Before the Bang

[owl]

Hi all,

I looked around, but maybe I missed it if this topic exists somewhere on these boards.

I'm not so much interested in debating the dynamics of the bang or the assertion that it was "not an explosion of matter out into empty space" (but rather an "expansion of space itself"... which doesn't really address what "space itself" is besides empty volume...)

 

I'm interested in how science deals with the "something out of nothing" problem. Such an assertion seems to me no different than the bogus religious belief that it all came out of "God's Magic Hat" if I may speak tongue in cheek as an amateur scientist with NO religious beliefs.

 

I like an oscillating (bang/crunch) model, because at least it affirms the law of conservation of matter/energy... that "it all" came back (imploded) from the last bang to "crunch" or "bounce" and start another in an ongoing, perpetual two phase cycle.

 

I know that lack of enough matter to effect such a gravitational reversal is often cited, along with entropy as reasons this model will not work. But of course, more matter is being discovered all the time... ever more stuff which doesn't emit or reflect (from our perspective) light. So the verdict, "not enough mass for the required gravitational reversal"... is at the very least a premature judgement. And the entropy argument is complicated, but also not really a death sentence for the oscillating model... if "it all" comes back... in all its forms... no matter how "thinly dispersed.

 

But enough for now.

Oh,... can we avoid the "beginning of time" argument in this?... I mean, to at least to give a perpetually, eternally cycling model a chance to be considered.

 

Thanks.

[Klaynos]

We smile and say we don't know. There are ideas like the big crunch, bang cycle but we don't know.

[Blahah]

Something out of nothing is not a problem, unless you are trying to relate it to something you have directly experienced. Similarly, "the concept of 'before the big bang' is nonsensical because time emerged in the big bang" is not a problem either. There could be an eternally cycling series of bangs, but why does that make any more sense than a spontaneous event in which time and space emerged from nothing? It's just a problem of imagination, and to me it's no easier to imagine infinity than to imagine something arising with no cause. They are both outside our direct experience but you just accept the concept as there's no reason why it shouldn't be so.

 

The 'something out of nothing' idea is different from the religious assertion because religion adds an invisible, undetectable entity before the other stuff which caused all the other stuff. Just an unnecessary and stupid complication.

[DrRocket]

Try reading Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary NewView of the Universe by Roger Penrose or Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok.

 

Recognize that these books are very speculative.

 

Or, smile and say "We don't know."

[Moontanman]

I once read it described in this manner, the big bang was like a bubble in a pint of beer, it appears from out of no where from the point of view of looking in the glass, then it expands as it rises to join the other bubbles in the head at the surface. It's a phase change, from a gas dissolved in the liquid to a gas immersed in the liquid. He seemed to think the universe could be seen in a pint of Guinness... maybe you can, then again maybe you have to drink a lot of it before you see it???

[owl]

Something out of nothing is not a problem, unless you are trying to relate it to something you have directly experienced. Similarly, "the concept of 'before the big bang' is nonsensical because time emerged in the big bang" is not a problem either. There could be an eternally cycling series of bangs, but why does that make any more sense than a spontaneous event in which time and space emerged from nothing? It's just a problem of imagination, and to me it's no easier to imagine infinity than to imagine something arising with no cause. They are both outside our direct experience but you just accept the concept as there's no reason why it shouldn't be so.

 

The 'something out of nothing' idea is different from the religious assertion because religion adds an invisible, undetectable entity before the other stuff which caused all the other stuff. Just an unnecessary and stupid complication.

Thanks to everyone for replies so far.

First, to the above:

Maybe "problem" is the wrong word for the concept of "something out of nothing." That it makes to sense to an intelligent mind is a... 'challenge' for me. As opposed to religious belief, science/cosmology must intelligently consider cosmic origin (or perpetual/eternal existence)... as an alternative to "Duh, lets just say that it "it manifest out of nothing."

