Before the "Big Bang"...

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Message 597729 - Posted: 3 Jul 2007, 4:49:56 UTC

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070701/sc_space/glimpseoftimebeforebigbangpossible
Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.
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Message 597732 - Posted: 3 Jul 2007, 5:11:17 UTC - in response to Message 597729.  

Although from a logical perspective how does one see something "before" time existed?
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Message 597752 - Posted: 3 Jul 2007, 5:44:31 UTC

The big bang itself is not proven or there is not any 2+2=4 on that.

So thing before BB might be something else 2+2=?
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Message 597774 - Posted: 3 Jul 2007, 6:50:59 UTC



Very interesting article and discussion on Bad Astronomy What happened before the Big Bang?
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Message 597791 - Posted: 3 Jul 2007, 9:58:13 UTC

Before the Big Bang, There was the big trigger pull....



Sorry, couldn't help myself.


They are still searching for an all in one theory. Personally, I don't think it's possible to completely explain the universe simply because there is no way to go back and watch it happening. You can look back fairly far in telescopes, but it's just not possible to view it happening.


That being said...I do believe that it is still the most plausible theory.


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Message 599786 - Posted: 7 Jul 2007, 3:49:18 UTC - in response to Message 597774.  



Very interesting article and discussion on Bad Astronomy What happened before the Big Bang?


Thanks for the link, very eye opening!!

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge. --- Enrico Fermi ---
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Message 599957 - Posted: 7 Jul 2007, 18:34:31 UTC

A recurring theme here in many of these replies is that two things collided while the Universe was still in the Singularity state. This itself poses problems as Movement causes heat, "time" (as a property of the Universe as we know it) as well as the associated gravitational effects of the moving objects (be they dimensional "objects" or not) would impart onto other objects within the singularity.

Keep in mind: If in the/a singularity, nothing could move/have motion without itself becoming the cause of the big bang. Any energy displaced would cause the rapid expansion and impart (effectively) the laws of physics as we know them ( think at + 1x10-43 seconds from the moment the bang began).

Basically, if there was a Singularity, there was absolutely no motion within it, no heat and no "physics" (Quantum or otherwise) and nothing we could understand until, again, 1x10-43++ seconds after the event.

Hawkings "Bubbles not Bang" theory does allow for physics/Quantum Physics/Alternate Physics to take place by having Multiple Universes banging together (for lack of better terminology) and the resulting energy that creates new(er) Universes. (not that I subscribe to this, but it does allow for interesting theories for the Grand Unified Field Theory).
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Message 602805 - Posted: 13 Jul 2007, 15:42:35 UTC
Last modified: 13 Jul 2007, 15:46:00 UTC

here is something that may help understand the nature of the pre big bang universe. The shortest unit of time allowed by physics is the Planck Time, which is the amount of time it takes the speed of light to traverse the Planck Length (which is the smallest unit of distance allowed by physics and is equal to 1x10-34, or a decimal point followed by 34 zeros then a 1). The Planck Time equates to 1x10-44 seconds. Or decimal point followed by 44 zeros and a 1.

So, the earliest moment of time we can rewind to is the first Planck Time. that is 1 Planck Time after the big bang. at this moment the universe was the size of the Planck Length. No measurement could ever be made shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length because from which NO information can escape or be retrieved. For all intents and purposes anything shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length is a black hole.

Before the 1st Planck Time, the universe was an infinitely dense singularity. It was chaos from which nothing could be known or extracted. Having reached maximum entropy, it exploded to make room for more entropy. This is mandated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that everything progresses increasingly towards more chaos. If a body has more entropy than is allowed it must create some sort of local order to create room for more chaos. This is the basis of the something from nothing theory.

So if that makes any sense, basically before the first Planck Time, time itself had no meaning. So to ask how long was the universe in this state of maximum chaos is asking the wrong question. It is meaningless. We need to ask, HOW did the universe get to that chaotic singularity state. Which is what string theory is attempting to answer.
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Message 602811 - Posted: 13 Jul 2007, 16:11:36 UTC
Last modified: 13 Jul 2007, 16:13:30 UTC

i thought it would be interesting to notate the Planck Time and Length.

