Big Bang Theory Is Bang Wrong

I'm no scientist so wouldn't like to comment on redshift or how many turns we've taken around the universe since it started (or didn't). However I agree with the comments above that deal with the BB as a logical rather than scientific issue.

Either this cosmos it is eternal or it arose from nothingness. (I treat any cyclical mechanism as being equivalent to eternal and use 'cosmos' to distinguish the idea of 'everything' from individual universes within a multiverse).

As I understand it 'herotic' superstring theory has sidestepped this problem with the clever cheat of saying that the first things to exist were made out of themselves, in other words they are both cause and affect of themselves, or come into existence because they already exist. Whether this is true or not it does show the lengths people have to go to to avoid having to make the logical choice between eternal existence or something from nothing as explanations.

Personally it makes no sense to me that something can come from nothing, nor that something can 'exist' for eternity. I would therefore, on logical grounds alone, suggest that science cannot in principle crack this problem until it acknowledges the existence of consciousness and its equivalence with nothingness. It is half way there with its theories but seems unable to see that there is no necessary difference between 'quantum fluctuations in the void' and 'something that it is like' to be nothing. I hope this does not come across as unscientific.

As for 'God' I think a definition from someone would help.

 

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Why can't something exist eternally? There is nothing logically inconsistant about that.

 

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Doh. I was hoping nobody would pick me up on that bit. I'll have a shot at an answer but will probably fail to nail it.

It is hard to see how anything material could be eternal as to be 'material' is to be subject to cause and effect. The operation of cause and effect as we normally consider them depends on the existence of time, of before and after. My instinct is therefore that the idea of 'time' being some objective substance with an eternal existence is illogical (but I'm not sure I could manage a proof). Time and matter seem to be mutually dependent for their existence.

One could also say that if you are a monist of some sort then ultimately the universe/cosmos must reduce to only one thing and this is what must be eternal, for all else is transitory. If so what could this be? Energy does not work since energy is dualistic (must be positive or negative to exist) and is physical to the extent of requiring a time dimension in order to exist.

Whatever it is that is eternal it must exist absolutely of necessity, for there is only one cosmos and this is it. If it was not necessary and unavoidable it would be impossible to explain why it would always have existed. It does not make sense to say that the cosmos is eternal but might not have existed like this.

I have more shaky arguments if you want them but will retire to try and clarify this issue to myself.

 

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I dond want to sound like a parrot, but I have to repeat Beercoole's statement: There is nothing logicalli incosistent about something beeing infinite, existing eternaly.

Think of it this way. When you were learning geometry in grade 6 or 7 the first thing the teacher told you was that a straight line (we are not talking about a line segment) is infinitly thin, and it stretches an infinite distance to the left, and an infinite distance to the right. You did'nt argue with the teacher then, you just accepted it and went on from there.

Regards apolo

 

You might be right, but I did raise some difficulties with the idea.

I have no problem with eternity or infinity as concepts. But where is this actual infinite line you are talking about? If it has a material existence it must have appeared since the Big Bang, and infinity is a very long way to go in a finite time. If it existed prior to this then BB theory is wrong.

 

Canute,

You've hit on the old philosophical debate about contingent and non-contingent things. In the physical world, virtually everything we know of will cease to exist in front of our very eyes. As such, it's hard to imagine something non-contingent that cannot fail to exist.

But this may be a problem with our intuition rather than having anything to do with reality. Perhaps the universe is really nothing more than some unified field. Rather than having normal flat geometry we are familiar with, it posses a dynamic, non euclidean geometry. And what if this dynamic geometry is what we perceive as space and time? Energy then would not be something merely dependant on time, it would be an inherent property of geometry. But that's just an idea.

But that would seem to leave us with an infinite regress of this "time" or having to deal with a beginning. But what if time is not change in the geometry of space, but an actual 4th spatial dimension? Concepts such as the no boundary position put forth by Stephen Hawking seem to treat time in this way. The big bang would merely be the minmium value of time, much like how the north pole is the furthest point north on the earth. The big crunch would act as the south pole, being what we would see as the end of time. But space-time as a whole would really be an unchanging 4 dimensional universe. It would neither be created nor destroyed.

To think of time as a spatial dimension seems ludicrous. But if we try to define time as a dimension or coordinate as in the case of (x, y, z, t) the math would be indentical to the definition of our normal time perception. Only the interpertation of that definition is different, and it would be impossible to tell which one is correct from that alone.

These are just wild ideas I'm throwing around here, but I don't think they can be dismissed so easily. I can't take credit for them, as they have been floating around for a long time.

Oh, and as for the idea of an infinite universe. I think with the big bang, you get a universe with zero volume at t=0, and then an infinite volume after that! Perhaps this absurdity will be removed by a quantum theory of gravity, getting rid of those pesky singularities.

 

Canute

Time and matter seem to be mutually dependent for their existence.

Time exists as a mathematical quantity (same as space). Time is not a physical quantity in terms that anything depends on it. Nothing in our physical universe depends on time as well as on space (location), as well as on velocity, and on some other "purely mathematical" so to speak quantities.

 

I cannot follow all that you wrote (probably my fault). However a couple of comments.