No, none of us, of course have had a direct experience of "where it all came from." Cosmology by its very nature is speculative, but that doesn't keep the intellectual curosity of "scientists" of all kinds from such specualtion. And there is no difference that I can see between an agent "God" creating "it all" out of nothing* and the "science" of everything out of nothing (*like when "darkness was on the face of the deep" and then "He said, Let there be light"... and eventually everything else magically appeared.

 

Regarding your statement:

" Similarly, "the concept of 'before the big bang' is nonsensical because time emerged in the big bang" is not a problem either. There could be an eternally cycling series of bangs, but why does that make any more sense than a spontaneous event in which time and space emerged from nothing?"...

Please re-read my last opening statement. Let's not start off by reifying "time"... a big pet peeve of mine! Get a stopwatch. Click it twice. "Time" is the duration between the two instants, the two "clicks." Don't lets debate "time" here. (Yes, it will make a difference what inertial environment you and your stopwatch are in, and another one in a different such environment will get a different "duration of time" beetween clicks.)

And, I'm talking about where the visible cosmos came from, not the more esoteric concepts of space and time. (The former I see as empty volume, considered apart from what exists in that volume.) So, everything continually existing and going through perpetual Bang/Crunch cycles makes infinitely more sense to me than the magic of spontaneous manifestation from nothingness.

[steevey]

One theory is that the universe is infinite, another theory is that we don't know and never will, and a third theory suggests the big bang itself occurred because of improbability, which means before it there was nothing.

[owl]

Try reading Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary NewView of the Universe by Roger Penrose or Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok.

 

Recognize that these books are very speculative.

 

Or, smile and say "We don't know."

Yes, "very", thanks. I was keeping up with string theory all through its "formative years" up through its integration of all five (?) versions of strings into one unifying "membrane" when "M-theory" was born.

Funny thing was, the guy who came up with the eleventh "dimension" which, they say was the integrating concept, was previously hooted out of the scientific community for such an off-the-wall "dimension", then came back in glory and splendor as the father of M-theory with that final 11th "dimension." (Or are there more like 26 "dimensions" now... maybe just the lunatic fringe of this metaphysical and very "far out" speculative cosmology. Anyway, I don't have much patience with Steinhardt and Turok's "Eureka!" revelation that membranes (made of infinitessimally small, never to be seen strings) clapping together create new "universes."

 

BTW, I really enjoyed the way Hawking abandoned his primordial singularity theory of cosmic origin and endorsed the M-theory boys' "new book" a couple of years ago.

I had given Hawking a bad time about his singularity theory a few months before his "conversion"... this on another science forum. He and his staff might have seen it... or not.

His "infinite mass density in a point of zero volume" was the most absurd and unintelligent "science" I had ever encountered at the time.

Any way that's the meaning of speculative cosmology... we don't know.

But some seem more "reasonable" than others. Occam's razor would cut out most of M-theory's "dimensions."

[Airbrush]

Maybe "problem" is the wrong word for the concept of "something out of nothing." That it makes to sense to an intelligent mind is a... 'challenge' for me. As opposed to religious belief, science/cosmology must intelligently consider cosmic origin (or perpetual/eternal existence)... as an alternative to "Duh, lets just say that it "it manifest out of nothing."

 

 

So, everything continually existing and going through perpetual Bang/Crunch cycles makes infinitely more sense to me than the magic of spontaneous manifestation from nothingness.

 

What exactly do you mean by "something from nothing"? What exactly is nothing? Empty space? I don't believe "nothing" ever existed. There was always something, even if that something is hard to recognize. The difference between something and nothing is just a phase change, or a quantum fluctuation.

 

Why do universes need to recycle thru big bangs and crunches? Our own universe appears to be accelerating its' expansion. Why not suppose that Big Bangs are just one of those things that happens, now and then, here and there? There is no need for a crunch before a big bang. The only thing that prevents our universe from being a super-supermassive black hole is that the initial state of the universe was expansion at an inflated rate, faster than light. However, a big crunch should result in a super-supermassive black hole, not a rebound.

Edited March 2, 2011 by Airbrush

[Greatest I am]

I think that scientists are looking for a needle in a haystack at our present level of knowledge.

 

We are up to what, 16 other dimensions to make ideas of super strings work and is it 8 to make branes work.

