Question about the age of the universe

[bobosmokey]

While reading here, I saw someone say that the universe had a beginning called the Big Bang. I can't remember which thread. I have a problem with that. If there were to happen, then there must be some sort of matter. And if matter cannot be created or destroyed then matter must exist throughout all time making the universe infinite. If the universe were to have a starting point, then where would the matter come from?

[neo007]

I not certain but i'm quite sure that there's a thread for this already created.

[sunspot]

The Big Bang is a logical result from the observed expansion of the universe. In other words, if the universe is expanding, it was smaller yesterday and even smaller the day before. If one extrapolates backwards further and further in time the universe was tiny at one time. This original tiny state is called the primordial atom. How this initial chunk of matter appears is not clear using existing theory.

 

If the universe was steady state, neither expanding or contracting, the eternal universe argument might be possible. The universe could be in a constant recycle mode. But one still runs into a similar problem of where all this material originated. If the material built up slowly it should eventually collapse as more and more gravity is added to the universe making an infinite universe unlikely. If it happened all at once, this is far more complicated than just having one primordial atom to explain.

 

One answer is that used to explain the universe is that the matter came from other dimensions or from parallel universes. But this still creates the problem of how the first parallel universe or first dimension got the original matter/energy in the first place. In other words, if you trace any scenario they all come back to an original mass/energy creation problem. The observed universe expansion, which logically retraces back to one chunk of matter, is the easiest to someday explain, since only one chunk of starting material, for one time, needs to be explained.

[Sisyphus]

It's really only a problem if you stick with the maxim that every event must have a cause. However, there's nothing that actually logically necessitates that, it's just what we've always observed. Thus, I put forward that the primordial atom had no cause, and did not need one.

 

Obviously, I can't say for sure, but if you say that everything has to have a cause, you won't get anywhere. You just need a cause for whatever the cause was, ad infinitum. Therefore you have to abandon the idea somewhere, so it may as well be the point at which you can't possibly see beyond, i.e. the Big Bang. Even an endlessly cyclical universe doesn't escape this, because you would still have to ask why there is existence instead of nonexistence.

[bobosmokey]

Well if we go buy the Law of conservation of mass then there wouldn't be a origin of the mass because it cannot be created. So couldn't the universe just be in a never ending cycle of being primordial atom and creating planets and such?

[ydoaPs]

Well if we go buy the Law of conservation of mass then there wouldn't be a origin of the mass because it cannot be created.

what about if the net energy is zero: there is both positive and negative mass created?

[Doctordick]

It's really only a problem if you stick with the maxim that every event must have a cause.

I challenge anyone to prove that any event has a cause!

 

It is your explanations of events which requires a cause!

 

Please explain what is wrong with the explanation "what is, is what is and there is nothing more to be said".

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Severian]

Well if we go buy the Law of conservation of mass then there wouldn't be a origin of the mass because it cannot be created.

 

There is a flaw in that argument.....

 

There is no 'Law of conservation of mass'. We convert mass into energy and back again every day. Fission power is an example of mass->energy and particle colliders are an example of energy->mass.

[Royston]

There is a flaw in that argument.....

 

There is no 'Law of conservation of mass'. We convert mass into energy and back again every day. Fission power is an example of mass->energy and particle colliders are an example of energy->mass.

 

The conservation of mass is only applicable to chemistry, so it's redundant when it comes to high energy physics. I guess that was the law he was reffering to.