In the beginning...

[1veedo]

The principle of ignorance tells us that the beginning of this universe was totally undefined. There were no mechanics dictating how it should act; no mechanics could. We cant even conclude there was a point when the universe wasn’t in existence.

 

Nothing: no time, matter, energy, space, information, nor any properties whatsoever. So the second you state “something cant come from nothing” the second you apply a property to nothing. So therefore nothing is unrestricted. This is why quantum mechanics is grounded in the laws of probability. There was a probability that nothing would fluctuate, but there was also a probability for each and every possible state to fluctuate. This may as well be infinite. As long as you have a stable, net charge of 0 universe, anything has the possibility to exist; including nothing.

 

Actually, “stuff” comes from nothing all the time based off this property. In empty space, if we look at it real close in short time frames, we see it's no longer "empty." Matter can spontaneously come into existence as long as the system is balanced; prohibiting it from breaking any of the conservation laws. (remember, 76% of dark energy comes in the negative form of gravity)

 

An important principle in quantum mechanics involves two uncertainty relations. One concerns a particles position p and momentum q stating (delta p)(delta q) = h / 4pi which implies that the more you know about a subatomic particle’s location, the less you know about it’s momentum and the same holds conversely. The other uncertainty relation concerns the energy of a particle e and the time it had the energy t stating (delta e)(delta t) > h. Following the mathematics, you can graph the probability of a particle’s location and momentum along with its energy at a given time.

 

This graph is sortof like a cloud. The darker it is in certain areas, the more likely we’d find a particle there if we poked in our head. This cloud stretches infinitely, and this is where the concept of quantum tunneling comes from.

 

Quantum mechanics also postulates that a vacuum/quantum fluctuation could, under the right circumstances, bring that particle out of existence or even bring another particle into existence. It even proposes that a fluctuation could give rise to this very universe. Such an event would have had no cause, and could have ben created from / out of nothing, with a total energy of zero. This makes a lot of sense in quantum physics. And, there is excellent theoretical and empirical evidence to support this.

 

According to M-Theory, we live on an 11D Brane world but we tend to only notice 3 spacial and one time dimension because they’re the big ones, the rest are rather small (I’ll explain why bellow). Branes, like everything else, are subject to quantum fluctuations themselves. The creation of out universe would be similar to the creation of a bubble. Water is comprised of H2O molecules and as the get excited, they bump into each other. If they bump ento each other hard enough, they will form a bubble. From there it could get bigger or smaller dependent on how many molecules join or leave the bubble. Most bubbles collapse back to liquid again but a few, that reach a certain size will continue to grow.

 

The patterns of a brane world is quite similar. Think of a balloon. The uncertainty principle allows brane worlds to appear from nothing. The interior [“of the balloon”] is the higher dimensional space and the outside is where we live. Very small ones would have a short life but a few, like ours, that had a quantum fluctuation beyond a certain size is likely to keep expanding; this is why the universe is expanding today.

 

We now know that there are 3 large dimensions with another 7 giving us 10 spacial dimensions ( + 1 time giving us 11). But why are 3 so much larger then the rest? Strings wrap around dimensions, and they constrict the dimensions like rubber bands so they cant expand. If a looped string and it’s antipartner were to collide, they’d turn into energy which is a straight (or unwrapped) string; a string that cant wrap around the dimensions. And if enough of the strings turn into energy, it would allow and actually “feed” those dimensions to expand. Think of two point particles on a straight line: they will eventually collide unless they’re both going the same speed. But if you put point particles on a plane, they’re less likely to collide. It’s the same with strings, just harder to visualize. If you have them on a 3 P-Brane, then they will most certainly collide, but if you put them on a higher dimension, the chance of two colliding goes down dramatically.

 

Because of the enormous heat in the early universe, all of these 10 dimensions are trying to expand. And at the same time, the wrapped strings try to keep them at their original plank sized radii. Eventually, a thermal fluctuation would make three dimensions larger then the others and the strings in these dimensions are very likely to collide. As the restriction grows less, the dimensions will expand more making it harder for more strings to wrap around them because it takes more energy to wrap around a larger dimension (T Duality). In this way, the more it expands, the harder is gets for them to contract and stay at plank’s length. Eventually, it requires too much energy for a string to stay on the larger dimensions so they all, well most of them, would move to the still-small ones. The inflationary model of the big bang does not, however, say that all the stings "slipped off" so in principle, with the expansion of the universe, there can be strings that stretch light years through the universe. The discovery of one would be very string empirical evidence for M-theory.

 

At this point, you get to the traditional big bang model. The universe condenses forming galaxies who condense farther forming stars. Eventually, simple amino acids would combined into self-replicating substances on many different planets (trillions if modern day estimates are correct) and follow the law of evolution on each planet.

 

But how long ago did inflation start?

 

We already know that all galaxies are moving away from us and that the farther they are from us, the faster they’re moving away. When looking at great distances, we see photons emitted from an earlier point in history so we’re essentially looking back in time. In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced that all galaxies were moving away from us and came up with the Hubble parameter (more commonly known as Hubble’s constant but it’s not a constant, it changes over time). He realized this because all galaxies had a red shift and the farther away they were, the bigger the shift was (Doppler Effect). Before getting into some mathematics, this already poses some propositions. We know that at one point in time, the universe would be a hot, dense, plasma. I can’t stress how much theoretical and empirical evidence there is to support this.