 

Do scientist look like they are doing science. Not as much as in the past.

 

Belief in science is on the wane somewhat I think because we are behind in prooving some of these stranger notions. See you in the multi-verse # 12236

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[owl]

What exactly do you mean by "something from nothing"? What exactly is nothing? Empty space? I don't believe "nothing" ever existed. There was always something, even if that something is hard to recognize. The difference between something and nothing is just a phase change, or a quantum fluctuation.

 

Why do universes need to recycle thru big bangs and crunches? Our own universe appears to be accelerating its' expansion. Why not suppose that Big Bangs are just one of those things that happens, now and then, here and there? There is no need for a crunch before a big bang. The only thing that prevents our universe from being a super-supermassive black hole is that the initial state of the universe was expansion at an inflated rate, faster than light. However, a big crunch should result in a super-supermassive black hole, not a rebound.

Yes, "nothing" is empty space, not to assert the absurd, that all space is empty. But we can distinguish every-*thing* existing *in space* from space as the empty volume in which all cosmic "stuff" exists and moves around. Seems the human mind can not tolerate the concept of no-thing-ness, emptiness. The collective mind of science seem to always assert that space "itself" is *something* and nothingness or empty volume is just not "allowed."

There is a difference between all "stuff" and the space in which it all exists.

(Side note: There can be no end to space. What boundary? What beyond this imaginary/bogus boundary? More space, ad infinitum.)

 

You ask, "Why do universes need to recycle thru big bangs and crunches?"

Well, "need" in this context seems to be simply a logical necessity if one refuses to accept the "magic" of all cosmic "stuff" just appearing out of nowhere/nothingness... or "empty space"... supposed to "originally" have nothing in it... but, somehow... Presto!... it all just appears, and, by whatever dynamic "goes bang" or "space" (emptiness) starts magically expanding. (Two levels of "magic" here. Space becomes *something which expands* and it does so without any reasonable cause.)

 

So an oscillating cosmos allows that all cosmic "stuff" always existed and always will exist, as per the law of conservation of energy/matter.

And, "where it all came from" is answered by gravitational reversal of outward expansion, i.e., It all just comes back and, after the "crunch" or "bounce" it "bangs" again, by whatever debatable dynamic.

 

Finally you state: "However, a big crunch should result in a super-supermassive black hole, not a rebound."

 

Given that some of our best scientific minds claim that the laws of physics break down within a black hole, I think the jury is still out out on that question.

But...

Since we have discovered that there is a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of every galaxy (mature enough to have a bulge at the center), and each is sucking up all the stuff closest to it, many are wondering if galaxies recycle after all galactic material is sucked in to the SMBH. Do they "eat" and then somehow re-birth the consumed galaxy? How, the dynamic, is still all speculation. But we do have supernova explosions after star collapse... a possible smaller scale model of whatever it is that big fat SMBH's do after their galactic meal.

And we have quasars spewing stuff out from their spinning axes... like squeezing their plasma/"stuff" back out into space.

 

Fun to contemplate anyway even if we will never know for sure... or... ??

Edited March 4, 2011 by owl

[DrRocket]

Yes, "very", thanks. I was keeping up with string theory all through its "formative years" up through its integration of all five (?) versions of strings into one unifying "membrane" when "M-theory" was born.

Funny thing was, the guy who came up with the eleventh "dimension" which, they say was the integrating concept, was previously hooted out of the scientific community for such an off-the-wall "dimension", then came back in glory and splendor as the father of M-theory with that final 11th "dimension." (Or are there more like 26 "dimensions" now... maybe just the lunatic fringe of this metaphysical and very "far out" speculative cosmology.

 

This is just plain wrong.

 

Ed Witten, "the father of M theory" has most certainly never been "hooted out of the scientific community". His accomplishments are legendary -- here is an incomplete sample:

• A greatly simplified of the positive mass theorem of general relativity (first proved by Schoen and Yau using geometric methods0
• A supersymmetric solution to the hierarchy problem for the Higgs mass
• Selberg-Witten theory
• Dualities in string theory and the M-theory conjecture
• Understanding of Jones polynomials
• Fields Medal (only physicist ever)

M-theory may or may not ever become a valid physical theory. I certainly have my doubts. But no one who is knowledgeable would ever discount Ed witten.