Planck Time:
0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds

Planck Length:
0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 centimeters

anything smaller is meaningless from which no information is extracted. fascinating :)

a good analogy for the Planck Length is: Imagine a tree on earth, any tree it can be the tallest. take an atom and blow it up to the size of the solar system. Place said tree next to said atom. Now, shrink the atom (and the tree, maintaining scale) to its normal size. the tree represents Planck Length.
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Message 603151 - Posted: 14 Jul 2007, 2:55:45 UTC - in response to Message 602805.  

here is something that may help understand the nature of the pre big bang universe. The shortest unit of time allowed by physics is the Planck Time, which is the amount of time it takes the speed of light to traverse the Planck Length (which is the smallest unit of distance allowed by physics and is equal to 1x10-34, or a decimal point followed by 34 zeros then a 1). The Planck Time equates to 1x10-44 seconds. Or decimal point followed by 44 zeros and a 1.

So, the earliest moment of time we can rewind to is the first Planck Time. that is 1 Planck Time after the big bang. at this moment the universe was the size of the Planck Length. No measurement could ever be made shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length because from which NO information can escape or be retrieved. For all intents and purposes anything shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length is a black hole.

Before the 1st Planck Time, the universe was an infinitely dense singularity. It was chaos from which nothing could be known or extracted. Having reached maximum entropy, it exploded to make room for more entropy. This is mandated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that everything progresses increasingly towards more chaos. If a body has more entropy than is allowed it must create some sort of local order to create room for more chaos. This is the basis of the something from nothing theory.

So if that makes any sense, basically before the first Planck Time, time itself had no meaning. So to ask how long was the universe in this state of maximum chaos is asking the wrong question. It is meaningless. We need to ask, HOW did the universe get to that chaotic singularity state. Which is what string theory is attempting to answer.


This is absolutely amazing. Thank you very very much. The beautiful thing is that I understand most of it and have heard and mulled over the terms, laws, and theories you have posited. It's not like total Greek to me any more. And all of this in about 2 years. I feel very good about my self education. I think I am beginning to understand, if indeed it can be, some of this "stuff."

This entropy and something from nothing, just when I think I see some sort of possibility, I get lost. I did state earlier in a post on this thread, I believe that something can be "created" from nothing. If we can someday "prove" this, what a quantum leap for man!!!

One last thing, so many questions we ask these days from our finite minds are becoming meaningless. This, I think, is what extremely bothers traditionalists. Another one is probability, not certainty.



It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge. --- Enrico Fermi ---
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Message 619056 - Posted: 14 Aug 2007, 11:36:17 UTC - in response to Message 602805.  

here is something that may help understand the nature of the pre big bang universe. The shortest unit of time allowed by physics is the Planck Time, which is the amount of time it takes the speed of light to traverse the Planck Length (which is the smallest unit of distance allowed by physics and is equal to 1x10-34, or a decimal point followed by 34 zeros then a 1). The Planck Time equates to 1x10-44 seconds. Or decimal point followed by 44 zeros and a 1.

So, the earliest moment of time we can rewind to is the first Planck Time. that is 1 Planck Time after the big bang. at this moment the universe was the size of the Planck Length. No measurement could ever be made shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length because from which NO information can escape or be retrieved. For all intents and purposes anything shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length is a black hole.

Before the 1st Planck Time, the universe was an infinitely dense singularity. It was chaos from which nothing could be known or extracted. Having reached maximum entropy, it exploded to make room for more entropy. This is mandated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that everything progresses increasingly towards more chaos. If a body has more entropy than is allowed it must create some sort of local order to create room for more chaos. This is the basis of the something from nothing theory.

So if that makes any sense, basically before the first Planck Time, time itself had no meaning. So to ask how long was the universe in this state of maximum chaos is asking the wrong question. It is meaningless. We need to ask, HOW did the universe get to that chaotic singularity state. Which is what string theory is attempting to answer.


Beautiful.... i was going to reply with something along the abovementioned quote, but i doubt i could have put it better words.....

