Cause of the Big Bang

Reiku said:
Hi, how are you?

Anyway i think that things must come from nothing in the end, when dealing with oscillators. An oscillation has no real zero-state, but some kind of infinite ground state.
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OK, thanks!

We just don't know what is on the lowest level. It is possible that when we find out we will know how something can come from nothing. Until then, it is just empty conjecture.
 
kaneda said:
...We just don't know what is on the lowest level. It is possible that when we find out we will know how something can come from nothing. Until then, it is just empty conjecture.
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Come on, Kaneda, you are just being ............. realistic :).

Though I side with anyone who says that nothing can come from nothing, but something can't, I agree that we can't know for sure. This is one of those things that we really can't find out for sure. If something came from nothing somewhere back in time it did a pretty good job of it because there is something everywhere we look. It would be pretty hard to find a place with nothing in it now to test a way to make something come from nothing again.

And we would have the same problem testing how the energy of the universe could have alway existed, though that position seems to have the high ground between these two possibilities based on the conservation of energy.

I just luv the conservation of energy law, and to violate it would mean that even that cherished law would be tentative. If it could be true that something came from nothing I would say that the best way to approach a test would be to try to make nothing out of something.

That would violate conservation in the opposite direction but it would convince me that something could come from nothing. Other wise, I stick with the idea that the universe has always existed.

One more thing while I am posting ... supernatural aside, why does the general public seem to think that it is more likely that there was a beginning, than it is more likely that everything has always existed? What circumstances could possibly influence so many people to shrug off energy conservation?
 
Perhaps more importantly, what circumstances could possibly influence so many people to shrug off conservation of momentum?

Newton's laws of motion account for how energy in moving mass is useful energy. Energy cannot be used without force and resistance, and that requires motion in the first place.

A universe that has always existed would have both energy and motion at all times.

In a universe that has always existed, there must exist a means to reverse entropy. If there was no means to reverse entropy, over infinite time past all useful energy would be used and complete entropy would have prevailed long ago.

But to use the requirement of reverse entropy as evidence for a beginning (something from nothing) is saying that there is no way that our universe can cause reverse entropy and so there must have been a beginning. That has no more validity than using the fact that reverse entropy is required to explain why entropy has not become complete in a universe that has always existed. The difference is in whether it is possible for reverse entropy to be a part of how the universe actually works.

But taken together, the perpetual existence of both energy and momentum as characteristics of a universe that has always existed, and that can defeat entropy. has the high ground. It doesn't require something from nothing; it only requires that the universe has a mechanism that can reverse entropy.

When I weigh the two, I can easily describe how entropy can be reversed but I can only invoke the supernatural to get something from nothing. I say that the cosmology that includes a mechanism for reversing entropy is more like science than it is like the supernatural.
 
kaneda said:
EMR and gravity are waves in what we refer to as space. No space, no energy or matter. Or do you believe that space has always existed and that the BB (or whatever) just occupied existing space?
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That is not an outside-the-universe or "before"-the-universe observable or theory that includes an absence of everything / anything.

What you are saying is that if you remove our universe, then there is "nothing" left. Yet, there isn't a single observable instance of "nothing" nor is there any theory of reality that even speculates "nothing" to exist outside our universe.

Nobody knows why our universe inflated (what you call the Big Bang). It might be a cyclical event of deflation and inflation. If might have been a smaller structure that bumped into another structure and reacted with inflation. It might be a "blister", membrane, or reflection of a larger system. Nobody knows; however, one thing is for certain. "Nothing" isn't real.
 
kaneda said:
Makign? Is that anything like : I admire your theories?
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No, that is a typo for the word "making". The question was "Are you MAKING this up as you go along?". You're not doing too well if you can't even work through a simple typo without help.

kaneda said:
The Casimir effect needs definite circumstances to make it work. There is not the slightest evidence it happens without those set circumstances.
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If particles literally popped in and out of existence at random, then we would detect them with electron microscopes, in colliders, etc. The only time we get this effect is under very specific conditions.
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I am not questioning the reality of virtual particles...but suggesting a possibility as to how they come about.
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First and foremost, you cannot suggest a possibility unless you can demonstrate it is a valid outcome supported by probability. What you can do is speculate to your hearts content; however, even an exercise of good old fashioned imagination is utterly worthless to science if you don't grasp the underlying subject matter... which your statements above show to be the case.