 

 

As for Hawking, the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems for general relativity are as sound as ever. The only problem is that no one knows or has ever presumed to know how they translate to physics beyond "the theory breaks down and we need a theory of quantum gravity". I am quite confident that anything that you posted in any forum has had zero influence on Hawking and that he remains blissfully unaware of your opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

[lemur]

If the big bang emerged from something besides an antecedent contraction of a similar universe to the known one, it could either be part of a larger cycle or part of an endlessly evolving linear progression. Why would either possibility be more logical than the other? What's more, why would you assume that the two possibilities are mutually exclusive. After all, if significant changes occurred in the substance of the big bang before it began to expand as spacetime, then couldn't those changes have occurred in some dimensions of existence unrelated to spacetime as we know it? That doesn't mean they would be any less meaningful evolution than what occurred once spacetime began expanding, but it does probably mean that we would have trouble contemplating the significance of the dynamics of what was going on. After all, if a lot is going on but not in terms of spacetime dimensionality, how would we interpret that in the context of human consciousness?

[DrRocket]

If the big bang emerged from something besides an antecedent contraction of a similar universe to the known one, it could either be part of a larger cycle or part of an endlessly evolving linear progression. Why would either possibility be more logical than the other? What's more, why would you assume that the two possibilities are mutually exclusive. After all, if significant changes occurred in the substance of the big bang before it began to expand as spacetime, then couldn't those changes have occurred in some dimensions of existence unrelated to spacetime as we know it? That doesn't mean they would be any less meaningful evolution than what occurred once spacetime began expanding, but it does probably mean that we would have trouble contemplating the significance of the dynamics of what was going on. After all, if a lot is going on but not in terms of spacetime dimensionality, how would we interpret that in the context of human consciousness?

 

huh ?

[steevey]

I think that scientists are looking for a needle in a haystack at our present level of knowledge.

 

We are up to what, 16 other dimensions to make ideas of super strings work and is it 8 to make branes work.

 

Do scientist look like they are doing science. Not as much as in the past.

 

Belief in science is on the wane somewhat I think because we are behind in prooving some of these stranger notions. See you in the multi-verse # 12236

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

Those extra-dimensional theories are just the most popular theories, or the theories with the most attention, they aren't the only explanations scientists have for how the universe works.

 

There's also virtual particles which appear out of the nothingness of space, so that's something to think about before the big bang. There didn't have to be much of anything before it, but the big bang itself might have arose out of some improbability.

Edited March 6, 2011 by steevey

[Greatest I am]

Those extra-dimensional theories are just the most popular theories, or the theories with the most attention, they aren't the only explanations scientists have for how the universe works.

 

There's also virtual particles which appear out of the nothingness of space, so that's something to think about before the big bang. There didn't have to be much of anything before it, but the big bang itself might have arose out of some improbability.

 

When science goes beyond the, might and perhaps and may have, type of language, to the, did and does type of definitive language, then the reputation of science will get stronger. Till then, neophytes like me will just wonder why scientific imagination is as --out there-- as religious --God did it, imaginary language.

 

The desire to publish may have exceeded the desire to be accurate and right.

 

Regards

DL

[Airbrush]

Yes, "nothing" is empty space, not to assert the absurd, that all space is empty. But we can distinguish every-*thing* existing *in space* from space as the empty volume in which all cosmic "stuff" exists and moves around. Seems the human mind can not tolerate the concept of no-thing-ness, emptiness. The collective mind of science seem to always assert that space "itself" is *something* and nothingness or empty volume is just not "allowed."

There is a difference between all "stuff" and the space in which it all exists.

(Side note: There can be no end to space. What boundary? What beyond this imaginary/bogus boundary? More space, ad infinitum.)

 

You ask, "Why do universes need to recycle thru big bangs and crunches?"

