Before the Big Bang

Almost none (me included) of us are. It is tough stuff if you keep digging deeply into it.

Gotta disagree, Jar. There are something which even someone of average or a fair bit above average intelligence just isn't going to be able to handle in it's full detail.However, I should temper what I say: With time an person of average intelligence can at least get a grasp of the important points. It is just not more than that it is not a real, deep understanding.In that way you are right. One does not get this stuff the first time is it introduced. Nor the second, third, ... sixth. But eventually it becomes a little less murky.

An very old book (20 -25 years) is S. Weinberg's "The First Three Minutes". There has been a lot of work in those decades but it is a well written little book. It's been a very long time since I've read it though.It actually is, as the title suggests, only about the first 3 mintues after the big bang! Lots happened to say the least .I'm not enough of an expert to trust but here is one picture of what happened.There was nothing. No matter, no energy and no space/time. There was a spontaneous appearance of a lot of energy in a very, very small space. The space/time itself expanded. There was no explosion of anything. Basically the distances between points got bigger. Just as if you and a friend stood sholder to sholder on a big rubber mat and the mat was pulled very hard. You and your friend would be standing on exactly the same place on the mat (marked with red x's) but you would get further and further apart without moving (on the mat). As space expanded the energy was less concentrated. It "cooled" just like a gas cools if you let it expand (well sort of like). When it got cold enough matter "condensed" out of the energy.What happened before? We don't know. The math is good back to about 10 to the minus 30 or 40 of a second after the start. Before that it breaks down. It doesn't work any more. We need new physics.There are suggestions, speculations about "before". In the next few decades there may even be testable hypothoses. It is exciting.

Nope, you are wrong.

Oh good, my fav.Are you prepared to defend that in anyway? Have a look at the Dates and Dating forum if you are. If not; well, look at what that says.

Well, there are geologists who post here with some regularity. It is fair to ask them to clarify things.Generally the reasoning is accessable to those without specific geological training.One challenage is that it involves more than geology. Physics and biology are involved. In fact all of the sciences are linked so you can never be sure you won't get caught up with other disciplines. Some of them get very difficult. The big bang and cosmology here are examples of are area that, if you really, really need to dig into the base for yourself, you will need some graduate level courses in the needed math. So in the end, you are stuck taking someones word for it after assessing the reliability of that as well as you can.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 11-28-2004 12:39 PM

Can you show where science says something came from nothing?The big bang only talks about the development of the universe from a point a small fraction of a second after the origin of space-time. It does not know what kicked that off or what was "before". The particles came from energy well after the big bang. Do you know what the total net energy content of the universe is today?Do you understand that, in fact, we dedect particles coming from nothing now?It is a bad idea to make such strong statements when you have clearly not attempted to learn anything about the actual cosmology and physics involved.It might be better if you started off with things like:
"I've been told that.... by this source ...."You might be wise then to learn not to be so trusting of that source when you find out you have been deliberately (it appears) lied to by that source.

Thanks Mod. You are, of course, (or CD is) right.However, a quantum field looks a lot like nothing compared to stars and planets and even atoms. Maybe I oversimplified too much (and forgot as well).

I'm not one of our resident cosmologists but I'll put my two cents worth in anyway.The big bang is a description of the universe from a very short period of time after our current physics suggests a singularity. That is saying two things:1) It is NOT covering anything "before" that millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth (more or less ) of a second after the apparent singularity.2) At that point, which the cosmology and physics can talk about there was NOT nothing. The entirety of what we know as our universe was in a very, very hot and dense state.That there was such a point is very well supported by both the math and the observations.What happened before that, and we can talk about "before" because there is a tiny bit of time that we can't extend our physics into, and why it got there we don't know.If you want to insert your god into that gap in knowledge you have that wiggle room right now. It's hard enough that you may keep that wiggle room for your life time but you may not. There are speculations and even somethings better than that to fill in that gap too.I've often said myself that there is no "before" the big bang. But thinking about it a bit I realize that there is room for a little bit of before. There are attempts to reach back and outside of the big bang theory altogether. I wouldn't say that any of them is well developed enough to supply an answer so, again, the answer is "Dunno".Penrose spoke here last summer about his own, as he called them, "speculations". He had some grad students pushing the math a bit more. All of which is outside of the big bang and not part of it.

At about 10^-43 seconds after general relativity gives a singularity as an answer there was something (lots of it) already in existence. Before that we don't know.I think that cosmologists used to suggest this could all be a quantum fluctuation. I don't know if that is completely discounted now but I think that there are lots of other ideas about how this came about. But all of those are not included in the big bang theory as currently formulated.At least that is my understanding. But we need cavediver or son koku to chime in. They would know a LOT better than I.

