The Big Bang & The Big Question, My Moment Of Clarity

I can not imagine "time" being created....

and I don't believe that time or existence was created. Leaving me to question not how it was created... but ..ahhh.... the other question? ..arg.. I can't think of it... how to word it......

anyway... I am a dumby, but I shall rant onword!

the only relation time has to space is the moving matter that we use to map it...

I also can not imagine there being nothing... as I tried to "picture" for others in my first post... (I understand, that supposedly, my mind can not comprehend... ..So I am not really trying to lay down points for the win)

but I do have one more thought....

is what you are saying about time ... Like saying that "if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

just cuz no one was around to experience "time" doesnt mean it wasnt "churning" along....eh? (whether matter was there to "churn" or not)

err...not that time was churning anything along... as I don't think that time is connected to anything (matter moves at its own speeds not waiting for time to tick it along)

doh.... I am getting offpoint... not that it mattered as I just wanted to rant....

soooo

space was either created or always existed... and if it was created you expect me to beleive that no space existed before it to spread out in..or that when it "became" and started spreading... it was pushing away some kind of magical non-nothingness? ...errr... Im gonna shut up now.. no facts is just wasting time

[edit on 14-3-2008 by WishI]

reply to post by Shadow_Lord

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Yes to the first, no to the second. The theory is absolutely silent on what existed before the Big Bang. Physics, as its name implies, is the study of phenomena in the physical universe. It says nothing about extra-universal events.


No, it says that all spacetime was a dimensionless point. Quite different.


In the universe as we know it, yes. But you are talking about a (fictitious) time and place in which the universe was not, so there is no reason to expect this exotic popping you describe. You are making the not uncommon mistake of imagining that there was space of some kind around this dimensionless point (which was the universe at the moment of creation). There wasn't.


Pardon me, but these are not problems with Big Bang theory. They are shortcomings of the way the human brain is set up to interact with its environment. Just because you and I haven't evolved to possess an instinctive understanding of nothingness (no-space and no-time) doesn't mean they are impossibilities. Don't be so anthropocentric!

Enfin,


Quite right. And still less do we have a science that can work reliably outside the boundaries of space and time. It is vital to remember this when entertaining speculative ideas at the outer limits of one's comprehension.

reply to post by Astyanax

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I know what I pointed out seems odd, but yes they are true; depending on which version/view of the theory. That is the problem with the theory. Understand the Big Bang theory has evolved from its beginnings to now.

The original theory did not mention dark matter or need it. Several problem have been addressed, and new theories created to deal with them. The reason exotic particles popping in and out is so key to the big bang theory (once again, depending which version) is because with that, the big bang theory does not require a trigger event before the big bang. Under that concept then one could argue that time/space began at that moment. Special relativity breaks down to the point time is meaningless, but it can argue it exists because the present creates it.

I think before anyone argues the big bang theory, they need to specify which model of the big bang theory they are using. As well as define what they mean by the big bang. The models I am familiar with with the big bang theory begins at the explosion. Our mainstream physics want cause and effect. We have the effect - an explosion. Now physics wants the cause. When you speculate a situation beyond our physics and math, you loose the ability to back yourself up. In the science field, that is huge. I know this is just a internet board so I guess that don't matter to much.

I have a degree in astrophysics. I have been in the physics field for a good 20 years. I think it is important to understand that the big bang theory is just that, a theory. Nothing else. (And it is a giant math problem, nothing personal should be taken) There are other theories to describe that situation, and they do work better. Many heated arguments have happened over topics like this. While it is good to debate, you cannot prove it. All we can do it throw theories and guesses back and forth that counteract each other.

Another good question argument that goes along these lines...

If you have an indestructible, impermeable, non movable object. Heading towards it is an indestructible, unstoppable, impermeable object. What happens when they collide? That question can lead to some creative thinking. (Which one of the answers oddly enough leads to the big bang)

reply to post by Shadow_Lord

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With a degree in astrophysics, you're well qualified to understand that theories like this ekpyrotic one (many thanks for the links, Zeptep) consider the universe to be one of several contained in a multidimensional continuum we might call, for fun, the Omniverse. This continuum has spacetime certainly, but it is not our spacetime: the reality we inhabit is still wholly contained within the univere we inhabit, just as the mythical Flatlanders' reality is confined to their own two-dimensional universe.

Slightly different, wouldn't you say, from postulating a time (in the sense of time as we know it) 'before' the Big Bang? Yes, there are many versions and modifications of the original theory; they vary in their explanation of conditions and processes in our universe after the Big Bang. Even if a set of extra-universal causal factors is adduced in the course of these explanations, their operation cannot be said to precede it in time.


