Do you know how big the universe was when the radiation was given off?
My understanding is as a result of the inflation stage it must have been quiet large by the time the radiation was generated.
You are probably right.
Well you are right as I have nothing in the way of a scientific education (other than high school and casual reading) and certainly my questions are from ignorance of what science may actually be saying...that is certainly a reasonable observation.
It boils down to the fact that I percieve the Big Bang leads us to a point of creation and I bet there are many happy with that journey simply because it could be used to support the notion of a God via a creation point.... as I said makes me uncomfortable.
And there are many religious folk who see the big bang as evidence of God and creation ... not just catholic church but I have heard Muslims (on line) do what I suggest... A section only but what I suggest I take as a fact.
I certainly dont like the idea of inflation where we go from zip to almost full size in less than a second.. that seems supernatural...but I am not sure if the theory of inflation is a placeholder or if folk are happy that such could occur.
I just consider the vastness of the universe and look at the galaxies out there ( consider the various Hubble Space Telescope photos of a small region with thousands of galaxies) and just can not accept that everything went from nothing to almost all there is in a split second. I get the idea that it was space expanding and not subject to the speed limit but the theory presents a growth that is for any purpose is instant.
As Neil DeGrasse puts it..in under a zillionth of a zillionth of a zillionth of a second... Give inflation a whole second and it seems unbelievable...How else could you describe it other than instant growth?
Maybe its my little human brain but it surprises me that no one wonders similar... Have you thought about it at all... it is really instant..from small..what size of a grape fruit..just to the size of a single gallaxy is hard to swallow but to all there is??? heck even the Pope gives creation six or seven days.
I dont think there is anything to support inflation via observation and although the maths can support it I find the notion simply not believable.
In fact if we are to go with the Big Bang Theory I think that in a desperate effort to save the BB theory inflation was seized upon in haste. As I understand the theory was confronted with the percieved problem of how did everything end up the same and inflation was the answer..Maybe the percieved problem was not a problem and they ran down the wrong road. Maybe space etc has an internal quality dictating that it will be a certain way which results in stuff on either side being the same.
Give me something better than inflation and I would be happier.
Do you know how big did the universe grow at the end of inflation?Presuming it was rather large at that point why would it still be considered dense and hot.
I suppose what I need to know is how big it was after inflation and is that size consistent with it being still dense and still hot but I think the way it goes it certainly was not in anyway small?
I think the church approves of the big bang which for me is a great reason to look for an alternative. They are not known to rush to support science it seems to me and yet on this aspect are on board. Why? because the science was beyond doubt? yeh sure... the church does not seem to embrace new ideas even when they are supported by science and observation...heck they have only recently moved past the Earth being the center of the universe... I see something not quiet right here and inconsistent with their general approach to new ideas.
I doubt if the church would be happy if science was able to say "and before t=0 we can show that the pre existing conditions resulted from the colapse of an earlier universe"..Would the church remain on board if they were faced with science taking away their creation point.
You suggest science can not be influenced by religion well I do not agree...religion can influence anything and if you underestimate their ability to exert influence I say you are not being realistic.
So here I find myself not believing in anything other than my non belief in anything.
And thank you for helping me here I do appreciate your effort.
alex
No one has an answer for the Singularity and that is why that isn't included in the BB theory. Inflation solves some problems but, as you say, it is hard to believe and there is no known physics for that either.
The physics that we know comes into play just after the BB so most everyone understands not to read too much into what came before that. Most certainly it isn't a perfect theory. It just happens to explain all observations, data, predictions that come afterward.
The other hypotheses don't.
The church (any church/religion) is going to do what they need to do regardless of the theory. They are going to insert God into any gap in our present knowledge whether it's the BB or an eternal universe.
If there was no creation event and we were talking about an eternal universe they would simply say, "Who is eternal...God".
The best way to think about the Big Bang is with a large universe, just one that is now larger, cooler and less dense. I look at it, like most other theories, as a place holder that may be changed if another even more accurate theory comes along.
I don't look at it as something that is "wrong" soon to be replaced by something else. We know what we know. That isn't going to change.
Relativity "replaced" Newtonian physics but it didn't change all that we knew. It had to mirror Newtonian physics except in the extreme ranges where Newtonian physics wasn't accurate enough.
Quantum physics is the same. It works very well for the environment for which it was designed. It doesn't work so well as it meets classical physics.
The Solid State model just isn't reflective of what we now know. That doesn't mean that there can't be an infinite universe or an eternal universe before the Big Bang. Everything is up for grabs in those areas where our current answer is "I don't know".
Regarding the universe being large but hot...the sun is large but hot. When fussion is going on, it's hot. There was a period about 300,000 years later where the plasma became opaque and radiation and matter decoupled. Again, all of this is reflected in the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background). The predicted helium fused from hydrogen during that period matches what we observe as well.
Inflation is just working backward to explain what must have happened given the results. No one is confident with the explanation other than it works and no one has come up with a better explanation that still fits the data.
When you have one "story" that fits the data and another one that doesn't, you stay with and improve the one that fits the data until/unless you get a better one.
People complain about dark matter and dark energy. They are place holders but something very similar has to exist since galaxies rotate is ways that require more mass than we observe (dark matter) and since the universe is known to be expanding (dark energy).
That's how science works. Use your best guess and then continually try to improve on it. Improving on it doesn't include making up something that make you feel better if it doesn't fit the data.