If spacetime is eternal then how could have zero volume at t=o?
If the universe can be both infinite and a singularity at different times (times?!) then it is a very odd thing indeed.
In my opinion those 'pesky singularities' (and infinities) will not go away. They are part of the proper explanation. Renormalisation is pragmatically useful but simply sweeps the problem under the carpet. They are not there by accident.

 

Canute. I think you have to stop thinking about zero volume and t=0

According to the BBt they dont exist in an infinitely old and infinitely large universe.
I realize that the concept of an infinitely old universe that never had a beginning may be difficult for some people (we are all born with a different mindset) it might seem counterintuitive. but look at it this way, the theory of relativity is also counter intuitive - Time slowing down when traveling at 7/8 speed of light, a rod getting shorter in the direction of travel etc.etc - when Einstein first proposed these theories, most scientists said he was a crackpot. But now that most of his ideas have been proven, it is accepted by virtually everybody.
I gew up back in the days whe the SSt was widely accepted. When it gradually lost the battle to the competing BBt in the late fifties I reluctantly accepted it. For a while. but then too many cracks began to appear. And my sense of logic tells me if I've got to chose between a singularity exploding and creating a whole universe full of stuff without a cause, or an infinite universe. I'll take infinity.

Regards apolo

 

The Big Bang

Just a simple thing to consider about the Big Bang...the Universe is infinite, or is expanding to be thus unless the critical density exists, but since we have accelerating expansion then the critical density is not likely to exist. So, my point, how can something infinite (the Universe) come from something finite (the nothing that the Big Bang came from)?

M.

 

My fault entirely, as I was being to vauge. But that is probably good for another topic some day.

Depends on what you mean by eternal. If we use time as another spatial dimension, the singularity is not really the beginning of the universe at all. It would merely be a literal mathematical point in space-time. But this assumes both space and time can be divided infinitely, which physicists believe is incorrect.

I disagree, because the infinities of the singularity bring in a new kind of absurdity. You have an infinite amount of density with zero size and zero time. In other words, you have infinite density, with nowhere to put it. But this only comes from the assumption that space can be divided continously as in the case of normal euclidean geometry. From quantum mechanics, this does not seem to be the case. That is why the singularity is expected to go away with a quantum theory of gravity.

But even that would not explain the actual origin, or whether time can be treated as an extra spatial dimension.

 

Re: The Big Bang

Who says the universe came from nothing?

 

Re: The Big Bang

If my logic is right (?) then if the cosmos was nothing before the BB then it was infinite nothingness. A singularity is a sort of bundled up infinity, there being little difference between infinite smallness and infinite bigness. If the cosmos is all there is then it can't be said to have a size in our usual sense. If the cosmos is infinite now then it always was so. Things can't become infinite, they either are or they aren't.

 

It also seems to assume that space and time can be seperated.

Hmm. If the cosmos is all there is it's hard to see what difference there is between calling it a singularity or calling it infinite. How could we tell them apart? [/B][/QUOTE]

 

I would like to ask a couple of questions of the Big Bangers.

No 1. Astronomers have recently told us that (great suprise) the farthest parts of the universe is flying appart even faster than the nearby portions.
Qustion: Can we believe these observations? Dont forget that Hubble, who discovered the redshift, went to his grave insisting that the redshift only indicated linear distance, not velocity.

Question 2: Why is it that galaxies 7 and 8 billion lightyears away (supposedly very close to BB time) is observed to be banging in to each other. if everything is flying appart.

Question 3; Why is it that the Andromeda galaxy is moving towards the Miilky Way (and will hit us in 3 billion years) and why is the local group of galaxies gradually moving towards the Virgo cluster?

Regards apolo.

 

Re: Re: The Big Bang

Infinite nothingness? Strange concept that.

 

Thank you James R, For your response to my questions 2 and 3. Even though they did'nt prove anything, they were at least not crackpot or joke type funny like you often get on this channel.

I said "Hubble went to his grave insisting that the redshift indicated only linear distance and not velocity" Can i back that up? you bet I can. Read " The observational aproach to astronomy" by E.Hubble published 1937. But it is out of print, you will have to go to a large university with a good library to find one . I read it in the late 40s
when I was in my teens. Of course in those days the SSt was mostly in favor but the BBt was catching up, untill it took over in the early 60s.
Hubble published a lot of papers and several books. And in everything exept one 1929 paper did he say, that there was a fudge factor in his calculations but he did not believe it indicated velocity. He thought it was something as yet unexplained. He treated it in some papers as linear +apparent velocity. of course it is that 1929 paper that is quoted in every astronomy book today. (because it supports the BBt)

Question 4. If the universe is uniform (isothropic) on a grand scale as postulated by the BBt how come we have features Like the Great Wall of galaxies, containing 1000s of galaxies in a big sheet thousands of LY long and a a thousand Ly wide, separeted from the rest by unimaginable voids? These are fackts, but you wont find them much in the latest news releases, because the Big Bangers try to ignore them.

Regards apolo
,

 

Re: Re: Re: The Big Bang

In a way it is. But it doesn't seem to make sense to say that nothingness can be finite.

 

Nothing is an absence of everything, plus the fact that nothing cannot be defined as an object....so it can be neither finite or infinite, unless you cold describe nothing in a quantum manner.

M.