the origins of our universe...

my girlfriend and i are having a little debate...

i explained to her all about the big bang theory and how this made our universe...

she "doesn't believe" in that, and so i said this is like someone saying "i don't believe the sky is blue", when in reality it is blue...

i think the big bang theory is fact and true...

she doesn't believe in it because, she says, scientists don't know what occurred X number of years ago...

i tried explaining the blue shift and red shift of stars but it isn't helping...

so can someone explain to me how the universe began and why scientists are using the big bang theory and not another one...

thanks...

It is just a theory, after all. Even if it were true, you can't really call it at a fact at this point, you know?

Yeah, it is just a theory, one thats still debated to this day. For all we know, it might be something entirely different.

Originally posted by bsbray11
It is just a theory, after all. Even if it were true, you can't really call it at a fact at this point, you know?

good point...

but, it's the theory that makes the most sense right???

Actually, the theory that makes the most sense is "Just because, now shut up and drink your coffee." It's a theory produced by myself (Patent pending.)

Due to Heisenbergs uncertancy principle, we can assert that no matter can be in the same place at the same time. But with the Just because theory, no thought can be in the same place at the same time. As such, the first question, or previous opinion on a topic is overruled by the impending answer to the same question, with a voice of opinnion.

for example.

Question: "I have to ask you, why did the big bang occur?"

Answer: Just because! Now shut up and drink your coffee!

See, now your answer is not only infallable, but has become the status quo for this individual.

Doctor Wolfenstier o. Warstein
PH'd in Nothing
(I got it at community college)

[edit on 1-7-2006 by WolfofWar]

[edit on 1-7-2006 by WolfofWar]

Big bang theory is the best we have, and probably the most correct.

However the questions that it brings up are many!

1 - What caused the explosion we call the Big Bang?
2 - What exploded exactly?
3 - How far does the universe, or entire space go?
4 - where is the end of space?
5 - if space wrapps around itself like a ribbon or globe, then what is outside that ribbon or globe?

The nature of space itself is unexplainable, because you can't measure it. Humans can only understand something when they can measure it. Our brains are truely not able to grasp the infinite. We can say we grasp it, but we don't.
To answer questions about the universe only creates more questions.





5 -

[edit on 7-1-2006 by KDX175DUEX]

[edit on 7-1-2006 by KDX175DUEX]

Trying to explain the origin of the universe to your woman? OMG!! DIVE DIVE DIVE!!! RRRAAAAOOOOOGGGAA!!!!

Okay, males need to stick together on this and "I'm giving you the best mojo I got! They call it the winnin' boy's magic." (Line from the movie Cross Roads)

Explain to her in a calm, cool, and collected voice, that the Universe was created by an omnipotent and all-powerful being called GOD who is of the female gender. Tell her, that it was not until man came along that the universe got so screwed up, and that you are forever in her debt because she even considered you for her boyfriend. (See where this is going?) Yes, it's a possible entry for a Bud-Light commercial!

This will satiate her desire to know about the universe by making YOU her universe.

If the above fails, well, dig in, it's going to be a long haul. Here is how I explain it to my boys.

In the beginning there was a lone singularity sitting is space. The group of scientists that generally agree with this believe in a theory called the big bang theory. They contend that from this lone singularity sprung all life and the universe as we know it - this after the singularity exploded in and omni-directional fashion. They generally agree that before the singularity exploded there was no time.

(By this stage my boys are looking at me with stares that are as hollow as my future as a professional chicken sexer. I press on through a couple interruptions. . . )

"Dad?" Yes Brandon? (Brandon was 6 at the time of this question and it caused me to be mortified. God bless his furtile little mind though.) "If there was no time, then how did the big 'splosion happen?" Having recently read Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, I had his answer at the ready. "Go ask your mother!"

Of course, I did not really say that, although I must confess it was the first thing that popped into my mind. I decided to save the directive to ask his mother a question for the most important of all questions: "Where do babies come from?" Hehehe.

I pressed on. I explained that Hawking's contention was he could describe what happened after the big bang, backwards, until about a billionth of a second after the big bang, but he had, over the years, a great deal of difficulty pointing to the cause. Then, one evening while Stephen was reflecting on the universe, his wife disturbed him and a converstation ensued wherein she, being Christian, told him he could use all the numbers in the world, all the calculations, but if he did not consider God there would be no answer.

Instead -- of Stephen suggesting that she go off and experience extreme coital intimacy with herself -- he reflected on what she'd said; something he'd heard many times over the years of his work.

Although I don't have the exact page marked, I'll present it from memory to the best of my recollection. Hawking concluded that there must exist outside of time a force or omnipotence capable of the cause which created the effect. He went as far to say that one might even consider it God.