[edit on 15-3-2008 by Astyanax]

Well thats certainly alot of interesting replies to my mad thoughts lol
thanks for contributing everyone

This is the exact reason I asked "which" Big Bang theory was being used. Because (once again, depending on the version) the Big Bang theory can take before into account. Some models of the Big Bang theory suggested that everything was in a tight area about the size of one atom, then pressure was so intense that it exploded. Then over a course of billions+ years it would pull back into itself much like a supermassive black hole, then simply repeat. It never addresses the FIRST Big Bang, thus worked around the time issue. It simply was always there. This theory was modified using loop quantum gravity under a different name. Others states 1 Big Bang happened. Anything before the incident states that while time may have existed (there is no definite answer) it is meaningless because we cannot define it under that situation.

Now yet another version of the Big Bang theory has appeared. This takes into account different levels of dimensions. It is interesting you brought up flatlands, because it follows that same concept. While living in a 2 dimensional world. you have no concept of that 3rd dimension, but it still exists. Same with time. Time would exist/coexist with out 3 dimensional world. So while the Big Bang happens, the whole incident is wrapped up in layers of other dimensions. So with this new version, time existed, it just existed outside our known universe.

To me, it comes down to 2 things for this topic. 1) What do you consider the Big Bang? Can you throw religion into that or no? Is it the beginning of everything? Or just the beginning of "this cycle", or the beginning of a area within a larger group.(The Big Bounce) (Then you can have more fun and talk about what created that said larger group)...If the OP meant a later model, then time did not exist before the Big Bang.

2) What is time? Are you using Special Relativity to define it? Newtonian time? (An actual part of the universe, say another dimension?) Or more of a Kant/Leibniz concept? (That time is not anything).

Even Steven Hawkins has been attacked for his answers on this subject. We can't agree what happened moments after the Big Bang, let alone before it. Right now, I would say that Hawkins answer on the subject is the best answer. Basically he stated that IF time existed before the Big Bang, it is inaccessible to us; and meaningless.

What if our big bang was a white hole from an alterate universe's super massive black hole. It filled our void and evolved and we are ever expanding and rushing out into space to achieve the same scenario for the next void (or new big bang). it cycles on forever.

The 'universe creation' theories are incredibly intersting and they all make for many a sleepless night if you let them. Did matter exist before the bang? if so where did it come from? If not what caused the bang? Either way we are here now.
To throw another concept in the mix, which has sort of been touched on here. There are many who believe we are currently in 1 of many cycles of and expanding/contracting universe. (Big Bang / Big Crunch) and all the matter JUST IS. Dont ask me to explain, I dont understand myself completely.

no need to explain,
the whole point of this is that noone can explain,
just take baby steps to understanding it better in YOUR own mind,
when it makes sense to you, that is the one you should follow,

I think we understand each other quite well. The differences between us are semantic and conceptual. I hold that the particular spacetime we inhabit can be regarded as a unique, discrete reality (as common perception tells us it is), even if it may in some mathematical sense be considered as (though by no means shown to be) partaking in a greater, multidimensional reality that is also real and discrete, though unknown to us -- and, in any but the most abstract sense, unknowable by us. Time is as we know it, and it only came into existence with the universe as we know it.


Steady State. Big Bounce. The cyclical universe theory that was the grandmammy of them all because it's in the Vedas. Yes, I know.


Yes. The ekpyrotic theory you referred to earlier.


See my comments above.


The origin of the universe we know, or the phase of the universe we know if you prefer the cyclic, bouncy stuff. I would regard the convention of regarding other phases as 'before' or 'after' the present one as merely provisional -- just as the ekpyrotic theory seems to imply, at least if this first glimpse of it is anything to go by.


I wouldn't, but if anyone wants to they're welcome to chuck it in and see what happens.


It defines the absolute limit of experience for beings like us. To all intents and purposes it is the beginning of everything.


See above on cycles and universes with coefficients of restitution.


You'll forgive me, I'm sure, for not plunging blithely into this particular quagmire. Let us regard time as a dimension, one having the odd property that movement along it only apparently occurs in a single direction. This temporal dimension unfolds from a point of origin, which is what I take the Big Bang to be. Spatial dimensions also unfold from this point but they unfold in time, which begs the question of what time unfolds in. Ekpyrosis (sorry, couldn't resist) speaks to that question though it hardly seems to be an answer.

The question of origins, the question of first causes, will never go away until we abolish Time itself. Human concepts of duration, consequence and in particular causality relate to this one-way property of time. If we could travel up and down 'along the t axis',, duration would become equivalent to distance in space, consequence would disappear and causality would be defeated by paradox.


I certainly agree with Prof. Hawking; I merely add that what is inacessible -- in the sense he used the term, unknowable to us except in the abstruse language of a mathematics created purely for the purpose of explaining it -- is, effectively, nonexistent.