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought that whilst we dont completely comprehend what happened before planck time, it is believed that the universe was comprised of 10 dimensions, and that it ummm... cracked? and created (inflationary model) the 4 dimensions that we live in and know, and the 6 others inversely compressed in proportion with Alan Guths inflationary model, therfore meaning that there is another 6 dimensions that is no bigger than planck length?

Just my humble understanding, i haven't kept up with this in 10 years (since i was 16), and most probably my understanding is obsolete by now.
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Message 645848 - Posted: 21 Sep 2007, 17:32:37 UTC - in response to Message 508273.  

Something had to be there surely??
you can't have a big bang from nothing, can you.

Yes. Something had to be there to make it explode to begin with. I believe the big bang is just a small part of a bigger picture. Like comparing the big bang to a single atom exploding.
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Message 645849 - Posted: 21 Sep 2007, 17:33:48 UTC - in response to Message 508283.  

Big Bang
Big Crunch
Big Bang
Big Crunch

But which came first?

lol...its just like the chicken or the egg.
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Message 649550 - Posted: 27 Sep 2007, 3:51:43 UTC - in response to Message 645849.  

Big Bang
Big Crunch
Big Bang
Big Crunch

But which came first?

lol...its just like the chicken or the egg.

I vote it was the egg that hatched!

When we finally figure it all out, all the rules will change and we can start all over again.
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Message 651073 - Posted: 29 Sep 2007, 21:50:52 UTC

Unless there's some sort of mistake, the home page stated that John McCoy aka "jjemme" (thread author) has recently passed.

I just want to pay my respects and say RIP to you John. Hopefully you have now discovered the answers to the questions that we all continue to ask.
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Message 658273 - Posted: 12 Oct 2007, 8:22:53 UTC - in response to Message 603151.  
Last modified: 12 Oct 2007, 8:25:03 UTC

here is something that may help understand the nature of the pre big bang universe. The shortest unit of time allowed by physics is the Planck Time, which is the amount of time it takes the speed of light to traverse the Planck Length (which is the smallest unit of distance allowed by physics and is equal to 1x10-34, or a decimal point followed by 34 zeros then a 1). The Planck Time equates to 1x10-44 seconds. Or decimal point followed by 44 zeros and a 1.

So, the earliest moment of time we can rewind to is the first Planck Time. that is 1 Planck Time after the big bang. at this moment the universe was the size of the Planck Length. No measurement could ever be made shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length because from which NO information can escape or be retrieved. For all intents and purposes anything shorter than a Planck Time or Planck Length is a black hole.

Before the 1st Planck Time, the universe was an infinitely dense singularity. It was chaos from which nothing could be known or extracted. Having reached maximum entropy, it exploded to make room for more entropy. This is mandated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that everything progresses increasingly towards more chaos. If a body has more entropy than is allowed it must create some sort of local order to create room for more chaos. This is the basis of the something from nothing theory.

So if that makes any sense, basically before the first Planck Time, time itself had no meaning. So to ask how long was the universe in this state of maximum chaos is asking the wrong question. It is meaningless. We need to ask, HOW did the universe get to that chaotic singularity state. Which is what string theory is attempting to answer.


This is absolutely amazing. Thank you very very much. The beautiful thing is that I understand most of it and have heard and mulled over the terms, laws, and theories you have posited. It's not like total Greek to me any more. And all of this in about 2 years. I feel very good about my self education. I think I am beginning to understand, if indeed it can be, some of this "stuff."

This entropy and something from nothing, just when I think I see some sort of possibility, I get lost. I did state earlier in a post on this thread, I believe that something can be "created" from nothing. If we can someday "prove" this, what a quantum leap for man!!!

One last thing, so many questions we ask these days from our finite minds are becoming meaningless. This, I think, is what extremely bothers traditionalists. Another one is probability, not certainty.


There has been some new thinking creeping in to the Big Bang Theory. It has troubled many scientists that there are too many add-ons to the theory. These are:

Inflation
Inflationary energy that exists for only a brief instant then vanishes.
Dark energy--unknown source
Dark Matter--still don't know exactly what

usually when a situation like this exists it means that the theory itself is flawed or that we lack a really good model and understanding of what is "really" going on.

