The Big Bang!

[lucky45]

:confused:If there ever was a Big Bang Creating our universe,Then it had a beginning, If there was nothing before the Big Bang,Then what is (nothing made of?)

[insane_alien]

'what is nothing made of?' is a nonsensical questions. but anyway, the big bang doesn't say that there was nothing which exploded. all it says is that everything was in a really really small point and that about 13.7 billion years ago it expanded. thats all it said. not that the universe magically appeared from a nothing more nothinglike that any nothing before or since.

[lucky45]

To my friend who just responded. With all due respect, Any questions concerning science,in an area where nothing in set in stone, all questions can leade to another and another, which might lead us to an answer. Everything about the beginning of everything we know of is only theory. No Question concerning sciencs is nonsensical. With all due respect, to my new friend. Hope to here from you again. Thankyou

[insane_alien]

it's nonsensical because how can nothing be made of anything? an utter lack of existance cannot, by definition be made of anything. so to ask what it is made of is a nonsensical question.

 

if you continued to read my post after the first sentence, you would notice that i informed you of what 'big bang theory' actually says rather than the incorrect one often portrayed by the media and 'popular science' shows.

[lucky45]

Nothing can be made from something because Maybe the laws of phisics break down at the time before anything and and 1 plus 1 wont equel 2. There is Im shure that before the big bang that there must be something that occupies space the way we know if here on earth,

[insane_alien]

you still haven't read the e ntirety of my first post have you.

 

and if, by definition nothing isn't made of anything, then how can it be made of something but still be nothing?

 

you see, it doesn't make sense. it has nothing to do with any laws of physics.

[lucky45]

On your last post, you said that it doesnt make sence. Of course it doesn;t make sence, ( according to the laws of phisics that we live and abide by here on our little planet), What Im saying is: ( is there a start or beginning of infinity Does it have a beginning or end) Better stop here because now were entering in an area of the supernatural. which I have no answers to Only faith. Listen I have to go for now,but I would like to continue our conversation again, Lucky

[insane_alien]

since you won't go back and read the post again i'll say it again:

Big bang theory does not state that the universe appeared from nothing.

 

What big bang theory, Cosmic Inflation theory to give it its proper name, states that 13.7billion years ago, all space was in a very very small point on the order of a planck length. it then expanded.

 

its only the media who have turned it into some universe came from nothing crap.

[lucky45]

I appreaciate your opinion on our discussion here But It seems to me that everything you told me is based on what you read or or was taught in school. all the input that Im offering here is based on my own opinion of what I read and disected. Im not saying Im right, but Im not saying Im wrong, Please be alittle more open mined. I enjoy your input.

[insane_alien]

actually its what i've read from the scientists who are actually working on this sort of stuff.

 

you can read a sample of this sort of stuff here http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0309238

 

but there's literally thousands of papers on it. its what inflation theory IS. it is not my opinion of it.

 

and opinions aren't that important in science. reality is what is important. if the idea does not hold up to testing then it is wrong. no politically correct compensation prize, just flat out wrong.

[lucky45]

You said opinions arnt important, Reality is! My friend, Reallity is based on our 5 sences. Im talking about an area where the reallity that we Know (might) not make sence to us. Even the top minds have been riddiculed (Hawking),

I dont know the answer, but will work on it Ha Ha

[Klaynos]

Our 5 senses are pretty crap, which is why we build detectors.

 

BBT says nothing about how it started, why it started, or what was there before, it just describes what happens moments after it started. It makes experimentally testable predictions which are then tested with our detectors...

 

Also, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A790175

[Phi for All]

I think we have a communications problem here. lucky45 is asking something *outside of BBT*, something that BBT does not predict, and the responses have all been about BBT.

 

I think lucky45 is asking what there was before the Big Bang, perhaps besides "everything" in one small point, and if "everything" was in a point the size of a Planck length, was there "nothing" outside of that? I suppose it's along the lines of, "If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? What's beyond the leading edge?"

 

It's a speculative question and should perhaps be moved, since none of this is really Science News.

[Martin]

... Im shure that before the big bang that there must be something that occupies space the way we know if here on earth,..

 

That sounds like a working assumption that a lot of scientists make in studying the universe. Indeed it would be surprising if it turned out to be wrong.

 

Considerable current research is going into developing models that extend back before BB. And additional effort goes into figuring out ways to test those models by astronomical observation.

 

If you are a reader, Lucky, and are interested in finding out what the current pre-BB models are, just say and I will dig up some links. I don't know any popular writings in English, but there is plenty written at the professional level.

 

...It's a speculative question and should perhaps be moved, since none of this is really Science News.

 

I suppose it depends case by case where you move threads like this.

 

If someone were to ask a legitimate science question like "What do today's scientists, working cosmologists, think might have led up to the BB?" or "What models have they developed to explain the BB?" then I'd say move the discussion to the AstroCosmo forum.

 

But another time it might be someone who thinks that he has solved the problem by his own common sense and that he's right and all the world's scientists are wrong because they think that before the BB there was Nothing.

I'm not sure what to do in that case. It certainly isn't News, so maybe it is Speculation.

