The big bang and before.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man


well, i just want an overview, or description of some sort, of what is thought to have caused the big bang, what theb iog bang was, and what might have been there before etc.

As to what was before? Can't be answered at all, so no real interest.

What caused it? Very high fluctuation in a scalar field.

Cyclical universe(s)? Seems not, as we can't even indirectly obseve near enough mass to cause eventual recollapse.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Cyclical universe(s)? Seems not, as we can't even indirectly obseve near enough mass to cause eventual recollapse.

Agreed, current evidence seems to indicate this won't be the case.

I still like mrmitchel's idea that singularities like black holes spawn new universes in their own dimensions.

[Sheik]

I beleive that God created the universe and that this point was the beginning of time. All matter was created on his command.

Isn't the idea that the universe wouldn't exist without concious beings called the anthropic principle?

anything by hawking is good, his books are pretty well written, and not too difficult to follow

I finished the universe in a nutshell a little while ago and it was great, finished it in a few days.

I love this kind of thinking stuff but it gives me a headache.

[Edan]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


As to what was before? Can't be answered at all, so no real interest.

Simply because something can't be answered doesn't make it an uninteresting question. I mean, I would consider the question of whether or not god exists to be unproveable. That doesn't mean people don't spend a lot of time talking about god (or lack of)

[Edan]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

But it would seem that we would be unable to ever see, interact with or even know of those other universes (i.e. our universe is a closed system).

Just wait until you transport to a planet through an electical storm...

So the "larger whole" is irrelevant

And somewhere, an alternate universe baby jesus cries.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


There's nothing within the laws of the universe as we know them, however, to indicate we could have interaction with a universe wherein the laws were totally different. Just think of how we could possibly even know about such a universe. It would exist in an entirely different dimension.

Never said it would be easy, but we don't discount things because they are hard to comprehend. Also, I am not saying the laws of these others would be different, just that these realms existed 'before' or 'after' what we call the Big Bang. They may simply be parts of the knowable universe that do not trace their history back to our Big Bang, but to somewhere else.

You're going to have to explain this to me, because, as I said, the singularity of the BB is akin to wiping out the hard drive. It doesn't matter if the BB that spawned us is part of a nonstop cycle of BBs, because each collapse into singularity erases what "preceeded" it and starts everything a new, with perhaps completely different sets of universal laws. We can't effect the next cycle, and the previous one did not effect us.

Analogy here. Black holes are perfect at wiping a hard drive. All information that goes into them is lost. Black holes also radiate, and eventually the mass/energy contained within them is given back to the universe. This occurs based on *known* consistent and unchanging physical laws. The universe could be considered to be the same. All information is lost when it collapses into a singularity, but the essence of the mass/energy is reused in the next cycle and the laws governing it never change.

This process does not involve creation of new laws of nature, or of new material, or of any new anything. Its just a recycling process.

If this is what happens then discussions of what existed before the Big Bang do make sense, as a physical and logical explanation can be given. You may not know what happened in the previous cycle but you can know that one did exist and you can understand its nature.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
This process does not involve creation of new laws of nature, or of new material, or of any new anything. Its just a recycling process.

The big bang is enviornmentally friendly.

[The Andy-Man]

So, to answer one of my other questions, what was the big bang itself

[Japher]

what was the big bang itself

Tom Arnold and Rosanne Barr...

Oh, god, I can't get the image out of my head!!!!!

[The Andy-Man]

Originally posted by Japher


Tom Arnold and Rosanne Barr...

Oh, god, I can't get the image out of my head!!!!!

well, every one took there time for some smutty joke, i am surprised really


but really, what was it...

[Dauphin]

Not really relevent, but a mild diversion nevertheless.

Big Bang to Bada-Bing

Wednesday July 9, 2003
The Guardian

From chapter 2, Stringfellow Theory
Stringfellow theory has a curious history. It was originally developed to explain the existence of a basic object or phenomenon, the "Stringfellow", which seems to occupy a point in space, but has no other dimension at all, except age. We may think of "Stringfellow" as an infinitely thin piece of string, or as simply a pair of trousers, but none of this really helps us understand it. In the 1980s Scherk and Schwarz attempted to prove that Stringfellow had as many as 26 distinct dimensions, but if we can't see these dimensions, how do we know they are there? It has been suggested that the other dimensions are curved up into a very small space occupying less than one million million million million millionth of an inch. In our ordinary three-dimensional universe Stringfellow may appear to be completely flat, but up close it's actually wrinkled and pitted like the surface of an orange. Only from a distance does it appear smooth, a bit like space-time itself.