Well, "need" in this context seems to be simply a logical necessity if one refuses to accept the "magic" of all cosmic "stuff" just appearing out of nowhere/nothingness... or "empty space"... supposed to "originally" have nothing in it... but, somehow... Presto!... it all just appears, and, by whatever dynamic "goes bang" or "space" (emptiness) starts magically expanding. (Two levels of "magic" here. Space becomes *something which expands* and it does so without any reasonable cause.)

 

So an oscillating cosmos allows that all cosmic "stuff" always existed and always will exist, as per the law of conservation of energy/matter.

And, "where it all came from" is answered by gravitational reversal of outward expansion, i.e., It all just comes back and, after the "crunch" or "bounce" it "bangs" again, by whatever debatable dynamic.

 

Finally you state: "However, a big crunch should result in a super-supermassive black hole, not a rebound."

 

Given that some of our best scientific minds claim that the laws of physics break down within a black hole, I think the jury is still out out on that question.

But...

Since we have discovered that there is a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of every galaxy (mature enough to have a bulge at the center), and each is sucking up all the stuff closest to it, many are wondering if galaxies recycle after all galactic material is sucked in to the SMBH. Do they "eat" and then somehow re-birth the consumed galaxy? How, the dynamic, is still all speculation. But we do have supernova explosions after star collapse... a possible smaller scale model of whatever it is that big fat SMBH's do after their galactic meal.

And we have quasars spewing stuff out from their spinning axes... like squeezing their plasma/"stuff" back out into space.

 

Fun to contemplate anyway even if we will never know for sure... or... ??

 

Then why not suppose that before the Big Bang was empty space, but that space had an "improbable" potentiality, as someone said above.

 

Big Bangs don't seem to happen very often. The last one that occured locally was about 13.7 Billion years ago. What is to prevent another taking place at any time, anywhere? Nothing, except for probability. It is an improbable event.

 

Like an infinite tub of soap bubble, some are expanding, others contracting. Our bubble happens to be expanding.

 

"...many are wondering if galaxies recycle after all galactic material is sucked in to the SMBH. Do they "eat" and then somehow re-birth the consumed galaxy?"

 

No matter how massive the black hole is at the center of a galaxy, the time comes when it becomes isolated and, for the most part, stops feeding. When it stops feeding the quasar turns off and it goes dormant. Angular momentum will prevent the entire galaxy from being devoured.

 

Maybe from different dimensions a big crunch results in a big bang in other dimensions. When the amount of matter being "crunched" exceeds a certain limit, it cannot merely crunch into a supermassive black hole. It goes beyond that and implodes as an explosion in different spatial dimensions.

[steevey]

When science goes beyond the, might and perhaps and may have, type of language, to the, did and does type of definitive language, then the reputation of science will get stronger. Till then, neophytes like me will just wonder why scientific imagination is as --out there-- as religious --God did it, imaginary language.

 

The desire to publish may have exceeded the desire to be accurate and right.

 

Regards

DL

 

Well as I've said before in other topics too, the problem isn't that the theories are crazy, its that the only thing supporting them are mathematical equations which would describe why something works the way it works.

But at one point, the only thing supporting the existence of atoms were the mathematical equations which showed you can predict how steam moves if you treat it like its made of individual atoms, and behold they were right while many people were saying that's crazy.

Edited March 6, 2011 by steevey

[Greatest I am]

Well as I've said before in other topics too, the problem isn't that the theories are crazy, its that the only thing supporting them are mathematical equations which would describe why something works the way it works.

But at one point, the only thing supporting the existence of atoms were the mathematical equations which showed you can predict how steam moves if you treat it like its made of individual atoms, and behold they were right while many people were saying that's crazy.

 

Yet machematics show for one the existence of 12 dimensions and the math done another way show only 8. They cannot both be right and that is why neophytes like me just shake our head and wait for science to clean up it's act.

 

 

Regards

DL

[owl]

This is just plain wrong.