The primary error is that starting off that way misrepresents the current situation in cosmology.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Martin

[foodchain]

Though I am unsure if it applies to pre bang conditions such a question is why I am so interested in wondering if conservation of energy can be violated. I think if energy conservation could be violated it would allow for a whole slew of weirdness, but on that note I am also unsure if energy conservation laws means that something prior to big bang had to exist.

 

IN short from what I know it’s sort of like the theory of evolution. Biology indeed studies possible environments or what not that could spawn life from inanimate matter, but its not absolutely required for the theory to work scientifically in terms of understanding evolution. With that said from what I know current physical models of the universe, and what supports them like tests and observations currently cannot scientifically explain pre big bang.

[Martin]

Though I am unsure if it applies to pre bang conditions such a question is why I am so interested in wondering if conservation of energy can be violated. I think if energy conservation could be violated it would allow for a whole slew of weirdness, but on that note I am also unsure if energy conservation laws means that something prior to big bang had to exist.

 

IN short from what I know it’s sort of like the theory of evolution. Biology indeed studies possible environments or what not that could spawn life from inanimate matter, but its not absolutely required for the theory to work scientifically in terms of understanding evolution. With that said from what I know current physical models of the universe, and what supports them like tests and observations currently cannot scientifically explain pre big bang.

 

Two interesting observations.

 

My comment about your comparison with biology would be that you never ultimately prove a theory true, theories are meant to be tested and improved. You can only show a theory is false---makes the wrong predictions---doesn't match the data.

 

But theories that keep on matching gradually gain cred.

 

So as an example I will take one theory, LQC, that I'm fairly familiar with.

 

Current work by Aurelien Barrau and Julien Grain is aimed at testing LQC using CMB measurements.

 

LQC predicts nearly the same stuff as classical General Rel cosmology but with some quantum effects making a slight difference.

 

LQC could turn out to be the simplest explanation for what we see today, in the CMB and the overall structure of the cosmos, patterns in the distribution of radiation and matter.

 

It could, then, gain credibility. Could. It stands a chance, but we don't know. And in LQC the BB proceeds from a prior phase of spacetime and matter which looks much the same as ours except it is contracting. There is an intervening very high density regime where quantum gravity effects dominate making gravity repellent (instead of attractive) and causing a rebound.

 

Those are features which were not put in by hand---they just turned out when standard cosmology equations were quantized LQG style and LQC was formulated. Somewhat surprisingly the classical singularity went away.

 

What LQC therefore has to do is pass tests based on what we can observe currently about the universe.

If it passes and gains cred, particularly if it is economical as well, offering the biggest bang of explanatory power for the least buck of complication---then it will bring along a certain pre-BB picture.

 

What you test is the entire model, you do not specifically test one part of the picture (the pre-BB part) you test the organic whole.

 

There are several other researchers working on the testing problem but just as a sample here are papers by Julien Grain and Aurelien Barrau:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0911.1625

http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.2892

http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3605

http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0145

http://arxiv.org/abs/0911.3745

 

As a more detailed sample, I will copy the abstracts of the last two papers:

 

Loop quantum gravity and the CMB: toward pre-Big Bounce cosmology

Aurelien Barrau

Proceedings of the 12th Marcel Grossman Meeting on General Relativity

(Submitted on 19 Nov 2009)

This brief article sums up the possible imprints of loop quantum gravity effects on the cosmological microwave background. We focus on semi-classical terms and show that "Big Bounce" corrections, together with the "pre Big Bounce" state, could modify the observed spectrum.

 

Loop Quantum Cosmology corrections on gravity waves produced during primordial inflation

J. Grain

To be published in the AIP Proceedings of the 'Invisible Universe International Conference', UNESCO-Paris, June 29-July 3, 2009

(Submitted on 9 Nov 2009)

Loop Quantum Gravity (L.Q.G.) is one of the two most promising tentative theory for a quantum description of gravity. When applied to the entire universe, the so-called Loop Quantum Cosmology (L.Q.C.) framework offers microscopical models of the very early stages of the cosmological history, potentially solving the initial singularity problem via bouncing solutions or setting the universe in the appropriate initial conditions for inflation to start, via a phase of super-inflation. More interestingly, L.Q.C. could leave a footprint on cosmological observables such as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. Focusing on the modified dispersion relation when holonomy and inverse-volume corrections arising from the L.Q.C. framework are considered, it is shown that primordial gravity waves generated during inflation are affected by quantum corrections. Depending on the type of corrections, the primordial tensor power spectrum is either suppressed or boosted at large length scales, and strongly departs from the power-law behavior expected in the standard scenario.

 

Here's how I would respond to your second point:

... from what I know current physical models of the universe, and what supports them like tests and observations currently cannot scientifically explain pre big bang.

 

I think you want to put the emphasis on testing, and not on explanation. LQC has a good simple explanation for pre-BB, in the sense of offering a simple mechanism that over-rides the singularity in classical theory.

 

What is missing is therefore not explanation but some convincing tests. We may or may not get tests (it looks like we probably will given the work of Barrau Grain and others.) And if we get tests, LQC may or may not pass them.

 

So I would say that we are not lacking scientific explanation, we are lacking scientific verification. But however you say it, it's work in progress and still quite incomplete.

 

========================

A new part of the picture that just came out in the past month is an unexpected special compatibility between the LQC and inflation:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4093

Edited January 7, 2010 by Martin