As Max Planck said when he first encountered Stringfellow in the 1920s, "I don't what it is, but if it's buying the drinks, it's OK with me."

From chapter 5, Heavenly Bodies and the Forces of Nature

It was once believed that a hot body ought to radiate the same amount of energy in waves equally at all frequencies, but after an exhaustive observation of hot bodies, including those of the so-called Scorpio model, the Stacey model and the Bambi/Bella duality, it became obvious that the energy radiated by a given hot body is not emitted arbitrarily but in discreet packets which we term "quanta", because you have to pay for them. None the less all bodies in the Stringfellow construct of the universe have forces with special properties, forces which are attractive over large distances, especially Tiger.

What happens next can be difficult to predict. We cannot, as we know, observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. What we watch is not really for us alone, even though, under the Stringfellow construct, we may have leased the requisite space-time in order to view it. But observe we must, otherwise there is no point in being here at all! As Schrodinger put it, "The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees." That's right, baby. Ooooh, yes!

From chapter 9, The Naked Singularity

In the pole scenario of the Stringfellow model, the naked singularity revolves around a critical radius, called a pole. This event should not be confused with the "lap" or "table" scenario, which takes place at a remove which makes viewing the naked singularity uncomfortable, if not impossible.

There are, however, some solutions of the equations of general relativity in which it is possible for an astronaut, or, for the purposes of argument, let's say Colin Farrell (who's really nice by the way), to see a naked singularity up close without actually touching it; indeed this is one of the known laws which governs the Stringfellow model. In the right circumstances our Mr Farrell, upon approaching the event horizon, will begin to feel the gravitational forces at work on his body as the space-time curvature around the singularity, which at this point, it must be admitted, is not quite naked, for complex reasons having to do with the law of Westminster council.

In this scenario the Irish bad-boy actor may feel himself passing the point of no return, or he may not even notice until it's too late. Eventually time itself comes to a stop, and you have to give another tenner. Some researchers working in this field think a twenty is more appropriate, but I assure you that the debate on that point continues!

Work carried out by Roger Penrose and I in the late 1960s proved that observers outside the immediate area of gravitational collapse are, remarkably, unaffected by the rules governing the naked singularity. This led Penrose to conclude, rather primly, that "God abhors a naked singularity". Suffice to say that Penrose wasn't there last weekend, and he didn't see Tiger do her thing.

From chapter 20, Unification ...

As we have seen previously unification is not possible, or at least not achievable, with the Stringfellow model. You are not even allowed to give them your phone number. Unification has long been the dream of many scientists working in this field, and most of us realise now that that dream lays some way outside the Stringfellow construct.

A colleague of mine at Cambridge has done some impressive work on a grand unification theory using alternate models (see Spearmint-Rhino, 1998), but he's afraid to publish in case his missus finds out.

I myself once investigated the Spearmint-Rhino model, but got chucked out for putting forward a scenario whereby an observer of a singularity might fall through a "wormhole" and emerge in another region of the universe. I know that probably doesn't make much sense, but frankly I never expected anyone to read this far ...

[The Andy-Man]

haha!

[Berzerker]

I believe the universe has always existed, but that it keeps expanding and contracting with big bangs starting off each cycle.
A big bang starts the expansion of a new universe, space contracts and matter gathers reaching a critical mass triggering another big bang and new expansion, etc...

The evidence for this? Background radiation leftover from the big bang. We've detected slight variations in the background radiation. While many astronomers explain this by attributing it to slight "imperfections" in the conditions just before the big bang, I believe it was a result of a contracting universe falling back in on itself triggering a new big bang before all the matter in the prior universe had gathered at one point. As the new bang was triggered, remnants of the prior universe were still being drawn in toward the gravitational center, matter that was ignited by the blast wave. Imagine a flamethrower shooting fire 360 degrees with matchbooks randomly located at varying distances from the flamethrower. Measuring the heat from this would show slight increases wherever the matchbooks were located.

[The Andy-Man]

i don't like the retraction idea myself, seems a tad far fetched

[The Andy-Man]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
i don't like the retraction idea myself, seems a tad far fetched

sorry, that sounds rather silly in a thread like this

i mean that in a vacuum things move in one direction continuously, so a retraction seems out of the question, things will just get further and further appart, and move continousoulsy as there is no friction to stop them. then each mass has its own gravity to pull small things in, but generaly every thing moves outwards