Please forgive the commical reply, sometimes these subjects can be dry and almost lifeless.

Edited for typo, it's a curse.


[edit on 7-1-2006 by FEMA]

Buy her this as a belated Xmas gift (and then acquire it for yourself):

The Whole Shebang (A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report) (1997/8 - since republished) (Timothy Ferris)

Cheers.

PS this is plain wrong:

In the beginning there was a lone singularity sitting is space.

The singularity was all of space. It was not contained within it. Space was contained within the singularity.

[edit on 7-1-2006 by d60944]

The singularity was all of space. It was not contained within it. Space was contained within the singularity.

If I am to accept your point that I am indeed wrong, I will need some clarification on the properties of a singularity.

By definition a singularity has an event horizon equal to two times its solar mass. If there was no space to allow for its event horizon to exist, expand into, how could the singularity exist?

You can thank Brandon for that question, he's now 11.

FEMA:

You are too funny!

I think "Go ask you mother!" can never be used too frequently. It is an inalienable, fatherly right. One I am most certainly grateful for...

LOL!! Thanks Loamster!!

I was laughing as I wrote it. I feel sometimes humor takes the emotional edge off a topic and helps the reader relax while still allowing the point to get across.

Gald you liked it partner.

I'm no science expert, infact, I know very little about the subject.

If I'm not mistaken though, I believe the idea of the big bangs singularity is that the universe was infinitely wrapped in the singularity. The gravity to make the singularity were coming from the infinite universes pull. So basically, the gravity was inside the singularity, which floated in nothingness, untill it blew, releasing its insides.

I agree Mr. Wolfofwar.

Associated with singularities is this thing called an event horizon. It is an invisible area that is defined by a radius of influence; things that enter this area are not able to escape despite going almost the speed of light.

It's a vexing question. Does the distance from the singularity to its event horizon constitute space? For instance, if our sun went super nova and eventually collapsed into a singularity, its event horizon would have an effective raduis of about 2 miles. But the actual singularity would be about the size of a softball. So what do we call the area between the softball sized singularity and its event horizon?

Maybe the whole thing is still considered to be a singularity? I really don't know and thus asked the question put to me by Brandon. He often sits beside me and reads along. Kids, eh?

Well it depends on our deffinition of space I guess.

Space to us is a vaccuum of no light, sparse or little particles or matter, and just an empty vaccuum. So really, thats brings the big bang theory to question on a few subjects.

1) What is space?
2) What is absence of space?

My personal belief is that space is always space, theres never nothingness, because nothingness is, well space. I think its just that the universe was empty, except for a vaccuum, and the singularity. The singularity exploded, which brought about new particles and matter into the empty space.

If I am to accept your point that I am indeed wrong, I will need some clarification on the properties of a singularity.

Ok. Will try to explain, but it's not easy, as the arguments are more mathematical than rhetorical...

A singularity is not defined by an event horizon (in fact some theories allow a "naked singularity" to exist within space, but that's not what we're talking about). A singularity strictly speaking is simply a word that is used when the equations of general relativity break down and produce infinities (and zeroes) as their answers, when one increases density to asymptotic infinity. A black-hole is one example of a singularity, which has gravity and mass, and a measurable event horizon extending outwards into space. Relativity is in some respects a geometical explanation fo gravity which describes four-dimensional spacetime as something which has a shape.

The singularity in big-bang theory is arrived at by winding the clock backwards of the oberservable universe. The theory goes that spacetime itself is expanding out of the big bang. Galaxies are not simply flying "through space" (well, they do that too, on a purely local level) but the space that they are in is itself stretching, making the distances between them grow.

(If one adopts a model that galaxies are flying *through* space then, because of the fact that all galaxies are receding at rates proportional to their distance from us, the inescapable conclusion is that the Earth is at the very centre of the universe. Scientists tend to think that that conclusion must be wrong. The cosmic radiation background is also homogenous (more or less) in all directions, implying that everywhere we look in the universe there is the same residual energy left over from some ancient event which involved the entire universe in equal share.)

Anyway, the model adopted is that spacetime itself was therefore at one point much smaller than it is now. And as one winds the clock back one arrives eventually at the singularity (i.e. where the equations break down due to producing infitinities). One may more accurately say that "all time was at the same time and all space was the same space", and therefore to talk of event horizons extending "outwards" into space is meaningless, as meaningless as to speak of the singularity exploding "into" space.

Big Bang theory does not really desrcibe the big bang singularity itself - it can't (yet?). What it does do is try to describe the physics of as close back in time to that singularity as possible and attempt to work out how the universe ended up today from a start just after the singularity. The energy-density at the singularity would be theoretically infinite, but big-bang theory looks at what happens with the incredibly high energy-density just afterwards (i.e. that it would be too energetic for subatomic particles to exist, and for electroweak, nuclear and gravitational forces to exist, and whether physical constants and laws of nature tumbled out of a chaotic chance event or whether there is some deeper reason for them).