Some predictions have been stunningly confirmed however with the Big bang Scenario-(e.g. The distribution of the Cosmic Background Radiation)

Some think that a better explanation of the Creation of our universe is that it is the result of the collision of two "Branes". These are multi-dimensional subsets of of the dimensions that we cannot see. They supposedly collide in a cycle that happens every trillion years or so. Proponents of the colliding brane theory (the Big Bounce) claim that a neater picture of the universe emerges and things like inflation and the Cosmic background radiation are accounted for in the newer theory. In this case the universe cycles between expansion and contraction over an impossibly long time.

I still have a lot of reading to do to get the theory sorted in my mind and to embrace the concept that our 4 dimensional world of space-time may be just the surface of a five (?) dimensional membrane that collides with another, unseen membrane in yet another dimension.



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Message 658410 - Posted: 12 Oct 2007, 14:49:21 UTC - in response to Message 658273.  
Last modified: 12 Oct 2007, 14:57:07 UTC

There has been some new thinking creeping in to the Big Bang Theory. It has troubled many scientists that there are too many add-ons to the theory. These are:

Inflation
Inflationary energy that exists for only a brief instant then vanishes.
Dark energy--unknown source
Dark Matter--still don't know exactly what

usually when a situation like this exists it means that the theory itself is flawed or that we lack a really good model and understanding of what is "really" going on.

Some predictions have been stunningly confirmed however with the Big bang Scenario-(e.g. The distribution of the Cosmic Background Radiation)

Some think that a better explanation of the Creation of our universe is that it is the result of the collision of two "Branes". These are multi-dimensional subsets of of the dimensions that we cannot see. They supposedly collide in a cycle that happens every trillion years or so. Proponents of the colliding brane theory (the Big Bounce) claim that a neater picture of the universe emerges and things like inflation and the Cosmic background radiation are accounted for in the newer theory. In this case the universe cycles between expansion and contraction over an impossibly long time.

I still have a lot of reading to do to get the theory sorted in my mind and to embrace the concept that our 4 dimensional world of space-time may be just the surface of a five (?) dimensional membrane that collides with another, unseen membrane in yet another dimension.




That list of 4 things is a bit incorrect.

Dark matter isn't required by the 'big bang' at all. It *IS* required by laws of mechanics; laws known for the most part since Newton. Dark Matter entered the mix when the problem of galactic rotation was noticed. The profile of rotation rates of galaxies, especially of spiral galaxies, was not consistant with the amount of visible (that is 'light-emitting') matter known to exist in said galaxies. If the only matter present in/around these galaxies was that which we could 'see', their internal structure wouldn't exist for very long as their rotation rates (at various distances from their centers) changed over time. Since no matter how far away we look (and hence further back in time we look) the same type of structures are seen, this implies (rather strongly at that) that each galaxy is surrounded by a cloud (or halo) of matter that we cannot see (non-light emitting, or 'dark'). The case for Dark Matter is based on observational evidence, and NOT on any part of the Big Bang theory.

'Dark Energy' was first postulated by Einstein in his theory of general relativity (in the form of the infamous cosmological constant) as a mechanism to prevent universal collapse (due to mutual gravitational attraction) in what he thought as a steady state universe -- that is a universe that neither expanded nor contracted. Once Hubble (the astronomer, not the telescope) proved that the universe is, in fact, expanding, Einstein admitted the Cosmological Constant to be in error, and the concept was thrown out.

Once the Hubble (telescope, not the astronomer (for which the telescope is named)) helped to indicate that the expansion of the universe is accelerating (and not slowing down as was expected), the concept of some anti-gravitational mechanism was re-introduced into physics, and called 'dark energy' as a play on the word 'dark' from dark matter. Just like the case for Dark Matter, the case for Dark Energy is based directly on observational evidence, and not on any part of the Big Bang theory.

Now then, the first two items on your list do have to do with the Big Bang theory, but not as you might, at first, think. Inflation (if correct) was an early event that happened shortly AFTER the Big Bang. Inflation is theorized as a way that the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation could be so homogeneous (that is, almost the same in every direction).