 

Ed Witten, "the father of M theory" has most certainly never been "hooted out of the scientific community". His accomplishments are legendary -- here is an incomplete sample:

• A greatly simplified of the positive mass theorem of general relativity (first proved by Schoen and Yau using geometric methods0
• A supersymmetric solution to the hierarchy problem for the Higgs mass
• Selberg-Witten theory
• Dualities in string theory and the M-theory conjecture
• Understanding of Jones polynomials
• Fields Medal (only physicist ever)

M-theory may or may not ever become a valid physical theory. I certainly have my doubts. But no one who is knowledgeable would ever discount Ed witten.

 

 

As for Hawking, the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems for general relativity are as sound as ever. The only problem is that no one knows or has ever presumed to know how they translate to physics beyond "the theory breaks down and we need a theory of quantum gravity". I am quite confident that anything that you posted in any forum has had zero influence on Hawking and that he remains blissfully unaware of your opinion.

Ouch! do I detect more than a little hostility here? (I know you despise me, and I'm fine with that.)

 

I have nothing against Ed Witten but, like as par for multi-dimensional theorists, its all esoteric/metaphysical after 3-D space (and time as a factor, but not a "dimension.) No ontological examination of what these dimensions actually are in "the real world." I am not, of course, an string/M-theory expert. I just found its development interesting all the way along. At one point, his eleventh dimension was not going down well with his colleagues. It has been many years, and I can not cite specifics, but it is common knowledge in the development of M-theory. Then, somehow, I don't know the details, it started to make sense in a way that integrated the seemingly conflicting varieties of strings. He was hailed as father of M. Good for him.

 

As for Hawking: His "infinite mass density in a point of zero volume" still stands as the most absurd, pseudo-scientific quote ever, in my book.

He did in fact endorse the M-theory book by Turok and Seinfeld, and as far as I can tell this was an abandonment of his cosmology built around a primordial singularity... with above "characteristics."

 

You say:

"I am quite confident that anything that you posted in any forum has had zero influence on Hawking and that he remains blissfully unaware of your opinion."

 

I am sure you are correct. But it was just a few months between my criticism of the above absurdity and what I took to be abandonment of that as a cosmic origin in favor of M-theory. If you see it differently, shoot.

And try not to choke on your condescension and animosity.

[steevey]

Yet machematics show for one the existence of 12 dimensions and the math done another way show only 8. They cannot both be right and that is why neophytes like me just shake our head and wait for science to clean up it's act.

 

 

Regards

DL

 

It's not that the can't both be right, its that they can't both by the answer for the same thing. In one instance, you may need to describe a system which only involves 8 dimensions. In another, you may need 10 or 16, and so the equations are changed. Of course you can't use x^2 to represent the volume, you need x^3, but both are true for whatever instances they need to describe. X^2 does work for area, and X^3 does work for volume. Even though we know there's at least 3 dimensions, we can still use mathematics for 2 or less dimensions in reality.

 

As for Hawking: His "infinite mass density in a point of zero volume" still stands as the most absurd, pseudo-scientific quote ever, in my book.

He did in fact endorse the M-theory book by Turok and Seinfeld, and as far as I can tell this was an abandonment of his cosmology built around a primordial singularity... with above "characteristics."

 

According to the notion of the uncertainty principal, something with infinitely general energy will have an infinitely precise position. There's also the fact that evidence shows denser and hotter states of the universe and that singularities are the only way to explain black holes.

Edited March 6, 2011 by steevey

[Greatest I am]

It's not that the can't both be right, its that they can't both by the answer for the same thing.

 

Exactly.

Yet they both claim to be the ultimate answer to what the sub atomic world is.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[steevey]

Exactly.

Yet they both claim to be the ultimate answer to what the sub atomic world is.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

I'm really guessing that they don't, because gravitons and strings are two different things.

[Greatest I am]

I'm really guessing that they don't, because gravitons and strings are two different things.

 

Whichever is real, our reality still cannot have both 8 dimensions and 12.

Either or. Not both.

 

Regards

DL

[36grit]

I read a lot about empty space in this forum. It's my understanding that time is space and that before the big bang there was no time. Therefore there could not be any space (as we know it) either.