Watching the Big Bang

I've always wondered though. Back when the Universe,before the Big bang, was supposedly small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, what was that ball suspended in? Another "Space"? I don't know. When I was littler I thought it was where the Universe was all sucked into a Black Hole causing the little "Ball".

The 'little ball' was all the space there was. There isn't an 'outside' as far as we know and if there is it's impossible to find out what it exactly is. We can't go out of our universe.

Originally posted by SmileyMan34
"On a related note" if we could get a giant mirror to travel light years away, keep it aimed at earth, then look at it though a huge resolution telescope we could literally see into the past. Besides all plausibility, what am I missing here? Now it seems like it wouldn't work just to spite me. x_X

Although I thought that it made sense to start with you then have to look at the equation E=MC squared which I've been jabbering on about. I can't be bothered to explain it in detail, but it basically states that it is impossible to travel at lightspeed. Since the light from the Big Bang was travelling faster than we were, the light overtook us billions of years ago. The only way for us to watch it now is to move out whole planet faster than lightspeed away from the 'center' of the universe and try and catch up with the light of the Big Bang.

What did I say? You can see the 'light' from the bigbang, it's the CMBR, cosmic microwave background radiation. Most of you seem to think the big bang was just like a normal explosion. It wasn't. The 'light' is from a state where the whole universe was basicly a isotherm particle soup.

I realise that, but when I say the 'light' from the Big Bang, I mean the light which is what lets us see it - the various planets and globs and other stuff in its raw material all being slung out of the nothing before the universe.

Ok, how long after the big bang are you referring too? The raw material, the particles for the planets and the stars were formed about 1 second after the big bang. The CMBR comes around this time. The atoms were formed about 50000 years after the big bang. Only then did that raw matter began to accumulate into stars and planets. Therefore you won't see any planets in the 'light' of the big bang. The planets weren't around yet when the CMBR was formed.

that would soooo suck if the universe was infinite...i'd be like all scared cuz we're like out here w/o any aliens to talk to so we get all lonely...I WANT MY MOMMY!

Ok, here is a stupid question and forgive me because I am not good in science.

Can't light reflect, meaning can't light coming from the center bounce back on some object of heavy mass and return back to the center or some other place based on the reflecting angle?

Originally posted by amantine
What did I say? You can see the 'light' from the bigbang, it's the CMBR, cosmic microwave background radiation.

I remember that...what the frequency of the radiation?4.something?

Didn't a telephone company find that out and the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize or am I confused?

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by surfup]

Originally posted by surfup
Can't light reflect, meaning can't light coming from the center bounce back on some object of heavy mass and return back to the center or some other place based on the reflecting angle?

Yes and that did happen. You just don't see anything of heavy mass from the big bang, because in the beginning there were only elementary particles. Those particles did reflect the light, but every particle did in a different direction.

I think we'll never see it as it has already passed us. We are the proof!

I don't think the big bang (if it even happened that way) could create trillions of stars in one go, it would have been rather like throwing a stone into a lake. It started at its center, then radiated out in all directions at the speed of light, creating us in its wake.

This could lend itself to the possibility of an infinite universe as the 'blast waves' could still be travelling away from us in every direction still creating planets/stars etc. at the speed of light. Ever expanding universe there you go.....

Originally posted by benjj
I think we'll never see it as it has already passed us. We are the proof!

I don't think the big bang (if it even happened that way) could create trillions of stars in one go, it would have been rather like throwing a stone into a lake. It started at its center, then radiated out in all directions at the speed of light, creating us in its wake.

The big bang just created a lot of matter and energy, of which some over millions of years clustered into stars and other celestial bodies. It didn't create the trillions of stars, just the matter to form them. Your theory has a bit of a problem, if there is just one big universe (water) and partions of that expand (waves), how would you keep the enormously hot and compact unexpanded space from 'leaking' into the expanded parts?

I don't think you could see the Big Bang. Remember, our Earth is made of particles born of the BB. The light from that explosion moved at , obviously, light speed. Therefore, it's light would be past the otuer edge of the unierse, since any particles would be moving slwoer than lightspeed. In order to see the Big Bang, we would have to go to the edge of the universe, and then trave faster than light a good deal apst it.

[Edited on 8-1-2004 by Esoterica]

Amantine, excellent point, and one that clearly shows why I am yet to be snapped up by NASA for a decent job!!

B

Originally posted by benjj
Amantine, excellent point, and one that clearly shows why I am yet to be snapped up by NASA for a decent job!!

B

Thanks. There is a theory like yours though, if you're interested in it. It says that the universe is just a 'bubble' in a higher-dimensional 'foam' with a lot of universes in it. If you want to know more about it, I'll try to find a link or a book reference that explains it.

just a respeonse to those saying that the universe will have no end because energy cannot be created or destroyed. That's only partially correct, as the Newton's law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed into other forms. ie: electricity running trough the filament in a light bulb turns from electric energy into thermal energy(heat) and light energy.


So while some remnants, light+ heat stay, the rest of the electricity is lost, so our universe MAY survive, but it may only be light and heat from former planets, planetoids, stars, and other celestial(sp?) bodies