The space-time AROUND any particle is filled with countless particle-antiparticle pairs that rapidly and literally burst in-and-out of space-time like a fireworks display.

The reasons we cannot detect them with electron microsopes / colliders / etc. is because:

* They are pairs of particle-antiparticle which cancel each other's properties (rendering them nearly undetectable).
* They cannot occupy the same space as particles we would use for traditional detection technology (ex. bouncing photons or electrons off them).
* Their existence is too short lived.

The Casimir Effect is not something that "works" only in a special set of circumstances. When virtual particles pop in-and-out, they exert pressure and therefore force. The strength of the force is rougly that of a single red blood cell resting in the palm of your hand on Earth. That force is called the Casimir force and Hendrik Casimir (a Dutch physicist) proposed that virtual particles could be detected by observing very tiny objects being moved by their "popping" force (something electron microscopes, colliders, the human eye, etc. cannot do for the reasons I listed above). In 1997 physicist Steve Lamoreaux was able to demonstrate tiny surfaces being moved by that Casimir force.
 
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I know you want scientific explanations only... but...

The Universe had no beginning. (it began when you became aware of it, yet it was always there) There's always been a chicken, the egg is just another form of the chicken's infinite cycles.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
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The Casimir Effect is not something that "works" only in a special set of circumstances. When virtual particles pop in-and-out, they exert pressure and therefore force. The strength of the force is rougly that of a single red blood cell resting in the palm of your hand on Earth. That force is called the Casimir force and Hendrik Casimir (a Dutch physicist) proposed that virtual particles could be detected by observing very tiny objects being moved by their "popping" force (something electron microscopes, colliders, the human eye, etc. cannot do for the reasons I listed above). In 1997 physicist Steve Lamoreaux was able to demonstrate tiny surfaces being moved by that the Casimir force.
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Thanks for bringing this up. There is a growing interest in how and why this force exists. I don't claim to understand it as well as you do and so I Googled it. One of the 235,000 hits is this blog post which makes interesting reading. Links from the post are good too.

We live in interesting times :).

When you say, "Nothing isn't real", I agree

However, I noticed your comments about various options to the past history of the universe. Per your examples, it is true that none of them say that something came from nothing. But in Big Bang Therory don't you agree that there is an implication that space and time didn't exist before the big bang? Isn't that implication essentially the same thing as saying nothing existed?
 
quantum_wave said:
Thanks for bringing this up. There is a growing interest in how and why this force exists.
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"How" and "why" are the same question in this case :). A reason people are so interested is because the Casimir force is potentially an energy / mechanical source for nano-technology.

quantum_wave said:
I don't claim to understand it as well as you do and so I Googled it. One of the 235,000 hits is this blog post which makes interesting reading. Links from the post are good too.

We live in interesting times :).
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Sweet.

quantum_wave said:
When you say, "Nothing isn't real", I agree

However, I noticed your comments about various options to the past history of the universe. Per your examples, it is true that none of them say that something came from nothing. But in Big Bang Therory don't you agree that there is an implication that space and time didn't exist before the big bang? Isn't that implication essentially the same thing as saying nothing existed?
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The classic Big Bang theory doesn't address what happened "before" the Big Bang, so there is no implication. It does postulate that what we know as "our universe" was maximally deflated at t=0. There are of course many other inflationary theories that delve into what's outside our universe and it is most assuredly "something". Then there are theories of reality (going far beyond the confines of our universe) to basically explain "everything". M-thoery is one such theory that I'll speculate might be closest to the truth about how reality works. It predicts that our universe is a brane (a word derived from "membrane") in a larger multi-dimensional Calibi Yao space. The Calibi Yao doesn't really have what humans might conceive as a beginning or end... it simply is.