IF the Big Bang theory (as opposed to the Steady State theory -- long discredited by Hubble) is correct (and it almost certainly is), the CMB would NOT be anywhere near as homogeneous unless Inflation (or some other similar mechanism to smooth it out) were present.

The 'steady state' theory: The Universe has always been here, neither expanding nor contracting.

The 'big bang' theory: The Universe began a finite time ago at a single 'point' and has gradually expanded into what we see today over the course of 10 to 20 billion years.

If you have a problem with what you see as an excessive amount of 'stuff' grafted onto the big bang theory, just wait until you see how much stuff got grafted onto the steady state theory in an effort to make it match observation. The steady state 'christmas tree' is not very pretty. Besides, as I mentioned earlier, the steady state theory got pretty much knocked out of the game (much to Einstein's chagrin) when Hubble demonstrated that the universe is expanding. An expanding universe pretty much requires that it began a finite time ago at a single point (the big bang theory). Otherwise, what happens if you run time back far enough?

Back to the original topic of the thread, speaking of what happened 'before' the big bang is fairly pointless. The first 'event' was the big bang itself. The big bang was the phase change when our present 4-dimensional space-time continuum 'split off' from a higher-dimensional continuum (somewhere from 5-d to 27-d, depending on the particular string or brane theory you are looking at). The energy released by that phase change became all the matter and energy present in the universe. Who can say if one of the 4 dimensions in our universe today becoming time (a durational axis) was not merely sheer accident? Was there even a durational axis (time) in the higher-dimensional continuum? Nobody knows. In fact, some interesting research was published the other day that suggests that in some point in the future, time (our 4th dimension) might switch from being a durational axis to being a spatial one. http://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.0820.

No, we can not claim that ANYTHING 'happened' before the Big Bang.
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Message 659589 - Posted: 14 Oct 2007, 14:23:30 UTC - in response to Message 508267.  

I've wondered what took place before the big bang. The answer was looking me in the face and could have knocked me over. If time was created during the big bang, then time did not exist before the big bang. "Elementary my dear Watson."



Did you see the latest (OCT 07) Scientific American? There was a small blurb in there about it. Rather profound I thought.

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Message 659973 - Posted: 14 Oct 2007, 23:37:10 UTC - in response to Message 658273.  

What I should have articulated is that the current thinkinking of how the universe has got to where it is now has a "Second Opinion". The cyclic nature of Colliding Branes theory leaves no puzzle about what happened before .. There was always a universe --(sort of like the religious "uncaused cause") before the big bang there was a big crunch and so on. The universe "Always Was" I am not saying that I believe this--only that there are other ways--possibly better ways--of explaining what we now think we know about the Universe and it's history.

The current explanation which is in vogue involves--Big Bang from a singularity, Rapid inflation, the presence of dark matter and the existence of dark energy.

The inflation lasted only until 10 **-30 sec after the big bang, The universe doubled every 10**-35 seconds or in other words it doubled 100,000 times during this very brief inflationary period. The energy for this inflation was present at the Big Bang and then suddenly dissipated into radiation. Dark matter is indeed evident since visual mass does not fit with observations in galactic rotational spins--Apparentlly 5 billion years ago the expansion of space produced enough dark energy (the energy of the vacuum) so that this energy defeated the gravitational pull of matter and thus the universe is expanding.

Since space itself is expanding the dark energy grows and is not diluted like the gravitational force or the mass density of the Universe. Thus the universe expands with increasing acceleration producing more space, more vacuum and more dark energy.

What I was driving at is that there may be other theories (such as the Brane Collision theory) which also accounts for the state of the current universe. These theories may be more tidy in explaining current conditions rather than having to incorporate, with careful scaling, the theories of big Bang, inflation, dark matter and dark energy.

Just as Epicyles could account for planetary motion--having to add epicycles upon epicycles to achieve accuracy suggested that there was a more profound understanding which yielded a better model of reality.

I hope that this adds to the discussion.

Regards,

Bill
AKA DADDIO
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