Before the Big Bang

[mikimaster]

I have no slightest clue as to the state of Universe before the Big Bang. All the theories from Lopsided universe to cyclical etc. are not giving us the answer what did the matter come from initially? In my mind the biggest problem in answering such questions is the inherited limitation of our brains. We simply can not comprehend certain conditions of matter just because we are not equipped for that mentally. It may take another million of years of human brain evolution to tackle this question. Until then... just forget it. Of course,one may always substitute the true knowledge with the image of Great Creator, but then, again... where did the Creator come from?

 

[Saiph]

I'm not entirely sure what your point is, or your question...other than stating we can't begin to figure out what was, if anything, before the BB.


Anyway, this belongs in Space Science & Astronomy forum, so I'll move it there...

 

[kyle_baron]

This topic comes up over and over again. At the very least, can we all agree that before the BB, there was no time??? Hawking had suggested in one of his books, that before the BB, time was a dimension of space. That speculation is good enough for me.

 

[mikimaster]

This topic comes up over and over again.

Yes this topic comes frequently. I agree, but the usual answers, if any are just glossed over quickly and we are facing the same of the standard answers - as to what happened femtosec. after BB or another cyclical Universes.
Is there anyone willing to try something else? Maybe there is a reason for our brains not to be able to tackle this topic?
Well- I would appreciate some ideas at least. I'm not scientist at all - just a naive human looking for ....some answers.
Even if singularity existed with zero or near zero dimensions, what happened with the space around it?

 

[quantumnumber]

Before the big bang...this reminds me of a really good book called "Parallel Worlds", by Michio Kaku. Within the book, he discusses the idea of a multiverse, where universes can bud from previous ones. He says that our universe might have formed this way, budding from a previous universe. The idea of a multiverse is pretty cool to me, it could explain how our universe came to be.

 

[yevaud]

In fact, the writer James Hogan, in his book, The Genesis Machine, made a point that every singularity that "evaporates" - and thus "detaches" from this Spacetime - is the primordial monobloc for a new universe.

Actually, a pretty nifty concept, if I do say so...

 

[mikimaster]

Before the big bang...this reminds me of a really good book called "Parallel Worlds", by Michio Kaku. Within the book, he discusses the idea of a multiverse, where universes can bud from previous ones. He says that our universe might have formed this way, budding from a previous universe. The idea of a multiverse is pretty cool to me, it could explain how our universe came to be.

Yes, nice book. I agree. However the Big Q still stands - the source of the previous Universe. How to imagine where did the very first matter/energy come from?

 

[kelvinzero]

Although that question sort of implies by omission that a bit of matter needs explanation but space doesnt. Space is definitely something. If you think space is nothing then who made this universal law that nothing needs three coordinates to describe

Another point is, how much energy do you need? Using a simplistic classical argument, you could easily come to the conclusion that an electron and a positron attracted to each other create infinite energy at the bottom of an infinite potential well. Im not saying this is what really happens, but consider an infinitely small point with positive charge attracted towards its opposite. The energy put into the charge is force times distance. Each time the distance halves, the force increases by a factor of 4. So the energy in the charges when they collide is proportional to the series 1*1 + 1/2*4 + 1/4*16 +.... which is infinite.

Two other big assumptions (that are generally held by physicists to be dead wrong) is that (a) time is not a part of the universe but something that already existed before the universe began, and (b) that we are moving through time, and the present is in some sense more real than the past or future.

The laws of physics are all totally reversible. If you were to postulate a creator, you might as well postulate it is some big computer at the end of time who knows absolutely everything and decided for neatness' sake to put all mass and energy on a collision course at a particular point in the past. The only thing that seems to give us our sense of past and future is entropy, (the old days really were simpler than the present, being more ordered) which makes the prediction of the past so trivial that we dont realise that is all memory is.

If the big bang was just a high point (of order) in an otherwise drab universe, I suspect people living on the other side of it would also experience it as being in their past. In fact why have just two sides? Whatever your coordinates in space time you would interpret the direction towards highest order as your past, the other direction as the future, and perhaps all other dimensions (neither towards or away from order) as your dimensions of space.

Put that way, you barely even need a big bang. Given a universe with any variation at all, if any person at any point in this universe interprets the past as having higher order, then arent they always going to look 'back' and interpret a journey into the past as a journey towards some sort of point of infinite order?

 

[michaelmozina]

Yes, nice book. I agree. However the Big Q still stands - the source of the previous Universe. How to imagine where did the very first matter/energy come from?

No matter how you look at the problem, it still comes back to the realization that energy has *always* (eternally) existed, otherwise we simply would not be here today. It may change "forms" from time to time, but energy in some form or another has and always existed will always exist.

 

[dryson]

This topic comes up over and over again. At the very least, can we all agree that before the BB, there was no time??? Hawking had suggested in one of his books, that before the BB, time was a dimension of space. That speculation is good enough for me

That is not what Hawking wanted people to do, he wants people to take his theory and expand upon it. If someone thinks that what someone else has written is good enough for them, then that part of the brain is like an innocent person locked in jail. Free that person and explore the unknown.

The only nonsense would be someone posting that before time there was only cheese.....cheese with holes in it.
That gives me an idea on hole the Universe may have been like a block of cheese with holes in it. The solid portions of the cheese representing matter as it slowly came together with the holes representing singularities or gravity wells that eventually coalesced into super massive black holes that gave birth to several billion Universes.

When thinking about pre Big Bag it is always a constantly shifting idea and until we come across a Universe that is in this pre big bang calamity we can only speculate without any one saying that we are correct or incorrect.

 

[mikimaster]

This topic comes up over and over again. At the very least, can we all agree that before the BB, there was no time??? Hawking had suggested in one of his books, that before the BB, time was a dimension of space. That speculation is good enough for me

Yes "dryson,"almost any "explanation" at this point would be equal to any other or to none. I'm still thinking about some kind of limitation to the capability of ours brains to even comprehend this issue. It could be beyond our understanding. Maybe some MD. would be in a better position to tackle this problem?