 

Hubble’s constant is: v/d. v = velocity the universe is expanding and d is the distance from us the galaxy is. The inverse of H is a time unit because v = Hd so 1 / H = d / v. Distance / velocity is time (I can go 5 miles in half an hour: 5 / .5 = 10 miles / hour). So T = 1 / H (substitution).

 

H is measured in km / s / Mega Light Year, which can be converted to years.

 

T = (10^6 ly * 9.5 * 10^12 km* 1y) / (3 * 10^7 H km / s / MLY * MLY * ly * s)

Which is 9.5 * 10 ^11 / 3H years.

 

The geometry of this universe is rather flat so it’s a reasonable assumption that H stays close enough to itself that 15 billion years is a real good estimate. We can however write an algorithm that gets v and d at different points in history then average that using the small cosmological constant and other factors to get approximately 14.55 billion years after plugging that value for H in the equation. There have ben other calculations using an HR diagram with galaxies that renders a time of 13.8. There are many ways to calculate the age of the universe (and many ways to prove the universe started in a singularity), and all of them tell us that the universe is around 10 - 15 billion years old.

 

There is very little doubt that the inflationary model is in fact correct. The big bang explains a number of phenomena including the expansion of the universe, the existence of the cosmic background radiation, and the relative proportions of various sorts of matter.

 

Burn me for being an infidel,

1veedo

[ed84c]

you say we cant define a time before the universe. Well of course you cant, there was no time! unless there was time in the previous oscollated universe.

[1veedo]

I probably has more to do with inflation...

 

The history of a photon (or any particle for that manner) is a path in spacetime (not physically, but because of the conservation of information), and if spacetime eventually curves to a point then these spacetime paths will converge and intersect at that point. If this were to happen in the past, such that the spacetime paths emerge from the point of intersection and gradually curve away from each other, the point of intersection would appear to constitute the beginning of spacetime.

 

So weather or not time exested before 10^-43 is irrelivant

[CPL.Luke]

one problem is you could never measure a supersized string

 

it being a one dimensional object and all.

 

plus what would space be like in the center of one

 

wouldn't it technically just collapse down into a planck length as thats what a string is supposed to be sized at? or would a photon just pass through it.

 

 

 

 

also ounce you start invoking the ideas of quantum mechanics, such as if you can't measure it, it can't exist. well then you can't measure any more then 4 dimensions therefore only four dimensions exist.

 

I personnally am always a skeptic when it comes to string theory however

[TimeTraveler]

We now know that there are 3 large dimensions with another 7 giving us 10 spacial dimensions ( + 1 time giving us 11).

 

When did we know this as fact? thought this was speculation? Yeah I know you clarify later that it's theory, but this sentance can be misleading

 

all of them tell us that the universe is around 10 - 15 billion years old.

 

The new data show the universe to be 13.7 billion years old, to within 200 million years- Charles L. Bennett NASA

 

Sorry not picking apart your post Just wanted to point this out b/c it's very hard to keep up with all the new information coming in.

 

Now onto the topic hehe. I really am neutral to this theory, part of me does not want to believe it, it just doesn't feel right. But what the hell do feelings mean in physics?

 

I was reading today something that said to think of time and space as real is absurd. The only thing that is real is motion which gives us a perception of time and space.... (ya you guessed it, philosophy class )

 

I have my own feeling, and I say feeling because that is all it is. Space itself is a spatial dimension, kinda like an ocean. Living in an ocean would seem very two dimensional. however there is a whole world above you that you have no way of percieving. It is something you cannot even comprehend because it is so different from what you know as reality. Space is like an ocean and the univers is like a bubble in that ocean, to ever understand and interprate the other dimensions (if they exist) we must go outside the bubble and see what is beyond. And what I believe we will find is we are a bubble alongside billions of other bubbles, inside a bigger bubble which is along side billions of other bigger bubbles inside a bigger bubble ad infinite.

[1veedo]

When did we know this as fact? thought this was speculation? Yeah I know you clarify later that it's theory, but this sentance can be misleading

This is just part of string theory. My over all article is really just bringing a few seemingly distant concepts together to propose a theory of cosmic origin.

I have my own feeling' date=' and I say feeling because that is all it is. [/quote']Feelings are really just chemicals released by the brain. People with brain defects can be angry if they’re exposed to something new. Reason being, instead of being scared or excited (normal emotions) the brain releases the wrong chemicals. There are all kinds of brain defects that can be acquired from jsut banging your head on a wall. Human conscious is really just a product of chemical reactions.

 

You can probably find thins in another section of this site, but there are two factors in emotions. One is the emotion itself, the basic chemical. The second factor is how other parts of a brain interpret it. For instance, scared/excited are the same chemical. If the new object seems threatening, it will be interpreted as frightening. If it’s a new roller coaster, you know its going to be fun, and thus will be extremely excited. But maybe a little scared, which is merely because the brain will not perceive everything the same, and therefore certain areas of the brain will be scared as well.

 

But if you’ve seen a threatening object over and over again and its not doing anything new it wont seem so scary.

 

All of this is of course fully ground in the natural universe. We are really kind of a part of the universe, and are trying to figure things out.

 

Philosophically, we are sortof the universes way of figure itself out.