hotter until all the atoms break apart into a hot soup of energetic charged particles. Eventually, as the temperature increases, even these particles are torn apart into their constitutent quarks.Right near the end it gets so hot that you can't tell the difference between the four fundamental forces of the universe. That's where our models of the Big Bang actually end, because we don't have the theories to model what happens after that. The speculation is that the shrinking of the universe continues as far as it can go - all the way down to a point of zero volume. At that point there's nothing for you to see because there's nowhere for you to be to see it - everything in the universe, including you and your time machine, are compressed to zero volume. (Assuming somehow you survived the awesome temperatures in the first place.) And then that's it. Anywhere you go in the universe, that's where.

Is this science or speculation?

Up to the part where the fourth fundamental force is unified with the other three, it's the accepted scientific model, supported by observation and experiments in high-energy physics. (That's what they're doing with those expensive supercolliders.) After that, it's speculation. We don't have the model to describe accurately what's happening when the four forces unify. That's that "Grand Unified Theory" that you might have heard of. But the speculation is guided by the theories that we do have.

Science is repeatable. You cannot repeat the Big (fairy tale) Bang. It is, and can only ever be speculation. If you think you can repeat the Big Bang, lemme know so I can take the next bus off earth, cause I don't want to be around. Besides needing to be repeatable, it has to be observable. (God observed it, and we have His story, but that's kind of all about, isn't it?) Since no human observed it, and we can't repeat it...it isn't science. I would suggest it holds more simularities to a religion then science.

Science is repeatable. You cannot repeat the Big (fairy tale) Bang. It is, and can only ever be speculation. If you think you can repeat the Big Bang, lemme know so I can take the next bus off earth, cause I don't want to be around. Besides needing to be repeatable, it has to be observable. (God observed it, and we have His story, but you don't accept it.)Since no human observed it, and we can't repeat it...it isn't science. I would suggest it holds more simularities to a religion then science.

Right. And, in fact, you can repeat every single observation and experiment that lead scientists to develop the Big Bang theory. Um, no, it's a model based on evidence. And like I said, you can repeat the experiments and make your own observations. That's clearly ludicrous. By that standard you can't scientifically conclude that Abraham Lincoln ever existed, or that you were even born. After all your own birth isn't repeatable, right?So clearly your definition of science is at odds with how science is actually used. Clearly there's a method for science to assess historical claims. And it's via that method that science constructs narratives about events in the past. Surely not - I doubt that you make the same claims about history books, for instance. Is it "religion" to say that George Washington was the first president of the US? It must be, according to you.

I've never observed an explosion that created empty space before, have you? Or an explosion that acted like a balloon? And you are saying the definitions of science are ludicrous?And dude, I didn't come up with the definitions of Scientific proof. If you don't like them, talk to the braniacs who came up with them. The real thing I want answered though, is this: The laws of physics...have they always been around, or did the come in with the Big Bang?