Get the book I recomended if you want a good read about all this - 'tis really a very fine book by a fine science author, and no maths in sight.

Cheers.

Originally posted by they see ALL
i think the big bang theory is fact and true...

No theories are facts. No theory ever becomes a fact. Theories are constructs of the human mind and aren't, strictly, The Truth. They are often said to resemble the truth.

she doesn't believe in it because, she says, scientists don't know what occurred X number of years ago.
Its not a matter of beleif. Its a matter of what explanation does the best job of explaining the sum total of evidence.

i tried explaining the blue shift and red shift of stars but it isn't helping...

so can someone explain to me how the universe began and why scientists are using the big bang theory and not another one..

If you can't explain it, why do you accept it?
Of course, I don't want to pretend that I am familiar with all the evidence, either. What I am familiar with is that the theories that have the best ability to explain all the evidence and make predictions that are confirmed the most are inflation, which is what people sort of mean by the "Big Bang". But I can't even begin to handle the math involved in some of the forumalations.

Originally posted by FEMA
You can thank Brandon for that question, he's now 11.

Brandon sounds like a trouble maker, best to put him on a steady diet of prozac and ridlin, that'll 'answer' those types of questions. And if he is still too jumpy, just give him some of that 'robitussin PM' stuff, that'll knock 'im out.

Originally posted by FEMA
It's a vexing question. Does the distance from the singularity to its event horizon constitute space? For instance, if our sun went super nova and eventually collapsed into a singularity, its event horizon would have an effective raduis of about 2 miles. But the actual singularity would be about the size of a softball. So what do we call the area between the softball sized singularity and its event horizon?

The center of a black hole ( the singularity ) has infinite curvature and matter is crushed to infinite density under the pull of infinite gravity. Therefore it has no size.
As for the space inbetween the singularity and event horizon, I haven't haerd of it being referred as anything, I think it is just the event horizon.

who makes the names for these things? Because singularity is a really dumb sounding name, but event horizon sounds bad ass. Sounds like something I'd name a space ship, or a rock band. Something that would rock your world.

Brandon sounds like a trouble maker, best to put him on a steady diet of prozac and ridlin, that'll 'answer' those types of questions.

And if he is still too jumpy, just give him some of that 'robitussin PM' stuff, that'll knock 'im out.

LOL!! Yes, kids can ask the dangdest questions. Especially, if they have even the smallest grasp of a concept.

" . . . but event horizon sounds bad ass. Sounds like something I'd name a space ship, or a rock band.

Take heart. Tyler, Brandon's eldest brother of 13 (soon to be 14 if he turns down his amp), is taking guitar lessons and has, over the past 6 months, become a baby Steve Vai. The kid can do trills, bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs, pick-slides, with the best of them, ALL, unfortunately, at max volume on a Marshall stack - in OVERDRIVE!! God help us all! Anyone want an American Strat for free?? How 'bout a Les Paul Custom??? The lad is driving me nuts!! *Note to self: If one son asks for drums -- Just say NO! Do you have any idea how many times I've listened to Crazy Train?? . . . the mind-numbing lead in Whole Lotta Love? The motor cycle slide in Bat out of Hell? OH THE HUMANITY!!

The center of a black hole ( the singularity ) has infinite curvature and matter is crushed to infinite density under the pull of infinite gravity. Therefore it has no size.

If the earth were compacted to a size less than 2/3 of an inch across, it would be a Black Hole.

Author: 1998 Bonestell Lecture presented by Dr. Kai Woehler.

In the above lecture size is specifically mentioned regarding a black hole resulting from a specific solar mass. There are many such calculations that suggest mass-size in a singularity. However, you're quite correct in that Hawking, in 1970, suggested that at the Singularity, space and time loose their usual classical meaning.

As matter is space+time wound tightly together, then at the Singularity size becomes infinitely small. This is supported by Newton's second law F=ma wherein he looks at the difficulty in altering the motion of an object with inertial mass -- once a singularity starts to form, it's mass goes to infinity thus altering such an event would prove most difficult. This brings up another point of inward gravitational acceleration.

When all else fails, just ask an authority. So I just asked Brandon what happens to size when infinite mass is created. He pulled the sucker from his mouth and said: "What?"

I repeated the question. He asked: "Like in a black hole?"

I said yes.

"Oh, it goes to nothing, dad."

Frig it! I'm getting him drums!

Edited for typo because I did not take an Asprin before talking to Brandon.




[edit on 8-1-2006 by FEMA]