That is what I perceive the situation to be. We don't know where the singularity originated from.M-theory as it's own idea of an answer. Penrose's speculation is that the conditions at the singularity look a lot like the math of space-time at the far end of the expansion of our universe and that this cycle goes on forever. For the details I refer you to him whenever (if ever) he publishes (maybe his students found a flaw in the math). There are other ideas none of which I can make much comment on.

You Posted: After that you use words like "before" and "then" in your posts. If there is no time you can't use those words.I'd like you to try to answer the following question or explain carefully why you can not:If our whole universe (world) is the surface of this earth and I hike, ski and swim to the north pole, being careful to head north the whole time then what is north of the north pole?That analogy has been used before but I think you've skipped over it. I'd like you to answer that question carefully.

You are having problems with both the questions you ask and the attempts to explain the current state of research in this area.For that reason, as a good pedological device, we are attempting to discuss a simpler situation to help you understand the problems you may be having.The north pole question is such a device.If you attempt to work at it you may gain some insight into the nature of the problem.Your tossed it off in a way which only emphasizes your lack of understanding of the issue.To some degree you are asking for an answer to a question which is like "what is north of the north pole?". Please go back to that post and attempt to answer that question.

I think part of the confusion is the definition of "universe".It used to mean "everything there is or was" (or some such). It's closer to "observable" universe now (in both time and space).A dictionary definition is useless in this context. So don't bother applying it.Re read the thread and see if you have some specific questions.The big bang was NOT "created" from a "total absence". When you read that it means you're reading oversimplified material. Please re read above posts.

Reference 1:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html

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According to the big bang, the universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions.

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Of course, calling it an explosion and saying it "hurled matter" tells you that this is simplified to the degree that it is wrong. The site is for pre teens. It is inadequate to be used to begin to understand what the model is really about.

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...leaving a number of tough, unanswered questions.

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Since the questions are not given it isn't possible to tell what they are talking about. The big bang, as we are discussing here, does leave unanswered questions and we know that it isn't the last word.The germ theory of disease leaves unanswered the origin of most cancers. That doesn't make it wrong.#2 Reference
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htmAnother enormously simplified description but one that is not too wrong. However, as a nit pick I'm pretty sure that matter (above the level of quarks came a long somewhat later than the time given below.

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As it began to cool, at around 10^-43 seconds after creation, there existed an almost equal yet asymmetrical amount of matter and antimatter.

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To make sense of this site you have to sort out what you mean by "universe" and "everything". You are, know it or not, talking about the "observable universe" and the space-time as described by general relativity (and, I understand, GR predicts the big bang as a consequence of the nature of space-time). Once you understand the GR isn't useful right up to T=0 then we have "something" before that 10^-43 of a second where GR can describe what happened.Reference #3
Page not found | Simon Singh
A good book about the history of the idea. Not as deep as Greene's books though but a good place to start.Correct: There was no space-time (the general relativistic framework of our observed universe).and the others go on like this: The big bang explains the structure of space-time and it's history from 10^-43 seconds after a singularity in the GR equations. That is the "everything" we know around us. However, clearly, the model is incomplete.And there is more "everything" than time and space and matter and energy. There are "fields". (Now we need real physicists to intervene again ). Since the big bang model, by it's very nature will never be complete we need more to explain how the conditions leading to it arose.Get one thing clear: The big bang model is very, very solid. It has gathered significant experimental support and is founded on GR (also supported to a ridiculous degree). So put that aside.What we do not know is what lies outside the observable universe (see!! the word 'universe' stops meaning "everything" -- an aside: the milky way galaxy used to be the "universe" -- in fact for awhile galaxies were called "island universes". Now we need another word for whatever "everything" really is.) There was an absence of everything we know as "anything". But the common english words are pretty much useless to discuss this. Is a 10-dimensional brane made up of matter or energy or time? I think not. Does that mean it isn't "anything". I don't know -- define your terms. It claims to be the beginning of what we observe around us now. Experiments are being conducted to see if we can observe outside of "everything" right now. You can not expect everyday words to capture an even partially correct picture.As we've noted before, time (as the word is used mostly) is a general relativistic concept. Maybe there is a broader type of thing that is like "time" outside of GR but I dunno. GR isn't valid at T=0 therefore the concept of "time" as you are using it isn't meaningful anymore. Therefore all our English words and meanings are gone.Go back up thread to the north pole question. Answer it. If you don't understand the issue with that question I don't think you have teeny, tiny chance of wrapping your head around the rest.