We'll know more about that once we have the results of some experiments using the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
 
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O.K. I'm going to risk looking like a total rube here, but back in the '70s (my high school days, and was the last time I spent time reading this stuff) there was the idea of the Big Crunch. That the universe oscillates between BB and BC. At that time it was thought that black holes, while still just theory, might play a role in this by providing the necessary mass and/or gravitational force to bring matter back to the point of singularity, since there didn't seem to be enough matter extant. (And, as I understand it, there still doesn't.)

So, my question is: Has this idea been totally abandoned? And, if not, does dark matter and dark energy play the role that was filled by black holes?

Just to be clear, I am NOT proposing this to be the case. It is NOT a pet theory of mine.
I'm just asking...:shrug:
 
Crunchy Cat said:
In this particular case we're talking about 'what is' instead of 'what might be'. There isn't a single instance of "nothing" that anyone can point to.
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Hey CC, Here's that thread/post about "Something from Nothing".

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=82881

John J Bannan

If there is a connection between space and matter, as evidenced by the effect matter has on gravity and gravity's effect on space by warping it, isn't it obvious that there is a connection between space and matter? In other words, isn't it obvious that there is connection between nothingness and somethingness? Isn't this connection proof positive that matter came from nothingness?
There is only one explanation for the existence of the universe that does not depend on a primary cause, and that is that the universe came from nothingness. This is the only explanation that does not beg the question, what caused the primary cause? Nothingness does not need a cause. It is the only thing that does not need a cause. It is the obvious answer to the existence of the universe.
The reason nothingness can appear to be something can be explained by analogy to a simple equation, i.e. 0+0=0. Nothingness as represented by "0" can also equate with 0+0, or "nothingness" + "nothingness". Nothingness has the mathematical ability to take an infinite variety of forms by simply repeating itself ad infinitum. For example, 0=0+0=0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0 et cetera. The answer to the existence of the universe is not found in asking the question, "how could something come from nothing?", but in understanding that something is nothing. This answer is simple and obvious.
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So, Whadda' think? I thought it cause for pause. Make sense, or total bullshit? I'm curious to know what you think. PM me if you think it's too off topic.
 
Tht1Gy! said:
O.K. I'm going to risk looking like a total rube here, but back in the '70s (my high school days, and was the last time I spent time reading this stuff) there was the idea of the Big Crunch. That the universe oscillates between BB and BC. At that time it was thought that black holes, while still just theory, might play a role in this by providing the necessary mass and/or gravitational force to bring matter back to the point of singularity, since there didn't seem to be enough matter extant. (And, as I understand it, there still doesn't.)

So, my question is: Has this idea been totally abandoned? And, if not, does dark matter and dark energy play the role that was filled by black holes?
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The only thing that's known with certainty is the universe expanded. Whether it will "crunch", "rip", or do something different is simply unkown. Traditional big bang theory is a little dated. There are alot of inlationary, steady state, brane, etc. theories out there.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
The only thing that's known with certainty is the universe expanded. Whether it will "crunchy", "rip", or do something different is simply unkown. Traditional big bang theory is a little dated. There are alot of inlationary, steady state, brane, etc. theories out there.
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"inlationary"? typo for inflationary?
brane???Pls explain, briefly if poss. I've seen the word in a post or two...
"Steady state" is back in vogue? Really?

I've been watching a lecture series on Dark Matter and Dark Energy from The Teaching Company, with Sean Carroll of CIT, He's all over the BB and dismisses SS. Says "... Back in the 60s there was the Steady State theory..."

It's rather in-depth; 24 half hour lectures covering a broad range of topics, including but not limited to:
General Relativity, The Standard Model of Particle Physics, The CMB, etc all building up to DM and DE.

I'm not challenging you per se, just trying to sort it all out, having been out of the loop for 25 years and all.:eek: :eek:
 
Tht1Gy! said:
"inlationary"? typo for inflationary?
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Yep.

Tht1Gy! said:
brane???Pls explain, briefly if poss.
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A brane is a collection of energy bound to a specific cross section of dimensions. For example, our universe would be a collection of energy across a 4-dimensional brane in a larger multidimensional space 10-26 dimensions.

Tht1Gy! said:
I've seen the word in a post or two...
"Steady state" is back in vogue? Really?
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It never died :).

Tht1Gy! said:
I've been watching a lecture series on Dark Matter and Dark Energy from The Teaching Company, with Sean Carroll of CIT, He's all over the BB and dismisses SS. Says "... Back in the 60s there was the Steady State theory..."

It's rather in-depth; 24 half hour lectures covering a broad range of topics, including but not limited to:
General Relativity, The Standard Model of Particle Physics, The CMB, etc all building up to DM and DE.
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For whatever reason, it's still hanging around.

Tht1Gy! said:
I'm not challenging you per se, just trying to sort it all out, having been out of the loop for 25 years and all.:eek: :eek:
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No worries.
 
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Crunchy Cat said:
A brane is a collection of energy bound to a specific cross section of dimensions. For example, our universe would be a collection of energy across a 4-dimensional brane in a larger multidimensional space 10-26 dimensions.
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:eek:
OK, I'ma gonna need to research that one a bit more. Any good (non wiki-waki ;) ) sites you know?
 
Crunchy Cat said:
"How" and "why" are the same question in this case :). A reason people are so interested is because the Casimir force is potentially an energy / mechanical source for nano-technology.

Sweet.

The classic Big Bang theory doesn't address what happened "before" the Big Bang, so there is no implication. It does postulate that what we know as "our universe" was maximally deflated at t=0.
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General Relativity is a big part of BBT, as is the cosmological principle, and of course inflation. When I talk about the implication and you say there is no implication, perhaps you can address this difference in our understanding. General Relativity features spacetime, a "fabric" of space that is warped by mass. Based on astronomers observations of expansion and accelerating expansion, the age of the universe in BBT is postulated to be 13.7 billion years. Putting together the coupling of spacetime and backtracking the expansion, BBT "implies" a zero volume, infinitely dense "point space", which I have been lead to believe says that the big bang originated from nothing. Like you, I have trouble with there ever having been "nothingness". This is one of the features of BBT that I love to hate so are you trying to deprive me of it :)?
There are of course many other inflationary theories that delve into what's outside our universe and it is most assuredly "something". Then there are theories of reality (going far beyond the confines of our universe) to basically explain "everything". M-theory is one such theory that I'll speculate might be closest to the truth about how reality works. It predicts that our universe is a brane (a word derived from "membrane") in a larger multi-dimensional Calibi Yao space. The Calibi Yao doesn't really have what humans might conceive as a beginning or end... it simply is.
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I have to say that I didn't think M-theory was purely inflationary in that the membranes themselves are not said to be eternally inflating, only the intersections are particularly inflating, our observable universe being one intersection. I prefer not to have to go to multiple dimensions if there is a simpler lower dimensional option that is equally consistent with current observations and providing it doesn't depend on the supernatural.
We'll know more about that once we have the results of some experiments using the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
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That machine is part of what makes these "intestine times". Much like the sailing ships of the fourteen hundreds and orbiting rockets of the late last century.
Tht1Gy! said:
O.K. I'm going to risk looking like a total rube here, but back in the '70s (my high school days, and was the last time I spent time reading this stuff) there was the idea of the Big Crunch. That the universe oscillates between BB and BC.
Click to expand...
The cyclical crunch bang theory is discredited by the fact that electromagnetic radiation does not respond well to being recalled by the gravitional pull of the crunch, at least as I understand what I am recalling about it. Each cycle would "lose" some energy, and after a finite number of cycles there wouldn't be enough energy recalled by the reverse entropy cycle to cause the next bang. What I did like about it was that it didn't require nothingness. Unfortionatly, since it was supposed to have an infinite history, time was its enemy :) because eventually it would result in either a big rip (de Sitter universe expanding with no matter left, or a final big crunch. Someone might be able to convey the current thinking better than I can.
 
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